Day 10 Waterbury, CT
ROXIE
THESE FUCKING CUNTS.
I fucking knew they were gonna blow this tour. These two assholes couldn’t find their way out of a cardboard box with a flashlight and a map. You only have to spend five minutes with them to know that Sam is ass over tits in love with Max and Max is ass over tits in love with Sam.
Everybody fucking knows. It’s why Max can’t keep a girlfriend for more than a couple of months at a time and Sam doesn’t even try.
So whyyyy am I stuck in a van with these hopeless losers, the air thick enough to cut with a knife, while they work their way through Round 347 of their neverending fucking drama?
Last night, Blake and I thought that maybe they were finally getting somewhere.
But this morning, we found Max sacked out on the couch with the bathroom wastebasket on the floor in front of him, and Sam curled up in the armchair next to his head, looking like death warmed over.
And they’ve barely said a word to each other since, both of them acting like their childhood dog ran over their grandma and then ate five pounds of chocolate to cope.
At least Sam didn’t beg off his shift at the wheel.
He took the keys from Blake and climbed right into the driver’s seat.
Max, meanwhile, went straight to the backseat.
So Blake shrugged his shoulders and took shotgun next to Sam, and I’m sitting back here with Max, watching as he huddles against the window, his hoodie pulled low over his face and his eyes behind a pair of sunglasses.
Every once in a while, he sniffles, and this motherfucker better not start crying outright because dealing with that shit is just way past my pay grade.
It’s raining, and we’re hurtling along the Merritt Parkway while Sam plays the Cranberries on the radio.
That’s how you know everything is fucking wrong, because Max didn’t say one word to him, even though he likes to rag on anybody who plays anything even remotely sentimental in the van.
And don’t get me wrong — I don’t mind the Cranberries and I think “Salvation” really fucking rips.
But driving around in this van full of sad, silent assholes while this Irish broad yodels about putting her head on anybody’s shoulder because she can’t be with the dude she loves — well, it’s a little on the nose.
Maybe if I take a fucking nap, we’ll drive off a cliff while I’m sleeping and this whole goddamn nightmare will be over.
A girl can hope, right?
SAM
I am a terrible friend.
All this time, I’ve been so focused on how I feel about Max, how this stupid unrequited torch I’m carrying around for him makes every piece of my life just that much harder.
I’ve been pulling away, trying to pack the void in my chest with meaningless sex only to blow a new hole right through the middle of it every time he looks at me.
And I’ve had my head so far up my own ass that I missed that he was going through something huge.
I know it’s scary to question your sexuality, to worry about whether you’re ever going to fit, whether the people you love are still going to love you. I know it’s scary to come out. And I wouldn’t have made it through if Max hadn’t been there for me, my rock every step of the way.
Now he needs me.
And I know I need to talk to him. I need to tell him that it’s okay, that he can talk it out with me, that I’ll be there for him the way he was there for me.
But every time I try to open my stupid mouth, all I can see is Max standing under the colored lights, passionately kissing a dude who isn’t me. And that little voice in my head, the shitty, selfish voice that proves what a fucked-up piece of trash I am, whispers the same thing over and over —
If he wanted to kiss a guy so badly, why didn’t he kiss me?
It’s a drumbeat, a mantra, keeping time with the windshield wipers, the raindrops tracking down the windows of the van. I clench my fingers on the steering wheel and I try to block it out but it’s there, that nagging reminder that I am absolute shit.
I don’t deserve him. It’s no wonder that he doesn’t want me.
MAX
What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the FUCK what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the FUCK what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the FUCK what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the —
BLAKE
It was bound to come to a head eventually.
Roxie and I have known Sam and Max for almost two years now, and it’s been obvious from the beginning that those two boys care about each other very deeply.
It’s clearly romantic for Sam. As for Max, I wasn’t sure for a long time.
Lately, though, it has seemed as if he might have finally woken up to what he has right in front of him.
But it looks like they weren’t able to work it out.
Roxie thinks we should just sit the two of them down and tell them what’s painfully clear to us, to put them out of their misery, as she puts it. But I’m not so sure. I think this is something that they need to work out for themselves.
It was so sad watching them tonight. The Waterbury show was in a VFW hall, and they were the second of three bands.
I’m not saying that they didn’t play well, because they did.
But half the joy of watching Sam and Max making music together is their chemistry, the way they bounce off one another up on the stage, speaking in a language only they know.
But tonight, they played the notes but not the music.
And after their set was over, Max came to sit with Roxie and me at the merch table, while Sam retreated to his own corner of the room, lost in thought.
Now the four of us are sharing a hotel room, and it’s dark and silent.
Roxie is curled up next to me, her head pillowed on my chest as she sleeps.
Across the room in the other bed, Sam and Max are two silent mounds, as much space between them as possible.
And my heart goes out to them, because I know how much it would hurt if Roxie ever decided she was done with me.
I hope they start talking soon, for all our sakes.