First Kiss (Heavy Influence) (53 page)

             
“About what?” She asked, perplexed.

             
She shivered, pulling her arms close to her and breathed into her hands. The temperature dropped suddenly as a light fog rolled in, filtering the outside lighting in the distance.

             
“Come here,” I coaxed, reaching for her elbow. Even though our knees were touching. I wanted her closer. “Sit on my lap.”

             
Aly wrapped her arms around me and buried her face in my neck. “I feel I’ll lose my mind with out you in my life,” she admitted, weakly.

             
“I know what you mean,” I said rubbing her thigh, wishing it was bare and not covered by her black cotton legging. “Wanna hear some new music?”

             
She smiled devilishly. “Yeah.”

             
“You think we can get away with sitting in my truck?”

             
“Yeah.” She sung, excitedly, smiling from ear to ear and jumping up off my lap. “Don’t you feel like we’re getting away with something?”

             
“For the moment we are.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her to me. “Anything for you. I risk jail for you.”

             
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me hard and the warmth of her tongue on my lips sent a throbbing feeling through me. I moaned and kissed her, deeper. Our lips stayed locked almost all the way to my truck, caution stomped out with each step. Feeling her warm skin beneath my hands, after all these months, nearly sent me out of control.

             
“Can’t we go somewhere? I’ll call Kyle and…”

             
“Aly, stop,” I said. I gently pushed her hand away from my groin. “I’m sorry. I want this so bad, but not like this.” My words seared with desire.

             
“Why? I may never see you again,” she said, her voice cracked.

             
“That’s not true and you know it.”

             
I moved, turning the ignition to crack the windows that had become fogged from the heat and moisture of our breath.

             
I continued. “We’ll do this again soon. Christmas is coming and I’ll be home and you’ll be out of school. We’ll see each other then.”

             
“You know how hard it’s going to be, having you only yards away?”

             
“Yep. I live it every time I come home.”

             
As long as the fire ignited between us when we saw each other, I would always keep her at the forefront of my mind.

             
I headed straight to my sponsor’s pad. With all the forced therapy and counseling, I was now familiar enough with myself to know my cycle of downward spiral. Coming down from any excitement was always tough. Like after a gig or thinking too much about Aly and our circumstances always threw me to popping a pill to take the edge off. Now knowing it’s some sort of depression or anxiety. I felt that blaze of blistering yearning in the pit of my stomach and needed someone to talk me down.

             
Amy had been through the wringer and looked like it too. She never gave two shits about what she looked like. She was a throwback to the hippy days. She’d used LSD and everything else under the sun, and lived to tell about it. She’d been Dump’s sponsor too. She opened her door wearing some sort of an ornamental gold colored, jewel-encrusted headband. She wore a light pink tank top without a bra. I never asked but she had to be in her late fifties, her tits had seen better days. Sometimes I wondered if she dressed like that on purpose, to test me - as if she’d go change into something skimpy or revealing when I told her I was coming.

             
I concentrated on the headpiece.

             
“Hey, Ames,” I said, melancholy, not making eye contact with her.

             
I could feel her taking me in and I finally looked at her. Her thin wrinkly arm ran up the door jam as she leaned against it. She wasn’t too surprised to see me.

             
“Why so glum?” her raspy voice questioned.

             
“Believe it or not, I just spent some time with Aly.”

             
“Whoa shit, brother, come on in!” she sang out excitedly. She loved the drama of it all. “What the hell were you thinking, anyway? You know I’m supposed to report any wrong doing.”

             
Unconcerned, I replied. “Call the cops.”

             
“You really don’t mean that, because if you’re gonna be an asshole, I will.” Her playfulness disappeared with my smart comeback. “I’m giving you a chance here, Jake. Don’t blow this.”

             
“Amy, I’m sorry. I’m just at
that
place you know.”

             
“Sit. Want somethin’ to drink? I’m gonna make coffee,” she sang out in a gentle tone. “I know how you love you some coffee.”

             
“Sure.”

             
I sat down on her worn black leather sofa. Her pad was eclectic to say the least. There were a hundred little figurines of owls of all shapes, sizes, wooden and metal. She painted, and there were canvases everywhere, all half covered with her paint strokes. Not one of them was finished. Everything went along perfectly with her personality. She walked into her kitchen and I observed the nervous tick she had of raising her eyebrows and opening her mouth in a little ‘o’ then stretching it wide open, over and over again. It had to be the damage from her drug abuse. She could have been really pretty once.

             
“You think I’ll always be this way? Feeling so empty without her? Me feeling so high and then so low at every turn?”

             
“Jake, let me put it to you this way, and I’ve said this many times. I think I’m gonna have to start beating you. You have a talent. You have your music. You need to channel your demons into making music
with
you.” She coached, as she waved the empty coffee cup in her hand at me.

             
“That’s what I’ve been doing. It’s just tough. Sleeping is the problem. It’s like I don’t dream. I stay on the surface, hearing all the noises around me. My brain won’t turn off. I think about all my dreams and how I want Aly to be a part of them. The future, she’s the future.”

             
She handed me a cup of steaming black gold and I took a sip.

             
Amy sighed deeply, taking sips out of her bright aqua marine colored cup. “You’re a good looking kid, Jake. You have your life ahead of you. You should be having a good time. Experiencing life, you come here every time you come home from your touring and you feel empty, you say it’s because you feel incomplete without Aly. I’m not so sure that’s what it is. The quicksand of addiction is easily disguised, Jake.” She blinked three times and took another sip. “You’re staying on the surface because there are bigger issues than you and Aly.”

             
What she said sent a shock through me like I’d broken a bone. “It’s funny you say that.”

             
“Why?”

             
“No one’s ever put it to me like that.” I muttered and shrugged.

             
“You’re different than the other former druggies that come through here, Jake.”

             
“I was never a druggie,” I said low and harsh. I was hell bent on not having a relapse. “I’m not gonna be like you, Amy. I popped pills I didn’t shoot poison into my veins and end up homeless by losing my family from a decade of hard core drug use.”

             
As soon as the harsh words left my mouth, I regretted them. Amy smiled softly and pushed aside a stack of magazines, placing her cup on the coffee table. Her faced stretched out and she looked over her shoulder.

             
I huffed, agitated. She couldn’t be serious about me being a druggie and placing me in the same category as her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it…”

             
“Sure you did.” she interrupted. “The truth will set you free.”

             
She looked over her shoulder again.

             
“Amy, do you know what you’re doing? I mean, do you know that you’re always looking over your shoulder?”

             
Her face stretched out again.

             
I continued. “Do you know that you make faces?” I paused, rubbing my face. I wasn’t trying to be a dick anymore. “I don’t wanna be a druggie, Amy. I’m sorry. I know you’re only trying to help.”

             
I felt a lump form in my throat.

             
She leaned back stretching her arms over her head and her boobs stared at me. I looked away, not wanting to stare at her nipples that faced the ground. Shit, why did I come here?

             
“I’m aware of my nervous…behavior,” she said quietly. “And no, you’re not a druggie like me, a former druggie let me correct myself, but we don’t want you to become one.”

             
I thought about what she said - “
staying on the surface
.”

             
“There’s a bunch of stuff with my mom, you know and my dad and my manager.” I went on, retelling the story to Amy, every small detail, so she would fully understand. “I try just to push it all back, the fact my dad was having an affair and the still unclear relationship between my mother and Notting. Because it really has nothing to do with me, right? Am I right?”

             
“Right. Those things have nothing to do with you. Jake, this is a slippery subject. Do you really even know the truth? Have you talked to your mom? Let me put it to you this way, what I’ve learned is, parent’s make choices and some put their kids first, and others, like me, chose something that meant more to them at the time.”

             
“I didn’t mean to bring this up to put this on you.”

             
“I know.” Amy stalled, rubbing her mouth, contemplating. “What I’m trying to say is your mother did the best she could with what she had at the time, and even now. Maybe someday you’ll be able to sit with her and discuss all of this. But in the meantime focus on you, Jake. Don’t let what your parent’s did or didn’t do, define who you’ll become.”

             
I gulped. The conversation was beyond deep.

52

Rachel

              Holiday Bomb 2012 arrived with as much flare as ever, my last and final high school party. My house was decorated in silver and white. My mother was impressed with my selections of faux trees and lighting. She’s complimented me on the placement of my arrangements and offered me to be her assistant on her next job for The Screen Actor’s Guild. Working with her was something I thought would never happen in a million years. Things were looking up for me.

             
Dump and Sienna were the first to arrive and we chilled sitting at my back yard table. “So, you’re not gonna believe this, but I met someone,” I blurted out.

             
Dump slammed his hands down on the table’s wooden surface so hard that the red cups hopped in the air. “Hallafuckingluja! Can we all just move on now, finally?”

             
Sienna guffawed and elbowed Dump hard. “Stop it!”

             
“Ouch! Damn, Darlin’,” Dump smirked, glancing between the both of us. “That little Python of yours got some bite.” He rubbed his arm a bit longer. “That’s gonna be a bruise, you know.”

             
“You deserve it,” Sienna remarked, but then she reached over babying him, rubbing the area she’d just abused. “I’m sorry.”

             
Dump reached over grabbing his pack of cigs off the table, popping one in his mouth. “So who’s the unlucky bastard?”

             
“His name is Scott and he lives in Palos Verdes.”

             
“Really?” Sienna chirped. “What the hell? Did you just meet him? Like yesterday?”

             
I laughed. “No, I met him when I was with my mom at one of her events.”

             
“So? Prey tale.” Sienna begged.

             
“He’s a valet.”

             
Dump laughed. “I bet your mom loved hearing that.”

             
“She did!” I laughed too. “She was
such
a rotten crotch to him.”

             
“And you weren’t?” he asked.

             
“Actually, no I wasn’t. It was kinda unexpected. At first I thought, as if, naturally. But then something just happened and I can’t tell you what it was. The funniest thing of all, my mom thinks he’s some loser, the help, but he’s so not. His house is bigger than ours and his dad is some big shot. His parent’s make him work for everything. I’m never telling my mom. I want her to die a slow death thinking I’ll fall in love with losers for the rest of my life.”