Page 21 of Unbound
Thunder rolls through the city, lightning turning my room cobalt blue. White flashes dance behind my lids, the rumbling in the sky stirring me awake. The bed’s dipped, a presence next to me of a faceless woman. I couldn’t pick her face out of a line up if I had to, but I bet she knows exactly who I am.
I don’t part my lids because every time I do, I seeher,and I don’t want to. Life is easier when I keep my eyes closed to everything around me.
Turning over, I face the small window and stare out it hoping maybe if I do, the rain might put me back to sleep.
It doesn’t.
It never does.
Nothing does. I can’t remember the last time I actually slept for any significant time. I wake up every morning an hour after I fall asleep around 2:00 a.m. and I’m up, wishing for sleep, only my brain won’t shut down long enough for me to find relief.
It swims with a memory I’ll never completely drown out. I tell myself to let go. I’ve been gone long enough she won’t give a shit about me coming back.
Sophie.
She’s in the deepest, darkest parts of my thoughts, and each time she crosses my mind, the pain comes back, the words I said, the things I did… it’s all there.
It’s been over a year since I left home and not once has she tried to call me. It’s not like I’ve reached out to her either, but in a round-about way a couple months back, Raven told me she was doing fine. I figure that’s code for she’s moved on.
I still hear from Raven and my mom but only through text messages. When I first left, they tried calling, but after a couple weeks of me not answering their calls, they apparently got the hint and texted me. My fear was if I did pick up the phone, heard their voice, I’d change my mind about staying away and head back home. If I heard Sophie’s voice, it’d be over. I knew that.
Maybe that’s why I can’t fucking sleep.
Tossing and turning, I finally get up after an hour and check my phone. It died last night after the show, so I plugged it in once I got home. I hadn’t bothered to look at it since then to see if Beck called me back. He’s been in LA all week visiting his dad and I think, though I can’t remember, I might have had to pick him up at the airport last night.
The screen to my phone lights up when I hit the home button. It shows two missed calls from Beck, three missed calls from Sam, and another text message from Beck that simply reads.
Beck: Dude, fuck you. I had to take a cab.
Turning my head, I see he’s on the couch so clearly his phobia of cabs didn’t come true and he is in fact, still very much alive. He’s had this stupid fucking fear ever since watching some movie calledThe Bone Collector. Now any time he’s forced to catch a cab, he’s convinced they’re secretly going to drag him out in the middle of nowhere, cut off his fingers and leave only bones visible in the dirt. The way I look at it, I did the paranoid motherfucker a favor. Proved his fear was bullshit.
I listen to the message from Sam. He’s reminding me we have a show tomorrow night and then two more next week in Portland, and one in Los Angeles the following week. In the last six months, we’ve toured all across the west coast promoting our EP. I said I wouldn’t hire Sam as our manager but Beck and Lincoln both disagreed with me. We needed a manager and he was offering what we needed. Exposure. So we ended up hiring him and his business partner Nick to promote us.
There’s another message that catches my attention. It’s from my mom and left last night around seven.
Mom: Rawley, answer your damn phone!
That’s all it says. I’ll send her a message tomorrow but there’s no way I’m calling. Setting my phone down, I leave it plugged in and move to the fridge to find something to drink. I share an apartment with Beck and Lincoln in downtown Seattle. It’s only two bedrooms so Beck sleeps on the couch and never complains. He’s simple like that and if he wants to bring a girl home, he does. We just know that sometimes we’re gonna see him fucking girls on the couch. It’s not like it matters though. We’ve all seen it hundreds of times in the last year. Hell, there’s times I don’t even close my door when I have someone in there. It’s just the way it is with us.
With a flash of light, another crack of thunder rattles through our tenth-floor apartment. Beck stirs on the couch and turns over, a pillow smashed to his head as he attempts to block out the light.
“Are you coming back to bed?” a timid voice asks from behind.
Twisting in the direction of the voice, I realize I’m standing naked in the middle of my kitchen. I turn to look at the stranger standing in my bedroom doorway. It’s obviously the girl I fucked in my bed last night, but as I look at her, I’m reminded I can’t even remember her damn name, and she’s looking at me like I should.
I don’t say anything and grab a beer from the fridge and then take it back to my room with me. She follows, closing the door softly behind us.
When I’m finished with the beer, I mumble, “You should go.” Tossing the can to the floor, I look outside to the pouring rain hitting the window. The orange glow of the city below casts softness in the room. Focusing on the cobwebs in the corners of the window, I sigh, needing the breath, but no relief comes from it.
On my nightstand, I gaze at the one thing I know is a sure fire way to deliver the relief I so desperately need. My chest hurts, pounds steadily knowing it’snotan answer, but nonetheless, it’s a remedy I want at the moment. Lifting my hand to the razor blade next to the coke, my heart feels like it’s going to shatter and I’m not sure if it’s from regret or anticipation. Maybe both. I split two lines and snort.
I sniff, rubbing my nose and swallow, my stomach coiling.
In the dim lighting, I can make out her figure now, just not her face as I lay down on the bed and bring the sheet up over my waist.
She lies beside me. “Can’t I stay for a couple hours until the storm passes?”
I shrug and turn away from her, my pulse screaming and unbalanced. “Whatever.”
