| CHAPTER SIXTY
| existential bubblegum pop
ɴᴏʟᴀɴ ᴍᴜʟʟᴇɴ
My heartbeat sped as he opened the door, pushing some of his now golden curls behind his ear with his bandaged fingers. He'd told me how he wanted to get rid of the faded color, but I honestly expected him to dye it back to brown.
It wasn't just his hair that had undergone a transformation. He wouldn't typically wear a pair of black utility pants with a yellow distressed sweater layered over white, but today he did. He also wouldn't typically accessorize, but today he did.
And god did he look radiant. His skin was no longer pale and ghostly, his eyes were shining again, and although he still appeared smaller than he did when we first met, he looked stronger than he had just two weeks ago.
"My sister styled me today," he said as my eyes came back up to meet his. "Did she do an okay job? I told her not to dress me like her sixteen year old friends but I'm not sure she listened. And it was a pain to get those sleeves over my arm so I won't be changing again."
"You look fucking gorgeous," I said. A corner of his mouth moved up.
"You too," he said, stretching out his arm so he could hug me, and with his arm still around me, he closed the door behind us and walked us towards my car.
I couldn't contain my smile. I knew that this date meant I was unable to see him for at least another month, but it was okay, because I knew that once I came back, this was what I would be returning to.
"Where to?" I asked him as I opened the passenger side door for him.
"I'll send you the address."
•••
He took us to a dark alleyway with men dressed in black protecting the perimeter of the building. And once he got us in their parking garage holding up two passes I wasn't allowed to see, I had to ask him where the fuck we are.
The place was next to empty, save for a few suspicion looking vans and two large busses. And he feared I was the serial killer for taking him on a picnic in the woods...
"Follow me," he said with a grin, holding out his hand. "And don't worry, these people can't say anything. They sign NDAs," Oakley whispered in my ear. I knew it was meant to be reassuring, but it only reinforced the idea that my boyfriend was possibly going to sign me up for some top-secret government experiment.
He led us to a large metal door, this one also protected by a security guard, until Oakley showed him the passes. Once inside, we were met with a large, endless staircase. It was dark except for the white LED strips on each step which ensured we wouldn't trip in the darkness.
I stayed quiet, trusting Oakley with my life as he led me upstairs. Our steps echoed through the stairwell for multiple minutes until we finally reached the top, which was once again guarded by a man.
"Why didn't we take the elevator?" I asked, slightly out of breath as I watched two men dressed in black leaving the sliding metal elevator door with a large rolling storage box.
"Suspense," he said with a grin. He too was breathing heavily, but he didn't seem to mind.
The last security guard opened the door for us, and we entered an empty room. Empty of people, at least, but filled with luxurious chairs and benches around solid marble tables. Each table could seat two to six people by the looks of it, and on the side of the room was a bar with no bartender yet in sight.
"Come on," he said, pulling me towards the large pane of glass at the very back of the room, and only then did I realize where he had taken me.
The view was of a large stage, and what seemed like thousands of empty seats, and a large open floor right in the middle. All of it far below us.
"I've never been to a concert," I admitted, a grin on my face.
"I figured," he said with a grin. "And I know you can't make it to the festival. That's why we're here."
"Wait, who's performing?"
"First this band called the Breakers is up. They're the opening act. After that is Holly Burnstock. She was the opener for my last tour."
"This place is enormous," I said, gaping at the venue.
"I know!" His face lit up like he'd just had a happy memory flooding back. He kept staring at the stage with a content smile on his face. "I remember the first time I performed here. It was my first headline concert."
There must've been tens of thousands of people here, and he was openly displaying his deepest emotions to the crowd. What people thought of him was raw and real and live. For me it was different. People could only judge my ability to do my job, and I got dozens of takes to get it right.
"I don't know how you do it," I said, shaking my head. "My feelings are mine. I've been a public figure from the moment I was born, but my feelings have always been my own. You don't have that."
"I know," Oakley said, his grin mellowing out and becoming a soft smile. "Looking back, I think it was a little triggering for me."
"You think so?" I asked, placing my hand on top of his on the railing. He looked at me, the deep brown of his eyes holding my gaze.
"Yeah. It was my first tour, I didn't sleep very well, or eat very well, the tens of thousands of people were just cheering me on. On one hand, I got a ton of shit for being rude or unprofessional or a bad performer. On the other, they praised me like I was otherworldly." He chuckled, clearly seeing the humor in the situation after all. "I hate how much sense this all makes."
"Hey, no bad thoughts today, alright? It makes sense. That's good."
He turned his hand around so our palms were now facing, and he interlaced our fingers.
The biggest grin spread on his face, and I wrapped my arms around him and he hugged me back in a death grip—just with his one arm he managed to leave me nearly breathless.
"Let's sit down," he said, guiding me to a table in the far corner of the room. There was more than enough space, but he decided to sit right next to me on the bench. "The doors open in fifteen minutes so the audience can enter, and then they start playing roughly half an hour later."
"Why are we this early?"
"It's my last date with you before I don't get to see you for weeks. I don't wanna waste a second of it," he said. His eyes held a certain type of sadness to them, but his lips were still tugged into the smile he'd been wearing since the moment we walked in. Without a doubt I could tell my my expression must have been the same, as the muscles in my face numbed but my eyes could no longer hold his gaze.
Remember what you'll return to. I told myself.
He leaned his head on my shoulder, sighing deeply as he rested his arm over my lap. I wrapped an arm around him and pushed a stray curl away from his face, but it fell down the moment I let go. So I kept sweeping it back gently, sometimes pulling at the curl to watch it bounce back up.
We sat in the comfort of each other's presence for a while, until we heard the sound of a giant crowd coming in. There was a screen above the window that showed us the parts of the venue we couldn't see. It was kinda cool to see the people trickling in and filling up the space.
"I like this." He removed his head from my shoulder and closed his eyes. "Kiss me now, and it'll be the best kiss in my life."
"What about our future wedding?" I asked.
He opened his eyes. "Too many people watching."
"Okay, fair," I said, the most high-pitched giggle leaving my throat. My face grew hotter, but Oakley didn't seem to care at all as his eyes were fully focused on my lips. So I leaned in. Once our noses were touching, I kissed him, and maybe he was right. It was that going down the rollercoaster type of feeling. Not just butterflies and sweaty palms. It was the adrenaline of not being the two of us in our bedroom. It was weird to me. It wasn't quite so bad that I was anxious, but the feeling was definitely new. "Happy now?"
"Very." He returned to the position we were in before, with his head resting on my shoulder.
I let my eyes close for a few minutes until the door opened and sounds of laughter entered. As much as I wanted to ignore it and continue playing with Oakley's hair, or interlace our fingers, or simply enjoy each other's company, my reflex was to create a distance between us.
"She's seriously insane, I'm telling you. You wouldn't believe it." The voice was familiar, and when I turned around, I recognized Danny with a few other people who also just walked in.
Oakley sent me an apologetic look before turning toward the group of people that had just come in.
"Danny," he said. "How are you?"
The smile on Danny's face dropped as he saw us. He and Oakley had yet to make up about what happened at the hospital. Even during band practice there was a distance between the two, Oakley had told me.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, his friends merely looked at Oakley and me before walking towards the bar.
"Can we talk?" Oakley asked. Danny crossed his arms as he sat down next to me.
"Try to make it brief. I came here to enjoy myself. How are you, Nolan?" he asked with a smile.
"I'm good," I said, awkwardly scooting further into the sofa, trapping myself even further between the two.
"I want to apologize," Oakley said. "I shouldn't have forced you to keep a secret like that. I was an asshole."
"I've been by your side since we were teenagers," Danny said in a hushed voice, as though he had to let it out as quickly as possible. "What led you to believe I wanted to hurt you?"
"I was scared," Oakley said, looking between both me and his bassist. "I knew something was wrong with me but I didn't want to acknowledge it. I didn't want people to know I'm crazy."
"You are not crazy," both Danny and I said in unison. Oakley frowned, not believing our words.
"No, you don't get it," Oakley said, especially looking at me. He hadn't told me exactly what the argument was about. He'd told me about as much as Danny had, so I knew something happened which he got medical attention for, but he didn't want his doctor to know for a reason I didn't know. "I thought music was the manifestation of a deity. I wasn't just saying that. I believed it. My brain is all kinds of fucked up. I'm not 'destined' for anything."
'Destined for greatness,' Oakley had told me what now felt like ages ago, when he'd called me up late at night to go swimming at the beach house. I even asked him if he was high, but I did nothing to help him.
"You had a psychosis," Danny corrected him. And somehow I was only now connecting the dots.
"The beach house... you were manic. And I didn't even help you, and we never got to talk about it before my shit happened." Pictures of me snorting mystery substances off a table suddenly no longer seemed as significant. Maybe all of it was an overreaction.
"You did help me," he said. "You were my voice of reason. Thanks to you I didn't drown."
"You were manic?"
"Yeah," Oakley said, "I'm bipolar."
Danny's mouth fell open just slightly, but then he nodded. "That makes so much sense," he said, something Oakley had been saying for weeks now.
"I know," Oakley said, relaxing into the back of the bench. "If it weren't for you, I would probably have to go through a lot more trial and error to get my diagnosis right."
For the first time in this conversation, Danny smiled. "That's why I'm your favorite band member."
"Yep. You're employee of the month," Oakley said with a grin.
Danny stood up, patting his clothes as if to dust them off. "Well, if you don't mind me, I'm not gonna be the third wheel. So bye."
He disappeared towards his group of friends, leaving Oakley and me by ourselves again.
Oakley slid back closer to me and took my hand, about to lean his head back down on my shoulder, until we were both interrupted by the loud cheering and chanting of the crowd. We both looked at the large window.
"Is it starting?" I asked.
"Not yet. Probably one of the boys was on stage for a second," Oakley said. "Wanna get up on the balcony with me?" he asked.
"Yes, absolutely," I said, letting him pull me up from the sofa with his non-injured.
He held my hand the entire time, walking to a door right next to the giant window. I didn't even spare a glance at anyone else, and neither did he. They were on my mind, but they were distant. I hadn't felt this free since I was thirteen.
"I think I like showing you off," I told him, a little surprised that I didn't feel like I was going to have a panic attack quite yet. Yes, my heart was trying to pound its way past my breastbone, but I wasn't shaking, and I could breathe still.
"I know I like showing you off," he said, kissing my cheek before opening the door without a card in the world. "The view from the balcony is insane."
I nodded, and without another word, we entered the balcony portion.
Music was already pumping through the speakers, but it was all fading, muddling in the background as people filled up the large space below us.
Oakley looked at the crowd in awe with a smile so wide.
"The Breakers are coming on in a few minutes," he said in my ear so I could hear him properly. "Some people skip the openers."
"But there's so many people already," I said, looking down the railing. There must've been thousands of people, and the venue wasn't even all the way filled up yet. From this distance, the people looked almost like a colony of ants, except it kind of sounded like an overcrowded conference room. At least it did, until all the lights turned off and people started cheering. Apart from the noise of the crowd, it was quiet, until red lasers shot up towards the ceiling and a harmony filled the place, overpowering the cheering of the crowd.
"Holy fuck," I said in surprise. Oakley wrapped an arm around my waist so we could stand closer to each other.
"Did that scare you?" he asked, once again in my ear so I could hear him over the music and the crowd. His lip grazed my ear lightly, and my muscles tensed a little. I turned my face towards him.
"Of course not," I lied.
"Then why are you blushing?"
"I'm not!" I said. "It's the lighting. Of course I'm gonna look red in red lasers."
"Okay," he said, moving away. He was still smiling as he watched over the crowd. The light illuminated his features in a way I could only consider angelic, even if it was a harsh red, even with his proud smirk, even with the way I knew he saw himself.
He caught me off guard by turning his head toward me again, catching me in a one-sided staring contest. "What?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said, leaning into him so he could hear me. "I'm just enjoying myself."
"By staring at me?" he asked, his eyebrows raised.
"Yeah. And the music is quite good too."
"So you like the Breakers?"
I nodded.
"I knew you would," he said, a content little smile on his face. "That's why I chose this concert to be our first."
It was the sweetest thing he could've said, but also a complete lie. "You're just saying that."
"No, I mean it. I do know you pretty well. It's psychedelic."
"What?"
"The genre. It's psychedelic. That's how I knew you'd like it."
"And what would make you think I'd like that? And don't say just because of the drugs thing."
He shook his head as he laughed, looking like a slow-motion reel straight from a fan edit as some of his curls fell over his forehead with the heavenly sound of a guitar and synth playing in the background.
"Your two favorite places on earth are in the woods and an hour's drive away from the closest neighbor. You like things that help you escape reality for a bit. Oh, and you also have a thing for irony. I thought this would be exactly that."
I rolled my eyes but couldn't contain my smile. "You're such a smartass," I said. "But you're right. I love escaping reality. But what I love even more is escaping reality with you."
We watched as the venue filled up even more, and a few people soon joined us on the balcony. But neither of us moved away from the other. No, we stood there, his arm over my shoulder as I leaned into him. He softly hummed along to the music.
"I love you," he spoke into my ear as the opening act got off stage, and goosebumps formed on my neck. As I turned to face him, he smiled, and my legs nearly gave out as he brushed some of my hair out of my face.
Nothing had ever felt more natural than this, with his arm over my shoulder, my hand on his waist, our noses almost touching and two big lovestruck grins on our faces.
"Can I kiss you?" I asked, and he nodded. So I did. I kissed him, my hand on his cheek to feel even closer to him.
A sweet harmony was sung as Oakley and I pulled away, as though it was purely mythical. The music around the voices swelled as the loudest and clearest voice began singing the lead.
When I looked at the stage, a short brunette had taken over, dressed in a glittery mini skirt and bright pink boots and top, dancing as she sang.
"And what genre is this?" I asked him.
"I call this 'existential bubblegum pop'. Very over the top and fun. More escapism, until you really start to listen."
So I listened as the next verse started.
Like the tingle of sun kissing my skin
Does his touch ignite me from within
Dancers' hands roamed the singer's body, something that looked like a soft sensual act slowly became wrong as hands wrapped around her neck, and others put their hands in private places.
As thousands of eyes are watching me blaze
They say I must be glad of his loving ways
She then walked towards the front of the stage as the dancers stayed in the back, continuing their choreography.
Tan yet fair is what I'm supposed to be
Then she and the entire crowd yelled:
"Too bad that gives me cancer!"
"Oh," I mumbled, my eyes slightly widened in surprise. I could see this being 'existential bubblegum pop' as Oakley had so beautifully described it. It was like the early 2000's chick flicks of music. "I think I like her."
"I knew you would," he said.
This time I believed him, because he knew me better than anyone.
•••