Tainted: Listening to the Silence

SIX

Copyright Credits:

Phobia, album by Breaking Benjamin. Copyright 2006. Released through Hollywood Records. The songs are subject to different copyright owners and songwriters.

Bad Blood, album by Bastille. Copyright 2013. Released through the labels Virgin EMI Records, Virgin Records, and Universal Music Group. The songs are subject to different copyright owners and songwriters.

The Dead Shall Dead Remain, album by Impaled. Copyright 2000. Released through Deathvomit Records. The songs are subject to different copyright owners and songwriters.

Our Version of Events, album by Emeli Sandé. Copyright 2012. Released through Virgin records and EMI records. The songs are subject to different copyright owners and songwriters.

Salvador

“Oliver Andel must go to the principal’s office immediately. Oliver Andel, please go to the principal’s office.”

I’d been lost in thought, not paying attention to the biology teacher that was explaining independent assortment, when the static filled sound of the speakers filtered into my thoughts. What? Go to the principal’s office? What for? My skin itched with the urge to just get up, walk out of the class, and go see if Oliver was alright, but I couldn’t leave the classroom because of something like that. So I sat through my last three classes fretting and worrying about Oliver, I wondered what the matter was and whether he was alright. As soon as the final bell rang, I went to his locker to wait for him, and I stood there for a few minutes but there was no sign of him. I went over the principal’s office to see if he was still in there and as I approached, I heard Brent screaming bloody murder. Oh no, it was him again, had he done something to Oliver in revenge for what happened last week? I sighed and sat on the chairs outside of the principal’s office, the old nosy hag in the main office gave me an annoyed but inquisitive look but didn’t say anything.

I’d been sitting there for about ten minutes when the door opened with too much force and hit the wall. The first one through was Brent who looked like he would kill the first person to get in his way, and then behind him came Oliver with a slightly smug smile. Oliver looked alright, not a single scratch on him, (thank you, thank you, thank you God) but Brent’s hand was in a cast.

Oliver saw me and his face changed, his eyes lit up and the smug look became that hey-if-I-squint-and-tilt-my-head-to-the-side-I-can-see-it smile. Oliver began walking over to where I sat and that’s when Brent saw me, his whole face changed in a split second, just like Oliver’s, and an involuntary shiver went through my body. His eyes were filled with a cold rage I’d never, not once in my whole life, seen and for the first time ever I feared for my life, for our lives. He took a menacing step towards us, but the principal stepped out right in that moment and Brent just kept walking past us, as if that had been his plan all along. Jesus the f*****g Lord Christ, we would need to be extra-freaking-careful from now on or we’d end up in his hands and that wouldn’t end well.

Oliver bumped his shoulder with mine and I returned to the present, the squint smile was still on his face and it was enough to make me push my worries away. Well, Brent was always angry, he was constantly beating me up, he always said I’d be better off dead, and he’d yet to succeed, I could push him out of my head for now. Then I remembered where we needed to be and c****d my head towards the stairs, after all we still had about a week left of detention. Oliver nodded and started walking, me beside him, both of us making our way to the music classroom. I wanted to ask, to know what had happened, but the notepad had run out of space to write on and I had yet to buy a new one. I sighed and looked at Oliver, I wanted to talk to him, I couldn’t imagine not doing so until I could buy the damn notepad, but no paper to write on left me just one other option. My heart was sure that I could trust him with my secret, not only was he pretty observant, he didn’t talk, just like me, and my mind was convinced that he had taken a class or course or something. We went into the music classroom, wrote our names on the teacher’s list of attendance, and sat down. The teacher didn’t even look up from her magazine, she already knew that for the remaining week and part of the next week we had to stay for detention. When she walked out of the room, I took in a deep breath, screwing up my courage, and I turned around to look at Oliver.

“So what happened with Brent?” God, my hands were shaking and my heart was beating about a mile a minute, my breath got faster, and I was sure I was having a panic attack.

Oliver looked a little taken aback at first (cue my heart beating even faster) but I saw the moment he tied the dots and clarity hit him. He frowned and he seemed deep in thought, and just was quickly I became convinced that he hadn’t understood a single word and didn’t know how to tell me so. It took a while, during which I changed my mind and was pretty certain he wasn’t going to answer at all, but finally he did.

“He was… punch me… I step away… he hit… the wall.”

It took him a while, his hands clumsy and slow, but he finally finished the sentence. He seemed to think between every word, as if he was remembering something from a very long time ago. I wanted to stand up and do the victory dance, because he did understand and I knew he’d understand, but a little voice in my mind told me not to get my hopes up.

“Serves him right.” I wanted to say so much more, to ask him how he knew, where he’d learned and why he was so slow at it, but I didn’t want to overwhelm him.

Oliver nodded firmly and with a frown, as if saying, “Definitely,” then he gave me a shy smile (only different from the squint smile because he blushed during this one) and we continued sitting in the room without saying anything. The whole thing felt a bit anticlimactic, I was expecting Oliver to ask question, to want to know a little more, but then again Oliver wasn’t really like that, he preferred being silent. After a while Oliver went over to the piano and started playing, which was something he always did when we were in detention. I got the feeling that he tried to resist the piano’s pull on him, but sooner or later he wound up sitting on that bench.

Today’s songs were a reflection of his own mood, happily playful, it sounded as if the different chords were playing with each other and with your ears. He played famous and known songs, and though I was happy I could recognize them it made me sad not to hear something Oliver wrote. Since that first day he hadn’t ever dared playing anything new, probably because of the way that always panned out, maybe because he didn’t trust me. I pushed that thought away and focused on listening to him playing, imagining the twang of guitar strings accompanying him.

When detention ended, I felt in a daredevil mood and texted Em telling her I wouldn’t be going to practice today, then I turned off my phone. The s**t would hit the fan when she saw the text message and she’d want to scream my ear off for being too laid back and irresponsible and blah, blah. Hence it was best to make hard for her to reach me, if she wanted to talk to me so badly she could come to my house. I walked with Ollie to our houses and remembered with a bit of anger that even though we’d sort of talked things out, she was still acting weird and talking over me, interrupting the things I said. Well, she could suck my d**k, I wasn’t going to go rehearse only to be ignored and treated badly and if she has a problem with that well too damn bad.

Before I realized it, we were already in out street and Oliver bumped my shoulder to get my attention and pull me out of my mind.

“Come in?” Oliver nodded toward his house because he knew his sentence wasn’t clear enough for me to understand.

I was a little taken aback, because the whole two weeks we’d known each other he’d only spent time with me outside of school when absolutely needed. He would bring my homework over, because Dustin was too damn lazy to come over to my house and give it to me himself, and then he’d make polite small talk before leaving.

Sal, would you stop nitpicking already, the guy is waiting for your answer, just say yes and see if you can steal a pair of undies while you’re there. I was blushing when I nodded in response, mentally scolding my mind for giving me inappropriate mental images right when I was about to be spend some time in his room alone with Oliver. I managed to get my unruly mind and body slightly under control while he let us both into his house, so I could wave and smile at Mr. and Mrs. Andel without a hard-on. Oliver led us up to his room, my heart beating faster and faster, my mind showing me all the things that could be done in a room with a closed door.

But all my s****l thoughts died as soon as I stepped into the room: there was even more stave paper lying around than the last time I’d been over. Oliver blushed and started to quickly pick up the crumbled balls of paper from the floor, which only made me laugh. He looked up at me, embarrassment and shame written all over his face, but I gave him a smile and just waved it off, “It’s no big deal, my room is messier and I wouldn’t pick it up for you,” my mind said. I just threw my bag in a corner and sat on his bed like I had done the last time I was there, as if the mess wasn’t even there. Oliver went over to his trash can to drop the paper balls he had picked up so far, then instead of continuing to clean, he sat on the bench in front of his piano.

I took the chance to look around now that I had all the time in the world to linger, I had nothing important to do or say, so I could explore to my heart’s content. I hadn’t noticed before, but Oliver had a whole shelf full of books, my eyes roved the titles, already thinking of which ones I’d borrow afterwards. Maybe I could get him to read them for me, then I could hear more of that sexy voice, but no, I didn’t think he would do something like that. Would he? I looked back at Oliver and caught him looking at me, as soon as our eyes met he averted his gaze and I did my best to hold back a smile. I poked his arm to get his attention.

“When did you learn to play the piano?”

“When I was… small.”

“You’ve always been good at it?”

Oliver nodded in answer and I got the feeling that he wasn’t all that confident, in fact I felt he was uncomfortable. I decided to push him a little more show him that I didn’t mind one little bit, that there was nothing to feel self-conscious about.

“Wow. That’s cool. I learned to play the guitar when I was little too, but I really wasn’t all that good at first. It was with time that I got good at it. Then I changed to electric guitar and it was easier than if I had started with that instrument first because it was really similar to a normal acoustic guitar. Then I learned to play the bass and it was a little hard at first, because it has less strings and they are really thick, and the technique to play it is different but then I got the hang of it too.”

Oliver looked deep in thought for a few seconds and I began to fear that I’d overestimated him and that he hadn’t understood all I’d just said. Same as before, I got ready for the worst-case scenario, thinking about how I would repeat everything I’d just said, but he surprised me.

“You play… three instruments?” He seemed impressed and thoughtful all at the same time and I wasn’t sure what exactly he was thinking about. Was he thinking about how hard it was to learn three different instruments? Was he thinking about how to structure his answers? Was he thinking about my sentence structure and vocabulary? I didn’t know, to be honest I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. I’d thought that I would have to dumb things down a little bit for him, because of the way he structured his sentences, but obviously he understood quite a lot of what I said. Focus on the conversation Sal.

“Well, it’s really just two because the acoustic guitar and the electric guitar are practically the same, the only thing that changes is the technique you use to make the strings vibrate and maybe the chords. But anyways, yeah I do, I’ve been thinking of learning something else, but I just can’t decide on what to learn and I don’t really have the time to do that anymore.”

We went on like that, making small talk about music and school and Em and Dust, while I wondered what the deal was with Oliver. I wanted to ask, but I just kept on leaving it for later, because I didn’t want to make Oliver uncomfortable and possibly end the conversation. The time just flew by us, the conversation dragging us deeper and deeper, and by the time we came up for air, it was time for me to go back home. Oliver walked me to the front door again, my heart fluttering the whole time, and I waved him goodbye as I left to go to my house.

Dinner was already on the table, when I walked into the house, Mina smiled warmly at me and Ash gave me a stern look because I was late. I returned Mina’s smile and stuck my tongue out at Ashley and then winked, running away before she could catch me and get revenge. I left my back pack on the floor and changed into clean clothes, going to the bathroom to wash my hands and my face. I came back down the stairs, Ash glaring at me, and Mina’s eyes dancing with mischief, I imagined mine were doing the same thing. While I ate I thought back to how it was at the start between Ollie and me and couldn’t help smiling.

I liked spending time with him and talking to him because even though we had the not speaking thing in common we were polar opposites. He preferred to be silent all the time, even when given the chance to express himself, while I was only silent in school, talking nonstop around Em and Dust and my mothers. He preferred to be still, having no problem with sitting by his piano all day playing and composing if possible, while I liked to move, to rehearse, to read, to constantly do something different. Our musical tastes were quite different too, I knew and could appreciate classical music, but modern music and the way we applied classical concepts even after hundreds of years held my interest.

I was quite happy that I had talked things out with him when I did, because I often thought that maybe if I hadn’t we would still be glaring at each other.

After dinner was eaten and the dishes were washed, I went into my room again, closing the door behind me and laying on the bed. I looked up at the ceiling, replaying the last few hours of my life, a goofy smile I couldn’t fight off on my face. I wasn’t stupid, not at all, I knew that I was attracted to him, my d**k certified could testify for that, but I didn’t know how he felt about me. Sometimes he’d look at me a certain way, he would act differently around me, smile more often and more honestly. I wondered if what I perceived was really true or if it was just my imagination playing tricks on me, if it was all just wishful thinking on my part. After all, there were precedents to take into account here, my mind and my heart had demonstrated before that they couldn’t be trusted.

I sighed and turned around, closing my eyes and trying to push away my thoughts, but they kept on coming back. In my mind, I saw the way Oliver looked at me back when I was playing in the music classroom, that heart-stopping smile of his that made my knees weak and my d**k stand at attention. So many pieces of clothing lying about and you couldn’t grab a single one of them to inspires your dreams, the mental voice told me with disapproval. Shut up, I thought, blushing in the privacy of my room, that would’ve been creepy as f**k, and that’s not like me. Like you or not, it answered, it would’ve been nice to have something other than your imagination to rely on. Jesus, stay out of the damn gutter, could you, I said getting off the bed and walking into my bathroom to take a cold shower, desperate times called for desperate measures.

My days went by in a flash, spent between daydreaming in class, detention with Oliver, my horny unruly mind, and increasingly frustrating rehearsals with Em and Dusty.

I’d gotten tired of her speaking over me -as if that could keep me from making more unpleasant-for-Em suggestions- and decided to confront her about it. She had agreed to accept a second voice and a second guitar but we kept on practicing until we found them, and she got to act as if I’d never suggested anything.

I didn’t know what Em’s plan was exactly, I mean, we weren’t making much progress, in all honesty, band practice consisted mostly of covers. We had a few songs of our own, we did, but the fourth, f**k Me, was still on its early stages, which meant that Em couldn’t decide on the lyrics, or the melody, or the tempo, or anything. Whenever we advanced a bit, Em undid everything because, “Something wasn’t right,” and no amount of arguing or cajoling would convince her that the song sounded alright.

If you asked me, what was wrong with the song was that Em was rushing things, forcing the music process instead of letting it come to her naturally. That and the fact that she was trying for perfection and that simply couldn’t be accomplished, you could come close to it but never achieve it. But like I’d said, there was no being on this earth or universe that could get her to listen when she got into one of her moods. Worse of all was that she wanted to have at least songs ready to record them (don’t ask me how she planned to pay for the studio time) and then send them to labels, all before next month. Idiotic, I know, but there was nothing to do, I just hoped she noticed, sometime soon please, that the task was impossible to accomplish and slowed down a little. For the time being we practiced every afternoon for hours and hours and hours.

By the time Friday of the next week came around and at six p.m. I was still in Em’s motherfucking garage, I was hungry, about to give Em a solid piece of my mind, and very, very, very tired. Em probably sensed me about to tell her where she could shove her damn indecisiveness and plans for the practice, either that or she saw the way I was glaring at her, because she announced we were done for the day. I began to relax a little bit, my anger coming down bit by bit as put my bass back in its carry bag, but then Em said practice started at eight am next day and I couldn’t hold back anymore.

I literally told her to go f**k herself, which made her bristle start angrily talking about how we needed to keep practicing and how we had a responsibility to the band and that this was our future. I told her we hadn’t ever had band practice on weekends and that we weren’t about to start, and that if she kept on spouting her self-righteous bullshit at me she’d be lucky if I came to practice on Monday. I left after that, just like that, I walked out while Em screamed herself hoarse, because there was no way I could control myself and what I said.

I was too angry, too frustrated, my mind was too much of a mess and my emotions were all over the place, I couldn’t have an argument with Em like that. I’d probably say things that I’d regret, even if I meant them and even if that bossy b***h deserved every single one of them. I mean, how dare she ask for our weekend on top of every single afternoon from Monday to Friday from three to seven. It was too much, she was abusing our trust and friendship, even the slaves and servants of the old days got better treatment.

I got to my house and went to my room without saying anything to either of my moms, locking my door before either of them could think to come see what was wrong. I didn’t want company right now, I wanted to be alone and work through my anger before I lost my temper again and snapped at someone else. I deposited everything on the floor, undressed, and stepped into the shower. The warm water enveloped me and caressed my achy muscles, I could literally feel myself relaxing more and more, the anger going down the drain along with the water. I just slowly, lazily washed myself getting rid of the day’s sweat and dirt and the remaining hurt that lingered on my skin from yet another argument with Em.

When I was done, I stepped out of the bathroom and got dressed, my stomach growled, reminding me that before I became too angry to think clearly I was hungry. The house was quiet as I went down stairs, where a plate of food awaited me and I sent Mina a mental thank you, because she was the best mother in the world. I washed my dish and fork when I was done eating, practically falling asleep on my feet, and went back to my room where my bed was calling me. It was something that always happened when I got very angry, I became very tired when I calmed down, as if that much emotion required too much of my energy. The night was hot and my clothes seemed uncomfortable and itchy, so I undressed again before getting under the covers and almost immediately falling asleep.

Oliver was there, and I was too, and we were in a place that seemed like a mixture of the detention classroom, my room, and his room. There was a bed, and I decided to sit on it, the way I always did, and I expected Oliver to sit on the piano bench, like he always did but he sat beside me on the bed. Oliver held my gaze the whole time, and I felt my heart begin to beat faster in my chest, because this was something that I’d fantasized with but that hadn’t ever happened. Our eyes still locked, he began to lean closer to me, his hand crossing the few inches between us, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. His hand touched my leg and I couldn’t help but shiver, my d**k becoming so hard so fast that it literally hurt. The hand kept advancing and my breathing got labored and my heart was beating so fast and I could hear my pulse in my ears and Jesus I was going to come and this guys hadn’t even f*****g touched me directly.

Then suddenly someone was shaking me and I turned around to the other side, trying to hold on to my dream. No, no, no, I was so close, he was about to touch me, to kiss me, God please, I needed that touch like I needed f*****g air, don’t let the dream end. The shaking continued and I snuggled deeper into the covers, trying to hide from whoever was trying to take me away from my dream Oliver. Not going to wake up. Not going to wake up. Not going to…

“Sal?” I heard a certain sexy voice saying in my ear, and I almost came right there and then because that sounded so real, so real, so real, I mean, I didn’t even know my imagination could come up with that. And then it hit me that, no, my imagination couldn’t make his voice sound so accurate and so perfect and so rough and so grave.

I jumped up and turned around and yes, there he was, Oliver stood by my bed looking taken aback, his hand hanging in the air. How in the hell did he…? Mina. She had to be the one that let him in because there was no way in hell that Ashley would’ve let him come through the door, much less into my room. A stray breeze that entered through my open windows reminded me that holy s**t, holy s**t, holy s**t, I had gone to sleep in just my birthday suit. I was naked under the cover and Oliver was in my room and I’d been having a wet dream staring him, oh God, oh God, oh God, I had hard on. I pulled my legs to my chest even though it hurt to imprison my d**k like that when it was this swollen and hoped with all my might that Oliver hadn’t noticed anything.

I risked a glance in his direction and found that Oliver’s face was as red as I’d ever seen him and that his had his eyes averted. Even his ears had turned red and if I hadn’t felt as uncomfortable I would’ve been laughing my ass off. He sneaked a peek at me and then looked away again, blushing even more, probably because my upper body was in full display and he’d never seen it, at least I hoped that was it. I took mental inventory, to see if there was anything else that might’ve been on display, but Oliver interrupted my thoughts by glancing at me again, his eyes earnestly focused on my face. Well, I had to hand it to the guy, he had far more will power than I ever could’ve had if our positions were reversed.

“I’m sorry… Your mom, Mina… She said… You were…” His eyes strayed the itsy, bitsy, teeny, tiniest bit before he looked at my face again and took a step away from the bed. “I’ll be outside.”

With that Oliver marched out of the room and closed the door behind him, and when I was finally alone I felt like I could breathe a bit easier. I groaned softly as I unfurled my legs and my d**k and balls gave a mighty protest at me mistreating them. I sat there for a few seconds wondering what the hell Oliver was doing in my room and why did this have to happen to me. That’s when I realized that the mistake was mine and that this was my own f*****g fault because today was the day we were supposed to drive into the city to get my guitar fixed. Yup, you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself for the clusterfuck that just occurred and for nearly flashing Oliver.

Now that I’d calmed down somewhat, my heart was still misbehaving because Oliver was outside this room waiting for me, I decided to get read. I sighed and got out of bed, grabbing a quick shower, with cold water because there was no way in hell I was doing there with Oliver standing outside my bedroom door. I debated for a moment if I should dress differently today, maybe tone my punk style a bit down, but then I told myself I had no time for that bullshit and stepped into the first clean clothes I could find. I put my wallet in my pocket before I came out of my room, with my guitar in its bag and on my shoulder and my jean jacket on the other hand.

Oliver was nowhere to be found, which sort of disappointed me, but then I scolded myself because of course the guy wouldn’t just stand like an i***t outside my bedroom door, that would be creepy. I double checked that he was not on the second floor and went down the stairs, where I found him sitting in the brick-orange couch in the living room. He was clearly nervous as f**k because he was kept trying to crack his knuckles even though they emitted no sound at all. His pale skin stood out because my house in contrast to his, which was sort of black and white, was all warm dark colors. The floor was a reddish-brown tone, and the walls, furniture and decorations were a play between light brown and dark red and terracotta.

He seemed to sense my movements because he looked up, when he saw me coming down the stairs, he immediately hid his hands in the pocket of his hoodie. He quickly got off the couch and we just sort of stood there, which was a little awkward because none of us seemed to want to say anything. I sighed and told him to wait right there while I went into the garden, where my mom was busy planting some new seeds. I told her I was going to go to the city with Oliver to get my strings changed, and when her eyes danced with mischief, I told her that no, this was not a date. She looked skeptical but told me to be careful, have fun on my non-date and not to return late, and I rolled my eyes in answer. I went back into the living room, thinking that mothers lived to embarrassed you, sweartagawd, and signaled to Oliver that we were leaving.

We got in the car and I recognized that this was one of the two cars I was always seeing in the driveway. He pulled into the street and the silence continued but at least now we had the radio’s music to mask it a bit. I could’ve said about a thousand different things, but I didn’t bother because he had his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. Plus, even if he could see me from the corner of his eye, I preferred not to distract him while he was driving, it was safer.

Instead I took the liberty of turning up the music, just a little bit, and finding one of my favorite stations. No, it was not a rock station, it was just a music station that just played hits, new or old and no matter the genre. When I finally found it, they were playing a country song, and I flinched at first but then as I listened to the melody I found I could tolerate it, maybe even like it.

I just let the music fill the car, the few short minutes of awkward silence gone or hidden behind the wall of sound, I wasn’t entirely sure. I watched the scenery go by and willed time to go faster because I swear every time I made a trip to the city it seemed to take longer than the last time. My mind debated that maybe my problem was that I was accustomed to things being thirty minutes away on foot, not f*****g forty minutes away in car. I told it to shut the f**k up, because maybe I just wanted to be in the mall with Oliver where we could talk without worrying about ending up in a car crash.

Finally, the highway became streets, filled to the brim with cars and traffic, and then the streets became the mall’s parking lot. When Oliver parked the car and kill the engine, I grabbed my stuff and got out, already walking towards the stores. I felt a hand grab my arm, which startled me, and I turned and frowned at Oliver, wondering why he’d stopped me.

“Look. Please… don’t be mad. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

What? Mad? About what? I was confused for all of a second before it hit me, Oliver was talking about this morning, and I thought he was still going on about that? I’d already forgotten about it, so I smiled and waved it away, there was nothing to apologize for.

“I’m not mad about that.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I swear it’s cool, now come on, I want to get this done quickly to leave the guitar in your car and walk around.”

Oliver nodded, he seemed relieved, his body losing the tension that had been clinging to him since this morning and gave me the squint smile. I smiled back and turned again making my way to the store through the throngs of people shopping. Oliver followed me silently looking around and he looked almost nostalgic, which made me wonder, how long had it been since he left the city? About a month? Visiting the city again must’ve made him feel homesick, I thought again that going from the city to the town where we lived was a pretty big change.

Well, officially we were not a town, we were a suburb, a very, very, very far away suburb, which was why I called it a town. We got to the store and Josh the cashier waved at me, he’d been working here for a few years now, since before I started learning to play the bass. I smiled and waved back, because he was a cool guy, and always gave me discounts and free gifts when I came over. Every guy that worked in the shop knew me pretty well, no matter the shift, because there was a time when I practically lived in the store.

I looked at the stairs and smiled with my own kind of nostalgia because here was where I learned to play acoustic guitar, electric guitar and bass. I loved the store and its teachers so much that I had even thought about learning to play the drums, but Ash put her foot down on that one. She argued, wisely, that she was going crazy with just the electric guitar and the bass, she’d probably throw me out of the house if I began playing the drums too. I focused back on the present and saw Dev in the little space they saved for tuning and fixing instruments. I winced internally and guessed the afternoon shift hadn’t started yet, and then thought that maybe I should come back when the other guy was in. But Dev chose that moment to look up from the guitar he’d been working on and saw me, and I thought that there was no escaping his rage now. I smiled and waved, because I geniunly liked the guy, even if he would chew me out, and he gave me a smile that looked a little fake –did he look a little sad?

“Hey Dev. How’s it going?”

“It’s going alright,” he said shrugging.

“That’ doesn’t sound like alright to me.” I was sure of it now, Dev wasn’t his usual self today, he seemed a bit down, the wrinkles on his forehead pronounced and dark bag that spoke of sleepless nights in his eyes.

“Nah, it’s just been kind of shitty this past week. Jane’s PMSing or something, and she’s bitchy right now. We’ve been arguing about the most stupid things.”

Jane was the woman he’d been with quite a few years now, since before I finished learning to play the bass. I didn’t really know what to respond to that, so I went for the obvious joke because maybe then I’d make him laugh and take his mind off his problems.

“That’s why I don’t date chicks, they’re too complicated, too sensitive, too emotional, too dramatic. I can barely deal with my one female best friend and by that I mean that most of the time I want to either throw her out the window or slap some sense into her.”

“No, you don’t date chicks because they don’t have dicks.” Dev said, smiling for real this time, and I did a mental victory dance, thinking that I’d distracted him from his argument with his wife. “Plus, don’t compare normal women to Emerald, that girl is on a whole other level.” He added a shudder for good measure, and I laughed because he was right, comparing girls to Em was unfair.

“I can’t argue with that you know, when you’re right, you’re right.”

Dev laughed and I smiled at him, truly glad to see him looking happier and better already.

“Well what are you doing here? And who’s the guy?”

Oh God, I had completely forgotten about Oliver! Sal, you wouldn’t recognize good manners if they were dancing naked right in front of you, my mental voice said with disapproval. I blushed deep red and turned around to make the introductions.

“This is Oliver, a friend of mine who just moved into town, he’s the one that brought me here. And Oliver this is Devin, but everyone calls him Dev, he’s one of the awesome guys that fix and check the instruments here.”

Dev smiled and offered him his hand, and Oliver reached out to take it slowly, looking extremely uncomfortable.

“What’s with the flatter? What did you do?” Dev asked once the introductions were taken care of, his eyes narrowing with suspicion when he turned back to me.

“Nothing, how could you accuse me of something like…” But Dev’s eyes only filled with even more suspicion so I decided to get this over and done with, he would be angry no matter what. “Alright, alright, so yes, I kind of did something but you can’t get mad at me because I swear...”

“Sal, just show it to me already,” Dev said, losing his patience.

I sighed, even after deciding to bite the bullet I was reluctant to take out the guitar because it had been a really long time since I last got it checked and changed the strings. He would no doubt notice that and probably kill me for not taking proper care of such a precious beautiful instrument, which it was. Dev glared at me and I decided that all my beating around the bush was only making him angrier, so I took out the guitar and put it on the counter for him to see.

“Oh you just have a busted string? What’s the big deal? You got the other set?”

I had a complete spare set from the last time I came to the store, and I took the six little bags out of the front pocket of the case and put them on the table too. He’d notice soon, I knew he would, even from here I could see some rust on the frets and the strings, never mind the probable damage to the wood. He did that thing guitar and bass technicians always did where they examine the mast with one eye closed to see if it was straight like it was supposed to be. When he did that, I gasped involuntarily because I noticed mine was not straight –no pun intended-, it was more than a little bowed in fact. Oh s**t, I was in so much trouble, so much, so much, so much trouble, I thought as Dev frowned and leaned closer to get a better look. Then Dev turned slowly to look at me through angry narrowed eyes and I did my very best to look innocent, like I didn’t know what he was angry about.

“When was the last time you got someone to give it a complete look over?”

I hesitated a little, thinking that maybe I should lie to him, and tried to come up with a convincing lie? Dev started looking really pissed at my lack of answer, and I gave up, if I lied and he found out my death would be that much more painful.

“Since the last time you did it.”

And that was when he exploded with profanities and admonishments and threats to take my guitar away from me because I clearly didn’t care about it as much as I should. He told me about how I was so irresponsible I shouldn’t even own a guitar, that I probably never even played it anymore. That he was sure I just left it laying somewhere not even bothering to put it in its case -which was true- or loosening the strings -which was also true-, that guitars were something that required care and devotion. It sounded like he was scolding me for not taking care of a kid instead of a guitar, I kid you not.

While I listened and nodded and agreed complacently that I was an irresponsible piece of s**t, I wondered if the problem with Dev’s wife wasn’t that he loved instruments more than her. By the time he finished cleaning it, fixing the mast, changing the strings, tuning it and other stuff, he was done scolding me and just glared at me silently. He gave me back the guitar and I played a few notes to try it, and a shiver went down my spine because that sound was almost heaven-like. I smiled and put my guitar in its case ready to go pay for everything and talk to Josh a little bit, and ready to get away from Dev to be honest.

“Hey, Oliver, right? Can I ask you a favor?” Dev asked before we could turn and leave.

Oliver looked a little wary but nodded anyways, and I wondered what Dev had in mind this time around, was he going to scold Oliver too?

“Would you make sure he comes back in three months for a check up?”

Oliver looked a little lost on what to answer, so he nodded, probably to keep Dev from yelling at him too, and Dev smiled. I rolled my eyes and flipped Dev off, dragging Oliver over to Josh, before Dev could convince him to throw me under a bus too. I decided to buy another set of strings, Oliver paying for one of them, like he’d promised, as well as some cool new picks. When everything was paid for and I had a free pick holder as a gift from Josh, I waved Josh goodbye with a smile and showed Dev the finger once more before leaving. Oliver snickered and I smiled a little, even if I was a bit mad at him for siding with Dev instead of siding with me.

We walked back to the car, which Oliver opened so I could leave the guitar and my bag of goodies in the backseat and grab my jean jacket. We went back to the mall, taking our time walking around, finally able to appreciate the stores and look at what they had. We didn’t say anything, just walked in companionable silence looking at the clothes, Oliver pointing out stuff for me, which made me smile because he already knew my taste in clothes. We passed by my favorite music store and I couldn’t help the temptation of going in to see if they had anything new. I grabbed Oliver’s hand and dragged him into the store, stopping by the rock section, where they had pasted new posters and promotional stuff. They had some new albums and I wondered if they had gotten around to ordering more boxes of Phobia or Bad Blood. The last time I stopped to ask they told me both albums were sold out and they were waiting for a new shipment to arrive. I started looking through the albums to know how they’d been organized, because the staff changed the order every time. It seemed to be organized by artist, so I started going through the B section, looking for Breaking Benjamin and Bastille. From the corner of my eye I saw that Oliver was just standing there, clearly not knowing what to do.

“Hey help me out.”

“What do I do?”

“Help me look for a couple of CDs, one is called Phobia by Breaking Benjamin and it’s got a picture of a man with wings in the front and the other is called Bad Blood by Bastille and it’s got a picture of an empty road and a man running on it.”

Oliver nodded and started searching through the CDs beside me, and I smiled because he just accepted to help me, no protest or questions. He still looked a little lost, like he didn’t know what he was looking for or what he was doing, and I thought that maybe we should buy some CDs for him to listen to. I didn’t have that much money left on me, though, and I still had to bring my bass in for a check-up and change of strings. Maybe I could buy him one or two? It was for a good cause I debated with my mind, who kept telling me that money didn’t grow on trees.

Right then I saw Oliver freeze in place, shock registering in his face and then in a split second he looked like he was going to be sick. He stared at whatever he was seeing for a few seconds before he grabbed a CD and offered it to me, eye averted. I grabbed it not really understanding until I saw the cover, and became a little sick myself because yes, that was nasty. It was Impaled’s album The Dead Shall Dead Remain. I put it back in its place, still feeling a little nauseous and a little angry that they allowed the CD to just lay there because that cover was very bloody and a kid could come in and grab it. My mental berating of the store and its staff was interrupted when I turned to look at Oliver and noticed he still looked a bit sick.

“It’s a heavy metal, gore grind band and I’m not going to judge anyone if they like them, but I do have to say they’re worse than Cannibal Corpse.”

That didn’t stop me from mentally admonishing the store for having that kind of albums just lying around.

“Don’t even want to ask. Name alone says enough.”

I laughed a little because Oliver had a point, I mean, with a name like Cannibal Corpse, their obviously not going to sing about fluffy bunnies and silly teenage romances.

“Anyways that’s on the I section of the metal section, how did you get there?”

Oliver saw how far he’d gone from the rock section and just shrugged in answer.

“I don’t know. I just sorted through the CDs. I didn’t notice changing sections.”

“That means that the albums are not here.”

I sighed, telling myself not to get sad about it that the CDs could be in another section, and turned towards the punk section where I spotted Phobia right in front of me, being promoted. Oh my God! There it is! I went to grab it, hugging it to myself, doing my victory dance, kissing the cover.

“You better be buying that, nobody will want a CD covered in your yucky gay cooties,” I heard Kev say from somewhere.

I turned and saw him standing there, he was smiling a lot and I suspected that he was laughing at me and my silly dance.

“Please you wish you could buy this CD covered in my cooties, plus, if people minded gay cooties on their products then you would have been banned from touching the albums. Can’t you just let me be happy in peace? You’re such a jerk, you never change, no matter how much time passes by.”

“True, but you love me like that,” he said waggling his eyebrows at me.

I rolled my eyes and snorted, because you could not get cockier than this.

“In your dreams.”

“No, you know we do more in my dreams,” Kev said with a wicked smile and I had to laugh because the guy was a humongous flirt.

“So, were you raised under a rock or what, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” Kev asked looking at Oliver, giving him the once-over and looking clearly not interested.

I blushed because once more I’d completely forgotten to introduce Oliver and I wondered if I could get any ruder. I turned to look at Oliver, starting to the introductions, and noticed that he looked a little angry, which made me falter. I wondered what the problem was and my mind supplied all the possible reasons, all involving Kevin and his sarcastic arrogant ass. He did tend to piss people off most of the time but pissing me off was so difficult that he had to do something that crossed the line into major-asshole territory to manage that.

“This is Oliver, my friend, he drove me to the mall because my guitar string busted and I needed to replace it.”

“Oh, so this is the famous Oliver? The new kid in town? I’ve heard about him alright. I heard he can throw a mean punch, duck like the best of them, and that he stepped in before Brent could kill you. It is nice to meet you, buddy. I sure admire your courage. Me and quite a few others. I mean, confronting Brent, never mind punching him takes some serious balls, more than most in that school have anyways.”

I turned to look at Oliver and he looked about as surprised as I felt. He had admirers? Well, who would’ve guessed? I had to stop and wonder if Kevin wasn’t being sarcastic about that as well, but he seemed to be saying the truth.

“Anyway, Ollie this is Kevin, he lives in town and his dad owns this store so he often comes in to help and torture the staff. I only like his sarcastic arrogant ass because I get discounts and because once in a blue moon, he says something that’s actually funny.”

I winked at Oliver and he chuckled silently, his bad mood lightening, though I wasn’t sure if it was because of that or because Kevin was acting as if he was insulted by my words. He was saying stuff like how dare I accuse him of being sarcastic, never would he do something like that, and that he was the most humble and modest person on Earth. When he had us both laughing, he said that we should check the sky tonight, that there would probably be a blue moon because he’d managed to say something funny.

“Shouldn’t you be whipping the staff or something like that?” I asked because I knew that he was working right now and that we were occupying his time, and I didn’t want to get him in trouble.

“Nah, I’m on my break right now,” he said with a shrug. “Plus, I saw you struggling to find anything in these messy shelves and decided to help you out before I chewed out the i***t that organized them.”

He helped me find Bad Blood and a few other albums I’d been looking for, and he made it seem so easy, he just walked up to the shelve and plucked them out. For about ten minutes we walked around the store together, Kev telling me about the new shipments, about rising bands, and about the horrible staff the manager had hired. Then he looked at the clock and said he had to go become a slave driver again, and that he’d see me around. As he was leaving he seemed to remember something and turned around.

“By the way, Oliver I really appreciate you stopping Brent from turning Sal into roadkill. I should warn you, though, you’ll wind up being roadkill yourself if you keep on getting in his way. I heard you’re currently his number one enemy. Congrats, you’ve displaced Sal from his throne.”

Then he winked at us, waved goodbye, and went through a door that seemed to lead into the staff room, or maybe it was the storage. I blinked for a few seconds, taking in what he’d just told us, and then worry made my stomach churn. I wasn’t entirely sure how he knew so much about who Brent’s enemies were but once more, he seemed to be telling the truth, and that made me worry. I turned to look at Oliver and found him frowning, probably deep in thought, before he caught my gaze and shrugged Kevin’s words off. I could almost hear him saying, “It’s par for the course, nothing to do about that.” I wanted to argue but he interrupted me before I could.

“Do you need something else?”

He like he would keep on changing the topic until I gave up so I decided to stop the argument right then. Then I noticed that his vocabulary and sentence structure were getting better, just from watching me, and I felt really proud of him.

“Let’s get you a few albums to listen to, I’m going to introduce you to other genres of music, except for metal, we can cross that out right now.”

Oliver looked a little embarrassed, maybe about his lack of knowledge, but I just smiled and winked at him.

I looked at the shelves as I thought about what the best way to ease him in would be, taking into account that he liked to play the piano and classical music. He liked Rain by Breaking Benjamin, he’d told me as much, and that was a rock ballad, so I decided he really liked mellow, slow music. Maybe I should start with soul, R&B, and indie, maybe a little Adele, maybe Bastille would be good too because their musical arrangement and harmony were great. It took me a little while, so many names and possibilities rushing through my mind that I had a hard time deciding, but I finally decided one of the albums would be Our Version of Events by Emeli Sandé.

Oliver leaned a closer to look over my shoulder at the albums I evaluated, and I couldn’t help the way my heart skipped a beat and the smile that spread my lips at the closeness. Just a month ago we didn’t even talk, and now here we were in a music store looking at CDs together. We spent quite a while looking through the CDs, even after I already had the ones we were going to buy. I told Oliver about the bands and the albums and the band’s music and the things I like the best about them, and Oliver listened with interest, asking and commenting stuff that let me know he was paying attention.

We eventually paid and Oliver made a fuss about the money because I was actually planning on paying for the CDs. I’d long since subdued the voice that kept reminding me if I bought him the albums, I’d be poor until I got my next allowance. I was prepared to live on air for the sake of teaching Oliver about music genres, but he wouldn’t let me. In the end, I let him pay for the CDs I had chosen for him and I paid for mine, even though he insisted on paying for those too. We left the store but stayed in the mall, looking through stores and just having fun until my stomach growled and we went to the food court, were Oliver proceeded to buy me lunch no matter how much I protested.

By the time we left the mall it was nearly eight, and I was hungry, because I would not let Oliver buy me food a second time on the same day, and very, very, very tired but happy all the same. I had spent all day with Oliver and it had been perfect, and my mind was all giddy imagining what it would be like to date him. I felt my cheeks heat and I was glad that the car was dark and Oliver couldn’t see me swoon all over him like a teenage girl. Get a hang of yourself Sal, you’re moving too fast here, faster than what’s safe, don’t you remember the last time you did this? I pushed that thought away, but it definitely dampened my mood quite a bit.

When we got to his house Mrs. Andel –call me Ally sweetie- invited me in to eat something before I went back to my house. It smelled so good that I argued with myself that this didn’t count as Oliver buying me food and I could happily accept. I have to tell you, I’m glad I did because Oliver’s mom‘s a great cook, not quite like Mina’s Latin American sazón, but pretty close. I stuffed myself until I felt like I was about to pop and I could barely get up from the chair when it was time for me to go back home.

“Thank you for the food Mrs… I mean Ally. But I really have to go now.”

Ally gasped almost dropping the dishes she was carrying to the sink, and it took me a few seconds to realize what had made her react like that. s**t, s**t, s**t. I didn’t even think about what I was doing, I felt so comfortable in my skin from spending the whole day with Oliver, that I completely and totally forgot about it. Well, another one that connected the dots, I thought with a sigh as I stood up to leave. Oliver was looking pretty confused, alternating looks between his mother and I, so I c****d my head towards the door. He gave his mom one last look before he got up as well and gave me a questioning look.

“Walk me home.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain on the way, come on.”

Oliver still looked confused, if anything even more so, but he agreed and I walked in the slowest pace I could muster towards my house, once I said my goodbyes to Ally and we were out the door.

“What is it?”

My mind got distracted thinking that by the end of the day his structure was pretty damn good but that he was still slow. Focus Sal.

“Nobody in town knows.” I knew he would understand, that there was no need to say anything else, and for the first time I was glad about that because I really didn’t feel like speaking about this.

“What? Really?” Oliver looked taken aback, as if he hadn’t even stopped to think about why I used the notepad in school.

“Yeah.” I averted my eyes, because this was awkward, because I felt so uncomfortable that my skin itched, but I had to look at him, so I took a deep breath and turned towards him again.

“But what about Em and Dust?” He still looked pretty confused, but he didn’t seem to be judging me, not yet at least, but then again he didn’t have all the information.

“No, they do know, they’ve been my friends my whole life.” They were there, I thought, they argued with me, they tried to convince me, but, ultimately, they supported me.

“Why are you keeping it a secret?” And that was the real question, the one that was worth a million f*****g dollars, the obvious one, but I still had no answer no matter how many times Em or Dust asked me. However, with Oliver I felt like I could maybe delve a little deeper, let down a few of my walls so I could give an answer that felt less like a lie.

“I don’t know. When Em or Dust ask I say it’s so they don’t make me the next rumor, that it’s because they won’t understand what I’m saying, because I might get expelled for lying to the system. But that’s not the truth, not the whole of it, that’s like half. The other half of the truth is that I’m scared.”

My answer seemed to confuse Oliver even more and I could see it in his face, I could see that he was going to ask something too close to the wound.

“Why? Scared of what?”

And it hurt so much, so much, so much, to remember what was holding me back, what made me keep myself aloof, laid back, that made me keep everyone and everything away from me.

“Of the past.” I knew I wasn’t giving him a true answer, that I was being vague, that I’d probably made him even more confused, but it was the best I could manage right now because I was about to break apart.

By then we were already at my door and I just kissed Oliver’s cheek as a way to thank him for the wonderful day and went in. I managed to summon enough happiness and good mood to get my mothers of my case so I could go up into my room in peace. I sat on my bed and hugged myself, I felt bad for not telling Oliver the whole truth, but I just didn’t want to bring back any more bad memories. Not today when everything had been perfect until now, when all my walls were down and I’d probably relive the whole thing if I told him. Maybe someone else would tell him about it, I thought, maybe the Andels would do me a favor and tell him so I didn’t have to. They had been there, all those years ago, Jerry had been the one comforting Mina and Ally had been talking some sense into Ash.

I sighed and stood up, getting out of my street clothes and into a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top. I got into my bed and closed my eyes, trying to push everything away but behind them I saw Oliver smiling at me, the heart-stopping one. We were fooling around in a*****e that seriously had hideous clothes and I was laughing so much I had tears in my eyes, but suddenly I got this feeling that someone was watching me. When I turned around, I saw Oliver looking at me with that smile, his eyes dancing with happiness and my heart stopped twice because that was the first time his eyes looked like that. I smiled in the darkness of my room as I remembered those warm happy more-green-than-brown eyes and how gorgeous they were. He didn’t look that happy and carefree for someone else, he looked like that for me, because he’d been looking at me.

On that stupidly cheesy and happy thought, I fell asleep.