Defining Us: The Calvin & Eric Story (69 Bottles) (47 page)

I vaguely remember waking up at one point during the night to throw the covers off of me because I was hot, but then I started shaking with a cold sweat. All I really remember thinking was, fuck, I hope I’m not getting sick, before rolling back over and falling back to sleep.
 

When I come to, I look at the clock, it’s eleven-thirty. It has to be nighttime because my room is pitch black. I feel like I’ve slept for days and…I shake my head, dismissing a memory before I capture what it was. I get out of bed and notice that something is off. “Why I am I upside down?” I ask myself and I shrug it off, unable to fully understand how I ended up upside down on the bed. I walk around the bed, catching myself on something on the floor. I reach down and find…jeans? Why would these be on the floor? I shake that off too before I step into the bathroom, flipping on the light and I’m blinded by it. I rub my eyes to adjust to the brightness before heading toward the toilet, reaching for my boxers only to realize that I’m not wearing any. “Fuck, how drunk did I get last night?” I grumble to myself, then a massive wave of nausea overcomes me so fast I don’t have time to think about it before I’m hurling into the toilet. Cold sweat breaks out over my entire body as I keep heaving into the toilet.
 

But I feel fine. In fact, I feel like I do when I hurl from…

It’s like a sledgehammer hitting me, sending me hurling into the toilet again. The memory slides inside, flashing before me. Eric, here, kissing, fighting, arguing, talking, kissing, making up, walking into the bedroom, kissing, sucking, licking, sixty-nine, leaving, lube, condoms. I want to try something…what is it…I’d like to take you from behind.
 

I hurl into the toilet again as the nightmare consumes me. Sliding back into the institution and being raped, being forced to come, being…. “Oh! My! God!” I scream as I hurl into the toilet once more.
 

Eric…where…

Oh god…Fuck!

I manage to swallow back the nausea a little bit. My stomach is empty as hell, nothing is left to come back up anymore anyway, and I stumble into the shower. Unsure of what to do, I clean myself off, brush my teeth and get dressed as fast as I possibly can. I have to go find him, I have to… fuck, he is never going to forgive me for this. If he tucked me into bed and left me alone in the dark, then he’s not here, he obviously doesn’t…I hang my head, shame wracking my body to the point of throwing up again. He will never forgive me for this.

I race out of my room, down the hall toward the living room. “Shit.” Where are my keys? The couch. I hit the light switch near the front door and turn around and scream, falling back against the door as Eric sits up stick straight on the couch.
 

“What the…oh shit. Cal, you all right?”
 

My breathing slowly settles, returning to normal. “You didn’t leave,” I breathe as I fall to pieces on the floor in front of my door. I slide down, putting my head in my hands as I fight to find what I need to say to him, to apologize to him, but there’s nothing. He’s here, he didn’t leave, he didn’t…sobs rack through me and the next thing I know, Eric is lifting me up off of the floor.
 

He carries me somewhere, the couch, and sets me back down before moving away from me. I don’t blame him, I’d move away from me too. “I’d never leave you like that. I,” he hesitates, “I didn’t know what you were going to be like when you woke up. I figured the last place I should be was in your bed, with you.”
 

I shake my head. “Eric, I am so fucking sorry.”
 

He doesn’t say anything.

I wipe at my eyes, trying to clear them up so that I can see and I look up, look to him, sitting on the opposite side of the couch, his hand on his forehead looking like he’s been bulldozed. His expression is stoic and unreadable and I don’t like that, not one single bit.
 

“Eric, please? I’m sorry.”
 

“Stop, alright, just,” he puts his arm down along the back of the couch, “Stop apologizing, Calvin. I don’t want your apology. You’re not the one who needs to apologize for any of this. I should have never even considered trying to do what I did. I knew you were already high strung because of what happened earlier, and I still pushed it. You don’t need someone pushing you into something like that.” He pushes himself up off of the couch and goes to stand near his stuff, which has been moved into a pile, organized and ready to go. I cock my head at him. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says as he picks up his bass and throws it over his head.
 

I’m stunned into inaction, unsure of what I should be doing in this moment, but it is clear to me that his guilt is getting the better of him right now and I don’t know what else to do besides let him walk out the door. “I don’t want you to go,” I breathe.
 

“I don’t want to go either, but I, I can’t look at you right now without feeling guilty.”
 

“Feeling guilty is pointless, Eric, and you fucking know it.” My voice is laced with anger and frustration. “You didn’t do that to me, you didn’t…it had nothing to do with you,” I tell him.
 

“Yeah, this time it did, Cal, this time it was me. I should have known you weren’t ready for that, I should have stopped or tried something else that worked better, but I didn’t. I let my dick do the thinking and look where it put you. I’m surprised that you even remember any of it.” His back is still turned to me, but by the time his speech is over, his voice is soft, thoughtful and laced with the pain I know he’s feeling over what happened.
 

“I remember, though it took me more than a few minutes after waking up. But once I realized what happened, I…I was headed to your house. I only turned the light on so that I could find my keys on the couch.”
 

He turns around to face me, pain marring his beautiful features. “I could never leave without first making sure you’re okay. You are, so I’m going to go.”
 

“But I’m not okay, Eric. I am anything but okay. I am a fucking mess. I…I’m not okay,” I admit. The anger and frustration that fueled me before is subsiding. “I need you to stay.”
 

He hangs his head before muttering, “I can’t.”
 

“Why?”
 

“Because every time I fucking look at you I want to cry. I want to fucking punch something or I want to get on a plane to fucking Iowa and start picking them off one by fucking one, starting with your father. You are too fucking important to me, Calvin Caldwell. Every time I watch you fall apart, every time your past takes over you, I want to kill something or someone. I want to destroy them for destroying you. It fucking kills me to watch it all come apart. To watch everything we’d built up on the road just completely unravel into a pile of garbage on the floor.”
 

“You knew this was going to be three steps forward and ten steps back, Eric. You fucking knew that I wasn’t going to be magically cured of everything and you’re letting your guilt about it consume you, and drive you into doing the most ridiculous of bullshit actions. The most selfish thing you can do is walk out that door right now. Walking out that door means that you can’t accept that this is a part of who I am, that this is a part of me that will likely never go away, that something some time is going to trigger me in ways even I don’t know or understand. If you think what happened tonight doesn’t scare the hell out of me, you’re sadly mistaken.” I stand up from the couch and hold my ground. “You stood here, in this very fucking room, and told me that it didn’t matter, that no matter what you would be by my side, that you would help me through this, that you would be here to pick up the goddamn pieces when I fell apart and what? You want out?”
 

He doesn’t say anything to me. He just looks away from me, his manhood and dignity fly right out the window. I stomp my way over to the front door.
 

“Of all the things I’ve known you to be, Eric Richardson, a coward was never one of them.” I open the door for him. “Get out,” I tell him, my voice is far stronger than I feel but it’s enough to get my point across. He grabs his other bass, throws it over his back then he picks up his bags, balancing the smaller on his roller and he looks up, his eyes meeting mine. Despite the anger, the frustration, the pure hatred I have for him right now, that overwhelming connection is there between us. I know he feels it when his mouth falls slack. “Get out,” I demand, unable to look at him any longer.
 

My fucked up night has just turned to pure utter bullshit and I want to break something.
 

He readjusts his bags, looking at me as he comes to stand in front of me. “I just need some time,” he breathes.
 

“You’re the one walking out the door, Eric, not me,” I tell him and he nods, pulling him and his stuff past me and out the door. He turns to look back at me like he wants to say something. “Goodbye, Eric,” I say and shut the door in his face.
 

The minute he’s out of sight, I fall to pieces all over again. This time it’s because I just saw my life, my future, walk right out the door.

STANDING in front of my mirror as I finish messing with my hair for the last time, I want to break down again. I want to fall to pieces, but I can’t. I have a show to do, Calvin has a show to do, we all do. Two more times, then we’re free. Two more times and then life can go back to normal, at least until we get into the studio again. Fortunately for me, I rarely need to be there with him. Dex and I often record together, laying the bass and drums before guitars and vocals.
 

I shake my head, dispelling the idea that this is going to be easy. I know it’s not, but maybe it is for the best, maybe I’m not cut out to be the rock that he needs me to be for him. Maybe I’m not the right person for him in general.
 

“Keep telling yourself that, you idiot.”
 

Everything on the outside screams that I’m okay, but everything on the inside is liquid disaster on so many levels.