Cacophony

17: f e r r i v o r o u s

***

"Do you like it?" Adam asked, sipping his whiskey and relaxing back into his chair.
Sydney didn't answer, looking out at the sinking sun behind the pink waves. The truth was that the apartment was beautiful. It was small but it was clean, bright, with massive windows and a little deck with an amazing view. It did indeed have a bedroom with an ocean view as well, and that is where Sydney spent most of her time with the shades drawn. In the morning before the sun was up she had taken to running on the beach. It was the only thing she had found that temporarily absorbed some of the grief and pain that filled her heart.
  In the evening she would get up again to have dinner with Adam, listening absently as he talked about his day and how displeased he was with whatever she had managed to whip up for dinner. She found a few staple foods that she thought that she was slowly improving on, but Adam didn't agree. He often took her out on the town, showing her the most lavish restaurants and bars so that he wouldn't have to eat what she made.
  He had bought her a ton of new clothes that she had no desire and no idea how to wear. Every night that they went out, he dressed her up however he wanted in order to show her off to anyone else they may run into while out. Sometimes they ran into his classmates or coworkers, and Adam was always quick to do all the talking while parading her around like some sort of living trophy.
  In fact, if Sydney spoke too much at all he never hesitated to let her know how stupid she sounded to these highly educated individuals. She felt so out of place that she wished she would simply disappear. Adam had taken everything she loved away from her, and now there was nothing left.
"Doll?" Adam called, causing her to look up at him. "I asked you a question."
"Oh... yeah. It's beautiful." She lied, offering him a hollow smile.
"I knew you'd like it. I've been thinking about transferring down here ever since you told me that you grew up on the ocean."
  Sydney smiled again, reaching out and taking his hand. It nearly sickened her to play along with this stupid game that she'd been roped in to... but it sure as hell was better than the alternative. The truth was that if he'd known anything about her at all, he would have known that the ocean is the last place she wanted to live. The reality of living in a beach town was so much less glamorous than most people think. The scenery is largely uninteresting, the same vast expanses of sand, water and sky. In the off season nothing fun is open, and during the summer months it's so damn crowded that you can't even enjoy those things when they do open. Seagulls thought they owned the place, screaming raucously at anyone who looked at them the wrong way. Sure, there was a certain beauty and terror that the ocean held that she would hold in her heart forever... but she had grown out of beach life. She was ready to cross oceans and climb mountains and find her way through forests.
  Yet, she was stuck here. She was stuck in the same boring landscape with a man she hated with every fiber of her being. She had none of her own money, as he had taken it all. She didn't have a vehicle, she didn't have any friends down here. So many times while Adam had been at work or at school she had picked up the phone, intending to call Chris, or Liz, or even Susan. But as she sat listening to the dial tone, trying to pluck up the courage to punch in their digits, she remembered all the things that Adam had threatened to do to them and how many connections he had that couldn't be matched. He was in control now.
  The only things he hadn't taken from her were kept secret. She had them on her person almost all of the time, or hidden away somewhere she knew that he would never find them. She'd found the demo tape of Louder than Love that Chris had made for her in her backpack that she had taken on their last tour, along with the pages of Andy's music notes that Xana had let her keep. Although she hadn't been able to bring herself to listen to it again, or read the words Andy had written, she found comfort in knowing that a small piece of them were still with her.

***

April 4th, 1990

  Chris surveyed each piece of equipment through his foggy brain as it got loaded on to the European tour bus that was waiting for them. Susan had found a temporary tech to replace Sydney, and that alone was enough for Chris not to like the guy. He simply wasn't Sydney. Nobody would ever replace her... not as their tech and not as anything else either.
  Susan was watching the whole ordeal with mixed emotions. Part of her wanted to scold Chris for his aggravation with the new member of their team, yet another part of her understood. He was grieving, and even she knew that Sydney was the best of the best when it came to their equipment. She knew exactly what wires needed to be crossed in order to produce the sound that the guys wanted from their gear, and that was something that took time and experience to understand. Time and experience that Sydney had.
As much as she had hated to see it happen at first, she could tell how much Chris cared for Sydney and how bad it had hurt him when she left. Especially the manner in which she had left. Susan was seeing a side of Chris now that he hadn't ever displayed before. He drank all the time, he smoked pot all the time. She suspected he had started using pills as well, but he denied it.
  The guys were doing their best to help him keep his shit together, but they were all hurting too. They had all lost two people that they loved as well and it all just felt like shit.
"You sure it's all there?" Chris asked, and Roger the new tech nodded.
"According to this list you gave me, I'm pretty sure I've got it all packed in there right."
"Pretty sure? So you're not actually sure?" Chris snapped.
"Okay, that's enough. You, on the bus and leave the poor kid alone. The rest of you help him get this stuff loaded so you guys can get on the road. You have a show tomorrow night, let's get our heads where they're supposed to be." Susan called out, taking control of the situation that seemed to be disintegrating fast.
  Chris did as he was told, disappearing inside the bus. Susan and the guys got the storage bays loaded, and the guys did a double check on the equipment using Sydney's list and direction from Gunny. Gunny was the one who had worked the closest with Sydney on the technical side of things. While they were preoccupied doing that, Susan boarded the bus as well looking for Chris. She found him in the sleeping section, sitting at the edge of one of the bunks and looking down at something in his hands. He tried to hide it when she entered, but it was too late. Holding her hand out for whatever it was, she hadn't expected him to hold out a photograph.
  Looking down at it she sighed, sitting next to her ex on the uncomfortable ledge. They both stared down at the photo of the little blonde girl, surrounded by golden light and looking like an angel beneath the stained glass windows of the European church.
"She is beautiful." Susan said honestly.
"Yeah. She is." He muttered.
"I'm sorry she left."
  Chris looked her in the eye, seeing nothing but sincerity there. Susan was a good woman. Smart, kind, driven. Her words cut deep, reminding him that she left him. Reminding him that he had been too slow. What if he had broken up with Sue sooner, and told Sydney how he really felt? What if he had offered to drive her home right then and there at that Halloween party instead of just taking her keys? Maybe she wouldn't have met Adam. Maybe she would still be here.
"I know you're hurting right now, probably more than I'll ever understand. You have a lot of people here still who care about you, Chris. You have a job to do, and even though it may seem like the last thing you want to do right now just remember that for a long time this was all you ever wanted. Don't throw it away now."
"The fuck does it even matter anyways? Does any of this even mean anything? I don't know why I'm here. This feels stupid."
"You're here because you have a passion for something, and you're good at it. You're just hurting, and I'm so, so sorry for all you've lost. But can we make a deal?"
"What deal?"
"You give your best to this tour, and while you're there I'll head home and do everything I can to find her."
"Find her? You would do that?"
"Yes. I don't know about you, but it doesn't make sense to me that she just up and left like that. I'd like to make sure she's okay, ask her what happened."
"You're superwoman, you know?" Chris stated, a faint trace of a small smile on his lips.
"Not really. Women just really are the superior sex."
  His smile grew bigger for a moment, until his eyes traveled back down to the picture in her hands. She handed it back to him, and his heart seared again. Each fresh memory of her was like a knife to his chest. He missed her so much.
"I hope you find her." He whispered at last.
"I will try my hardest."