Tainted: Listening to the Silence

FOUR

Copyright Credits:

Hero. Copyright 2009. Publishers: Photon Music Label and Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. Label. Song written by John Landrum Cooper and Korene Cooper, and interpreted by Skillet.

Salvador

“Ok. This is getting kind of ridiculous, Em, what are you a kid?”

“I’m not a f*****g kid,” Em said through gritted teeth.

“Well then how about you start acting like an adult, huh? Seriously Em? Avoiding me for a week? Ignoring my calls and text messages?”

“I’m mad at you! What were you expecting?”

“I expected you to confront me, to yell at me, to fight with me, something, anything, but I didn’t expect you to avoid me. You’ve completely shut me out Emerald, you’re even using Dustin to tell me things instead of telling me for self. You’re acting just a spoiled brat.”

“I’m not a brat! It’s my damn phone, my damn life, my personal space. I have all the right in the world to not want you in it! I’ve got all the right in the world to not want to talk to you!”

“I’ll call you a brat as long as you keep acting like one, and yes, you’re entitled to all the things you claim, but your rights end where mine begin. I’ve got the right to know why my best friend is cutting me out of her life, I’ve got the right to get some answers to my questions. I’ve got all the right to love and worry about a stupid girl that acts like a brat out of spite, just to hurt me, even though she doesn’t deserve it.”

I grabbed my bass, which I hadn’t even taken out of its bag, and my school bag. I was just sick of this, sick and tired of trying, and I had tried. I’d made the very best effort to fix things for a whole motherfucking week, tried to explain things to her, to solve things. But she decided to act like we were in nursery and avoided me, ignored my calls, and sent me messages with Dusty. Well, I’d gotten sick of all this beating around the bush and decided to confront her about it, which lead to the fight I was about to end. I wanted to just walk out of the garage, to leave things as they were, to stoop even lower than Em and make her hurt as much as I did. But I couldn’t, it was as simple as that, I literally couldn’t hurt someone just because they’d hurt me, so I extended an unstable and flimsy bridge.

“You don’t want me in your space, that’s alright, I won’t be in it anymore, I’ll leave you alone. When you decide to act like a civil human being again, that you want me in your life again, come look for me in my house.”

I squeezed the strap of my bag with one hand and the strap of my guitar bag with the other, nervously waiting for an answer. None came and my chest hurt even worse than it had the past week, so I started walking to the door.

“Wait Sal, please,” Dusty begged as he approached me.

He looked like he was about to grab my arm and I gave him the evil eye, which took that idea right off his mind. I left the garage and fumed moped all the way to my house, thinking about the fight that had just taken place, about Dusty standing there watching Em and me, not helping me. We were supposed to be a band and more than that, best friends, we talked things out, we solved things, we came to a decision together, not this game Em was playing.

I went straight up to my room, left my bass on its stand and grabbed my guitar, wanting to burn some anger. Mina tried to comfort me, something she’d done the whole week when I came back early, to report Em still wasn’t talking to me. I kind of wanted to be alone, just me and my music and nothing else, so I raised a hand to stop her and she understood immediately that I’d be in the garage. And that garage, just like Em’s, was my little den, the place I went to play because my mothers really couldn’t stand the noise the guitar and the bass made.

I pulled my bench out of its hiding place, plugged my amp, plugged my guitar, and forced myself to breathe deeply as I sat down. I never liked playing angry, instruments were delicate things and the last thing I wanted was to break a string when I wasn’t watching my force. Once I calmed down, I tried a few notes to see if it was still tuned and found it wasn’t, no surprise there. It had been a while since I last played the guitar, Em’s practice schedule took up practically all my free time and I was ashamed to admit I’d neglected my electric guitar. But today I required some guitar therapy, and when I felt better, I’d take the guitar for a check-up, God knew the guitar needed it.

I finished tuning it and I allowed my hands to digress as I thought for a few minutes about my feelings right now. My hands moved of their own accord, silly riffs and melodies floating in the air as my mind worked out my emotions. I was so angry, so frustrated with the way the situation was being dealt, but that was Em for you, she’d always been like that. The music started reflecting my mood, the chords and notes aggressive, loud, harmonious anger filling the air and egging me on. I wanted to blink and have things just fix themselves, or some kind of hero that came and solved them all for me. A hero, hero, maybe I could play Hero by Skillet.

I made the transition from what I’d been playing to the song seamlessly, the chords just came naturally my mind and my fingers obeyed almost before I had a chance to think. It was one of my favorite songs, the band was so skilled, the lyrics were always so heart felt, and Em sung it so beautifully. In my mind I was back in the garage, Dustin marking the tempo, Em accompanying my guitar, a phantom me playing the bass, and I heard Em start singing with true emotion.

I'm just a step away,

I'm a just a breath away;

Losing my faith today,

Falling off the edge today!

As I played I could feel the stress of this past week, all the frustration, the anger, the fight of today with Em, everything just rolled out of my system along with the music.

It's just another war,

Just another family torn;

My voice will be heard today!

It's just another kill,

The countdown begins to destroy ourselves!

This stupid little fight was tearing our band apart, and it hurt, it hurt so damn bad, because we’d been together for years. No other friends, no one else, just us three protecting each other, helping each other, we grew up together, always just the three of us. Should I have kept quiet? Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, and the thought tore me to pieces because who could I trust if not Em and Dusty, but still I held it still. Speaking my mind was so important to me, telling the people I cared about what I thought was something that kept me sane. Expressing my thoughts was the sure sign that I trusted someone, but it wasn’t worth it, not if it would take my two friends away.

Who's gonna fight for the weak,

Who's gonna make 'em believe,

I've got a Hero!

I've got a Hero!

Livin' in me!

I'm gonna fight for what's right,

Today I'm speaking my mind,

And if it kills me tonight,

I will be ready to die!

No, I had to speak my mind, I needed to, these were supposed to be my best friends, if I couldn’t trust them then, quite simply, they were not really my friends. Yes, I was going to fight for what was right, for our friendship, for what I believed, for our band. And if they didn’t want to try to fix things, if they didn’t want to fight for the band, then, no matter how tiresome, nor how much time it took me, I’d fight for them. I’d make them see, I’d make them see friends came first and silly fights couldn’t come between us. If Em avoided me, then I’d be everywhere, I’d corner her up until she listened to me and we talked this stupid thing out! I was going to fix this and make Em see I was right all at the same time, I thought earnestly, my eyes closed for extra power. The melody became more peaceful and I held my new resolve in my mind as I opened my eyes. Oliver was standing there.

To say he scared the ever loving out of me was a gross understatement, my limbs jumped and spazzed moving of their own accord. I the strings at a bad angle, with too much force, a loud cacophonous twang sounded throughout the room as one of my strings broke and hit me right in the face. Jesus, the f*****g lord, Christ, ouch, ouch, ouch, s**t, s**t, s**t, my eye, my eye, my eye, ow, ow, ow. I would’ve dropped the guitar if I hadn’t strapped it on, because my first instinct was to cover my face.

My mind was in a panic thinking I’d hit my eye, so the first thing I did when I could get my body to obey me, was open my eye. Okay, so I could see alright, I assessed as my hands roamed my face and I flinched when I touched the swollen spot on my cheek. f**k, f**k, f**k, that hurt so f*****g much, so much, so much, but thank you Lord, thank you, thank you. If it had been the eye, I would’ve lost it, the cheek would heal, maybe I’d have a scar, but things would be alright. Everyone who ever owned string instrument had heard one of those horrible stories that happened to the friend of your friend’s friend who had to wear an eye patch because a string hit him right in the eye when it was open.

“Sal?! Are you alright?!” I heard Mina yell.

Well, that was a stupid question, mom, very, very stupid, but then I heard steps getting closer and I thought she should’ve moved first and then ask.

“Sal?! What happened?!” My mom yelled in a total panic when she came into the garage.

I just pointed at my guitar and the broken string.

“It hit you?! Where?! Not in the eye right?” See? Everyone has heard about that story. I shook my head in answer, my hand cupping my stinging and inflamed cheek. My mom proceeded to wrestle said hand away, saying “Would you take off your hand and let me see?!” When she managed to get a good look, she all but froze, a small “Oh,” escaping, and my stomach sank because that wasn’t a good sign.

“I’ll go get the first aid kit just wait here, ok?” She said instead of telling me what was wrong and I felt frustrated, well, where else was I going to go?

Only when my mom left did I stop to think about what had caused the whole commotion to begin with and saw Oliver was still standing there. I frowned with renewed anger because he hadn’t even come closer to help or see that I was alright, in fact his face was void of expression. I arched an eyebrow at him, and I wanted to ask him what he was doing in my garage in the first place. He just turned around a sheet of paper (which I hadn’t noticed either) that said, “Lower your volume, asshole.” I rolled my eyes and let out a frustrated breath, of course, of course, of course, why didn’t I see it coming.

For the past week it’d been like this whenever I so much as touched either my bass or my guitar, which I’d been doing quite often. But he, he could play his goddamn piano every second of every minute of every waking hour and I had to put up with it. He pasted the little paper to the door of the garage and turned to leave, not even asking if I was okay, which I clearly was, but it was his damn fault my string broke in the first place. I flipped him off, when he wasn’t looking anymore, and I watched him leave as I wondered why the guy had to be such a huge jerk. I swear I didn’t know what the hell his problem was, though I had my theories, my favorite was that something had probably crawled into his ass and died.

My mom came into the room right then with the first aid kit, clearly lost in her mind but she faltered. She stood there looking for a few seconds at the place where Oliver had been standing, before snapping out of it and coming to me.

“I could’ve sworn I saw Oliver standing there when I left,” my mom said in a low tone, almost talking to herself. She gave me a piece of cotton soaked in peroxide and I pressed it to my cheek. Oh God, oh God, oh sweet holy God, that hurt like a motherfucker. I gently pushed her away, glaring at the cotton and at her.

“Oh, he was there alright, asked me to lower my volume again and could you believe he didn’t even stop to ask if I was alright? He’s responsible for my broken string and my cheek, yet he looked like he honestly could not care any less. Such a douche bag.”

“Sal. Language. Don’t judge if you don’t know why he’s like that. Why don’t you try talking with him? You’ll end up snapping sooner or later and I’d prefer you talking calmly to him sooner than snapping at him later,” Mom said as she pushed my hands out of the way and continued to disinfect the wound. It hurt, it hurt, IT HURT! I pushed her away again.

“Mom’s always snapping at people and chewing their heads off and I don’t see you nagging her about it.”

“This is about you not about her. Talk to him Sal,” Mom said firmly, pushing my hands away again, as she finished disinfecting the wound.

I rolled my eyes and pouted, like a little kid, because I knew there was no getting away from that command. I’d have to talk this thing out with that asshole whether I wanted to or not, and I seriously didn’t want to. Mom laughed and pressed a kiss to my cheek good, before leaving the garage again, her work here done. When she was gone, I sighed and looked around and sighed, maybe it was time I covered the garage in egg cartons too. Well, for the time being I had more pressing matters, like the fact that I had to talk to lieutenant asshole in the next house. And also, I had to get the string replaced, which would be a b***h because there were no music stores in town. I’d have to go into the city and Ash would find any amount of excuses not to take me and I’d have to take the bus up there. Since I was talking to him either way, maybe I could guilt Mr. Douche Bag into compensating me by paying for the string and for a nice lunch.

I sighed again and got off the bench, putting it and the amp back in their hiding place because Ash claimed she would run both objects over if I left them in the way again. I grabbed my guitar and put it back in its bag before heading into the house and up the stairs to my room. Now how should I get ready to talk to the jerk next door? I went into my bathroom, planning to take a look at my hair, but instead saw my cheek. I had a swollen bleeding s***h where my sting had hit me but the rest of my cheek looked normal and it kind of looked like something was trying to come out through the wound. f**k this s**t, I’d make the guy buy me a bit of everything they sold in that food court and then some.

Focus Sal. My hair was just fine but I still felt nervous about going over there, I wasn’t sure what the Andels would think of me. Had they seen my new piercings and the tunnels? Oh who was I kidding, what had me all tied up in knots was Lt. Asshole not his parents. I stared at my reflection, debating my options and thought that maybe I should take off the snakebites. No, absolutely f*****g no, if Asshole over there didn’t like them you could suck it, a firm voice echoed through my mind. I frowned and nodded, that’s right, I wasn’t going to change to make him like me. I grabbed my notepad and my pen, watched my mother smile approvingly at me, and went over to the Andels’ place. I rang the bell and while I waited for them to open the door, I thought about what I should write, then settled for, “Is Oliver home?” I heard steps and wondered who would open the door, I hadn’t considered the possibility of Asshole opening the door, but it was Mrs. Andel.

“Oh, hi Sal. What can I do for you?” Mrs. Andel said smiling at me as I waved at her.

I showed her the notepad and pointed to it.

“Yes, in his room right now. Do you want to come in?”

I nodded and she smiled even wider, moving aside to let me come in.

“It’s on the second floor, second door to the right,” Mrs. Andel said, pointing at the stairs.

I nodded and smiled at her, trying to convey my thanks through my smile. She told me it was no problem, guessing what I meant to say, the way she always did, and I turned to go up the stairs. I had been inside of the Andels’ house when I was a kid, or so I’d been told by my mothers, but I didn’t remember. The house and decoration was really beautiful, with vases that held flowers all around the place and pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Andel and their friends lining the walls, which were cream colored. The hard wood floors were stained a dark color, the furniture was cream with the same dark wood color. The pale walls that made the place look big and spacious, also made the colors intense, vibrant, and bright.

As I approached what I assumed was Oliver’s room, I heard music coming out of it. Oh he was playing the piano again, I thought with bitterness, what a surprise, I totally wasn’t expecting that. I got closer and identified the tune as Claire de Lune by Debussy, which seemed weird because he normally played his original songs. I knew the disaster that would probably follow if I knocked on the door so even though it made me feel awkward, I stood outside waiting for him to finish. I paid attention trying to tell if he’d move onto one of the songs he’d been working on once the song was done. From what I knew he had a habit of extending music, which meant I’d be standing here all day long.

Finally, the song came to an end and silence followed it instead of more music. I waited a few seconds but didn’t hear any sign that he would continue playing, so I took the chance to knock on the door. I heard the bench scrape on the floor, steps around the room, and then finally the door opened. I prepared a smile and when he opened the door, I showed it with my honest best intentions, no faking it. He looked a little dumbfounded at first, finding me there, in his house, in front of his bedroom door seemed to shock him a bit. Then he frowned, not angrily, just confused, and I could almost hear him asking what I was doing there. I got out my notepad and wrote, “I think we should talk.”

He stared at the words for a few seconds and then looked at me with suspicion, not even trying to hide it. I rolled my eyes, as I’d given him any reason whatsoever to doubt me, and wrote, “I’m not going to do anything.” He stared at the words for a few seconds, clearly debating what he should do, before sighing and moving to let me in. I smiled, like before the sentiment was honest (I may not want to talk to him but I didn’t like the way he kept antagonizing me), and went into his room. I could feel him watching me as I examined his room, but I continued to look either way because curiosity got the best of me. It wasn’t spotlessly clean like I expected it to be, instead it was a bit messy, and by messy I meant that there was an endless amount of crumpled paper balls thrown all over the place.

When I turned to look at Oliver again, he arched one eyebrow at me, as if asking me, “Well?” That led me to my first question, a bit off topic, but again curiosity was killing me. I grabbed my notepad and wrote, “Why don’t you ever talk?” He looked a little dumbfounded at my question but then he raised his eyebrow again as if telling me, “Seriously, you are asking me this?” I rolled my eyes, “I do talk. I’m talking to you right now, aren’t I?” He narrowed his eyes and growled taking the pad and the pen from me and writing, “Because I don’t see any reason to do so, either way nobody listens.”

I looked at the paper for a while, reading and rereading, my frown growing. What did he mean nobody listened? I mean, yeah, the teachers and most of the student body fell under that description but not everyone. Plus, I could hear him, loud and clear, and he wasn’t even talking! I listened, hell all I could ever really do in this life was listen but that seemed dramatic, so instead I wrote, “I listen.” He stared at the words for a few seconds and then he turned to look somewhere else. I don’t want to talk about this anymore, his pose screamed. I sighed sullenly, thinking, “Well fine be that way if you wanted to, I had all damn day and lots of patience,” as I sat on his bed.

He seemed to hear me move and turned abruptly to look at me, when he noticed I’d sat on his bed he looked bewildered, almost asking me, “What the hell are you doing?” Did he really expect me to stand in the middle of his room all day long? I wrote on the notepad, “Sitting.” He looked a little confused at first and then glared at me like he usually did, which brought me to my next question, “What have I done to you?” He looked surprised at first, and then he looked like he didn’t understand what I was asking. “Why do you hate me?” I wrote instead of explaining. He stared at the words and frowned, as if carefully evaluating his answer. He turned to look at me and shook his head, and I heard it in my head, “I don’t.”

I tilted my head a bit to the side and thought carefully about the next question, about how to phrase it. “Then why are you always glaring at me? Why are you so mean?” He blinked a few times staring at the words, and the thinking frown returned to his face. Finally, he took my notepad and the pen and wrote, “Because you’re just like everyone around here.” I read the words and I couldn’t help the way my eyebrows climbed almost to my hairline and my eyes became wide as plates. Now that was an unfair accusation if I ever heard one, and my face must’ve said as much because he took the notepad again and added, “Cocky, obnoxious, and addicted to gossip.”

Me? He was seriously talking about me here? Was he kidding? Addicted to gossip? The last thing I did was gossip! Cocky and obnoxious I could consider but, the gossip part was a baseless claim. I considered a thousand and one ways to prove this but settled for something simple, “If I don’t talk, ever, then how exactly do I gossip?” Oliver stared at the words for a little while and I think he was just realizing the contradiction himself. He nodded slowly, took the pad, turned it to what he’d written and crossed “addicted to gossip,” but he tapped the other two emphatically. Alright, now to get cocky and obnoxious crossed off too.

“Why do you say I’m cocky?” Oliver took the pad and instead of writing he turned the pages and showed me one of the old messages it said, “Like what you see?” Was he serious? Just because of that? “I was teasing you, trying to make a joke.” Oliver looked at me, like he didn’t believe me, not a single little bit, so I changed my approach. “This was a one-time incident, we haven’t talked since, you don’t know me, how do you know I’m cocky?” He raised an eyebrow skeptically and I gave him the pad without him having to take it. “You could still be cocky.” I thought that maybe we were getting somewhere this time around, I mean, at least now he was writing.

“I could but I could not.” I was cocky, sometimes, I knew it, but Oliver didn’t know that, and I wasn’t about to tell him, no sir, my plan was for him to find out on his own.

“That still isn’t a no.” He looked at me with so much skepticism, and I thought about changing my argument and telling him that everyone was arrogant some more than others. But no, I should stand firm by what I was saying, if he saw me falter, he’d probably write me off as a manipulative liar.

“It still isn’t a yes either. You can’t base an argument on a ‘could’, you need sustained evidence.”

He thought about it for a few seconds, and I mentally crossed every toe and finger on my body, then his face became distinctly sulky as he crossed ‘cocky’ off the list. I felt like jumping off the bed and doing a happy victory dance but the war was not won yet, I still had another word to cross off.

“Why do you say I’m obnoxious?” Again, this one was true, my sarcasm tended to rub people the wrong way, I’d inherited Ashley’s bad attitude, and I lived to piss Em off. But he didn’t know this, so I would use that against him, the same way I’d done before.

“Because you’re always playing your shitty music loudly. I’m trying to concentrate, and you get in the way.”

Okay so he had a point, dammit, he’d asked me several times to lower things down and I’d ignored him just to piss him off because he was being mean to me without reason. But again, that was a one-time (one-week?) thing, I hadn’t done anything to piss him off on purpose before that.

“I can understand the volume bothering you, and I apologize for that, I just haven’t had the time to get the room soundproofed.” An itsy, bitsy, teeny, tiny white lie, but I wasn’t about to tell him I’d played as loud as I could just to make him mad. I decided to change the topic for a bit, to distract him from that slight lie, and to defend the music genre I loved the most in the world. “But my music isn’t shitty, you’ve got no right to insult punk rock as a whole just because you don’t like it, I mean, have you even heard it yourself, like sat down with an open mind and listened to a song?”

Oliver looked somewhere else, avoiding the conversation, unwilling to answer, and I felt triumphant because I knew it, I knew it was all prejudice.

“See? You can’t judge something you don’t know, that’s unfair, you’re not even giving the genre a chance to make a good impression on you. And this is the same thing you’ve been doing to me, you wrote me off as someone you didn’t like and didn’t even let me defend myself. You should investigate deeply about something and then, only then, you can criticize all you want. Anyways, I’m getting sidetracked, apart from my volume when I play the guitar and the bass, why am I obnoxious?”

Oliver seemed to think about it, desperately looking for something to cling to, and then, sulking again, crossed ‘obnoxious’ off the list.

“See? I told you I listened. Things can be worked out, but only if we talk and communicate instead of behaving like cave men. You don’t have to speak, you can use a notepad and a pencil like me, the morale of this story is that you should clearly explain the things you want. You want me to play lower? I will until I get the room covered in egg cartons, I’ve got no problem with that. Which reminds me, since we’re on the topic of playing music loudly, would you mind not playing the piano during the night? You keep your window open and the sound escapes to my room, and I can’t sleep until you go to sleep.”

I could sleep perfectly fine when there was music playing, but there was no way in hell I could sleep while Oliver was playing the piano because the sound was just too beautiful, because it grabbed your attention by force and made you listen. Oliver sighed reluctantly as he read the first part of my message, nodding as if to say, alright, alright, I get it now. Then he frowned in confusion, which confused me too, because I didn’t see anything in there that could cause that reaction. And lastly, he looked taken aback, he looked at his window and my house that could be seen through it, and then looked apologetic.

“I didn’t know the sound got out. I’ll close it from now on. Egg cartons?”

Oh, so that was what had confused him, well, that was weird, he was so deep in the music world that I’d just assumed he knew about that.

“Yeah, I’d probably have to sell a kidney or two to pay for professional soundproofing, so I’ll use egg cartons instead, which are almost as good but hell of a lot cheaper.”

Oliver chuckled a little and gave me a hint of a smile, well, at least I thought that was it, because it looked like a lip twitch so maybe I was reading too much into it. I smiled, feeling comfortable, but now that I’d done what I came to do I felt like I should go. It’s just that this guy obviously didn’t like me, and here I was invading his space, and even though I was glad we’d talk, I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable by staying longer than I was welcomed to. So I sighed and off of his bed, which caused him to look at me with a frown, and I could hear the question in my mind, “What are you doing?” I grabbed the pen and wrote, “I came to work things out between us, and I did, so I’ll go back to my house now, I can’t stay in this house for the rest of time, you know.” Oliver chuckled softly again and I smiled, turning to leave as I thought about how glad I was that we’d managed to work things out.

“I’m sorry,” said a small raspy grave voice I had never heard. It sent a shiver down my spine because it was so grave, and rough, and sexy, and what the hell was wrong with me? And who the hell had spoken?

I looked at the door and expected to find it open with Jerry Andel or someone else standing there, but there was no one to be found. I turned and saw Oliver sitting there with a blush, which was when the truth hit me like a brick: that was his voice. He’d spoken, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Oliver had spoken, and here I was convinced that he was like me, but this proved me wrong. I hadn’t heard him speak in school, not once, so why was he speaking to me? And why was I making such a big deal out of this? For all I knew he spoke to his parents all the time.

I swallowed and tried to focus on what he’d said. Sorry? For what? I think my confusion must’ve been obvious because he asked for my pad and wrote, “For your string. For your cheek. For being mean. Are you okay?” Oh! I waved it all off with a smile, my heart fluttering happily in my chest, and wrote in the pad, “Thank you for asking, and apologizing, but I’m alright and the string breaking wasn’t really your fault. It’s been a while since I last played the guitar, the strings get weak and rusty, it was bound to happen. Anyways, it was about time I changed the strings and got it checked, now you’ve given me an excuse.” Oliver read and stared at the words for a few seconds before writing, “Where do you buy guitar strings?”

“Well, there is a great place I know in the city, it’s in a mall on the corner of Virgina Woolf and John Donne, I’ve gone there my whole life. Why do you ask?”

Here I’d been all but ready to go home and Oliver was extending the conversation all on his own, did this mean that he liked me a little bit?

“You mean the Steinbeck Mall? I know where it is. I could take you if you need a ride.”

This made me blink and pause, what was going on here? Why was Oliver being so nice to me? I mean, I said I’d make him compensate me, but once I got to talk to him, I didn’t have the heart to take advantage of him. And then my mind registered what he’d said and offered me the very useful information that I hadn’t ever seen Oliver drive to school and that I’d only ever seen two cars in the driveway or garage.

“You drive? No, wait, more importantly, you’ve got a car to drive?” Had I missed it somehow?

“Yeah.” Oliver looked like that simple word explained everything but really, I was left as confused as before, what was he agreeing to? Who the f**k cares Sal, you hate getting on the subway with the guitar, and the guy is offering to drive you, in a car, to the city and take you to the mall, accept already, would you?

“Alright, thanks a lot, you’re a life saver, I mean, I can take the bus and then the subway, but walking around with the guitar is quite a headache.”

I thought that would be it, end of conversation, let’s decide when to go and bye-bye, but Oliver asked for the notepad again.

“I’ll also pay for the string that broke.”

That really surprised the f**k out of me, I hadn’t been expecting this offer, the car was a no brainer, getting out of this place was a nightmare, but the guitar string? Had this guy been listening in on my thoughts?

“You don’t have to do that, I already said it wasn’t your fault, and they’re not exactly cheap, if you know what I mean.” The voice in my head was telling me to stop being stupid and accept the guy’s money, God knew I’d probably spend about half my savings on this trip. If Oliver had been trying to be nice, then I might’ve considered it, but I couldn’t let Oliver spend the money just because he was feeling guilty.

“I insist.” And Oliver looked firm about that, like if I kept trying to refuse the help, he’d keep trying to make me accept, like he could sit there arguing all day long if that’s what it took.

I debated the last sentence over and over, but he looked pretty serious, so I just nodded and smiled, trying to express my gratitude. Oliver gave me a full smile. I mean, not the hey-I-can-see-it-if-I-squint-my-eyes-and-tilt-my-head smile, I’m talking about teeth-showing, apple-cheeks, dimples-in-display type of smile here. My heart just about stopped, and then began beating twice as fast and I thought this guy is going to kill me. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him smile like that before, in fact, I’d barely seen him smile, the end. Again, somewhere my brain tried to make light of it but I knew, I just did, I could tell that this guy hadn’t smiled all that often in the past.

We set the hour and the day, and I decided to leave before Oliver directed that smle at me again and I either had a heart attack or a b***r of massive proportions. My d**k, who’d behaved pretty well around this hot, hot, hot, guy, might decide he’d had enough and embarrass me, so it was safer to book it with dignity while I could. Surprisingly enough, he walked me to the door of his house, and all thoughts about my d**k evaporated as I got that fluttery feeling again. And here I’d thought he wouldn’t recognized good manners if they hit him in the face, yet he’d been nothing but polite to me once he knew I was a goodish guy.

We said, more like gestured, our goodbyes and I turned to walk the short distance back to my house. Well, who would’ve thought? I had a date with Mr. Douche Bag with the Sexiest Voice on Earth, Cute Dimples, and Heart-Stopping smile. Alright, not a date, I still thought that he just felt guilty about being such an asshole to me for no reason at all and that he felt responsible for my string breaking. But anyway, I had worked things out with him, and I’d been completely wrong about him, who would’ve guessed that mom would be right about the guy. She’d want to hear every single detail, I just knew it, she liked to live vicariously through me, or so she said.

I entered my house for the second time that day and took in a deep breath, happier than I’d been all week. I finally felt like I could breathe, like the world wasn’t crashing down on my shoulders. What started off as a horrendously bad day ended… not so bad. If I could talk some sense into this guy, I could definitely talk some sense into Em and Dusty, no need to worry. When I got to my room, after a long chat with mom, I sat on my desk chair and glanced at the house next door. The window of his room was open and I could see Oliver sitting by the piano again, organizing his stave paper. How would he behave tomorrow? Would he continue to treat me nicely? My heart skipped a beat and I shook my head, best not get your hopes up, Sal, you know how that ended the last time.