45-Kit
It’s been five days since I relapsed.
Greg gave me an earful about “disappearing without clearance,” and drinking, of course, which was clearly what the wanker was more worried about.
Zach and I haven’t spoken much since, but she watches me like she’s clocking my thoughts the second they form, spotting the cracks I’ve spent years papering over.
The buses are heading to Milwaukee after tonight’s show. We have a break, and word is Zach’s leaving to spend tomorrow night back home. And even though we haven’t spoken much, the thought of not seeing her for two days carves a hollow ache in me.
Twice now I’ve slept beside her, and those were the best nights’ rest I’ve had in months, years. Even if they were only a few hours of shut-eye, they were blissful. Solid and quiet. No dreams or Endymion.
Euphoric nothingness.
I’ve been tempted more than once to find her after the shows to ask her to come back to the bus and sleep. I don’t care about anything else but the quiet she brings. Not that I don’t want more; I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about her bare body in my arms.
It’s stupid, the things I drift to first. The tiny scar on the right side of her upper lip, invisible until light hits it.
I shouldn’t like it as much as I do, but it’s the kind of flaw that makes a face breathtaking, a beautiful, uniquely human target for me to take aim at.
I catch myself staring at it more than I should, wondering what the thickened skin would feel like against my own.
And then there’s her smile, its uneven crookedness like a misaligned step of your childhood home, worn from being lived in.
Small and square, her teeth are a bit uneven, the kind of impeccable flaw you only get when something’s authentic.
Nothing like the perfecting correction-liners I’ve got shoved in my mouth.
One deep dimple appears on her left cheek every time she beams, a pair of Dahlia dimples popping out on the right.
The asymmetry shouldn’t make sense, but it does, as if her face can’t decide how to be beautiful, so it just is. It belongs to a person who’s lived, not a product that’s been built. I envy that more than I should.
Her hair is as stubborn as she is; those wavy curls refusing to behave whether she’s got it up, down, pinned, or drowned in product. It finds a way to escape, framing her face in wild, chunky pieces. Every time she pushes them back, my fingers ache to be the one to do it instead.
She’s got these curves, a supple pear shape carved to be held. Not posed or displayed. When she leans back, my necklace always slips right into the line of her cleavage.
These aren’t things I should notice, yet I’m ruined for all of them. But she was right when she said that isn’t what I need from her. What we have is different, like our souls are inverted reflections.
The two of us are like aqua regia; volatile on our own, catastrophic together. She’s the only thing strong enough to dissolve the gilded parts of me I thought were indestructible.
Like nitric acid, she hits first and burns fast, stripping me down to the rawest truth. What’s bollocks is that I don’t think she even means to, it’s simple, pure reaction.
I’m hydrochloric, an incessant corrosive. I don’t flare like she does; I seep into hearts, wearing them down slowly. But when we’re close, God forbid we mix, we become more than the sum of our singular damage.
We shouldn’t work—shouldn’t even touch.
Because every time she’s near, my soul reacts, eating away at my emotional fortitudes. And gods help me; I don’t want it to stop.
The arena hums faintly around me, a reminder I’m still meant to be getting ready for soundcheck.
“Sound good?” someone asks, and I blink. Ollie stares at me like I’ve lost the plot, a bushy black brow lifted curiously. “All right, mate?”
“Yeah.” My fingers ache from clutching the microphone. A tremor runs through my hand, subtle but impossible to ignore. I force them straight. “Just knackered.”
There’s going to be twenty thousand people out there tonight. Tens of thousands expecting a show some of them paid half a paycheck to see, and here I am, thinking about a woman who isn’t mine, and doesn’t want me.
Maybe.
But even if she does, she isn’t ready for anything.
Is this what falling in love feels like?
The thought settles heavy in my chest, tightening like a harness.
I shake it away because it doesn’t matter.
She made it clear she isn’t ready to love anyone, romantically or otherwise.
And I don’t blame her; loving someone means setting yourself up for grief when they leave or life viciously rips them away.
Losing someone you love leaves a hole nothing can fill. Your heart can grow for people, yeah, but they can’t fill the space of what was lost. I don’t think either of us has room for expansion.
“Aye, mate,” Seth says, appearing beside me and giving my cheek a tap-smack.
“Yer lookin’ a bit peaky.” He gazes over my shoulder then back at me, his red-painted lips dipping into a frown as he peers through the netted sockets.
“Let’s get ya on the bus. Kip for an hour—plenty of time to get ya redressed before the show starts tonight. ”
“I’m already painted,” I say, gesturing to my hands, stained crimson from prep.
“Forget the bloody paint.” Seth ushers to someone behind me with a curl of his fingers. “Maybe just this once we could get him somethin’ to knock him out. He’s not lookin’ so good.”
“He’s under contract,” Greg barks from somewhere behind the lighting rig, “and we can’t afford to muck this up.”
“Fucking hell, Greg,” Silver calls from across the stage, an edge to their normally pleasant tone, “he’s not a robot, he needs sleep.”
“Let’s at least try melatonin first.” Greg storms over, and for the first time in days, he really sees me. Pocketing his phone, his brows draw together as he rubs his temples, a tiny vein bulging as it pulses blood to them. “Christ, Kit.”
His voice loses its bite, replaced by something closer to worry. Seth slips an arm around my shoulders, steadying me when my knees wobble. I lean into him, grateful for the support.
“Fuck it,” Seth says, pulling out his phone. “I don’t care if it’s for two hours, I’m bookin’ ya a room. Yer sleepin’ in a real bed.”
“I just need proper quiet.”
I need her.
Seth pauses his scrolling, frowning as he checks me over. “Oh no. I know that face. That’s yer ‘I’m about ta do somethin’ daft’ look.”
I’m drowning. I need air, and there’s only one person who makes me feel like I can take a bloody breath. She’s alkaline, a slow shift in chemistry that changed everything I am, neutralising this acidic life so it doesn’t devour me.
Without her, I’m already dissolving at the edges.