Текст книги "The Song Remains the Same"

Автор книги: Kelli Jean

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

NOLA’s Junk was still drunk with the exception of Connor, who—along with our Da—stood proudly in his kilt and tartan.

Hundreds of white lawn chairs faced the river, and an old gazebo served as a speaking platform. A podium had been set up along with enormous pictures of X’s smiling face on easels. X’s family’s religious roots were Christian, so the pastor from the church they attended led the funeral.

Phil was forced to use his wheelchair. His father had had to help me lay down the law, and since Phil was drunk, it made the most sense. Jason was slipping him hits from a hip flask, and I was pretty sure he had more than one on him.

All the roadies were here. After the accident, they had taken a few days in Saskatoon to recuperate and get their bus in shape before making the long drive back to Louisiana with all the equipment. As the extended family of NOLA’s Junk, they mourned as the cousins of a fallen brother.

Friends, family, and fans came to pay tribute to a lost hero. There were plenty of photographers, journalists, and reporters, too. Security was on high alert.

“Fuckin’ vultures!” snarled Phil. “We’re mournin’. Can’t they show some respect?”

What? Like getting hammered and surly is showing X the respect he deserves?

It was hard for me to summon any sympathy for Phil when he was pissing me right the fuck off. Each time he took a swig off the flask, I’d want to slap the shit out of him. The same went for Jason and Flipper, too. Vivian looked worried that Flipper was going to start tearing his clothes off and streak.

Sheri, looking stunning in her black dress with short sleeves and empire waist, braved the multitudes to read the eulogy. Graceful, sleek, and classy, she made her way up the gazebo steps.

Placing her prepared papers before her on the podium, she cleared her throat and spoke clearly into the microphone, “Nearly seven years ago, I met a group of guys who were more like brothers than friends. Philip, Jason, Felix, and Xavier were the most wonderfully talented and amazing people I’d ever had the fortune to meet. How I got to be so lucky as to be brought into their family of misfits, I’m not even sure. But not a day goes by that I don’t thank whatever forces are out there for bringing us all together.

“Xavier—we all just called him X—was the strongest ingredient in the glue that held us all together, through thick and thin.

“Without X, none of us would be where we are today. It’s because of him that Phil shines as front man, and Flipper was stolen away from a band that fizzled out years ago. Without X, Jason wouldn’t have tried so hard to make it as a guitarist and would probably be mowing lawns still.”

“Thanks, babe!” Jason called out, raising the flask in the air.

This made just about everyone laugh, except for Phil. He had his face buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking with sobs. My heart breaking for him once more, I wrapped my arms around him, and in turn, he pulled me into his chest and sobbed wetly into my hair.

“After years of touring the world, it was X who held us solid. His humor, his love for the music he and his brothers made, and his love for us created what had once seemed endless into something timeless.

“Coming home meant so much to all of us even if it was for different reasons. For X, it meant beginning a new chapter for NOLA’s Junk. He was excited and ready for change. He pushed himself and the rest of the guys to make a sound that could only be considered magic.

“Along the way, X found his own bit of magic, too. He fell in love with a woman who lifted him up and brought him to his knees at the same time. Alys made him see life outside of the band. She made him put his life into perspective, made him want more. And he went after it. He made her his wife.

“And that’s why it’s such a shock to all of us that we have to say good-bye to the one person who was so full of life, who filled our lives with laughter and love and joy. Xavier was one in a million—a son who never failed to call his parents to tell them he loved them and that he was okay, an older brother who adored his baby sister and would send her a souvenir from every city he played in, a man who lived for his brothers and the music they made, and a husband who loved his wife more than anything else.

“X died in Saskatoon as he lived—with no regrets.”

My entire body erupted into goose bumps, and Phil went so still that I was afraid he might have stopped breathing.

Sheri heard X, too!

By the way Phil had reacted, he must’ve heard X say those words.

Glancing at Jason, Flipper, and Alys, I knew that, at some point, they had all heard him, and it was after he had died.

Connor took up a beat-up old acoustic guitar and started strumming “Over the Hills and Far Away.” He didn’t just play it. He sang it, and he nailed it. He and Alys started walking toward the river as she tightly held X to her chest with X’s family following.

I prodded Phil. “Come on,” I told him.

Before Tiny could push Phil, I slipped behind the chair and wheeled him out myself with Jason and Sheri, Flipper and Viv, and the roadies all tagging along.

Raising my voice, joining it with Connor’s, I sang. Smiling, my brother looked back at me over his shoulder and winked. Phil joined in, his voice still a piece of auditory heaven, even though he was piss drunk.

By the end, the entire mass was singing along. It was a beautiful way to send off our man and one he would have loved. Phil clutched tightly at my hand, and I had to squeeze back to keep him from breaking my bones.

Holding X’s urn with one hand, Alys grabbed Connor’s arm with the other to steady herself as she slipped her feet from her shoes and stood on the shore. Barefoot with her shoulders straight and head held high, X’s queen walked out into the muddy waters until it reached her thighs.

Turning to face downstream, Alys removed the top of the urn, looked into it, and whispered something none of us could hear. Tilting it, she started to pour the ashes into the water.

A heavy breeze swept up and dumped about half of the ashes all over her black dress along with coating her chest, neck, and face with a grimy layer of dead husband.

Stunned, she stared down at herself for a split second. “Damn it, X!” she screeched.

Jason roared with laughter. “He ain’t ever gonna leave you, Muffin!”

Flipper fell to the ground in hysterics, and Connor had his hand covering his mouth to stifle his own laughter. Lili’s face was horrified, and Phil…a glimmer sparkled in his bloodshot eyes, and his lips twitched.

“Aye, tha’s a soulless ginger fer ye!” Da’s voice rumbled out.

Bless it, Phil finally laughed.

For every drop of hope, there was a deluge of disappointment.

My days were spent providing rehabilitating therapy for Flipper and Phil, the latter becoming increasingly belligerent, cantankerous, and downright mean. During Phil’s sessions, which I made sure he had in the mornings just to get them over with, he would do what I asked and leave it at that. Usually, he was also hungover.

At least he had run out of Vicodin two days after the memorial service.

However, I soon realized that someone had been bringing Phil a bottle of booze every day.

Once we were finished with his therapy, I would make him food and then go give Flipper his therapy. By the time I came back, Phil would be three sheets to the wind.

After the first week of this, I was irate.

“You need to get a grip, Phil!” I snapped, finding him in bed in the living room, a bottle of Jack cradled in his crotch.

He lifted the bottle. “My grip is fine. See?”

Marching up to him, I snatched the bottle from his hand and stomped to the kitchen sink.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare, woman!” he roared, struggling to get to his feet and hobbling over with his walker.

I’d gotten a good two-thirds of it down the drain by the time he made it to me and snatched it back.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“The person who loves you more than anything and anyone in my life!” I shouted back. “The one who’s dedicated to healing you, who has been doing everything I can to get you and myself through this!”

“Well, stop bothering! I don’t give a shit about anythin’ anymore! I’m sick of you fuckin’ naggin’ my ass, tellin’ me what to do, what to fuckin’ eat, and bein’ an overall pain!”

Slapping me would have been less painful. “Fine,” I said, recoiling both physically and mentally.

“Don’t fuckin’ look at me like that,” he sneered. “It’s bad enough I have a gapin’ hole in my fuckin’ chest over losin’ my best friend. I don’t need you tryin’ to heap a shit pile of guilt on me, too.”

Shaking my head, I grabbed my bag and got the hell out of there.

While hanging out with Gavin, eventually, my conscience convinced me that Phil still needed me. Hours later, I returned to find him weeping and contrite.

“Baby Girrrl,” he slurred, opening his arms. “I’m sooo ssorrry! Please don’ hate me!”

Starved for the love that had once been stronger than anything, I went into his arms and cried with him. I was mourning so many things. It was a wonder to me that I could get myself up and out of bed each day.

Daily, I made the time to meditate and communicate with my Little Zephyr. Another week went by, and during a session, I noticed the abnormal flicker had dimmed. The stress I was dealing with was taking its toll on both of us. I was no longer strong enough to keep us going.

“Don’t give up!” I told Little Zephyr. “Please, there has to be a way to save you! I love you. I love you!”

Phil was much more willing to do his therapy when he was scared that I’d up and leave his ass again. Although I wished his love for me and not his guilt had brought the change, I took it for all it was worth.

A few days of promise.

While watching Metal Madness Hour on Thursday evening, the show had a tribute to X, showing clips from concerts and dedicating a whole hour to nothing but NOLA’s Junk. A year and a half ago, I would have been thrilled to have so much airplay of my favorite band.

Phil grew quiet, his hooded eyes filling with tears, and in that instant, his newfound desire to get strong, heal, and move forward had banked, cooling to ashes.

“Do you want to watch something else?” I asked quietly, hoping that he’d bounce back if the channel changed.

“No,” he replied.

Alys, Jason, and Sheri watched with us. When Alys burst into tears, Phil pulled her into his arms and rocked her. In a strange sense of horror, I watched my man and best friend find comfort in each other’s arms. The rational part of me knew that there was nothing more than the deep mourning they shared, but the love-starved, sickened, jealous part of me was what I felt the most. It burned like acid through me, sowing a seed of hate for the both of them.

Phil didn’t hold me like that anymore. He hardly touched me. Not once since the night we’d gotten back had he made any attempt for something physical between us. While witnessing his ability to comfort someone, anyone, else…a part of me shriveled up and died right there on the couch next to him.

Jason busted out a large bottle of Jack, and the three of them got fucking wasted.

Sheri looked at me in stunned disbelief, stoically refusing the alcohol, showing them her loyalty was to me—not that any of them even noticed. Phil kept his arm around Alys’s shoulders. Sheri’s disbelief turned to quiet outrage and then mellowed into pity, and that was when I got up and made my way to our side—Phil’s side—and crawled into the bed in the living room.

Alone.

Walls, ceiling, floor—they are all bright white, blindingly white, soft and squishy…padded.

My eyes adjust to the painful crisp brilliance of it all before it slowly dims, revealing shadows where the fabric and cushion dips, fixing to the surfaces beneath.

“It’s all a lie, a dream, a fantasy I made up in my head to deal with the pain.”

I keep telling myself this, a mantra that repeats in my mind.

It’s not his voice. It’s my own, and I know I should take comfort in that somehow. But I can’t because a part of me simply can’t believe that it’s all a lie, a dream, a fantasy I made up in my head to deal with the pain.

The pain from what?

“Losing Mom.”

Glancing down, I see they’ve made me secure once more, strapped into my straitjacket like a good little head case who insists she’s the lover of a rock god.

“We have a whole life together!” I say.

“No, you don’t. It’s all in your head.”

That’s impossible. Am I really here?

“The crazies don’t know they’re crazy.”

They say I’m making progress, that I have more moments of lucidity. If I continue to get better, then I can go home and live with Grandma again. If I just give up this world in my head, I can get away from all this white.

But a world without Phi—

“No! Don’t say his name! They’ll know. They’ll keep me in here longer!”

“He exists, yes, but not in the world of your own creation, Zephyr.”

“Only my mother called me Zephyr!” I snap.

Who’s talking to me? I don’t see anyone!

My darting frantic eyeballs sift through the white and shadow, searching for the source. Nothing reveals itself. I don’t even detect a door.

“So consumed with grief and rage, it turned her head, turned her head, turned her head. She had so much promise. She was going to heal the world! And in an instant, she snapped, letting her obsession take over so that she wouldn’t have to face real life.”

Is this my real life?

“What? You can’t tell? Are you regressing, Miss MacGregor?”

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

“Where is Little Zephyr? Did it not exist?”

I felt it, heard it. It was within me.

But as I search for it now, I’m empty of the swish, swish-swish, swish.

“We had to take it from you. You weren’t taking care of it like you should have been.”

Ah-ha!

Little Zephyr is half Phil! If Little Zephyr had to be taken away, then that meant that my life with him was real, too!

“Same argument as before. She’s regressing. She needs a dose of shock therapy.”

Something creaks, slowly yawning into a full-blown screech of hinges and rust.

Screeeeeeeee!

Before my eyes, a white padded door opens, and from the depths of darkness, dressed head to toe in flowing black, emerges the Dark God of the Universe.

“Phil!” I gasp, trying to reach out for him to have him take me in his arms but the straitjacket…

Filling my vision, I happily devour the sight of him. It’s my Phil, the Phil before the accident. He’s whole, healthy, larger than life, full of power and raw energy, so beautiful and strong.

“You have to stop this, Miss MacGregor,” he says sharply. His voice is rich, smooth, and wonderful, but his words slice at me like knives.

Miss MacGregor?

“You’ve been livin’ in a world where you and I have some sort of connection.” He bends down, shoving his face in mine. “You have spent years stalkin’ me, showin’ up at our shows and tellin’ everyone you’re my fiancée. You are insane, Miss MacGregor, to ever think a god like myself would ever look twice at a piece of bayou-backwater trash such as yourself. You are not the love of my life. You are not my other half. I married my other half years ago in Switzerland. When you attacked Brigid in Miami, that was the last straw for all of us. I had you arrested, and you were admitted to this fuckin’ loony bin.”

I’m dying.

This is the most hellish, brutal, horrific pain I have ever felt. The deaths of my mother, my grandmother, Rita, Lucy, and Charlotte along with the agony of being blown up, of losing my hearing…all the pain I’ve ever experienced rolled up into a neat package can’t compare to this.

“What gave you the idea that you meant anythin’ to me?”

“Th-that ni-night,” I stammer, terrified and breathless. “At Bo-Bo-Bougainvillea. When we kissed.”

“The night I gang-banged a bunch of groupies in the back of the van? That night? When I saw you, I had never seen a weirder, more gawky-lookin’ teenage hippie. I wasn’t even sure you were a girl the first time I saw you! I thought you were a dude with long-ass hair. You headbanged like a dude, that’s for sure.”

In shame, I lower my eyes to his feet. Burning tears pour silently down my face.

“You have been a pain in my ass,” he spit at me. “You’re a danger to everyone around you, and I won’t have you out in society where you could harm my wife and child.”

Wife and child…

“You are a stain upon my life. If you don’t stop this madness, you will never get out of this white chamber—and personally, I hope you never do. I hope you sit in here and rot for all eternity for the crap you’ve put me through, put my wife through.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“I don’t ever want to have to come back here and set you straight again, Miss MacGregor. I have a wonderful life, far, far away from you.”

He straightens, looking down at me with disgust and loathing, with the wrath of a Dark God of the Universe. Even now, he’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen, and another part of my soul blackens with self-hatred. I want to hate him, too. Maybe one day, I will.

With a sneer, he turns and exits the white padded room, and the door swiftly flies shut. I hear a dead bolt slide, and six clicks of extra locks follows.

One for each year I’ve waited for him.

Walls, ceiling, floor—they are all bright white, blindingly white…

My eyes opened, finding myself in bed in the living room on our side of the Plantation House, my face soaked with tears, the rest of my body slicked with an oily sweat.

Phil wasn’t in bed.

A sick quivering stole its way through me, and I stood up, only to have the world tilt and sway beneath my feet. My belly ached, and my throat was sandpaper rough. My bearings came upon me, and I walked to the kitchen and got a cold glass of water.

Opaque dawn light filtered through the blinds and the kitchen window.

Slowly, I made my way through the sliding panel door to the living room on the other side. For a few minutes, I stared at the sight of Alys wrapped in Phil’s arms, splayed across his chest like a gaping wound. At the other end of the couch sat Jason, snoring lightly.

Well, at least they have their clothes on.

The sight of my best friend snuggled into Phil’s chest was enough to make my belly cramp with fury and loathing. Jealousy over the fact that another woman was sleeping in Phil’s arms, innocent or otherwise, burned its way through every vein and capillary, poisoning me, turning me rotten from within. I could taste the hatred like a slime slick on my tongue.

Spinning on my heel, I went back to Phil’s half, found my phone, and called Gavin.

“Kenna?” he answered after the fifth or sixth ring.

“Hey, Gavin. Sorry to wake you.”

“No, no. It’s cool. Are you okay?”

“No, I think I’m getting sick. Do you think you could take over the therapy for Phil and Flipper for a few days? I, uh…I’m really feeling ill.”

“Of course. No problem. What time should I be there?”

“I usually start with Phil around nine or ten.”

“Okay. Do you need me to bring you anything? Soup?”

Gavin’s loving concern over my welfare chipped at my frigid loathing for the universe.

“No…I’m making myself scarce for a while. Don’t need to spread this shit, you know?”

“Well, it’s probably already too late,” he joked.

“Yeah, probably,” I agreed, trying to sound humorous.

After we hung up, I went upstairs, grabbed my duffel bag, and started shoving everything I could find that I might need over the next few days into it. Then, I made my way back downstairs, into the other half, and rudely shook Alys awake.

“Sweet Pea?” she asked, groggily pushing herself up and rubbing her face.

“Really?” I scoffed.

Looking at where she was, her face registered her shock. I got a swift stab of satisfaction, knowing she was horrified with herself.

“Oh God, Kenna!” she whispered. “You know—you know!—that this isn’t what it looks like!”

“What I know, Alys, is that you slept all over my fiancé last night. I just wanted you to know that I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“Kenna, wait—”

“I’m done waiting. I did years of it, all for it to be rubbed in my face as a waste of fucking time.”

“You don’t mean that!” she whispered loudly, jumping to her feet. “Phil loves you! Only you! And me crashing here was a complete accident. You know I would never—and neither would he!”

“I don’t care, Alys. Last night, he showed you more compassion than he’s shown me in months. It made me realize that maybe I need to walk away from this. Now. Before I drown in both our misery. If he wants to make himself feel better by consoling his best friend’s widow, who am I to say no?”

“You are his Baby Girl!” she hissed, hysterical.

“I don’t feel like much more than bayou-backwater trash,” I told her. “Gavin’s coming over to do their therapy today. Let them know, would you?”

With that, I walked out the front door, and I didn’t look back.

I totally puked in the bushes though.