Chapter Twenty-Two – Logan
Mic night is a big thing around here, I guess. I get there early to sign in, and I bring nothing but an acoustic guitar. I think I’ve got most of it down, although when given a choice, I’ll always choose electric.
Don’t want to be too much like Pope tonight. Tonight isn’t about reliving the old glory days. No, tonight’s about something else. It’s about me. Me and Wren. Fuck, I hope she comes. She never gave me confirmation either way, and I didn’t push her.
She’ll either show or she won’t. Regardless, I’ll have to deal. If she doesn’t come, then… then that’s it. I need to find a way to move on, as impossible as it seems.
What a joke I’ve turned into, huh? Can’t get over a girl. Never thought that’d be me.
I take a seat at one of the tables in the back, get myself a drink—non-alcoholic, which is nowhere near as good as the real stuff—but I want to be in my right mind all night. No mind-altering substances.
I’m halfway done with my drink when I feel someone slap me on the back of my shoulder. Instantly I tense up, but then I realize there’s no way in hell Wren would ever greet me like that, so by the time the person slides onto the chair next to mine, I’m wearing a scowl and a frown.
And then I see who it is, and that scowl dissipates. Mostly.
“Hey,” my brother, Deacon, says. It’s not his real name, but old habits die hard.
He’s more Deacon than anyone else. He still has the mantle of drummer for Black Sacrament.
It’s who he is. He wears an old leather jacket, similar to mine, all black.
We look pretty similar, save for the hair.
While it is the same color, he tends to keep his on the long side.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” I say, trying my best to hide my shock. I told him I was doing this, and I told him why I was doing this, and when I did, he didn’t say anything about coming, so this is a surprise.
He shrugs. “I had a little bit of time to kill. Besides, I figure it might be nice for you to have some support or whatever.” My brother, ever the wordsmith.
I raise my glass at him before I take a sip, and when he cocks a dark brow at me, I say, “Non-alcoholic.” Booze and drugs got me into this whole mess to begin with. I need to steer clear of that shit.
Then again, it’s really hard for me to look back and regret it all when I never would have met Wren otherwise.
“This girl,” my brother says after a while, “she ain’t here yet, is she?”
“No, and I don’t know if she’s actually coming.” My guitar rests in its case, leaning against my legs beneath the table.
“You going up there either way?”
I nod. “I have to. Even if she doesn’t come, it’s…
it’s something I need to do.” Running a hand through my hair, I let out a world-class sigh.
“The tables have turned, huh?” When Deacon only gives me an unimpressed look, I clarify, “You guys turned into simps for your girl. I thought you were all fucking insane for that, but look at me now: a wreck because of a girl who I shouldn’t even know exists. ”
Deacon chuckles softly. “When you first brought up this girl to me, I thought it was a phase. It’s a different world here. Your, uh, skills only work on a certain type of girl. You weren’t used to anyone turning you down or giving you trouble. I assumed you’d get over it.”
He isn’t wrong. I kind of thought that, too. In fact, it’s what I wanted to happen for a while. If I got over Wren, if I could’ve acted like she didn’t exist, then my life would’ve been so much easier these past few months.
Some things, though, are just impossible. Getting over Wren is one of them.
“But you didn’t,” he says, “and that’s not a bad thing.”
I sigh. “Depends on who you ask, I think.” I stare hard at my now-empty cup.
I should get up and ask for a refill from the bartender, but the mere thought of doing anything right now is strangely overwhelming.
Like, if I get up, I might decide to say, fuck this, and leave—and I don’t want that to happen. I don’t trust myself enough to stay.
“What makes this girl so different from all the others?”
What a loaded question with an equally loaded answer, and it takes me a long while before I say, “It’s hard to describe.
She’s… everything that Pope would’ve never looked twice at.
” I glance around us. No one is listening.
Everyone is too busy getting ready for their turn on the stage, talking to their friends or other people.
Talking. Laughing. Having a good time. They’re all smiles. A far-cry from how I feel.
Deacon says this next part very quietly, “You’re not Pope anymore.”
It’s not the first time I’ve heard that. It’s not even the first time I’ve thought it. That fact used to hit me like nothing else could, like a goddamned freight train, and it’d send me spiraling. I used to hate it, not being Pope. I lost a part of my identity when I was kicked out of the band.
But I was a dick. I was a grade-A asshole, and I made the mistake of being one while still in character. I made a mistake, and it cost me everything.
So, no, I haven’t been Pope for a long, long time now, it’s true, but tonight is the first time that hearing it doesn’t upset me. It doesn’t cause a wave of anger or depression to settle deep within my gut. I’m not Pope. I’m Logan, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
“No, I’m not,” I say, sounding calm, because that’s what I am: so calm even my own brother has to blink multiple times at me, as if he doesn’t think he’s hearing me correctly. “I’ll never be him again. I’m just me.”
Closing my eyes, I shake my head and mumble, “Fuck. I think I fucked up bad. I can’t even blame Wren if she doesn’t show tonight. I can only blame myself.”
It’s my fault for letting fear petrify me into a statue. My fault, not hers. The things I said to her that night after karaoke were needlessly cruel. I honestly don’t deserve another chance.
“There’s still time for her to show,” Deacon says.
I open my eyes and survey the bar. It’s the same bar we sang together at.
There’s a stage farther in, tons of tables and booths in between.
Mic nights are for anything: poetry and journal readings, showing off new lyrics, anything and everything.
Not to toot my horn too much, but I bet anything mine will be the most professional out of them all, for obvious reasons.
Pope might be gone, but parts of him still linger inside me. Or maybe he was never real to begin with, and it was always me under the mask. Frankly, I don’t know which one would be worse.
If Pope was never real, then the asshole was always me.
Me. I’m the problem. It’s always been me.
“Well, no matter what happens,” I tell him, “I’m glad you’re here. It’s good to see you.” Truthfully, we hardly see each other at all these days. I didn’t go home around the holidays, which means I didn’t see him or our parents. We live in two different worlds now, so we don’t talk much, either.
“It is,” Deacon says with a nod. “Someday we should all get together, like the old days.”
“I don’t think the others would want to see me.” Not after I stalked their new girl a bit and almost got framed for her kidnapping. That whole thing was some messy work.
“I think you’d be surprised. It’s been a long time.
Everything that happened… I think they’re over it.
They miss you. We miss you. Band ain’t the same without you.
” My brother sighs. “I was going to quit too, you know. Not so much in solidarity, but because I just couldn’t do it anymore. It didn’t feel the same.”
This story, I know where it’s going. “And then you fell for Angel and your entire world changed.” Surprisingly, I don’t sound too bitter about it, not anymore. In the beginning, I totally did, but that time has long passed.
He shrugs, not bothering to argue with me.
Of course his world changed. Of course all their worlds changed. Angel became the center of their universe, and they became a whole different band with both her and Priest as the frontrunners.
I guess my brother’s point is that it’s not necessarily a bad thing for your world to change, even if it does change for a girl.
Sometimes, that’s how life goes, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Him, Priest, and Bishop all seem happy from what it sounds like, even though they’re sharing Angel.
Maybe I could do it long-term, too, if she gives me a chance.
We talk for a bit more, though we quiet down once the night gets going.
My performance is near the end, which unfortunately means we need to sit through a bunch of awkward poetry readings and even a freestyle rap.
Some people get up there with guitars similar to mine and strum along, singing their sad songs.
It’s all very amateur, but everyone has to start from somewhere. I know those songs we wrote when we were nothing more than high schoolers pretending to be rockstars in our parents’ garages weren’t winners. The more you do something, the more you practice, the better at it you’ll get.
Then, suddenly, it’s my turn. As the host welcomes me on the stage, I open my guitar case and pull out my guitar.
It’s as sleek as an acoustic guitar can be.
Zigzagging through the crowd, I make it to the stage, and a few people awkwardly clap.
I pull up the stool closer to the microphone, sit, and adjust the stand to my height before I swing my guitar onto my lap.
My gaze roams the bar. While talking to my brother, I kept tossing glances to the entrance, thinking I’d see Wren right as she walked in, like in those movie scenes, but I didn’t see her.
She’s not here. She didn’t come.
That traitorous heart in my chest feels tight when the realization hits me.
The old me tries to resurface, the me who wants to storm out of here and give up, but I don’t let those intrusive thoughts win.
I stay right where I am, sitting on that stool, on that stage, with my guitar in my hands, and I do what I came there to do.
Perform.