“Don’t be sorry,” he grinned. “Nothin’ to be sorry for.”
I looked at him for the longest time… and yes, I got lost in his eyes. They were mesmerizing.
Probably ten seconds went by before I realized I was staring. I broke it off and tried to be all jaunty and witty. “So… what do you want? Other than to get into drunk girls’ pants?”
“Do you see me getting into drunk girls’ pants?” he asked.
“NO,” Shanna shouted from her bed.
I’d totally forgotten about her. She was lying on her back, eyes closed, otherwise dead to the world.
“No,” I admitted and then laughed, mostly at Shanna’s unexpected reappearance in the conversation.
He grinned, too. “Okay, then.”
“…so what do you want? Out of life.”
He looked at me for a long moment before he answered – like he was gauging me. Like maybe he was wondering how much he should open up to me.
Then he started talking.
9
“The first time I ever knew what I wanted was when I was four years old and I heard the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Under The Bridge’ for the first time on the radio. You know that song?”
“Of course.”
“I remember being hypnotized by the guitar at the beginning. The way John Frusciante’s fingers just dance over the strings. And then Anthony Kiedis comes in, and it’s so sad… him singing about the hills, and about how Los Angeles loves him… and then he goes into the chorus, about how he doesn’t want to ever feel bad again… and then, later in the song, the backup singers come crashing in, and it goes from being this sweet, plaintive love song, to this dark, disturbed, lost, painful, wail about him betraying that love… God. I didn’t know it at the time – I mean, I was four years old, I couldn’t have explained it – but that song took me on a trip. It made me feel something I’d never felt before.”
I watched his face as he told it. He meant every single word. He was absolutely transported as he told it…
…and, I have to admit, I was moved by how passionate he was about it.
He smiled and continued. “My dad was a musician – that’s where I think I got my love of music from. Anyway, he was sitting there watching me the entire time, and after it was over, he asked me if I liked it. And all I said was, ‘Again!’”
I had to laugh. He said it exactly the way a four-year-old would say it – full of exuberance and innocence and ‘Right NOW!’ impatience.
“So my dad picked up his electric guitar and he played the song, and we both sang it together. He taught me the words, and I made him sing it over and over and over.” Derek smiled, a little ironically. “Other kids have Goodnight, Moon. I had ‘Under The Bridge.’”
His eyes trailed off into the distance, and his voice took on an edge of melancholy.
“It’s one of the best memories I have of my father. Things got pretty shitty between us later on, but I know – I know that he loved me, because he kept playing that damn song over and over and over again. Never said ‘no, let’s stop’… he just kept playing it.
“But it’s also a great memory because it was like a lightning bolt hit me. It was the first time I ever realized, Hey, my dad DOES this. He plays guitar and sings. That’s what he DOES. That means I can do this, too.
“Not only that, but… the song just made me feel. In the space of three minutes, I went from hypnotized and happy, to in love, to feeling pain and loss, and every fucking second was beautiful. And from that moment forward, I knew what I wanted to do in life: I wanted to be like my dad. I wanted to make music and sing. And I wanted to make other people feel, the way that song had made me feel. Feel everything.”
He stopped talking and looked back at me – a little shy, a little hesitant, a little embarrassed.
It’s hard to explain my emotions.
His words had the same effect on me that “Under The Bridge” had on his four-year-old self: I’d felt, totally and completely.
I could see the passion and the realness in him. It was unmistakable.
And after that story, I was so totally into this guy.
If he’d walked over right then and kissed me, there was no way I could have resisted.
Thank God he didn’t.
Although… looking back… I really wish he had.
10
Derek was still watching me hesitantly, like he was afraid I might be judging him.
That was the exact same way I’d felt before, when he’d asked me what I wanted out of life.
Afraid of judgment. Afraid of being made fun of.
Only difference was, he’d opened up to me, totally and completely.