It had been a week since I let Cash disappear without calling after him. I wanted to, I wanted to tell him to stay. I wanted to tell him how confused I was. I wanted him to help me figure out what I was feeling. I needed him to stay, I needed him to be there. But I didn't call out after him, and I lost my chance. I haven't talked to him since.
Chase slid me a beer from across the rounded bar table we were standing at. "Have a beer, Parker. You need it."
I snorted at his words, taking a sip anyway. Chase and Brendan thought I had been having a tough week because Taite and I were in a fight. I guess they were close enough.
We were at the Blue Mule, this small concert venue in the downtown of the neighboring city. There was a local alternative band playing that Brendan liked, so we all go tickets. The Mule was essentially a glorified sports bar that would take our fake IDs and provide good music, so a lot of kids from our high school dotted the floor in front of the stage--if you could really call a raised platform of wood a stage.
We sat talking and fooling around until someone announced the opening act would be on soon. They were some sort of cover band from near by from what Brendan had heard.
I drained the rest of the beer, swishing it around in my mouth for a second, my eyes scanning around the room looking for a pair of familiar blue eyes and a mop of black hair. Just as I was about to swallow, I spotted him.
He was on stage. With a mic.
My body erupted into a fit of coughs as the beer came back up through my windpipe.
"Woah, Matt," Brendan started pounding my back, my body shaking with coughs and the realization that Cash was the local cover band.
"Is... is that--" I tried to spew out the question, my body still doubled over.
"We can't fucking understand you sir-coughs-alot!" I gave Chase a look, finally able to stand upright. I took a deep breath and a final cough.
"Is that Cash Ryder? On stage?"
Both of their heads snapped towards the stage. The group had just started warming up. I kept my head down.
"Huh," Chase said. "I guess it is."
"Weird," Brendan followed up. "I didn't know he was talented."
Images of Cash playing the piano swarmed in front of my eyes. I swallowed down the vomit that itched at the back of my throat.
Suddenly Cash's voice echoed around me.
"Hey everyone, we're The Machine and we hope you enjoy the night."
A mediocre round of applause followed his words, but Cash assumed his spot at his piano--right in the front--and began playing instantly.
He was playing a song I recognized, something popular, up-beat, and definitely top forties. But when he started singing, oh my god.
"Holy crap," Chase was the first to acknowledge it.
Brendan was next. "Holy. Crap."
I watched in awe.
"Is anyone else attracted to him right now?" Brendan shook his head, looking at Chase.
"Dude," he responded. "I was about to say the same thing."
I added a "mm-hmmm" not trusting my actual words. If forced to speak, something like "I'm so fucking horny" would have come out, and we really can't have that.
Cash was just amazing. He took a pop song and turned it into a ballad with haunting, slow, deep vocals that had me--actually, the three of us--absolutely memorized. I was too focused on Cash and his moving lips and his fingers dancing across the keys that I barely even realized the song had ended and people had started clapping.
I looked around finally, visibly seeing the crowd deflate. Cash had a way of making every person in the audience so absolutely captivated with each note he sang. I had never seen anything like it.
He played about four more songs, each different and better than the next, before he exited the stage so the main act could come out. As he cascaded down the stairs to the main floor, I felt myself drifting away from the bar table, my body subconsciously pulling me towards him as he moved away from me through the crowd. Just as I was about to call out his name, a hand wrapped around my wrist. My body fell out of its trance. I turned around.
It was Taite, and she was not pleased. I felt my stomach drop.
Her face twisted as she saw my probably-horrified expression. She gripped my wrist tighter, consequently dragging me through the audience to the back of the venue and out of a heavy metal door that led us outside to the back of the building. I heard the door slam behind me. It was dark outside. Her face was covered in shadows, the only source of light coming from a flood light at least 15 feet away. She let go of my wrist, and crossed her arms over her chest.
"What the hell, Matt?"
I hadn't answered a single one of her texts, calls, or waves in the hallway since the night of homecoming.
"Taite--"
"No, Matt, shut up." She paused, taking a deep breath in. I figured that meant I wouldn't be getting back to the concert any time soon. "You can't even begin to understand how much you fucking embarrassed me this week. I tell you I love you and then you ignore me for a week?! What sane person makes a girl feel that horrible?"
She also professed her love for me after we won homecoming king and queen. On the field. In front of all our peers. Clearly, I didn't say it back.
"Taite--"
"No, Matt! There are no plausible explanations for this at all! I don't want to hear it! I told you I loved you on that football field and then you ran. You ran the fuck out of that stadium so fast I would have thought your life depended on it. And I haven't fucking heard from you since."
Yeah. I ran.
"Taite, I didn't do it on purpose, I swear I--"
"I get it," she cut me off again. "I know you were afraid to say it back Matt, but that doesn't constitute a week of ignoring me!"
I felt myself growing increasingly uncomfortable. I wasn't in love with Taite, I knew that. That's exactly why I didn't say it back, not because I was afraid to.
"Taite..." my voice had grown softer, more gentle. I was going to have to tell her.
"Matt, you don't have to say it right now," she mimicked my gentle tone, obviously misunderstanding where I was going with this. She grabbed my hands, giving me a soft smile. I felt my stomach churn with nerves. "Say it whenever. Say it tomorrow. Say it next week. I don't care, Matt. I was just upset with how you handled it."
"Taite I think you have the wrong idea--"
I watched Taite's eyes flicker off mine, landing on something behind me. I stopped speaking and turned around to a thudding sound.
There was Cash, his fingers wrapped around the metal door handle that led back to the concert. I watched him pull it again. And again. It was locked--he was stuck out here.
"Cash?" I ripped my hands from Taite's, stepping towards him.
He craned his neck to look at me accusingly. "What? The door is locked. And don't fucking look at me like that."
I didn't bother asking what 'like that' meant. "What're you even doing out here?"
He took his hands off the cold metal and stepped towards me, close enough that I saw the sweat beating down the side of his face, even in the darkness.
"I came for a smoke, then you two fucking maniacs come out here and start blubbering about your fucking relationship problems right in front of me."
"I-I didn't see you," I told him, my voice less aggressive this time.
"Yeah for fucks sake, look around before you start fucking crying about your love for each other. Not all of us want to hear that shit, Parker."
The way he spit out my name made me cringe. I ached with the desire to explain what the hell was going on.
"Cash, I wasn't," I turned quickly back towards Taite, "we weren't," I flashed back towards him. "I wasn't, I don't lo--"
"Matt just ignore him. Come here," she held out her hands towards me. I resisted the urge to make a face.
"Taite I was just about to tell you that I don't--"
"Why the fuck is this door even locked?!" Cash pulled at the handle over and over again. It wasn't going anywhere, obviously.
"WHY WON'T EITHER OF YOU LET ME FUCKING TALK?" They both fell silent, but the boiling inside my chest hadn't gone down. "Taite, you need to fucking listen to me. I'm trying to tell you that I know what love feels like and I know that I don't have that with you, that's why I didn't fucking say it back." I paused, an image of Cash's blue eyes swarming my vision.
I took a deep breath. "I know how it feels to have your stomach drop when you see someone. I know how it feels to want to spend every fucking second with that person. I know how it feels to want to know every single detail of someone's life just because you care about them. I know how it feels to care about them more than you care about yourself. I know that love is wanting someone so badly that you can't even find the fucking words to describe it. I know that I don't have that with you, and I'm sorry for that, I am Taite." I took another breath in, trying to decode the look on Taite's face. But before she could say anything, Cash pulled on the fucking door again.
I whipped around and took the two steps it took to face him. "What on God's green earth makes you think that the fucking door is going to mystically open the tenth time you pull the god damned handle!? YOU'VE BEEN TRYING FOR 10 MINUTES, DUMB ASS!"
Cash's eyes widened right before the door burst open, the heavy metal slamming me in the head, completely and absolutely knocking my dumb ass out.