9. ROXANNE
Chapter nine
you look good angry.
The note feels rough and papery in my hands as I pull it out from under my windshield wiper. The black ink stands out against the blue festival flyer, and I instantly recognize the thin, large letters.
Rolling my eyes, I spot the initial ‘N’ at the bottom. Noah .
There’s a bitter taste in my mouth and I hear the sound of his voice in my head as I think of him writing it. The smirk he wore when he thought he was being sly and marking only his first initial.
I squash the note, tossing it onto the floorboard of the passenger side. I need him to let me breathe. I still haven’t wrapped my head around everything yet. Yes, it was pretty fucking infuriating to see Riley up there, standing tall with her head held high, her upturned nose stuck further in the air like some proud queen over her subjects.
It ignited this deep-seated jealousy inside me that she can show off like that. I’m not sure if that’s something I can ever do, which is why I’m even more nervous to start this with Noah. The idea of attention is always better in my head, but the minute it’s on me, all I ever want to do is retreat back to the shadows where I belong.
That’s where I feel most powerful—doing something I know I’m good at without all eyes judging every single one of my pores. I probably wouldn’t be good at it if everyone was staring at me.
Being in a band with Noah would be like stepping into a blazing fire, drawing so much more attention and heat my way. I’m already feeling the pressure. A scary one. I’d be opening a Pandora’s box—a barrage of insults or stares coming from all the kids, from Iron Fillings, that I don’t particularly want to deal with.
The inside of my stomach starts rolling around as I run over a pothole near my street. I’m paying the price for the blueberry ice cream and corn dog I had eaten, not to mention the triple ride on the Gravitron that I let Stephanie talk me into.
The taste of blueberry and sugar is still on my lips, and my stomach gurgles again as I turn onto Riversedge.
I pull up to my house, the yellow wood glowing brighter under the moonlight than it does during the day. Killing the engine, I stare at the giant green bush of death beside our short porch steps that always housed at least 37 snakes waiting to strike. The car is plunged into silence, and I take a minute to sit in it before heading inside.
This is another part of my daily routine, but the ice in my chest only gets thicker the longer I wait, and I wish it was because of the snakes.
Nope. It’s because living with my mom is unpredictable. Rarely did I see her, unless she was passed out on the sofa with the background noise of America’s Funniest Home Videos playing on the TV. More often I heard the sound of her car rolling out of the driveway, only for the screen door to creak back open ten minutes later, followed by the clatter of liquor bottles or her low groans from behind her bedroom door.
My mom’s on a habitual rotation—totally fine for one month, maybe a little overbearing, then completely unconscious for the next. Each cycle starts without warning, and it all began a week after my dad’s body was lowered into the earth, taking my mom’s soul with it.
“Your father was the love of my life,” she’d told me while sitting on the edge of the couch.
That was the last time I’d seen her sober.
Now drink is her lover. And sometimes I think her only reason for deciding to wake up most days is to make sure that her dog—Jasmine—is fed.
It’s darkly ironic, really, because I’m only another girl on the wrong side of the tracks, walking around with my desire written all over my face. I hold my dreams like a second heartbeat, but no matter how badly I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake the shit out of her so she gets a grip, I can’t. Too busy grappling with my own struggles, letting my self-doubts whisper their venomous symphony.
I’ve trapped myself in an emotional labyrinth of my own making, scared to confront her, terrified that pushing for change would only push her further away from me and deeper into the bottle. Even while I was still mourning my dad’s loss, I needed to be the strong one for us. Even if all I wanted was to let my shit fall apart.
Sometimes I wish my brain would let me lose it. Oh, Roxy. Who gives a shit? Go scream and cry. Do what you want. But it won’t. Years of putting others first has me programmed too damn well.
It’s a mind-fuck sometimes, because while I’m so grateful for my strength—otherwise I’m not sure I would have gotten to where I am without it—I wish she could have taken some of it from me so I could have been a kid for a little while longer.
There's no point dwelling on what-ifs so late in my life. It's something for me to pour into my own bottle and uncork at a later date, riding out each crash and relapse while gritting my teeth through it. Still stuck on this carousel, spinning faster and faster until the ride finally stops and the bottle only gets fuller.
Thirteen-year-old me thought I was so grown, but now, five years deep in this nightmare, I'm still strapped going round and round. When's this ride gonna stop, anyway? My heads starting to spin.
My forehead presses into the steering wheel and I slide my keys into my pocket. For August, it has been the month of passing out in random places—the floor, the worn-out green couch, her unmade bed. I had no clue where I’d find her tonight, or if the switch had finally flipped.
Who knows, she could be sitting upright on the couch, her cigarette dangling out of the corner of her thin lips, her saggy eyes asking me if I want to watch The Howling , completely, totally, and utterly normal yet so far from it.
Normal . Normal is so fucking laughable.
Normal, as if I had been expected to accept the routine of going to the grocery store and cooking dinners for us, as if I had simply been a machine, not a person with emotions, not a person with a heart that had been broken time and time again, as if I hadn’t been the one constantly checking the mail for my social security checks that she kept living off of to make sure our bills were paid. Normal as if nothing had ever happened, as if I hadn’t had to put on a brave face and carry on with life.
I didn’t know what was normal anymore.
The only things that get me through it and makes me feel any hope is knowing that it wasn’t always like this. We used to watch Rocky, whether it was Rocky Horror or Rocky III , while she blew cigarette smoke onto my painted nails, swearing it helped them dry faster. Most weekends, she’d have an apron tied around her waist as we’d jam out to Night Ranger and bake cookies. Then she’d yell at me for putting too many red hots on them, or for leaving the wax paper too close to the oven the second it went up in flames.
Back then she knew how to exist and be, but now she couldn’t just sit. She didn’t want to laugh or talk. She didn’t want to do anything except keep her belly full of whiskey. She is a shadow of the woman she used to be, and it really sucks I wasn’t enough to hold her up.
Damn, does that knowledge hurt like hell.
Sick of my own pity party, I crack open my car door. The sound of it creaking cuts through the night, and a chill races up my legs as I step out into it. There’s a new smell of pine needles with the dank smell of wet dirt as I try to lightly shut the door. Cold beads of sweat are already forming on my forehead while I dart my eyes from the bush of a thousand snakes to the white screen door.
“Don’t think about the snakes. Haul ass up the steps and go straight to your room,” I mutter, unable to hear even myself over the demonic cacophony of cicadas. “Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”
I suck in one final, likely last breath, and take off, my feet pounding against the concrete like I’m running from the hounds of hell. I hurl myself through the door, slam it shut, and keep my vision only on my fingers sliding in the chain lock. I prepare myself for the scene that is to come when I turn around, but nothing ever really braces me for what I see.
I wait for some kind of reaction from my mom, but as expected, she’s sprawled out on the couch, eyes shut, mouth hanging open, snoring like a chainsaw. She’s wearing a faded t-shirt and torn sweatpants, her fake red hair a tangled mess, the long brown roots a testament to how long it’s been since she’s had a touch-up.
The TV blares laughter from some show she’s not watching, and Jasmine is curled up between her feet. Empty liquor bottles are strewn around the room, and the grainy smell of alcohol stinging my nose almost makes my stomach swirl again.
I can barely stand looking at her anymore.
The tingly hot-cold rush starts to seep into my skin so I focus on the brown wood panels of the house, the same wood that’s been here since my birth, and head to the left side of the house, past the cramped open kitchen and down the hall to my bedroom.
Letting out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, I unlock the door to my room with my key and close it softly behind me with a click. I kick off my Doc Martens, the black leather creased and worn, and leave them in a pile by my door before I pull my drumsticks out from the depths of my socks and place them on my vanity.
I shuffle over to the closet near the foot of my bed, shimmy out of my shorts that are damp with summer sweat, and change into an oversized tee. Then I make a beeline for my refuge in this desert of suck—the bed.
It’s always a beautiful sight, the center of my room where a huge mountain of pillows in dark jewel tones rests against the white metal curved headboard. With a big blue blanket, almost as dark as the night sky where I so often lose myself dreaming of living anywhere else.
I make a detour on my way to bliss and crawl underneath the side rails to fish out my savings jar.
We always get paid on Tuesdays at Primal Vinyl, so I pull the cash out of my left sock and stuff it into the clear jar. I give the lid, where I scribbled ‘Fuck Bellpond Fund’ in black marker, a quick kiss before sliding it back under, tucking it inside the vent behind my bed.
“Soon, baby. Real soon.” This jar, this fund—it's my ticket out.
The ball-joint accents on each side of my headboard smack against the blue wall of my bedroom as I flop onto my bed. I switch on my bedside lamp, bathing the room in a dim golden glow. Snug under the blanket, I look up at the posters taped to my wall above the vanity at the foot of my bed, eyes moving from Patrick Swayze to Heart to Dio—my own personal bodyguards.
To my left, there's my real babies: the milk crates and shelves filled with records, cassettes, and my prized vintage turntable and tape deck safely housed within a glass case.
‘The Destroyer’ album sleeve peeks out, reminding me of better days. I can almost hear it blasting while riding shotgun in what used to be my dad’s Blazer as we raced to the video store. The living room ringing with Dad's drum beats between action movie explosions on the TV.
A groan from my mom slices through the walls, killing the memory quickly and reminding me how empty the house is now. A house where the only happiness left is whatever laughter was caught inside the pores of the walls.
I burrow deeper under my blanket. The silence sucks, but all I can do is sit in it, even on the days when I’m dying to break it with my drumsticks. I’m too afraid to bring them inside from my car and set them up in my room. I’d give it two days before my mom would throw them in her car and pawn them off for money. That’s why I keep my door locked, but leaving something that precious inside this house is too damn risky.
God, I want to play again. It’s been one long ass week now, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to set those babies up again. I guess a book will do for now.
I reach over to my bedside table and pull out my well-loved copy of Queen of The Damned , its pages begging for another round of literary love while I unfold the page I was last on. At least Lestat and Louis get my blood pumping faster than most drum solos.
It’s not just the guys that reel me in—I’ve always had a thing for the shit that goes bump in the night. Vampires, ghouls, ghosts… whatever it is, I probably obsess over it. I might have a soft spot for boys with a tortured past who wear lace and leather pants. Who can resist a character in tight pants every now and then? We all have our… things.
Vampire novels are different, though. They hold an extra special place in my hindquarters—I mean heart. Their danger is a hit of pure escape that takes me away from small-town reality into a world dripping with blood and moonlight. Not to mention the idea of a hot undead dude with supernatural strength and eternal youth seems so... badass.
What self-respecting young woman doesn’t secretly want a hot immortal lover whose kiss holds the strength of twenty men?
Yeah… maybe it is about the guys. But also the bats. And the castles. And the Victorian aesthetics.
But come on. A set of razor-sharp fangs sinking deep into your skin, an intimate blood pact forged through moon-kissed skin… Maybe it’s because I’m so damn sexually repressed that reading about the penetration of teeth is fucking enough for me.
I turn to the next page, and Lestat being called the Brat Prince makes me snort.
Maybe Noah Jackson is a vampire.
My book slams shut and I groan.
“Not even Anne Rice can save me tonight,” I mutter.
I drop the book down onto the table and click off my lamp, pulling the covers up to my chin. I get a giant whiff of cigarettes lingering in the air before the AC kicks on, replacing the smell with the memory of a tall, lanky body.
Even with my eyes squeezed shut I still see him clearly—Noah Jackson’s curls in his eyes swaying as he poked fun at Iron Fillings tonight. His offer keeps coming back to me too, ringing in my head like a persistent alarm that I don’t have the damn snooze button to.
“Why won’t you leave my head?” I groan and kick my legs against the mattresses, fists down at my side.
I glance up at the Lee Aaron poster above my head. She always seems strong and independent. I wish I could ask her what she thinks I should do. I should blindly pick one of her albums, fast forward until it feels right to stop, then see what bright wisdom she has to say.
What would Lee Aaron do?
I close my eyes and try to imagine it, my fingers twitching at the thought of being right behind Noah’s voice, my heart beating as we take the stage and my breathing becoming heavier as my arms tire out. I can almost feel it, the crowd’s energy running through my veins, the excitement of playing a song that I love, of feeling the power of the drums, my hair flying around my face and the sweat dripping down my neck.
I can smell the oil on the drumsticks in my hands, the heat of the stage lights making the pressure of the music rumble even tighter in my chest until I turn into a frenzy, creating an avalanche of sound that I get lost in.
My heart starts racing even faster as I imagine the adulation of the crowd, the sound of their screams as I launch off the stool and throw my sticks to the front, the front row screaming as they fight for the sticks. I can almost taste the sweat on my upper lip, feel the tension in my shoulders as I pull spare sticks out of my sock and launch into the next song, the next beat, the next moment.
I see myself in the future, standing on the stage, playing to a heavy crowd. I see myself getting out of this town, making something of myself.
My lungs suck in a deep breath through my nose, the heat in my chest spreading as I consider it all. I imagine all of the possibilities, the feeling of being in a band, of winning the grand prize and boarding the first flight to Ethereal Records studio—no bus ride necessary. Even if Noah did end up being a vampire and sucking me dry.
But can you do it?
My stomach gurgles again as I confront the fear I’d been trying hard to ignore. I need to make a decision, and fast. I spring up like a mummified corpse in a coffin and rake my fingers through my hair.
Will you do it?
Sweat is dripping down my forehead as I start to pace the room, my lungs tight and my heart pounding in my throat as I try to sort out my options. I look around my room, searching for a sign, something, anything to give me an answer.
All I want to do is scream up to the heavens and ask for my dad’s help, but my eyes dart back up at the poster on my wall, and Lee Aaron’s rock goddess confidence shoots out from the poster like a lighthouse beacon, guiding me out of the choppy waters. I wait two more seconds in case she wants to magically pop out of the paper and give me real advice, but I already know her answer. I know if Lee Aaron was in my shoes, she would have already made her decision.
I know what she would do.
I know what I have to do.
I was going to be the best goddamn Metal Queen out there.