Real Ugly (11 page)

I take a step backwards into the bathroom and slam the door in his face.

I kind of wish for a moment that I really had been hit by that semi last night. It would've saved me the trouble of getting completely and utterly fucking flattened by Naomi's words. If I said I felt like a bit of roadkill that'd just been scraped off the highway, I'd be telling it to you lightly. I mean, fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

What kind of tool has no idea what name it is he's got tatted on his friggin' back?

“Jesus Christ.” My hands are shaking, and my brain is scrambling to pick up the pieces of that night. I was so fucked up that I can't even remember what it was that I was fucked up
on.
As for the tattoo … I've got so freaking many – half of them when I was out of my friggin' mind. Shit. Shit. Shit. “Naomi!” I start to pound on the door, but she won't answer me. I don't even hear crying or anything, just dead fucking silence. “We've got a kid?” I keep pounding, hitting my fists against the flimsy wood, hoping it'll just shatter to pieces for me.
How could that have happened? I never forget condoms. Never.
“Fucking hell, Knox, open up!”

All the yelling drags that pretty boy drummer fuck back onto the bus and straight towards me. I back up before he can touch me and throw my arms into the air.

“I'm not looking to start shit,” I tell him, as he glares at me for a moment and then glances down and sees the knife. His eyes flicker up and the muscles in his face tighten. Shit. This is a far cry from the way he looked at me the other day, like I was untouchable. Maybe Naomi's lack of respect for me is wearing off. I ready myself for a fight and pause only when the bathroom door slides open and Knox steps out dressed in a wife beater with no bra, tiny ass shorts, and knee high boots. Her hair is loose and wet and between her lips is a lit cigarette. A pair of sunglasses covers her eyes and shields her expression from me.

“Naomi,” I say, and it kind of freaks me out the way my voice sounds. It's soft. Too soft. I steel my shoulders and try to get angry again. “You can't just tell me half a truth and leave it at that. I want to know everything.” I look at Dax, at his perfect emo bitch cut and the way he's looking at me like I'm the scum of the earth, and for a second there, I almost believe it. I figure she doesn't want her secret spilled, so I try to redeem myself a bit by holding back on the details.

“God, stop being such a whiny, little bitch, Turner, and get over yourself.” Naomi moves forward and Dax lets her pass. Me, not so much. When I move to circle around him, he puts out an arm and forces me back, leaning close enough that I can smell the mint gum on his breath. I meet his heated gaze with one of my own and try to keep my temper in check. If I start a fight right here, things could get bad for me real fast. I can't deal with the cops today.

“Leave her the fuck alone, Turner. I'm warning you.” And then he steps back and adjusts the skeleton gloves on his fists, watching me with narrowed eyes as I scoot past and chase after Naomi. That motherfucker doesn't scare me. Nobody does. Nobody can. I've been through enough in my life. I had a meth addict for a mom and several different step-daddies who graced the stained couch in our trailer. This is small potatoes compared to that crap.

“Naomi, wait up.” I follow after her, realizing only after I've left the bus that I'm still shirtless. The sun beats down on my skin and sears me with hot, white heat. Desert heat. It's a special flavor all its own, you know? I wrap one arm across my chest and squeeze my bicep with tight fingers.

She doesn't stop walking, but she doesn't try to outrun me either. She just keeps moving across the parking lot like she's got a purpose in mind and doesn't care if I come or not. Fine. I can deal with that. What I can't deal with is finding out I have a freaking kid.

Shivers travel up and down my spine, and it's got nothing to do with the damn weather.

“Boy or girl?” I ask quietly when I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with Naomi. Her face is still, and she seems okay, but the aura around that chick is toxic. If I had special powers or something, I bet I could see a black cloud billowing around her body. I stand close enough to burn.

“Trying to figure out what to have for dinner tonight?” she jokes, making a lewd gesture with her fingers and tongue. “I had no idea you swung both ways. Must be nice though, right? More bodies to choose from.” My lip curls, and I have to really resist the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. I don't know why I'm suddenly feeling like she's fragile all of a sudden. This is the same chick that slapped me in the face, but yet … she just can't be. She worshipped me? I can't imagine this girl worshipping anyone, but then again, she's got a big ass tat of my name on her ankle. I wipe a hand across my sweaty brow.

“Our kid,” I state, wondering where he or she is and how I'm gonna find them. Because I am. Hey, it might sound corny, but growing up without a father makes me determined as shit to be one. A good one. I take this crap seriously. “Girl or boy?” Naomi continues to smoke her cigarette and says nothing, heading in the direction opposite the gas station we visited last night.

“Does it matter?” she asks, and I can't help it. I step in front of her and stop her in her tracks, reaching out to grab the shades before she stops me with a hand to the wrist. Her silver fingernails wrap my skin and squeeze tight, sending a rush of hormones through me that I don't completely understand. This girl has strapped me onto a fucking roller coaster. I'm up; I'm down. It's giving me a fucking stomachache. “Those assault charges you threatened before go both ways, Turner, and I'm not trying to sound sexist, but it's a lot easier for a woman to level them against a man than vice versa, you catch my drift? It's just the way this horrible, ugly world works.” Naomi releases me and steps back, pulling the sunglasses off herself. Her eyes are like nothing I've ever seen, a color that there's no name for yet. They match the desert, red and orange and brown, dry, seemingly barren. Behind them though, behind them there's a whole world hidden beneath the dirt, one that can spring to life with just a drip of rain.

I wipe my hand across my face to help clear my mind. What am I now? A fucking poet? Naomi is just a girl I had drunk sex with a long, long time ago. She isn't an enigma or a mystery, just the one person I made such a stupid mistake with. That's all there is to it.

“Where's my kid, Naomi?” The edges of her lips droop for a moment before something clicks and she lifts her chin defiantly. The wind teases her hair and draws her nipples to hard points under the thin fabric of her shirt. If I were to reach out a hand and touch them … I bite my lip so hard it bleeds and keep my eyes focused on her face.

Behind us, the camp is starting to come alive in anticipation of the show tonight. I have a hard time even imagining getting through it. I don't handle life altering revelations very well. They've never been very good to me in the past.
Fuck, this is exactly why I hate secrets. Just when you think everything is peachy fucking keen, some shit has to get stirred up to ruin the day.

I run my tongue across my lips to wet them; this damn desert air is drying me out.

“Please,” I say. It takes a lot of effort to get that word to pass between my lips.
Please
sounds like begging and Turner Campbell does not beg. Naomi's eyes flicker away and focus on some shrubs at the edge of the parking lot. There's a lot more to this story than first meets the eye, that is for fucking sure. There are secrets wrapped in secrets buried under secrets; I can smell 'em from here. “Come on, Knox, you owe me an explanation.”

Her eyes snap back to mine and her full mouth tightens into a thin line.

“Turner,” she says, stepping forward and poking me in the chest with the corner of her sunglasses. “I don't owe you shit. Fuck off and leave me alone. Stop calling me, stop following me, and you better keep your ass off the stage when I'm on it. Me and you, we have nothing to say to each other.”

And then she steps around me and leaves me in the dust.

I survive the show that night – barely. I play, but I don't play with any heat or substance, and I can tell the crowd knows it. I mean, they still cheer and scream and flail, but they don't drop their inhibitions; they don't evolve backwards and fall to the floor in howling fits of animalistic rage. When they do that, you know you've nailed it. That night, I do good, but I don't blow anybody's mind.

Can't say the same for Turner.

From what Hayden says, he destroyed the stage and caught that whole damn building on fire with his words. She says they were so laced with rage that he was spitting acid and burning holes in the fucking stratosphere.

Good for him.

After our set, I retreat back to the bus and fall asleep.

When I wake the next morning, I can't hold it back. I end up at the table in the front with my notebook open flat and my pen pressed so hard against the pages that the paper tears with every other word.

Blair and Dax watch me silently from across the table while the rest of the band put-puts around the bus like they've got nothing better to do. And I mean, hell, fuck 'em, I guess they don't. They know when I'm like this that something good's coming. Our last album? Yep. Happened just like this.

“You want to take a break?” Blair asks after a little while, scooping some of her bi-colored hair over her shoulder and adjusting the little black and white polka dot bow she's stuck in the front of it. She looks cute, very vintage. Me, on the other hand, I look like shit. I haven't showered or changed my clothes, and I know I probably smell like sweat and beer, but when I'm writing, nothing else matters.

I shake my head and wish I could confide in her. It might make me feel better if I shared my secrets with somebody I actually like. In fact, I think given the opportunity that Blair and I could be best friends. And I don't mean that in the whole shallow sort of,
We like go every Friday and get our nails done together
bullshit. I think Blair and I could be bury-the-body best friends. Too bad the walls I've put up are taller and longer than the Great Wall of China.

“Can I make you some coffee or something?” Dax asks next, uncrossing his long legs and standing up to stretch. “Something black, bitter, and cheap?”

I groan low in my throat and lean back, letting my head fall to the cushion behind me.

“Sounds amazing. Make a big pot and don't expect to share.” I hear him laugh, but don't look up. Instead, I close my eyes and start to hum, putting my words to music. In a minute here, I'm gonna get up, grab my guitar and some headphones and fumble my way through to something epic. Works every time. It's just the way I roll.

“You gonna let us read any of that?” Blair asks as I sit up and open my eyes, glancing down at the mess of words that'll eventually turn into a song of some sort. Hopefully a good one. I shrug and spin the notebook around. All of my secrets are sitting there in code, hidden between the blue lines with cryptic phrasing and a horrible abuse of the English language that makes it nearly impossible to guess what I'm hinting at. There's enough to give people pause, to open up the idea of discussion, but nothing too personal, nothing too incriminating. And that's just the way I like it.

Blair reads the words carefully and taps her fingers on the table to get some kind of a rhythm going, and Dax steps up behind her, smelling like canned coffee and weed. The smell is oddly comforting, enough so that I shake out my hands and take my first breath in almost twenty-four hours. It hurts so much that it feels good, you know what I mean? It breaks up the tension in my chest and puts the briefest of pauses on my anxiety about tomorrow. March 15
^th
. The six year anniversary of …
that.

I made the right decision then, and I still stand by it now, but that doesn't mean I can't feel hurt about it, betrayed even. I trusted Turner, looked up to him then, and he took advantage of me and left me with a problem I wasn't ready to deal with yet. Fucking asshole. I pull out a cigarette and light up, taking small, useless puffs and blowing the smoke out in rings. Yeah, I can really do that.