Chapter 3 #3
I’ve never seen that before, and it does something to me that makes me feel just slightly less awful.
It gives me some stage butterflies. I love that feeling right before I play a show.
I’ve always used the nerves to fuel me instead of trying to drown them out.
My grandma always encouraged me not to shut down and numb out.
Feeling is the greatest gift in the world, even if you’re not feeling great.
She told me it’s how you know you’re alive.
It sounds token now, but back when I was a kid, I really needed to hear that.
I somehow get vertical enough to arrange my legs over the side of the bed.
There’s no way I’m going to heap mortification on top of mortification, so I tug my own shirt off and then tackle my plaid pajama pants.
I get one leg out and then the other until I’m just in my boxers.
I’m still not going to win any smells fresh as a darned daisy prizes over here, but getting the foul, sweaty clothes off does help.
The air from the room feels good against my sweaty skin.
First, Carissa preps the bed. She plumps a bunch of the pillows and stacks them up against the wooden headboard. Then she peels the opposite side of the covers back before standing up and looking around, probably for somewhere to hang the horrible IV bag from.
I can do this.
I’m not in a hospital.
Carissa will never do anything to me that I don’t give her permission to do.
She won’t hurt me. If I freak out, she’ll stop.
If I tell her to get the fucking thing out of my arm, she’ll get the fucking thing out of my arm.
This is the one part of my childhood that’s stuck with me.
The one fear I’ve never been able to wash away.
My grandma would always tell me that I needed to feel those things too, and that I needed to let them go after.
Feel the fear. Exhale. Taste the bitterness.
Exhale. Grieve. Exhale. She’d say that was life.
Not just the good but the bad, accepting and moving beyond it so it doesn’t have the power to break me.
I know I need to talk to someone. I need to deal with this because it’s not healthy. It’s not even safe. Now that the tour’s ending, maybe I’ll have time.
No, not maybe.
I need to make time.
I close my eyes and tell myself none of this is like my childhood.
Nothing was even done to me as a kid. I just witnessed it all second-hand.
The fear of that man, a doctor, turned into something else.
It grew and grew for me, until it nearly suffocated me.
Is it really even fear anymore? It’s more like straight panic just thinking about entering a clinic or hospital or a doctor coming near me.
No hospital. No clinic. No doctor. Just the bus.
Just hydration. Just a wonderful, caring, and selfless woman who wants nothing but the best for every single person she ever meets.
I tell her no, she’ll respect that. If I want to get on stage, I don’t have to suck it up.
I can just give it a try. Just a minute, then another, and another.
“Hey.” Carissa pats the spot she just made on the bed. “Do you think you can make it over here? I can help you.”
I move before I can change my mind, dragging myself to the little nest she’s made for me. I lean my back against the pillows, my legs straight out in front of me. She tucks me in like I’m a kid, smoothing the blankets around my waist.
“You’re really doing this, aren’t you?” I mutter.
Her eyes whip back to mine. “It’s going to sting for a minute and maybe ache for most of the time it’s in, but that’s the worst-case scenario. I promise it’s going to help you feel at least a little bit better.”
“Are you guaranteeing I make it to the show tomorrow afternoon?”
She shakes her head and leaves it at that. She doesn’t press me, coddle me, or bribe me. Although I guess she technically already did that by promising me a surprise.
“If I decline, can I still have the surprise?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes, but they snap with clear delight she can’t hide. There’s maybe a little bit of something darker there too. Reluctance? Doubt? “Yes. It’s for you. I’ve been waiting for the right time to give it to you, and after what you said, I think that time is right now.”
Wow. Okay.
I’m more intrigued than I’ve been in years.
She got me something she knows I don’t have already, and she’s been waiting to give it to me.
My mind dips straight to a place it shouldn’t go, especially as she tucks that strand of hair back behind her ear again.
I was fixated on her earlobe before, so I missed the tiny hole at the top, in the cartilage right by her face.
“Whoa. What is that?”
I want to shove myself up, but it’s a no-go. My head and stomach get on the we’re going to fuck you up good team.
“What is what?” I’m pretty obviously staring at her face. She raises a hand and smacks herself on her cheek. “Is it a spider? Oh my god!”
“It’s not! No spider. There’s nothing on your face.”
She relaxes, and both cheeks flush the prettiest pink, although one cheek is slightly darker from the spider panic slap. “What’s what?” she asks calmly.
“The little hole here.” I raise my hand, though it takes a ton of effort, and point to my own ear.
“Oh. It’s called a preauricular pit. Some people say they might be a birth defect; other people say they’re some remnant of gills.”
“Gills? Did people ever have those?”
She shrugs. “Maybe. Does anyone really know? I like the idea of it. It gives mermaid. Movies with mermaids were always my favorite when I was a kid.”
Her grin is so wide that a dimple appears on her left cheek.
Huh. I didn’t know she had dimples. I also didn’t realize my cock could go from being as sick as the rest of me to semi-hard.
That’s the best it can do, and thank fuck, because I’m in boxers under a thin blanket.
It would be like a high school gym class nightmare all over again.
High school? I guess I didn’t really go to that after I was sixteen, but I think it still counts.
While working hard to get our music heard, Matt and I both took classes online so we could graduate.
“If we’re doing the IV, I need to go wash up and get gloves on.”
Ugh, we’re circling back to this. “Are you good at it?” I know she’s good at it. She’s probably good at anything and everything she tries.
I was going to wonder what the fuck is up with my cock pulling a stunt like it’s trying to do, but talk of shoving that needle into my hand cures me quickly.
“I’m not bad at it,” she says.
“How many tries will it take?”
“One. I won’t do it unless I’m sure I can get it on the first go, okay?”
What choice do I have? Well, I did have one.
I had the choice not to eat those fucking chicken tenders.
Or more like chicken untenders. They were harder than blocks of wood and chewier than taking a bite out of the bus tire, and I still stood there gnawing at them like jerky until I could swallow them down.
I can’t cancel the show. It’s just not an option.
It would be a terrible way to end a tour, and if this is it for our band, then I have this one last show.
I want to make it as good as it can be. But right now, I can barely get myself uncurled or raise my head.
It even hurts to blink. I need to get some rest, and I need to get hydrated.
“Alright,” I grumble. I don’t have to list my reasons. Carissa already knows.
She leaves, but only for a few minutes. I watch her tug those sterile blue gloves on, and then I wait. I do stick my hand out while she unpacks everything, but I keep my face turned away, tucked into the crook of my arm.
“Do you want me to walk you through it or just do it?”
“I… uh… this is so embarrassing.”
She clears her throat sharply. “Trauma isn’t embarrassing. A lot of people don’t like these, even if they have no reason to be afraid of them. I’m not a fan of them myself. Some people say they don’t hurt, but I find they do. They make my arm ache like I’ve got a chill in my bones.”
“The good old lesser evil. Don’t count me down. Just prep it and do it, and I’ll try not to fight you.”
“You’re going to fight me? Like take a swing or just try and jerk your hand away to take the path of least resistance?”
“Change my mind halfway through it and try to take the least resistance. If I look at it, I’m going to tear it out after. Can you wrap it in something?”
“That’s more common than you know. Other people say that too. I’ve had the urge myself. But please don’t do that. If you’re experiencing pain or you really hate it, tell me and let me take it out. Don’t yank it and cause a bloodbath in here.”
“They spray, don’t they?”
“They can. And I don’t want it to look like I murdered you.
I already feel terrible about you being this sick and me having to hurt you.
” Her voice changes, getting heavier, and it’s laced with pain.
It sounds a lot like how my grandma used to sound when she’d tell me something serious, and all the love and care she had for me would shine on her face.
“It’s okay,” I mumble. “Not your fault.” That sounds half assed, like it is her fault, so I keep going.
“It really isn’t. Thank you for helping me.
I was against hiring you, but the higher-ups were fucking adamant.
” Nice. So complimentary. Keep going. Deeper.
Dig that hole. “I’m glad you’re here. You’ve helped so many people out when they hurt themselves, and you were there for me when I needed you most. Even when you’re not bandaging people up, you’re part of this team.
We need your smiles and your laughter and the way you help people talk through their problems. By being on these tours, you’ve changed a lot of lives and impacted a lot of people. ”
“Stop,” she groans, but not because she’s pissed at my uncharacteristic lack of eloquence and elegance. “You’re going to make me blush or cry, and I don’t want to do either right now.”
She opens a few more packages. I hold my breath while she swabs my hand with a cold wipe to sterilize it.
There’s a sharp sting, but nothing horrible.
By the time I fully process it, she’s already taping it down.
She steps out of the room for a few minutes and comes back with a fresh sheet.
I want to apologize for being such a pain, but she’d just tell me that I’m not.
She covers my hand and arm with the folded sheet, taping the fabric loosely in place.
After that, she strips off her gloves and packs up her duffel.
I watch everything, peeking over my arm.
She’s hung the bag above the bed on one of the hooks Matt put in the wall for hanging up his clothes.
He’s particular about his suits and doesn’t like them to get creased.
He’s also notoriously paranoid about trusting anyone with his things.
We had an incident early on where his guitar and luggage were lost, and it was a shit show.
He vowed it would never happen again. When we’re on the bus, he keeps his guitars and things with him at all times.
When he absolutely needs to send clothes out to be cleaned because he can’t launder them himself, he half loses his mind until they’re back.
Carissa unzips the front pouch of her bag and takes out a small green hardcover notebook. It looks more like a journal. Maybe she needs to take my vitals and write them down to track how I’m doing.
“I can’t feel the IV at all. It’s not a big deal.” I really can’t. Maybe if I were in perfect condition and not already a trainwreck, it would bother me more.
“I’m really glad.” She kneels down on the floor beside the bed.
We’re on eye level. I’ve always known her eyes were a soft chocolate brown, but I had no idea about the lighter brown spirals that trace through them.
She holds the book out like it’s an offering, sliding it under the hand that’s not bearing a bedsheet.
I tear my eyes away to study the leather cover.
“These are yours now. You don’t have to use them, and if they suck, it’s okay, but promise me you’ll take care of them. ”
My brain is in such a chicken-fried state—shit. I mean a fried state, from the chicken. It’s hard to process what she’s talking about.
I don’t understand until I crack the cover and turn the pages. And even then, it takes me a few good minutes to process what I’m seeing.
It’s not poems.
Not musings.
Not writings.
It’s songs.
Songs.