Rip Her To Shreds (2/4)
So somehow they get themselves a gig.
There can’t be more than twelve people there, and they know eleven of them, friends and family and none of this changes the way Trish’s stomach is eating itself, the way Jo’s foot taps incessantly. The way nervous energy buzzes around the room like air.
Peyton’s all smiles though, and it doesn’t help anything, not when Trish can’t stop staring at the way it crinkles her eyes and rips her face in half in all the right ways. Not when it doesn’t so much calm the butterflies as it makes them erupt two-fold, fills them less with nervous energy and more with anxiety, less with if I fuck this up, how am I gonna be with bigger crowds and more with if I fuck this up, what will Peyton think?
It isn’t a problem though, because they all take to the stage, but Peyton takes to the mike. Talks the room like she spins for a living, like a professional and it doesn’t matter that there’s twelve people here, because those twelve eat up Peyton’s words like she’s spoon-feeding them, dance and leap and thrum more to the music than Jo is, and Jo’s insane, fucking erupts in volcanic energy.
Trish sings like she could forever, and she can feel the audience watching Peyton watching her. Feels Peyton eye her every move, word, breath and it doesn’t feel wrong and that scares her more than she’ll ever say.
Point is, Trish doesn’t feel like herself up here, feels better, stronger, prettier. She could live up here, live center stage and it wouldn’t be for the music or the attention or the power, it’d be for Peyton, and Peyton’s eyes and Peyton’s breaths down her neck. It’d be for her, and Trish doesn’t know what that means.
The set only lasts twenty minutes, because they don’t have any music of their own yet, are singing covers and random excerpts of riffs and beats and Jo tumbles off sweating like a melting candle and grinning like a fiend. “Jesus fuck,” she says, and yeah, Trish supposes, that sums it up pretty fucking well.
Peyton’s too many smiles and the drummer of the day, TJ, is laughing, collapsing onto the sofa and Peyton moves fast, has her arms around Trish’s neck, is kissing her cheek before she knows what’s happening.
“Careful now,” she mumbles, “I already think the sun shines out of your ass, don’t need to be thinking you’re the entire fucking universe too.”
Trish flushes and Jo’s still bouncing off the walls in the background, jumping over TJ’s outstretched legs and suddenly there’s another body in the room, something tall and fair and lean.
Peyton’s boyfriend of the week is a sturdy sort of bloke who Jo says is pretty fucking hot, and he wanders over, grabs Peyton’s arm a little too tightly to be pleasant and drags her out of the room. Trish tries not to follow, not to wander out of the hall after them, but she does, and she distances herself as the guy and Peyton pick up speed, as he finally shoves her against the wall, pushes a thigh between her sweaty legs and bites her neck. Peyton cries out, and it’s desperate enough for Trish not to know whether it’s pain or pleasure.
At practice the next day, there’ll be bruises on Peyton’s arms and Trish won’t know what to say.
*
Thing about being in a band is that at some point you have to sit down and write something.
Trish toys with garage band, with melodies and rhythms, beats and harmonies, but more she writes shitty, shitty lyrics about boys and girls, crushes and high school. She writes about what she knows, because that’s all she can do.
She chews on the end of her pencil, can taste the bitter lead and figures, finally, that putting it to paper never hurt anyone.
*
So many kids but I only see you
And I don't think you notice me
Well I've seen your boyfriend
and I don't think he treats you right
But that's none of my business is it?
*
Fall Out Boy’s Evening Out With Your Girlfriend happens too quickly, because last thing Trish remembers is babysitting the neighbour’s kid after school, next she’s got an album with lesbian innuendo in the title.
She doesn’t even know, but her mom quirks an eyebrow.
*
The two drummers they toyed with who weren’t shit got different offers, seduced by other bands and college respectively, and Jo isn’t mad, is happy for both of them.
Jo just hopes that her band, theirs, that it’ll fall into place at some point and when she goes to her cousin’s Bar Mitzvah later that week and her dad tells her to pray for something, she clenches her fingers together and hopes for stability.
*
This practice is just the three of them, and Peyton’s bouncing around the room, seeing how far she can leap off the end of the sofa after eating three bags of marshmallows. She falls flat on her face too much, but it’s entertaining, and Jo’s laughing from the other side of the room, giggling into a can of Red Bull and Trish’s not sure when they stopped playing their respective instruments, but it happened.
Jo sidles over to Trish with a fresh can of soda, passes it to her without a word and slides down the wall to the floor. Trish follows, collapses next to her and Peyton’s turned on the stereo, yelled out a, “Fuck, I love this song!” and is dancing too well, rolling her hips and waving her arms, spinning on the spot and head banging to some beat heavy thing that shakes the walls of the room.
Thing about Peyton is she’s sorta magnetic. Catches the eye, holds the attention and Trish and Jo are both quiet, watching Peyton move and dance and smile like she means it.
Peyton throws her head back and her hair whips over her back enough to make her laugh aloud, she turns, twirls on the spot and her tight jeans, t-shirt, they don’t shift, but something in Trish’s belly does. Something contorts, and Peyton’s looking right at her, bouncing with too much energy and Trish’s heart is beating in her throat, her lungs constricting and her toes curling and the moment’s over almost as soon as it began.
There’s a shrill scream from Peyton’s phone in the corner, a ring tone that’s less music and more one of those novelty tunes, a ‘Pick me up, motherfucker!’ and Peyton’s bouncing over, picking it up with a few quick, hushed words before she laughs aloud, hangs up and throws herself bodily at Trish and Jo, wrapping an arm around each of their necks. She grins. “I just scored us a drummer.”
*
Andrea’s not a lot of woman - is flat in all the wrong places and, well, flat everywhere else too. Andrea is also in three other bands.
“Fuck, Peyton,” Jo says, “we need someone permanent.”
“Fuck, Jo,” Peyton mocks, and it’s biting and teasing all at once. “We’ll woo the bitch, seriously. Andy’s amazing, and she loves me. It’ll be fine.”
Andrea doesn’t talk much, is quiet and intense in a new way - not like Peyton. Half the time she doesn’t even answer when asked something directly.
“I’m Patricia.” She holds out a hand, and Andrea turns to stare, glasses halfway down her nose and lips pursed as if she can’t quite decide what to respond with.
“Andrea,” she says, finally. “Peyton told me you’re an awesome singer. Did you know that a man’s voice is only deeper than a woman’s because a man has longer vocal cords?”
Trish blinks and Jo shrugs from beside her. “Really?”
Andrea nods, before turning on her heel and heading over to Peyton. They’re whispering, heads pressed together and Peyton keeps laughing, shooting looks over Andrea’s head at Trish and Jo.
Later, Peyton will say that Andrea drums like she’s got something to prove and that works for the band, because they‘re all sorta like that.
*
Jo works seven hours a week at a coffee shop in the middle of suburbia, and her boss is a dick and the other waitresses call her a slut and a dyke and Jo’s not really sure why, and isn’t all that inclined to care.
There’s a regular, some guy who can’t be older than Jo, short and sorta weedy, but he’s charming and friendly and he talks to Jo like she’s the only one in the room, and he ignores the other waitress, Sammy, who rolls her eyes enough to be painfully rude.
When Jo wanders over today, order pad in hand and ready smile on her face, he looks worried, concerned, and his grin is anxious.
“The usual?” Jo asks, and she taps her pen on the paper, tilts her head and the guy laughs, shakes his head.
“Am I that predictable?”
“Nah,” Jo says, “I’m just working the Jedi mind magic. It’s cool, man, means I know your order before you say a word.”
The guy laughs, leans back in his chair, and his face is soft when he looks over at Jo, his eyes wide and his lips quirked. “Y’know, I’ve been coming here for like, a month now, and I still don’t know your name.”
Jo smiles. “To be fair, you haven’t exactly offered yours.”
“Mark,” he says, and he holds out a hand. “Yours?”
“Jo,” she replies, and she tucks the pen behind her ear, moves to shake his hand and his grin gets wider.
Mark looks at the floor, and when he looks up again, he’s not smiling, looks dead serious and Jo’s not sure about the transformation. “Just for the record,” he says, “I haven’t been coming here for the coffee.”
*
Somewhere between gigging and practice, between dates and weeks, they talk about writing a new album.
“We need new material,” Trish says, and Jo nods from the sofa, kicks her heels over the edge. “I don’t know, I’ve got some ideas for sounds, for like, melodies and shit, but lyric-wise I’m kinda, I don’t know. I’m not sure I can write like I want to.”
“Peyton writes,” Andrea says, and she’s tapping drumsticks on the table, beating out rhythms and lines and Peyton‘s head shoots up from where it was resting on the table. “Not lyrics,” she supplies, and drops her head back down, thuds it.
“What? Seriously?” Trish’s eyes are on Peyton, but Jo’s just quirked a brow.
“Like what? Do you record your sexcapades to publish as Harlequin romances for middle-aged women?”
“Just for your mom,” Peyton quips, and she gets up, forces herself back into the cushions behind her. “It’s shit,” she shrugs, looks over at Trish. “Just free thoughts or whatever. Stream of consciousness, dude, I don’t even like reading it. I won‘t taint your precious head.”
“No,” Trish says, “if you write…I mean, I don’t want to be the only one with creative input in the band.”
“You’re not,” Peyton replies. “And seriously, not worth it. Just relax, you can’t force the writing. It’ll happen.”
*
They’re touring in some seedy little van with the backseats ripped out and Andrea hates the smell, hates when Jo smokes pot there, hates when Peyton doesn’t bother to hide packets of tampons and condoms or dirty panties. She hates it when Trish stresses out over stupid shit, or when she punches someone in the face when she’s on her rag.
Andrea hates not driving, hates being crammed between Jo, Trish, Peyton in the back, hates not having direction, control, aim and maybe it’s ironic, because it’s the total opposite of Peyton, who thrives on lack there of.
They’ve stopped for the night, and Jo and Trish are sprawled over the back, tucked away in sleeping bags and Jo’s snores bounce off the roof, echo through the hollow van and Andrea sits up, blinks at the low glare of the screen on Peyton’s sidekick. Her fingers are going, hitting keys and Andrea crawls over, leans in close.
“Some newborn babies,” she starts, and her voice is sleep-laced, dry and husky, “they cry without tears until they’re six weeks old.”
Peyton glances over, all big, doe eyes and parted lips. Her cheeks are wet, and Andrea knew that before she’d crawled over.
“Grown ups aren’t so lucky.” She pulls a packet of tissues out of the side pocket of her backpack, and rubs at one of Peyton’s cheeks.
Peyton‘s clenching her eyes shut, breathing heavy and Andrea can feel it on her cheeks, can hear the lilts and the chokes. “Morgan’s just-”
“Yeah,” Andrea says. “I know.”
*
Peyton fumbles with the notebook, tosses it at Trish’s parted fingers and makes to move away, to leave the van.
“What’s this?”
“You wanted words, right?” Peyton’s shifting her feet, balancing her weight and Trish quirks a brow. Peyton rolls her eyes. “Writing, y’know, Andrea sprung me. I’m not always totally inarticulate. Fuck, sometimes people even mistake me for talented.”
Trish laughs, but Peyton just quirks a half-smile. “Whatever,” she says. “You don’t have to like…I don’t know, you don’t need to do anything with them, but you wanted me to write and this is it.”
What she doesn’t say is this is me.
*
Trish doesn’t stay up all night reading, but she comes close, scanning page after page of chicken scrawl by the light of her sidekick and she traces letters, thoughts and doesn’t know how she feels.
She can’t justify any of this, isn’t sure how much she should bring up, not sure how much of this is about whoever, whenever, whatever. She doesn’t know if she likes this Peyton, who’s all darkness and edge, instability and insecurity and by early morning, self-depreciation has blurred with malice, self-loathing with everyone-loathing and Trish can’t read between the lines.
I want to hate you half as much as I hate myself
*
“So,” Peyton says. “Anything worthwhile?”
Trish opens her mouth and silence pours out, stunted attempts at words until finally she just shrugs. “Yeah, maybe.”
*
My insides are copper
And I'd kill to make them gold.
*
They’ve all been drinking.
To be fair, the gig was incredible, energy that poured off the stage, over the crowd and it was almost uncontrollable, almost too much to contain and Jo and Trish fall off the stage together, a giggling, fumbling mess of scattered thoughts and natural highs, of rolling emotions and Trish could do all of this forever.
People don’t care that the room is full of minors, alcohol is available at every turn, from every hand and Trish and Jo try to out drink each other, themselves, whoever, try to work their way to suspension because neither want to leave.
Music pounds from the speakers and they dance like this is it, like the world outside the room has gone to shit and this is just, all there is.
Exhaustion seizes Tricia’s limbs first and she stumbles outside, breathes in cold air like she’s drowning and fumbles with the back door on the van. She collapses over on top of her sleeping bag, closes her eyes for a split second, before the door rolls open again and the frame in the doorway is short and thin and the moonlight silhouettes her too perfectly. Outlines her, shades her in and she could be drawn in charcoal, she looks too perfect, and Trish doesn’t need to see her face to know it’s Peyton.
Peyton stumbles in, trips over spare cables and falls down next to Trish, who sits up in retaliation.
“Peyton,” she mumbles, “Peyton, you-” But there are lips smashed against her own, soft and demanding and endless all at once, achy in all the best ways and Trish could kiss her forever.
There are fireworks somewhere, has to be, booming orchestras of sound erupting in Tricia’s ears, rolling butterflies in her stomach and she puts either hand behind Peyton’s head, presses her closer again, kisses her cheeks, lips, nose, everything she can get too, and Peyton’s slurring words, slurring, “Love you, love you like I, forever,” she’s mumbling it all into Tricia’s mouth, but she backs off too quickly. Stares with parted lips and glassy eyes.
“Love you as much as I hate me,” she whispers. “So, I can’t…I can’t.”
And she gets up and leaves the van.
*
There’s too much time after gigs for booze and boys, for wayward kisses and groping fingers and Trish can’t tonight, can’t handle it and a few seconds of fresh air rolls into hours of silence outside the venue, head in her hands and thoughts in her feet.
She hears the crunch of gravel before she feels Andrea sit beside her, a can of Mountain Dew in either hand. She passes one to Trish and takes a draining sip, before just sitting, staring out at a dark sky with too many stars.
Thing about Andrea is if you’re not talking then she’ll wait for you, wait until you begin, so Trish figures she may as well just, maybe should just start. “She’s not allowed to do that.”
Andrea doesn‘t say anything, takes another sip, before saying, “What?”
Trish wrings her fingers around the can, mumbles in choked phrases, “She’s not allowed to sweep in like that, when I’m fucking seventeen, and she’s twenty-two, and-“ she pauses, takes a deep, shaky breath, “she’s not allowed to make this more than a stupid teenage crush.”
Andrea doesn’t move, says, “Is it more?”
Trish fumbles for words, sighs, rocks back on her heels and rolls her eyes up to the night sky. “She’s sorta beautiful,” she whispers.
Andrea sighs, pushes her glasses further up her nose and moves to sit next to Trish, wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Look, Peyton and I met a million years ago at a gig. She was feral-looking, ugliest dreads you’ve ever seen and I don’t think she ever showered.”
“What?” Trish says, “Are you telling me she’s only hot because she bathes now, or what, because that’s not-”
“Shut up,” Andrea says, “let me finish. What I’m getting at is that none of that mattered, because Peyton is Peyton and Peyton is sex on legs no matter what she’s wearing or what she looks like, it’s just because she’s her, and it’s not uncommon to be half in love with her.”
Trish sighs. “Does it pass?”
“No,” Andrea says, “but it gets easier to deal with.”
What Trish doesn’t say is that nothing about what she’s feeling is in halves.
*
Take This To Your Grave commercializes Peyton’s broken heart, and if it were anyone but Trish singing it, Peyton doesn’t think she’d be able to handle it. She does though, because the best of words leak from open wounds and the sounds Trish makes to go with it is born from a different sort of hurt all together.
Point is, they make an album, and fuck off, Peyton thinks, but it’s good and it’s not embarrassing to play live and, apparently, it’s not embarrassing to play on the radio either.
The suits come running.
*
“Way I see it,” Jo says, and she’s leaned back in the chair, joint propped between two fingers. “If a banana’s meant to be curved, why straighten it? Y’know what I mean?”
The guy on the couch beside her looks sorta confused and Trish can pretty much relate to that expression every day of her life, but he hasn’t tried to leave yet so she won‘t say anything.
“It’s such a philosophy,” Jo continues, “if the planet’s round, why flatten it? If the kid’s gay, why hetero-ize them?”
“Dunno,” the guy says, but his eyes are still a little scattered. He leans back into the sofa, fingers jittery and it makes Trish wonder if she mistook confusion for non-sobriety. “It’s the man, y’know, he does that shit. Wants to put people back into the chain. We’re all fucking links.”
Trish does laugh at that, giggles into her beer and she almost misses the guy come up behind her, a million feet tall and the sort of pretty you only see in ads for hair products or toothpaste and maybe cans of aerosol deodorant. (And the last one’s really only a maybe, because the guy stinks like only people on tour do).
“Hi,” he says, and Trish half double-takes.
“Hi.”
“Your friend’s insane,” he says, and Trish laughs again, wrings her fingers around the cup in her hands and grins at the floor. “Yeah, Jo’s…I dunno, actually. Jewish? High? Whatever.”
The guy laughs, and it‘s deep and rolling and maybe not a hundred percent honest. “I’m William Beckett,” he says and Trish nods, the name ringing all the right bells.
“Remember Maine?”
“Yeah,” he says, and he flashes her another grin that should be on the side of a bottle of mouthwash.
Trish purses her lips, sizes up the pretty face and svelte frame and wonders if she wants to go home with this. “I liked your EP,” she says. “The acoustics were nice.”
“Thanks,” he grins. “I’ve gotta admit it though. As hot as it is that a chick like you knows who I am, I was sorta hoping for a name reply when I offered mine.”
She could kick herself (but doesn’t) and bites her lip. “Fuck, sorry, Patricia Stump. Trish. Call me Pat, I’ll rip off your face.”
William laughs, and it‘s easier this time, something ringing right beneath it and Trish smiles. “Bill,” he says.
“Okay,” because yeah, okay. He tilts his head to the side in a way that exposes long neck and hair that’s sort of a lot better than hers and when he says, “You want to come back to mine?” she’s amazed at how easy it is to say, “yes.”
What amazes her more is that when she finds out Bill has already worked his way through the rest of her band, she won’t hold it against him. He never told her otherwise and it was never going to be anything more.
Besides, he’s fucking good.
*
“Do you know what the best thing about the van is?” Peyton says, and she’s pulling off her socks, throwing them into the ugly green garbage bin outside of the diner.
“What?” Andrea asks, and Peyton turns on her bare heels, stares with wide eyes and set jaw.
“Nothing,” she says, and Jesus, she must be PMS or something. “Nothing. The whole thing is like Danny Bonaduce shat on four wheels.”
“Only when we’re all hungover.” Trish pulls a hand through her hair. It’s hot this morning, sun belting down like it’s got a vendetta and she grimaces, wipes the sweat from her forehead.
“No,” Peyton says. “I could put up with it if that was the case. This is all the time. Dude, we totally have a record deal, why are we still in a van?”
Jo shrugs, but she’s half-grinning in the morning light and she throws a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. “The label’s probably just waiting for you to spread your legs.”
Andrea snorts, says, “It’ll happen sooner or later,” and Trish just laughs.
Peyton flips them off, pulling open the door to the diner and dropping into the first available booth. Trish slides in beside her, Andrea and Jo on the other side. The morning’s lethargic in all the worst ways, and maybe Peyton isn’t the only one who’s grumpy. Jo’s forehead hits the table like gravity after flight and Andrea’s face is marred with a scowl that probably isn’t that out of the ordinary.
“Hi!” And the waitress is the sort of perky that’s bred in diner staff uniforms. She’s almost pretty, doe blue eyes and bright red lips that clash with her pale orange apron. Her natural blonde hair almost looks dirty as it hangs around her neck. The waitress (her nametag reads ‘Izzie’) passes out menus.
“You interested in the Breakfast specials today?” she asks, and Jo shakes her head somewhere from the corner of Trish’s eye. “Okay, you just wave me over when you’re ready to order, girls.” And she’s off, back behind the counter, flirting with the boy on the till.
Peyton leans over, watches the waitress lean into the guy before sighing. She taps her knuckles against the table, stares at the cracks in the ceiling, out the window, at Jo half passed-out and Andrea frowning into air. Peyton takes a deep breath, holds it in her cheeks before saying, “I’m just sick of working for nothing. Fuck, maybe my mom was right. Should’ve finished fucking college.”
“It wasn’t for nothing,” Trish grumbles, and she buries her face in the breakfast menu. “Isn’t for nothing.”
Peyton’s never been discrete, but maybe Trish is more obvious here, because when Peyton’s eyes fix on her, she doesn’t move, doesn’t shift and doesn’t turn to stare back. Peyton’s eyes burn into the side of Trish’s face (always) and they ache in a way that doesn’t hurt, but is maybe sort of raw all the same.
(Always.)
“No,” Peyton murmurs. “Not for nothing.”
*
They tour and tour and gigging will never be bad, but Peyton is glad for the break, glad to head home and pretend to sleep for a week. She loves going back to the old hardcore bars and meeting the new legion of scene kids who wail and moan their way to something that isn‘t the punk rock rebellion, but isn‘t the generic bubblegum pop conformity either.
And okay, Peyton figures, it’s only natural that there’ll be one smart ass kid who stands out like a pink dress in a row of ripped jeans and this one is made of jagged edges and blunt nails, nose ring and sallow skin that tinges beneath the seedy lights of the club. Her eyes eat Peyton up and she can feel the forced seduction and lets herself be wooed.
She won’t find out the chick’s name until the morning after, but there’s something in the touches and the kisses and the way when Peyton says her name, the other girl just says I know that makes this more than nothing.
She thinks it might be love.
*
Casual sex was never really something that Trish got off on, so after William (and Butcher, Steve, Chris and one time Dirty, but fuck off, that was once and they were both so, so, so drunk), Trish starts hoping for something more. And the thing is, thing is, Trish isn’t a lesbian, doesn’t think so, but there’s something about Anna that’s made of exceptions.
They meet at a HMV and Anna’s buying an Elvis Costello album and Trish is browsing and it’s not a matter of magic or chemistry, but it is of like and blushes and giggles and Anna’s sweet and pretty and as far away from Peyton as Trish can find.
And right now? That’s what matters.
*
“It’s not that you’re not hot,” Jeanae says against Peyton’s neck. “It’s just, Jesus, I don’t want a relationship.”
Peyton’s heart doesn’t break (not right then), but something cracks, and she thinks what hurts the most is that they never really had a chance to start anything in the first place.
They’re back together by the end of the week.
*
She’s not really sure what it is about being on the road (the hum of the engine, the smells, the sounds), but she’s always too inspired, sprawled in the back of the van between Peyton’s restless form and Jo’s chatty mouth and that night, when the others go to the bar, Trish stays in, curled up with a guitar and the Fisher Price keyboard that Jo bought her for her nineteenth.
The strings feel right, always, and tonight the chords do too, and Trish smiles as she plays, closes her eyes and hums along a song that won’t write itself (but maybe Peyton will).
“That sounds awesome.” Trish opens her eyes to Peyton leaning over the front seat. She climbs over, big ass and all, until she falls beside Trish in the back.
“Seriously, Harry Potter, you making magic without me?”
“Never,” Trish says, and the smile comes easier than it has in a long time. “Can’t make magic without the book.”
“Book?” Peyton asks, but her eyes are dancing, crinkling at the corners like scrunched paper and Trish laughs, giggles something that warms her throat and her belly and her head.
“Oh, sorry, don’t like it? My muse, then? My Ginny Weasley?”
“That’s better,” Peyton says, and she’s smiling in a way that Trish hasn’t seen in a while. She curls up, moves herself around so she fits against Trish’s side, warm and solid and thin, and Trish tries to put the guitar down but Peyton stops her.
“No, Harry,” she says. “I’ve got Tom Riddle in me tonight. I don’t need you to fight the basilisk off, but a lullaby might be nice.”
“Lullaby?”
Peyton grins. “Whatever, something sweet enough to rot my teeth.”
Trish thinks, thrums out a few chords and plays Ellie Greenwich’s I Can Hear Music gently enough that it echoes on the walls of Peyton’s broken heart and tired head.
“So, new album, huh?” she mumbles and Trish nods.
“I guess we’re heading in that direction,” Trish says, and she’s not playing anything she knows now, just has Peyton sighing into the back of her neck and maybe she is a muse, because the stuff coming out of the guitar (out of Trish’s fingers) is probably something worth remembering.
“It’ll be awesome,” Peyton says. “My dream team - you and Jo and Andy. My dreamers.”
There’s something missing there, and Trish bites her lips, opens her mouth to say anything, but the words won’t come out, and when Trish finally asks, “You alright?” it’s harder to say than it should be, is broken up when Trish can’t fucking look her in the eye.
Peyton opens her mouth, forehead crinkled and eyes half-lidded, but she stops herself, bites her lip and when she says, “Why wouldn’t I be?” Trish doesn’t point out that that isn’t really an answer.
*
Jo’s not sure why everything is so complicated for Trish and Peyton because, really, Mark’s the only part of her life that makes any sense.
He comes to one of their last gigs back in Chicago for this tour, and when she gets off stage that night, he kisses her like he means it and Jo thinks if she were less of a hard ass, she could’ve cried.
“Fuck,” he says, “my girlfriend can shred.”
*
It’s not that Peyton’s had a shit life, it’s just that depression sorta sneaks up on her sometimes. It hides away in corners, in the hum of the van tires and the space between her eyelashes until it finds the precise moment to kick her when she’s down, when she’s PMS-ing and exhausted and hasn’t slept in a month.
It’s good like that, and these days, Peyton lives under blankets and mattresses and she won’t eat and she won’t talk and when Trish tries to pull her out of bed for the gig, Peyton isn’t sure whether to slap her or cry.
So she does both.
*
Jeanae’s leaning in, breathing down Peyton’s neck and morning afters are all that comes easy here, afterglows are bliss. “I’m sixteen,” she says, “and maybe I don’t know what love is, but just for the record…this, it’s as close as I’ve ever come.”
Peyton kisses her, and it feels like she’s freefalling.
*
Jo’s not like, she’s not one of those chicks who gets weepy over Hallmark cards or angry over sexist comments. This doesn’t mean she’s butch and it doesn’t mean she’s a fucking housewife, it just means she can’t be fucked either way.
She’s not really a great shoulder to cry on either, but Peyton’s not okay at the moment, and Jo’s nineteen. Jo’s too young for this, and Peyton’s halfway to a meltdown and popping pills like a drugstore cowboy and Jo watches and tries her hardest to be supportive because there’s supposed to be a time and a place for an intervention, but Jo can’t figure out when too much is too much.
It probably wouldn’t matter if she could anyway. She always cuts Peyton too much slack.
*
“Fuck, Peyton,” Jeanae says. “Just, where is this even going?”
And that’s as honest as Jeanae’ll ever be.
*
Write a new album on the count of three.
From Under the Cork Tree. Ready, set, go.
*
Continue.