Raze (Riven 3)

“Sorry, I’m just kinda dazed still. It went great. They said…Ven and Ethan said they loved me. But that they had to talk with their manager, who would have to talk to the label, et cetera, so they told me they’d get back to me. So I went to dinner with Case ’cuz I was over that way and I wanted to take my mind off waiting. I figured it’d be days until I heard, but then Coco called while we were getting dessert after and…it’s a go. Like, it’s really gonna happen. I mean, just the tour, on a trial basis. Nothing long term. Yet. But…it’s gonna happen.”

Joy and terror hit me at the same moment, two trains coming from different directions and traveling at the exact same speed. Joy for my sister, who wanted this so badly. Terror for myself, at what my life would look like without her. Their concurrence left me shaking, grasping for words. And underneath that was a petty, niggling hurt: that she’d gone to dinner with Casey when she knew I’d have been off work and waiting to hear about the audition. I pushed it aside. The audition had been an unpredictable, whirlwind occurrence for her. She hadn’t meant to hurt me. Hell, this wasn’t about me.

I took a deep breath.

“Holy shit, Sof, that’s amazing.”

She nodded, still wide-eyed, bypassed the couch, and plopped on my bed. She told me all about it, the way we told each other about everything, and by the time I went to bed the small hurt didn’t even seem worth mentioning. The terror I forced into the tiny box where I’d always kept dread, buried underneath responsibilities, fantasy, and distraction. All that was left, then, was joy. Sofia’s dreams were coming true and I wanted everything for her.

* * *

—

The next week Sofia began rehearsing with Riven. They were holding off on announcing hiring her for the tour until the right moment, so I was strictly sworn to secrecy and then presented with a nondisclosure agreement, which Sof handed over apologetically.

The NDA was no big deal, really. Over the course of that day, as I went to work, stopped at the store, cooked dinner, and watched TV, I realized that I didn’t really have anyone I would’ve talked to about it anyway.

A few people from work were the kind of quasi-friends I might occasionally grab a beer with after our shift, but…I’d never been that social on my own. Ever since we were kids, Sofia had mostly been in charge of our social life, her friends becoming our friends, and with her gone more it had become clear that I didn’t have one.

All that week, I went to work and came home and hardly saw her. I cooked dinner, ate alone, and put her half in a container in the fridge. I didn’t watch any of the shows we were in the middle of, instead letting my audiobooks play as I wandered around the apartment, absently doing chores we’d had on the to-do list forever: scrub the shower grout, wash the windows, sweep under the oven.

Then Tuesday night came, and instead of dragging me to this or that karaoke night like she had done religiously since her freshman year, she had a meeting with the band. I didn’t mind missing karaoke exactly. I enjoyed it, but it had always been her passion, not mine. But I was accustomed to her getting me out of the house, and it seemed wrong to spend Tuesday night at home, so I went to the movies by myself, something I’d never done before. Usually money was tight enough that Sof and I only saw something in the theater if we both really wanted to see it. This time I hadn’t cared about the movie, I just wanted to feel like I was a part of the world.

In the row in front of me a couple sat wrapped up in each other, touching through the whole movie. Her head was on his shoulder and his arm was around her shoulders, and they murmured to each other softly. The way they fit together made my heart race, and I looked away because the intimacy of it felt like something I shouldn’t witness.

I’d never had that. Never had someone I could touch like that, or who would hold me. Growing up, I’d spent most of the time I wasn’t at school working or with my siblings. I had friends I talked to at school, but most of them were involved in after-school activities like sports or theater and I was always running off to a job.

I had a few awkward fumbles in the walk-in freezer when I worked at the diner and a jerk-off race with a neighbor at a sleepover once when I was young.