Incomplete (22 page)

I glance at my mom. Her lips are parted, her brows lowered. My gaze locked with my dad’s, I say, “Mom needs helps. She needs to go somewhere. You know she does. This is unhealthy, and if she doesn’t get help, sooner or later, she’s going to die. The other night…that was scary. I was scared. Aidan was scared. And I know you were scared too, Dad. Obviously she can’t help herself, so you’re going to have to do it, even if you don’t want to. She should be talking to someone—a counselor,
someone
. I don’t know what happened in her life before all this, but clearly it was not good.”

A sob escapes her and I find my eyes going back to her. Her hands cover her face and her shoulders shake as she cries. I blink my eyes and take a deep breath. I can’t hate her, seeing her like this. But I don’t know if I love her. I just feel sorry for her, more than anything.

“You aren’t here enough, Dad. You work too much. I know you’re here sometimes, and that when you are, you make an effort with Aidan, but I’m telling you, it’s not enough. He thinks he’s worthless. And it’s your fault—the both of you. You’re his parents.
Be
his parents.
Fix this.
Aidan needs better than this—better than what you’re giving him. He
deserves
it. That kid…” I swallow thickly. “He is amazingly smart, talented, and he doesn’t see it. You, as his parents, are supposed to help him see it. Be a better parent to him than you were to me—that’s all I ask.”

I look at my parents, seeing them clearly, finally. And I think they finally see me as well. I think maybe they’re actually listening, for once. My mom is crying, but she hasn’t denied any of what I said. And my dad, he’s staring at me like he doesn’t know who I am and he wishes he did. He closes his eyes, nodding slowly, and I know I’ve won this round. I expel a loud breath, drained.

***

“I told you you’d be famous.”

I glance over my shoulder. Aidan is standing behind the chair I’m sitting on, his eyes on the laptop computer open on my desk. An image of a guitar in red with a black background takes up the screen, the words ‘Rebel Records’ slashed across the picture in white. Catchy.

I sigh and remove my glasses to rub my eyes. “I’m not going to be famous, Aidan. Trust me.”

“What are you doing?”

“Research.”

“Are you going to sign with them?”

Turning in my chair, I give Aidan my full attention. He is wearing jeans, no surprise there, and a black shirt with a skateboard on it. I’m not sure what to tell him. I’m not sure what I’m even doing. Not the complete truth—I know what I’m going to do, but I don’t know if I should.

Throat thick, I nod. “Yeah. Probably.”

His shoulders lower a barely perceptible amount, but I see it. I am attuned to Aidan’s gestures, looks, everything. Any good brother would be. “What does it say?”

I lean back so he can better see the screen. “It says they’re a new company, just five years old. They’ve signed a few artists who went astronomically famous and a lot who didn’t.”

“Will I get to visit you in California?” A spark of excitement enters his eyes and I’m glad for it. It means maybe he is not completely traumatized by my impending departure.

“Of course.” 

“Who’s that guy?” Aidan points to Johnny Love’s smarmy photo. His dark hair is slicked back and he’s wearing a tan suit with a red tie, his teeth large and gleaming white, like a shark’s.

A smirk flashes across my lips. “That, little brother, is the man signing me. So he’s either really smart, or really dumb. Guess we’ll find out which it is.”

Tilting his head, Aidan studies Johnny’s image. “He looks smart to me.”

“I think you’re biased. Anyway, we’ll see.”

Aidan hesitates, hovering over my shoulder.
“Grayson?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you and Lily break up?”

I shut the laptop and get to my feet, causing Aidan to backpedal. Pain usually slashes through me at the sound of her name and this time is no different.

Glasses back on my face and straightened once, twice, three times, I finally meet my brother’s eyes. “Because she wanted me to do something for myself, regardless of what I wanted. She was unselfish.”

A frown fits to his mouth. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Not when the end result is my heart being ripped out, Aidan, no. I
wanted
her to be selfish, to want me more than anything. Only she didn’t. She wanted to do the
right
thing. You know what happens to people that do the right thing, Aidan?”

He stares at me, not speaking, maybe not even understanding the semi-rant I’m on. “What?” Aidan finally asks.

“They aren’t happy. And the person they’re doing the right thing for…they aren’t happy either.”

“So I should do the wrong thing all the time?”

I toss my hands in the air. “Why not?”

“Okay.”

Eyes rolling, I sigh with exasperation. “Not
okay
. Don’t listen to me. Ever. You should know that by now.”

“Okay.” Aidan slowly nods.

I close my eyes and count to ten. “Let’s go do something. What do you want do to?”

“Bake cookies?”

My eyes pop open. “Serious?”

Aidan grins, shrugging. “We never bake anymore. I miss it.”

“All right. Cookies it is. Chocolate chip?”

“Yeah.”

I sling my arm around my brother’s shoulders as we walk from my room and squeeze him to my side. I love this kid more than shit.

***

I stride down the street, clenching and unclenching my hands. I need to do something, go somewhere, hit something,
anything
. I need to get rid of this energy. I need to erase her. Lily has moved on. I’ve seen her around town with Sam Lorenz, a guy who graduated last year and is going to school for accounting. Most recently, I saw her leaving her house about five minutes ago with him. She was laughing, smiling. She didn’t even glance my way. I can’t believe how much it hurts. It feels like my heart is gone from my chest, shredded. I need to fill the hole inside me with something.
Anything.

Full red lips and smoldering gray eyes flash in my head, and even though I’m repulsed by the thought, I’m also slightly turned on.
Ironic that I’m standing right by her place. I stop at the corner of the sidewalk, staring at the apartment above the bar located across the street.
Why am I doing this? Don’t do this. Why am I
doing
this?

I’m crossing the street and
going up the stairs before I can let myself change my mind. As though she was waiting for me, the door swings open. Zoe has on a tight white tank top and tiny blue cotton shorts. I can tell she isn’t wearing a bra. Her short blond hair is wild around her face and her eyes are hungry as they go up and down the length of me. My body immediately reacts and I close my eyes as she yanks me into the apartment.

No words are spoken, no looks exchanged. I close my eyes to block out her image and am instead tormented by Lily’s. It’s angry and crude and I hate myself even as I find release. It doesn’t obliterate Lily like I wanted it to. Instead it makes her larger than life—in my head, in my heart, in the immediate, overwhelming regret that slams into me.

“Until next time,” Zoe coos, giving my ass a light tap before walking naked to the bathroom, her tanned and toned body shimmying as she goes.

There won’t be a next time, I know that. I pull my pants up, sickened by the fact that I didn’t even take my clothes off, I didn’t even wait to get to a bed, and that I have no respect for or even like the woman I just screwed. My hands are shaking as I run them through the shaggy locks on my head. I feel like I’m going to puke and take a deep breath, trying to keep the nausea at bay.

Stumbling out the door and down the steps, I retch into the grass along the side of the bar. Not the first time someone has puked next to it, I’m sure. An acrid taste in my mouth and a burning sensation in my throat, I straighten; eyes down as I hurry toward home.

I feel dirty and I know it’s my head and heart more than my body that needs to be cleansed, but I do what I can, lingering in the shower, covered in soap, until the water is cold and I’m shivering. I close my eyes, taking shuddering breath upon shuddering breath. I just lost a little more of me and I mourn it. Waves of pain slide over me, relentless and continuous. The urge to go to Lily is strong and I am even more disgusted with myself for wanting to go to her after what I’ve just done.

Dressed in gray athletic shorts, I collapse on my bed and stare up at the stars, dizzying grief sweeping through me. Each time I do something to try to remove her from me; I take away a piece of me instead. I can’t stop though. Pretty soon there will be nothing of me and instead it will all be her.

Sick as it is, I am consumed by Lily Jacobs.

I tell myself I shouldn’t feel guilty. I tell myself she is moving on without me. She broke up with me, she won’t speak to me, but it doesn’t alleviate the remorse. Because I know she didn’t want to move on, I know she didn’t want to break up with me, and I know she doesn’t want this silence between us. But none of that changes what is. None of that changes the fact she is dating Sam Lorenz.

Fumbling in the drawer of the nightstand, I pull out the slim white envelope. Inside it is a ticket with a short note:
In case you change your mind.
The ticket is dated two weeks from now. Closing my eyes, I inhale slowly, deeply. I’ve already decided. As soon as I saw Lily with Sam my mind was made up. I had to make it irreversible for me to change my mind. And I just did with Zoe. The envelope weighs practically nothing, but it feels heavy—heavy with choices and possibilities and finality.

Soon I will be out of this house, out of this town, out of Lily’s life. Two weeks to go and I’m gone, pursuing the dream that tore my heart out. I wonder if one day I’ll look back and decide it was worth it, or if I’ll look back and simply miss what I left, even forced as I was. I sit up and grab a pen and notebook from the nightstand next to my bed as lyrics form in my head.

I don’t remember when or how I came to write music. All I remember is writing down words to express how I felt about situations in my life that were out of my control, and somehow forming them into a song. I taught myself how to read and write music and I learned to sing from listening to songs and matching my voice to the tone of the performers. There were no music classes, no school choir, no vocal lessons. There was just me and my need to get all of my feelings out and songs were the way that worked best for me. Still are.

You tug at me and a little piece of my soul unravels, right into your hand.

Soon there will be nothing left to me.

You smile and tell me to stay. Another piece of me splinters, right into you.

Soon there will be nothing left of me.

You say you love me and my being is cracked, because I love you too, and I willingly give you another bit of me.

I fear one day there will be nothing left of me.

You told me to go and I couldn’t, because there was nothing left of me. It was all already yours.

Now there is nothing left of me.

I am gone, dissolved, disappeared, all of me some part of you.

There is nothing left of me.

Even when I’m destroying myself, I have to be in control. Then I have no excuses—I have no one or nothing to blame but me and that is the way I want it. This is all me. I did this. I toss the pen and paper to the side of the bed and clasp my head between my hands, my throat and chest tight. What did I just do? Hot tears blur my eyes. I ended it. I ended any chance of reconciliation between Lily and me, not that there was a chance anyway. But now I know. Now I have no reason to hope, to wish. Hollow, numb, I finally destroyed the old Grayson.

I can leave now.

***

A soft knock at the door lifts my attention from the plane ticket. The ticket is thin, small, and has the power to change my world. I look at it almost daily, counting down the days until I’m gone from Wisconsin.

“Come in,” I call out, my eyes going back to and lingering on the ‘one way’ proclamation. Am I really doing this?

My dad, looking customarily rundown, leans against the door. Wearing black pajama pants and a gray tee shirt, he is ready for bed. “How’s it going?”

I sit up and lean my back against the headboard. “Wonderful.”

He crosses his arms, sighing. “Are you sure, Grayson? Is this what you really want? I mean, I can’t tell you no, you’re an adult, nor would I, but…do you really want to do this?” Rubbing his face, he straightens. “Are you doing this for you? I guess that’s what I’m asking.”

“Who else would I be doing it for?” Lily’s words swim through my head:
You do this, Grayson. If you can’t do it for yourself, then you do it for me.
I swallow, setting the ticket on the nightstand beside the bed.

“I don’t know. This just seems sudden. One minute you’re going to college in a few months and the next you’re signing a record contract for Rebel Records. Did something happen?” Concerned brown eyes search for the truth in my expression.