Defining Us: The Calvin & Eric Story (69 Bottles) (9 page)

I roll my eyes. "No shit, considering that's all you guys seem to talk about with us anymore. Look, he needs his space, he needs time, he needs…"
 

"He needs to get over himself and tell you the truth," Casey interrupts.
 

That right there is the crux of this whole situation. "I can't force him to tell me anything and any more pushing might just push him away completely."
 

"So then what?"
 

"I move on."

Casey raises an eyebrow at me again, cocking his head too. "You're incapable of that and anytime you try, you feel like shit afterward. Is that really the best solution?"
 

I shrug. "It has to be. Until he's willing to talk to me, to tell me the truth, to explain it all to me, there is nothing I can do."
 

"What if the truth is something you can't live with?" Casey asks me in a tone that tells me he's channeling Calvin and not himself.
 

Shaking my head, I tell him the honest to god truth, "I'll never know until he tells me."
 

"What if he never tells you? Then what are you going to do, sit here pining over something you can never have because you weren't willing to move on when you had the chance? He told you he can't be with you, he's given you an out. If I were you, I'd take it."
 

"You're kidding, right? After you've sat here, telling me that he needs to tell me the truth, you turn around and tell me to take his offered out. What the fuck, Casey?"
 

He sighs and sets his menu down. "Look – yes, he needs to tell you the truth, but if you can't honestly tell him, to his face, that the truth doesn't matter, no matter what the situation may be, then you need to pull up your boxers and move the fuck on. Calvin will never come clean with you unless he knows that you won't run in the opposite direction. Either that or he is going to tell you the truth in an attempt to push you away. Either way, you have to be willing to stand by his side, no matter what. You're going to have to prove to him what it is that you feel for him, what it is that he means to you and that no matter what his demons are, you can overcome them together.
If
you can't commit to that, Eric, then there is no point and you should move on." He stands up and finishes, "His demons are dark, Eric. I've seen a taste of it and more importantly, I'm starting to see what it does to him when his demons hurt you. Make the choice, Eric. Decide what and who are more important. When you've done that, go to him and explain it to him."
 

"He won't listen to me."
 

He shakes his head at me. "I wouldn't dismiss that, I have a feeling that him knowing how you feel - regardless of the situation - will change his perspective on telling you, one way or another."
 

It's with that sentence that Casey leaves me to my table. Where he disappears to is beyond me, but I know he's watching me closely because it's his job.
 

He's right, of course. I can't keep pushing at Calvin without showing him some support, showing him that I am not something to be thrown away or trampled, but how? When? Where?

Not here, and not in Miami. Away from the bus, the band, the guys.

THE moment I’ve been waiting for…the time I’ve been desperate to find has finally come.
 

My fingers strum along the strings, my mind clears, my body comes alive with every strum, flick, click, tap, and move of my fingers. With playing comes peace.

The silence on the bus is broken by the strings of my guitar, strumming and tuning as I play through some of my favorite songs. Songs that always seem to free my mind of everything. Songs I only wish I could play on stage. Playing always opens the world to me, like watching a movie in my head. When I’m playing, all my fucked-up-ness is gone and replaced by all the things I wish I could have. Today it’s filled with Eric.
 

The way he looks when he has his bass in his hands, the euphoric smile on his face when he settles in to play. The smile in his eyes when he realizes I’m watching him. That is a happy place indeed.
 

I knew years ago, when we started this band, that playing was the same kind of therapy for Eric as it is for me.

I asked Dr. V about it once, about why playing was so freeing for me and he knew the answer immediately. I taught myself to play when I was institutionalized. Playing brought peace within me. Like reading a good book, I could escape into the music, which is how I became so good at it so fast. Playing, writing songs, discovering what I was capable of with my fingers and a guitar was more than I could have ever imagined. It would bring me hope, bring me comfort. Especially when I had bad days, at least bad days in their eyes.
 

When I left that place, one of the first things I did was find myself a guitar. Once I had that in my hands, street peddling became easy and profitable for me. Couple that with the fact that I could sing meant more people would watch and drop change into my case. That’s how I managed to have an apartment, well, the semblance of an apartment, and how I managed to keep myself from becoming a complete street thug. It’s also how I managed to get into college, which led me to the band.
 

The memories are flowing harder than they usually do when I play alone.
 

I remember meeting Talon first. We had a chemistry class together. We were two broken souls brought together as pretty close friends. After that, I met Dex, and then Eric who came with Kyle and then introduced them to Talon and everything changed. I found a home with these crazy fuckers and for the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged. For the first time ever, I felt like who I was on the inside was never a factor. In fact, the amount of women surrounding us made it that much easier to forget my past. To forget about my father and, of course, the time I spent in the institution.
 

But I also found alcohol and drugs. Turning to coke when I needed a pick-me-up to get through school, band practice, shows, then eventually needing it every day. It took nearly a year before anyone truly caught on to what was going on with me and ironically enough, it was Eric that figured it out. I found it easier to be myself, to live through anything, when I was high. Nothing mattered and it was through being high that I figured out how to ignore the urges I had after being with anyone. I found it easier to pass over it like it didn’t matter or like it never happened.
 

Eric convinced me and got me off the coke. I couldn’t do it by myself and Eric was always there to pick up the pieces of me when the night was over.
 

Unlike the rest of the guys, I never spent time in rehab. I found the strength in myself to cut back on what I was using and how often I was using it until eventually I was only using once a day. That lasted for nearly six months, before one day I got so wrapped up in school that I passed out before my nightly ritual of snorting a line. When I woke up in the morning, I felt clearer and stronger than I’d ever had before. It was literally the wake-up call that I needed in order to rid myself of the powder forever.
 

Oh, I remember that day like it was yesterday…

“I need you,” I said into the phone.
 

“What did you do?”
 

I smile into the phone. “Nothing, that’s the problem. Can you please come over?”
 

“I’ll be there in five,” Eric said before hanging up the phone. I went back to my dorm room, one that I was fortunate enough to have to myself, and I waited.
 

Within five minutes, Eric was there, concern etched in his features. “What’s up, Mouse?” I smiled at the memory of how that nickname came to fruition.
 

“I need you to take this.” I handed him the baggie I had in my hand. “I don’t need it anymore.” He cocked his head at me. “I didn’t do it last night, I fell asleep before I could manage to do it. When I woke up this morning, everything made more sense. If it wasn’t important enough for me to do it last night, it isn’t important enough for me to do it ever again.”
 

Peacock smiled at me, wide and gorgeous. “I knew you could do it,” he said softly.
 

It was in that moment, though I didn’t know it at the time, that I fell for Eric Richardson. His love and compassion shone through that morning brighter than anything I’d seen before. Ironically enough, I chalked it up to being free of the coke, to not being high or hungover. The clarity of it all, that’s when everything changed between the two of us. Though I never had a problem avoiding the obvious, burying myself in girls without a second thought. Girls were easy. Girls I could fuck and walk away from. I never felt like I had to explain myself to them. I never felt the need to tell them why I couldn’t stay, just that I wasn’t going to stay. I always felt like I owed Eric an explanation for why I was the way I was.
 

Despite all of that, he never indicated anything about being gay until much later in the band’s history. Little things started happening, like he’d find himself in the middle of a threesome with a guy and a girl, or sometimes I’d even catch him watching some guy in a way that would suggest more than just a casual glance. Then the women started to fade into the background. He’d still tag along to the bars, flirt with the girls, talk to them, whatever, but I started to notice that he’d never take anyone anywhere. He’d always be in the same spot, often times with the same girl, drinking beer and whatever. Then I started to notice the girl conversations slowing down and he’d intercede into my personal conversations and whatnot. Not that it ever bothered me, but in hindsight, I see what he was doing.
 

He was jealous, in his own way.
 

I realized he was gay right before he kissed me for the first time, right before I threw up all over the ground in front of the bench we were on.
 

I sigh, remembering that first kiss. I remember thinking briefly that I’d consumed enough alcohol to stop myself from falling into my body’s conditioned response and that maybe all the stars finally fell into place…then it shattered into a million tiny pieces. Holding me prisoner inside my own body.
 

I told myself that he needed to admit to himself that he was gay, but he knew he was gay. So I rationalized it away by thinking that he needed to tell everyone. And until he came clean with Talon and the band, I couldn’t act on my impulses and emotions. Then he finally fucking does it and everything I thought I knew shattered. My self-hatred has only grown.
 

I know that I am dragging him along, making him think that us being together is a possibility, but it is not intentional. That is why I told him that we can’t be. I hoped like hell that telling him would make him see it and move on, let it go.
 

The disconnect between my heart and my head, between the truth and what I’ve been conditioned to think as truth, has only made things worse.

 
“You have to tell him.” Addison’s voice breaks me of my thoughts and I jump. I’d gotten so lost in my thoughts somewhere along the way that I stopped playing. “He deserves to know the truth. You may not want to tell me or anyone else for that matter, but you have got to tell him. Let him make that choice, Mouse. You cannot make it for him.”
 

I give her a sad smile and nod.
 

She comes over to stand in front of me. She grabs my chin, raising my head up so that I can look at her. “I’m here for you, so is everyone else on this bus.”
 

I close my eyes. “I know, but now is the wrong time.”
 

“No time like the present.”
 

“True, but you see,” she releases my chin and I open my eyes, “He needs to be able to escape from me and right now, he can’t do that. He needs to be able to walk away, to think, to process, to come to grips with what he will hear. I feel like if I tell him right now, it won’t be a good thing.”