Some Kind of Hell (13 page)

I turn and expect to see Logan.

I have no idea how far in the future I am, but it doesn’t seem so bad. I mean, if Logan’s here, then he came back from LA. And if I’m in a hew house, DownCrash must have made money.

Oh, it’s almost... exciting...

“There you are.”

I stare him, wanting to cry.

It’s not Logan.

It’s Jared.

Standing there. Looking at me. His hands and jeans are filthy from working. He has black marks on his face and I’m not even sure if the black marks make sense for what he does for a living... but, hey, it’s a dream. A nightmare.

Jared steps at me and I step back. My knees suddenly hurt, throb, and I reach down to touch them only to be reminded of the large stomach I have right then.

My large, pregnant stomach.

My eyes look down then back up. Now Jared is an inch from me.

“Oh, Chloe, we’re so happy...”

Chloe?

What...?

I woke up right after that. And I’m glad I did. It was close to nine in the morning, far too early to be awake after the night of work I had, but I seriously feared going back to sleep and dreaming about
that
again. What the hell was that dream all about? Someone once told me that dreams were all the hidden thoughts and wishes we had. That our brains store everything, no matter how hard we try to forget.

So what did that mean?

I secretly wanted to be Chloe?

Right then was the perfect moment to pull the covers over my head and chase the thoughts away. Instead, I grabbed my phone and saw a message from Logan waiting.

I hadn’t heard it go off.

It was from a few hours ago, the middle of the night.

A picture.

I opened it and it was a picture of LA from a window high in the air. The city skyline lit up like a billion Christmas lights thrown on top of a city. A simple picture, but definitely cool.

I wrote to Logan as fast as I could.

You’re probably sleeping but I miss you. That picture was awesome. I hope you guys are having fun. Come home soon, Maggie’s going to go crazy. lol (me too...)

Send.

I climbed out of bed and wandered out of my room feeling like a zombie. My brain was scrambled, stuck in that stupid dream. My body was sore from work and it wanted more sleep.

I found Maggie on the couch, still sleeping. She faced the back of the couch and looked cuddled and comfortable. I quietly checked her phone and saw a message from Tatum waited. I would never read her texts but I smiled, knowing she’d at least be happy for a minute or two when she woke up.

I set everything up for coffee and then stumbled back to my room. I looked at the bed once then went to my desk. I sat and touched a pen and a notebook. An idea came to me. I opened the notebook and sighed.

How long had it been?

A long time.

Long before Jared and I moved in together, right?

I used to write in a notebook everyday. Not really a diary but more my thoughts. Just to do for fun. After my father left us and my mother teetered on some kind of personal insanity, I needed an outlet. There were drugs and drinking, but I liked writing better.

Go figure.

I clicked my pen a few times and wondered what to write about. There were two things burning in my mind... the dream (me, pregnant as Chloe) and the picture Logan sent me.

I smiled and wrote.

They stand against the backdrop of lights. They’re not the flashbulbs of the media or fans buzzing for the next glimpse at the hope and power of music, but what they are is for the city to take. The lights are endless when you think of it this way... one city to another... chasing the horizon for a few more hours to play, to write, to exist.

He touches the glass and it leaves a handprint. The handprint won’t be there forever but in that moment, it’s the tattoo of the night. The outline, the making of life. Those who get it, well, they get it.

I stopped writing and laughed a little.

Probably stupid and riddled with poetic clichés, but whatever, I wasn’t being paid for it.

I got my phone and debated on my next move. I took a picture of the writing and sent it to Logan. I wanted to show him what I wrote and maybe give him a little more motivation to keep playing and to hurry home.

Thinking of Logan coming home made my body tingle.

I wanted him so bad.

For the next few days I continued to send Logan some of the things that came to my mind. For some reason writing felt good and I couldn’t wait for it. He would always text me something poetic back, like we were talking on a different level and in a different language. And finally, after more than a week in LA, he sent me a simple text and my world felt complete.

Coming home.

~14~

I wanted to go to the airport and jump Logan the second he came back. Maggie had the same idea too. But after talking to Logan and Tatum, we were told to hang tight at the apartment and wait. DownCrash wasn’t just landing to be home, they were landing, going to the studio to look around, meeting the guy who would be recording their demo, and then if that wasn’t cool enough, they were going to be ushered to a local radio station for a live interview.

I was in complete shock as Logan described his day to me. It was like they left as some popular college band and were now coming back as real rockstars. Not that I doubted them as rockstars ever, but it was getting more and more intense by the second.

“I miss you so much,” Logan said against the backdrop of noise at the airport.

The scuffling of feet, a million voices together at once, the booming voice over the intercom at the airport.

“I miss you too,” I said. “I want to touch you.”

“Where?” he asked with that flirty tone that warmed me over.

“When you’re done with the radio thing, can we meet at the garage? Or at my place?”

“Well... no,” Logan said.

“No?”

“Listen, I have to kind of whisper this,” Logan said. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, not even you. But I’m sure Tatum opened his big, lip piercing mouth. And I know Tripp can’t keep his mouth shut unless it’s attached to Scarlett’s mouth.”

“What is it? Did you guys get signed or something?”

“No, not quite that,” Logan said. “I did get to meet Rockett Royce. Fucking amazing. I touched his hand... the hand that touched Chasing Cross’s hands, along with a lot of other famous musicians.”

“Oh, well you’ll get signed soon enough,” I said.

My heart was in a battle with itself. I wanted Logan there with me. I wanted to be greedy and not share him with anyone else in the world. Maybe not forever, but would a night or two... or a month... be so bad?

“On the radio today,” Logan said, “we’re going to announce a last minute show.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Jason booked us at Rogee’s,” Logan said.

“Roggee’s... like the big dance club?”

“Yeah. But we’re going to do a show.”

I pictured Rogee’s. It would be an insane show to have there. The main floor had a stage, but it was usually for DJ’s. I don’t think I could ever remember a band playing there. If what Logan said was true then...

“It’ll be our biggest show to date,” Logan said. “I mean, crowd wise, if the people show up.”

“I don’t get it...”

Logan laughed. “Jason wants to see how loyal the DownCrash fans really are. And he wants to see if people will react to a band they don’t know. So on the radio we’re going to talk about what we’re doing, recording, signing with management, that kind of thing. Then they’re going to play the two songs we recorded with Jason out in LA. When that’s done, we’re going to announce the free show. Whoever shows up first, gets in. That’s it.”

“Oh, fuck,” I whispered and then covered my mouth with my hand.

It was going to be huge.

Logan laughed again. “You like?”

“I love it,” I said. “I don’t get to see you then?”

“Not until after the show,” Logan said. “But I swear I’ll make it worth your while.”

“I know you will. I miss you though, so bad. Like I’ve never missed anything in my life.”

“Trust me, Annie, I’m right there with you,” Logan said. “No matter what I did, I thought of you. And then when you started writing to me... where the hell did that come from?”

I wanted to talk more to Logan, to tell him where the writing came from, but the background noise was too much. It wouldn’t have the same meaning if I tried talking to him on the phone like that rather than face to face. To tell him how he sparked my love of life, my love of writing again, my love of just feeling okay with the world. And then... maybe my love for him.

But that was something I wasn’t sure he could handle.

We were silent for a few seconds until Logan said, “My plane is boarding.”

“I... I... can’t wait to see you,” I said.

I had almost slipped something there.

I closed my eyes and winced.

“Me too, Annie,” Logan said. “Me too.”

I left my room and burst into Maggie’s room. She still had her cell phone in her hand and she looked at me with guilty eyes.

“You know,” I said.

Maggie threw her phone to her bed. “Know what?”

“I know you know. Logan told me.”

“Told you what?”

“Come on, Maggie, don’t play that game.”

“I don’t know a thing.”

“You’re a liar,” I said.

“Then tell me what I know,” she said. “And if you’re right, I’ll nod.”

“Just nod because I know.”

“Whatever then.”

She left her room, bumping into me, smiling. I walked behind her and thought about what to say.

“Tell you what, what are the plans with the guys tonight?” I asked. “Are we going to the airport?”

“You can,” Maggie said. “I mean, I’ll just wait here.”

“By the radio?”

Maggie smiled. She shrugged her shoulders.

“Fine. Then I might be going out.”

“Going out where?”

“I don’t know. I’m in the mood to dance.”

“You can’t dance,” Maggie said.

“Says who?”

“Seriously? Says everyone. You have no rhythm...”

I squinted my eyes at Maggie.

Ask Logan if I have rhythm
, I thought and smiled.

“I’m going to Rogee’s,” I said.

Maggie’s eyes widened. “Why?”

“To dance,” I said.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yup.”

I turned to walk away and felt Maggie’s hand clamp on my shoulder. I looked back at her and we both smiled at the same time.

We nodded and knew if we both said it at the same time, then we wouldn’t have leaked the supposed secret to each other. I counted to three and we both shouted at the same time:  “DownCrash show!”

The rest of the day we waited. We waited for the texts when DownCrash landed, we waited for the texts when they went to the studio, and then Logan sent a picture of the band to me, the three of them standing in a huge room with instruments everywhere. The looks on their faces were priceless, definitely the kind of picture that people would look at in twenty years and appreciate. They were bad boy rockstars, but they still had a glimmer of innocence in their eyes. The music brought them together, saved them in their own ways, and now it was time for them to reach out to the world, like they all seemed to reach out to me, Maggie, and Scarlett.

When it came time for the radio interview, Maggie and I huddled around her phone as we listened to a radio app. A rock song came to an end and the interview began...

“Hey, yo, kids and squids, it’s Mr. Mighty Mikey here, and I’ve got a special treat in my studio. You’ve heard them, you’ve seen them, and if you haven’t, I ask one question...
what the hell
? That’s right, the boys of DownCrash are in studio. We’ve got... Tripp...”

Tripp’s voice came over the radio. “Hey.”

“We’ve got... Tatum...”

“What’s up?” Tatum said, his deep voice sounded deeper.

“And finally, not to be forgotten, the quiet, calm, shy, don’t turn your back on him, Logan...”

“Yeah,” Logan said.

I shivered at the sound of his voice.

Mr. Mighty Mikey asked the basic questions. He asked about playing shows. Writing music. He asked about the management thing, about being in LA, about recording. He asked about the upcoming demo, the potential of being signed, and a hopeful record deal. He teased the guys and they teased back. Anyone listening would never guess these were three guys in their early twenties who weren’t giant rockstars yet.

Then came the songs. They sounded so amazing over the radio. This was professional, this was serious.

After the songs were done, Maggie and I looked at each other. We both realized at the same time the second they said something about a free show, the entire town would go into a frenzy. She grabbed her phone and I grabbed my keys. We were out the apartment a minute later as Tripp announced the free show at Rogee’s.

“Wait a minute?” Mr. Mighty Mikey said. “You guys are playing a free show? How the hell are you going to make any money?”

“This isn’t about money,” Logan’s voice said. “It’s about music. About those moments that change our lives... together.”

It was like Logan was speaking to me instead of the listening audience. I swallowed hard as I backed up my car.

“And we want to get signed to a label,” Tatum said.

“Then we can make money,” Tripp said and laughed.

“Well, there you have it,” Mr. Mighty Mikey said. “The boys of DownCrash are going to be darting out of my studio and into your heads, folks. A free show. Did you all hear that? There’s no reason you shouldn’t be there. It’s free!”

We turned the radio off on Maggie’s phone and tuned in on the radio in the car. I drove as fast as I could. The tension in the car was intense and I could only imagine what it must have been like for the guys. To have such a whirlwind day. To wake up in LA. To fly home. To go to the studio. To go to a radio station. Now top the day and night off with a free concert for the hungry DownCrash fans.