Shit. I guess an extra two bucks an hour wouldn’t cut it then. “But who’s looking after the band bookings? You can’t leave me in the lurch like that.”
Sally laughed. “Fucks? I don’t have any. Well, I do for the bands playing here but for you, zero. Like your band, Zero, because that’s how many fucks I have to give.”
I’d be away for a month on this festival tour. The bands would be booked that far out but there’s still all the day to day stuff. Someone had to be on-site. I turned to Carlie, ready to wheedle her into it but she shook her head.
“Don’t look at me, I’m flat out down here.”
“You can’t wait another month?”
“I could, but I don’t want to.”
Hell, as if I didn’t enough to deal with, now I had this as well. The others drifted off and I sat alone at the bar. I could get someone else to do Sally’s job but could I get them trained up in time? Maybe I could talk Hamish into taking on some extra duties. He had to be here for sound check and the gigs, but would he be able to work that around the sound? Babs couldn’t do it. No one else had been here long enough. Maybe Pete, but I wasn’t so sure about that.
Even if I advertised, I had so little time.
Everything was falling flat. I should be in victory mode. The festival, the gig, the recording. My perfect life plan coming together — instead, it felt like my life was falling apart.
Carlie came over and leaned on the bar next to me.
“Seriously, Alex, you have to make things right with Dee. You’ll never be happy until you are with her. You have it bad and you can’t hide it. Are you going to let your stupid pride ruin everything?”
Dee
It was a bit awkward living with Sally. Her place was kind of small for two people but then, it was just for a week or so, until she left for overseas. She had stuff everywhere, trying to sort out what to take.
She’d said she’d leave most of the kitchen stuff behind for me and all of the furniture. That was tops since I couldn’t really afford to buy anything.
I slept on her couch with an old blanket and had my clothes in a bag in the corner. It was about a million steps up from that rat infested hotel I’d been living at, though. I never wanted to go back there. If it wasn’t for Sally, I’d have considered returning home, but I had a job now and the band was doing okay. Even if I spent most of my time pining away over Alex, I had more here than I had back there.
I’d cleaned up the place before I’d left for work. To be honest, I wanted to get rid of a lot of the clutter. Sally had tizzy things all over the place. I’d wait until she left though, before throwing anything out.
Another day of work gotten through and I didn’t have rehearsal so that gave me plenty of time for my full schedule of moping and brooding. I’d get over Alex one day but I had no idea when that day would be.
I took off my work clothes and fished under the sofa for my sleep shorts and a singlet. It wasn’t too clean but what did it matter? No one would see me. I made dinner. Well, a bowl of cereal. I didn’t feel much like eating but I couldn’t let myself starve to death.
I still had the phone number Sally had given me still in my wallet. I’d not used it. I had the power to get the revenge I wanted but now revenge had lost its zest. Even if she was right and I could destroy Alex, what did it matter? Would I feel better? I doubted it.
People kept telling me that revenge wouldn’t bring Jake back but it wasn’t the death that had turned me against Alex, it was that he’d done that and had never had to pay for his mistake. The more I’d learnt though, the more I realised that wasn’t true. Alex might not have been prosecuted but he’d paid in his own way.
I screwed up the phone number and threw it in the rubbish.
Since I was home on my own, I turned on the TV. Lately, silence annoyed me. It gave me even more room for my thoughts of Alex, of that night when he’d seemed almost to be in love with me. Every soft touch on my arm, the times he’d leaned in just a little too close to speak to me, the hard muscles of his body when I’d tackled him to the ground.
It wasn’t even a breakup. There’d been nothing to break, nothing tangible. In my melancholy, I remembered something. I got up and hunted for my leather jacket. I found it hanging on the back of a chair and pulled a bag out of the pocket. The jellybeans. They’d been there since Alex had given them to me.
I didn’t really see the point of them. Why’d he even given me a gift to remember the good times?
I took one out. A green one. As I put it in my mouth, a tear welled in my eye. Damn jellybean, making me cry.
I got another one. White. Even worse. Screw it all. I stuffed a handful into my mouth. I’d eat my feelings. Maybe then I’d feel better.
What could I have done? There was nothing I could have done differently with Alex. I hadn’t come here to seduce him or to make him fall in love with me. I’d come here to get revenge. The whole falling in love thing had happened despite myself.
That really sucked. I was in love with Alex. I’d denied it for so long. I’d tried to push those feeling away. Alex was a massive douchebag. The most selfish fucking person alive. He’d played with me like I was a little toy, one minute all caring and sweet, the next minute pushing me away. For what purpose, I couldn’t even work out. Maybe for his own amusement.
I should be more like Sally. She’d put Alex in her past and was moving on with her life. She’d probably meet some fantastic guy in Europe and would have an awesome life while I stayed here, withering away with unrequited love.
I got up and walked to the bin, fishing out the phone number Sally had given me. I could destroy him and I would. I smoothed out the paper. It smelt a bit of fish and had some oil stains, but the number was still readable. Since it was a cell phone, I could call now. I could make that call and reveal Alex for the person he really was.