Chapter Nine
Debi
Growing up is not so bad if you know what you want to be.
For a long time, I thought all I had going for me was a decent face and a good voice. I do love performing but there was a desperation to it A need for people to love me, to accept me, because I had little of that in real life. When I got onstage, no one cared if I was a poor trailer-trash girl whose mama abandoned them. I can be whoever I want to be when I get on a stage.
Lately I am accepting who I am offstage more. Embracing her, even. I am not always loud or wild. I can be thoughtful, quiet, even sometimes reserved. I do not have to entertain anyone or please anyone but myself.
Now the only person I care about pleasing is Devin.
“Oh, Jesus,” he groans now as I lie across the bed, the sunshine warming our bare skin, my mouth wrapped around him. Devin watches with hooded eyes dark with need as I bob slowly up and down on his thickness, driving him to the edge, loving how he shows me his pleasure. “So damn pretty with your mouth full of my cock, baby,” he groans, his voice raw and needy.
Lord, I love how this man talks when he is turned on. Anywhere else he is proper in his neatly creased chinos and loafers, with his cute glasses and warm smile. Once we’re alone, another side of him comes out. He is in control of my pleasure, leading our lovemaking with those hot commands and his filthy words.
His big hand grasps a handful of my ass, smacking it anytime I take him all the way to the back of my throat. I woke up needy after a filthy dream of him fucking me in one of our classrooms. The idea of u being prim and proper with everyone else while we’re anything but with each other just turns me on until I lose it. I did not even wake him up before I grabbed his thick cock and started playing with it.
“Such a pretty rockstar,” he hums, smacking my ass again, the sting sending a current of pleasure right to my aching clit. I gasp when he slides his hand between my thighs as if he knows I need his touch. And I do. I am on edge, just as close to climax as he is, just from his sounds, the sweet-salty taste of him and the power he gives me when he shows how I affect him. “Does your greedy little pussy get wet while you suck my cock? Yeah, that’s it, baby, you want me to come down that pretty throat, don’t you?”
I mean, how is he so fucking hot? Nodding as I pick up my pace as his fingers rub magic over my clit, I answer without words. Yes, I get soaked whenever I am touching, sucking, licking, anything, his cock. Hell yes, I want him to come down my throat, I love watching how wild he turns when he comes because of what I am doing to him.
“That’s it, swallow all of it, baby, it’s all for you,” he hums as he comes with a roar, his cum jerking hot inside my mouth as I keep sucking him.
His thick fingers pinch my clit, and I go off with him, my body shaking as the climax washes over me. I collapse with a shudder, still holding him in mouth, smirking at him when he starts to get hard all over again. Shaking his head, he pulls me off him with an adorable look of exasperation.
“My insatiable little thing, you’re going to be my ruin.”
Devin cuddles me against his chest, kissing my head as I preen in his arms. We lie there in satiated silence, the sun rising in the skies to start a new day. As I lay there, though, his words ring over and over in my head. He meant nothing by them, but they still stung because I let them.
That night my mother was at Skateland, I thought I would lose him. That I would lose everything we’ve had all summer. Him seeing her, seeing how rough, how ragged she is, struck fear in me. I feared he would see that I truly would ruin him—the way she had ruined everything in our lives.
We talked about it a little that night and then more in the days since. I explained how she had been awful to my father until he died. How she had abused and used him all up until there was nothing left. Then she did the same to me. It was my mother’s neglect and the loss of my father that created that chasm of emptiness inside of me.
Devin fills that emptiness. Not just when we’re in bed or when he takes me out on dates. Just sitting with him at home, watching TGIF with cold beers and some Dominoes. If we’re lying in bed talking about being teachers, about loving music or history, he fills more of that emptiness. It is almost gone, even if we’re not together I am more complete than I ever have been.
“I am heading out to finish up at the college,” I tell him as I crawl out of bed as my emotions begin to overwhelm me.
“Let me come with, we can kill two birds with one stone.” he offers with a warm smile as he slides his glasses on, looking as cute and sweet as a schoolboy.
Before we met, I had decided to go back to school. Even when we began seeing each other, that did not change. I promised to give him the summer, because I believed it would be all we had together. Now he is talking about long term. I want that, I do. But I have to stick to what I promised myself before we met—I am going back to school for myself, to do something for me and my own future.
“No. I want to do it on my own. For myself,” I tell him, hoping he understand. I also want a break from him to clear all these scattered thoughts.
Devin watches me for a moment, and I feel as if he suspects something is off. And he’s not wrong. The more I think about his words, and my awful mother’s words, the more I am flooded with doubt. About myself and my life, about my worthiness to him and everyone else in my life.
Taking a quick shower, I skip makeup and any of the neon colors I usually streak my hair with. I dress a bit more demurely as well, in a cute red jumper with a strawberry dotted button up. Tying on red converse, I kiss him goodbye and head out.
I ignore that voice in my head that tells me it is our last kiss, our last goodbye.
“ You can be whoever you want to be, ” Jenna’s voice plays in my head, and I hit repeat, hoping it will get me through today.
It takes just a few hours for me to start a whole new life. I enroll in the local college, grateful for the grants I am approved for as well as the stash of money I earned from Purple Heart’s last tour. I talk with a counselor about my classes that will start in just a few weeks, and I even get my textbooks.
Teaching was never something I considered. Until I met Devin. Because after he pointed out the interaction with my fan at the fair, and with how I love music, teaching music makes sense. I am not sure I want to be Debi the Rockstar anymore. I do love being on stage, but I no longer feel as if I need to be onstage to feel as if I count, as if I am worth something.
“You and that new boy getting serious?”
Blinking at the counselor, who was once principal of my junior high and has known me half my life, I frown. Why does she know about him? I nod my head, unable to form an answer. She smiles at me and says how nice that is and how he seems like such a nice boy.
When I go to the bar I sometimes waitress at, one of the regulars who runs the floral shop asks about the romance too. I had noticed a lot of people in town seemed to be talking about it, but I am still taken about. Devin spent those first days after the fair going all over to find me, which was adorable, but it seems everyone is still wondering about us.
“Yes, we’re still seeing each other. He’s great, it’s been great,” I managed even if I am a little embarrassed to be talking about it.
“Such a nice boy,” he repeats the counselor’s opinion. “Weren’t those flowers lovely?”
Nodding because yes, the huge bouquet of flowers he sent me were very beautiful. Bright pink and white carnations that still sit on the dining table where anyone who comes to my little apartment can see. When the florist says they were his handiwork, it somehow dulls their beauty for me.
For the rest of the day, as I go shopping for some more toned-down clothes, as I have lunch with Jenna to get some girl time in, and even when I go to practice for a gig this weekend at the fair, I am asked about Devin. The entire town seems to be talking about us. About this great romance of ours, how good of a guy he is, how sweet it was that he courted me the way he did.
“Why is everyone talking about this?” I snap at my drummer at practice when he asks if I am still seeing the hot teacher.
“People talk in Pine Grove. They always want something to talk about. They will move on to something else, dude, chill out. It’s just cute. You’ve never...I mean, we’ve never seen you stick with a guy so long.”
Once again, I am stung by words that I know are not meant to sting.
No, I have never been with someone for very long. We’ve been seeing each other for less than two months. I guess maybe everyone considers it a miracle I would stay with someone even that long. Or that they would still be sticking around this long. Tears fill my eyes, and I shake off my rage.
“I can’t practice today. I... I might not be at the show tomorrow. I don’t know...I don’t know if I can do any of this anymore.”
Before giving my band, my best friends, the guys who have stuck by my side through everything a chance to respond, I flee. I am good at this part. I am good at turning my back on something and running. I cannot talk about how giving up the band scares me but makes sense for my future. I can’t tell them how I do not want to be Debi the Rockstar for the rest of my life.
All day all I have heard is how good Devin is. What a good guy, what a catch, how he is such a prize. And he is, I know it better than anyone. But what I am hearing is what no one has the guts to say to me.
I am not a good girl, I am no catch, and certainly not a prize. I do not go home to him. I do not go to Jenna. I just go. I hit the highway, and I don’t bother to look back. Turns out I did learn something from my mama.
Giving up is what she did best—I guess I am my mother’s daughter after all.