"Do you want me to turn this off?" I asked Holden, as the first bars of “Rock Princess” started.
"No, but you turn it off if you don't want to listen to it."
I left it on. I'd never listened to the whole song. A shiver went through me as the words filled the car. They hung in the air between us. Holden cut to the bone with this song. I can see why he'd had so much success but the words were like a punch in the guts for me. Still, I forced myself to listen until the end.
Such a bittersweet song, mourning a lost love.
When it finished, I turned the radio off. I couldn't bear to listen to anything after that.
"Did you mean it?" I asked. "Or were they just pretty words?"
"I meant it," he replied. "Christ, Carlie, how could you even ask? Even now, you're not sure of me."
How could I be sure? The night he’d left me, he'd been at a party. I'd had to work. Holden was making a kind of living with his music. He'd gotten an advance for the album and we'd been living it up while the money lasted. I'd bought some new clothes and I thought I could cope with things.
Except we fought. So many arguments about silly things.
"Don't go to the party until I finish work," I'd said to him. "Wait for me and we'll go together."
But he hadn't wanted to do that. He told me people had expectations of him. He said that but I heard it as him not wanting to arrive with me. I embarrassed him. I wasn’t good enough. We still hadn't sorted it out when I'd left for work.
When I got to the party, Holden wasn't anywhere to be found. It was at another fancy bar, all done out in glossy red and black. I asked a few people but no one had seen him. Or, they'd seen him but weren't telling me. I got a drink from the bar, then realised there was a back room.
As I walked towards it, the management guy came running over, saying he had to talk to me. That was strange. He'd never even looked at me before. I had strong suspicions he'd been filling Holden's head with advice to drop me. He grabbed my arm and tried to lead me from the door but I knocked him away.
When walked into the room, Holden was there with another woman. Before that, it'd only been circumstantial evidence. The sort of thing you can explain away. Weird phone messages, being evasive about his whereabouts, that kind of thing. But this was living proof right in front of me.
He couldn't explain this away. He had his jeans around his ankles. No further evidence needed. I screamed and he turned toward me. I flew at the pair of them. There was nothing he could say to make this better. I punched and scratched. I think I screamed too, I was in too much of a fury to know what I was doing. The place turned black.
Eventually, someone pulled me off him and carried me out. When I got home, Holden's things had already been packed up and taken away. I curled up in a ball on the floor and cried for two days.
That wasn't something that a song could fix. When I looked over at Holden, I could tell he was thinking about that time too.
He was about to say something when I turned down the driveway. We were at the house. It still looked the same. Grass overgrown, with old cars and junk littering the front yard. The front window still had tape over the broken glass.
I didn’t have to ask Holden what he was going to say. I knew he was sorry.
Chapter 28
I FOLLOWED HOLDEN INTO the garage. It still stunk of motor oil. He pulled down the ladder to his old room and we climbed up. The place was covered in a layer of dust so thick that it made me cough.
It took Holden a while to climb up and I remembered the punches to his stomach. I wished I could take them back.
Holden turned on the light switch and it flickered into life. Just a pale glow, as though all the strength had drained out of it. I was surprised it still worked after all this time.
The posters on the wall had become so sun-bleached that they were almost white. The ashtray beside the bed was filled with yellowed cigarette butts.
He reached toward me. I stood still, not wanting to flinch from his touch but not wanting to encourage him either. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes.
"Want one?" he asked.
I took it from him. I'd not smoked since I'd been home, not wanting the nagging from Mum. He lit it for me, his fingers hovering close to mine and our faces almost touching in the yellow light.
"I thought you'd given up?" I hadn't seen Holden smoke a cigarette since he'd come back into my life.
"Yeah, it's not good for my voice but who cares? One night won't hurt." He sat down on the bed and took a swig from the bottle, then lit up his own cigarette, dragging deeply.
I stood in the middle of the room, wondering why we were there. He offered me the bottle.