Falling Under (6 page)

She nods. “Let me have it.”

I hit a power chord, just to test the volume. Twist the knob a little, hit the chord again, and this time it’s just loud enough that I’ll probably get some complaints, but not enough to cause any real trouble. Loud enough, essentially, to shock her. I pin my finger to the string, hit it with my pick, then slide my finger down the neck, toward the bridge. An ascending, discordant note fills the air, and when I get halfway to the bridge I send my fingers dancing across the fret board, picking the strings as fast as I can, eliciting a shrieking riff that hits hard and keeps on going. I turn it into a chugging low chord riff, close my eyes, and ascend the bridge, strumming and picking, the whining, wailing notes getting higher and faster with every fret I pass. This is a solo I’ve been working on for a while, adding notes and chords here and there over the past few weeks, sections of finger work.
 

With my eyes closed, I can almost see the numbers on my eyelids like silver light, halving and halving again with every note, fractions upon fractions with each shredded, twisted flight of chords. I lose myself in it momentarily. Let the music take over, let it slice through me and push away the knowledge of my impending fight with Ben, my bitterness and my sadness and my loneliness, even my burgeoning and star-crossed attraction to Kylie. For as long as my eyes are closed and my hands work music from my guitar, nothing else matters. I don’t even want to burn when I’m playing. It’s just for me. I let the solo go, turn to improv, hitting half-notes and staccato power chords, crossing from power metal style solo to metalcore-style crashing and grinding.
 

Eventually, I remember that Kylie is here with me, and I let a shuddering note hang in the air, open my eyes to see Kylie staring at me. Her expression is unreadable. Horrified? Awed? A little of both, maybe. I’m not sure. I just sit and wait, fiddle with my pick.
 

“Jesus, Oz!” Kylie breathes. “That was amazing. I had no idea you were so talented!”

I roll my eyes. “I’m not. It’s just a hobby.”

“A
hobby
?” She shakes her head and leans toward me. “Oz, that was crazy. I’ve never heard anything like it. You could totally be a professional musician with talent like that.”

I’m uncomfortable. I set my guitar on the floor beside the bed and switch the amp off. This seems to have backfired. I dig through the front pocket of my backpack, find my pack of smokes. I ignore the tin that holds my stash, even though I’d like a toke or four right now. I light a cigarette, slide open the window, and stand beside it. Maybe she’ll be so grossed out by the fact that I smoke that she’ll leave me alone. I mean, I don’t want her to leave me completely alone, just to forget this idea that I could ever play some stupid country music for her.
 

“No way, sweetness. I just do it for fun. For myself. You’re the only person who’s ever heard me play. Like, not even my mom. I don’t know why I played for you, really. My point is,
that’s
what I play. Not some twangy country bullshit. I’m not the guy for what you want. Sorry.” I blow a long stream of smoke out of my nostrils, and Kylie backs away from the cloud, waving her hand at the smoke.
 

She moves off the bed, watching me. “Why do you smoke?”

I shrug. “I dunno. I just do. I like it.”

“Does it taste good? Or does it make you, like, high? I’ve never understood why people smoke cigarettes.”

I laugh. “Clearly. No one you know smokes, huh?”

“I think my dad used to, but he quit a long time ago. I think he still does, actually, every once in a while when he’s in the garage, but never when I’m around.” She sniffs the air, and I can tell she’s fighting her curiosity. “Let me try.” She reaches for my cigarette.

I hold it away from her. “No way. No fucking way, Kylie.”

“Why not?”
 

“Because it’s bad. And you’re good.”

“It’s not bad for you?”
 

I shake my head, not in denial, but in disbelief. “No, it’s bad for me. But it doesn’t matter if it’s bad for me.”

She’s clearly perplexed by this answer. “What the hell does that mean? Of course it matters. What if you get lung cancer?”

“Then I get lung cancer. The only person who’d even remotely care is Mom.”

Hurt registers in Kylie’s eyes. “What about me?”

I ignore the pain in her blue eyes and keep pushing. “You’d get over it. You barely know me. This is just shiny-new-thing syndrome going on here for you,” I say, gesturing between her and me. I lean toward her, blow smoke right at her. “If you really knew me, you wouldn’t be here.”

She doesn’t back away. Doesn’t register my words. She just reaches out, slowly, pinches the cigarette in my hands between her finger and thumb. Takes it from me. I let her. She put the slightly crushed filter to her lips, hesitates. She’s nervous. Not sure she wants to do this, knows she shouldn’t. But she does. She inhales, a huge hit. Shit. She’s probably going to cough so hard she pukes, I’ll bet.

Yep. She starts hacking, hands the cigarette back to me, leaning over double and coughing so hard she nearly retches. I grab a handful of her hair and hold it out of the way.
 

“Breathe in, sweetness. It’ll pass in a second. Just try to breathe. You’ll be fine.” Holy shit, her hair is soft. Like fucking silk slipping between my fingers. She gasps, face pale, eyes watering and panicked. “Breathe in, Kylie. Force the oxygen in.”

She opens her mouth and sucks in a deep breath, lets it out with a couple more coughs, and then begins to regain her color. “How—
shit
—how can you do that?”

I shrug. “Everybody does that their first time. I puked the first time I tried to smoke. I did just what you did, took a big ol’ hit and sucked it right down. Puked all over the merry-go-round. I, for real, thought I was going to die. Of course, I was ten.”

“Ten? You’ve been smoking since you were
ten
?”

I laugh. “No! That was just when I first tried it. My mom’s a smoker, and it was one of hers. That was when she was smoking Reds, and those fuckers are
harsh
. I didn’t start actually smoking regularly till I was…fifteen. Sixteen? A few years ago.”

“Reds?”

“Marlboro Reds. They’re like, almost unfiltered. The smoke is a lot harsher than that.” I lift the butt of the cigarette as a gesture, then stab it out. “These are Parliament Lights. They’re one of the lightest cigarettes you can buy.”
 

“That was
light
?”
 

“Yeah, babe. It’s like breathing regular old air compared to Reds.”

“Ugh. Gross.” She shudders. “Okay, enough about cigarettes. Back to music.”
 

“Kylie—”
 

“No, just listen. Have you ever actually listened to country music? Tried to forget the fact that you think you hate it and really
listened
?”

I shrugged. “No, but—”

“Then just try it.” She pulls her phone from the back pocket of her jeans, types in her passcode, and pulls up her music app, scrolls through looking for a specific song. She finds it, I assume, and spots my dock, plugs her phone into it. “Listen. This isn’t what I want you to play. I just want to prove something.” She hits “play” and I hear what sounds like a music box, a little tinkling sound, and then it’s joined by an acoustic guitar.
 

“What is this?”
 

She waves me off. “It’s ‘I’m Still a Guy’ by Brad Paisley. It’s a funny song. Listen.”

I listen. For her, I try to push away my distaste, and really listen. It is a funny song, and against my own will I find myself nodding along. It’s soft, it doesn’t have the same edge as metal, obviously, but there’s something to it that I don’t mind. When the lyrics talk about how you can’t grip a tackle box with creamy, lotion-y hands, I laugh out loud. “Okay, that wasn’t too bad. What else you got?”

She scrolls through her songs again and selects one. “This is ‘Goodbye Town’ by Lady Antebellum. This is more like what I want to play.”

I listen. The harmony is really good, and the melody is catchy. Not too bad, either. I’d never listen to it on my own, but I’m not choking on my own vomit like I’d expected to.
 

Before I can say anything, she’s got another song playing. “You might like this. It’s ‘Four on the Floor’ by Lee Brice.”
 

It’s filtered, slightly distorted, and has a rock edge to it. I dig it. “I could get into this. It doesn’t sound like country, really.”

She nods, and I can tell she’s passionate about this. “I think a lot of people who say they hate country are thinking of like, Vince Gill and Randy Travis. Old school, traditional country. All slide guitar and twang. Modern country isn’t like that. Not as much. I mean there’re still artists like Easton Corbin and Joe Nichols who are closer to that traditional sound, but if you listen to Jason Aldean or Luke Bryan or Lee Brice, it’s not like that. It’s got a more mainstream sound, more of a rock music undertone. I mean, it’s still unmistakably country for the most part, but it’s not your preconceived notions of country.”
 

“This is a big deal to you, isn’t it?”
 

“Yes. It is. I like all kinds of music, Oz. I liked what you played. I really did. It was different than what I usually listen to, but if you’ll notice” —she rubs at her nose, grinning at me sarcastically— “no nosebleed.”

I laugh. “Fair enough. I misjudged you. I apologize.”

She frowns and shakes her head. “We’re both always misjudging each other.” The song ends, and she puts something else on. “I really like this guy. Brantley Gilbert. I think you’ll like him, too. This song is ‘Hell on Wheels.’”

There’s a hard edge to this song, guitar work that I can actually move to, rock-n-roll riffs that touch on my ear for the-harder-the-better music. When the song ends, I nod at her. “Okay,
that
I actually like.”

She squeals and claps, literally giddy with happiness. “Yay! I knew I could convert you.” She pulls her phone off the dock and points at me. “Your turn. Play me something you listen to.”

I think about putting something really hard on, like Spineshank or something, but I don’t. I turn on “The Sadness Will Never End” by Bring Me the Horizon. As the slow, melodic intro plays, I tell her the name of the song and the band, and I watch her expression shift to surprise when the guitars and drums hit all at once. Her features turn tight with focus, listening. The song ends, five minutes of screamo angst-driven glory. I love that song. I cue up another song, a little harder: “In Place of Hope” by Still Remains. She remains focused, listening, dissecting.
 

When that song ends, she’s quiet for a few minutes. I let her sit, let her process. “There’s a lot of anger to that. A lot of…bitterness.”

“Yeah. That’s the point of it.”

“Why?”

I shrug. “It…I don’t know, I’ve never tried to explain it before. Um. It’s about understanding. Someone else understands how you feel. Understands how anger can be…in your fucking blood. Part of you. How bitterness and rage and sadness can be all-consuming. They get it. They express it. It’s commiseration.”

She nods. “I can see that.”

“And really, that kind of music, it’s not as deep as it goes. It’s not as hard as it gets. There’s more melody and a variety of emotions and sounds and styles to it. You get into stuff like death metal and black metal, it’s just…rage. Pure hate made into sound.”

She frowns. “Show me.”

“Really? Why? It’s…”

Kylie’s response is almost angry. “Stop thinking you can tell me what I like, or what’s not good for me. That’s as bad as Ben trying to tell me who I can hang out with.”

“He means well.”

She gapes at me. “Why are
you
defending
him
?”

I wish I knew. “I’m not,” I say. “It’s just true. And fine. If you really want to hear something truly
hard
and dark, then here you go.” I scroll through select a song. “This is Amon Amarth. The song’s called ‘A Beast Am I.’ They’re actually a lot more melodic than most other death metal bands.”

She listens, and her eyes are wide, the edges of her mouth tight. She doesn’t like this. The other stuff, it’s not as bleak and fury-rife. There’s no lightness to this music, nothing redeeming. It’s unrepentantly black and edged and bloody.
 

She’s visibly relieved when the song ends. “Jesus, Oz. That’s…wow.”

I laugh. “Yeah. Told you.”
 

She bobbles her head side to side. “I can see the talent, though. I mean, to play that hard, that fast, for that long? Every song? The amount of sheer energy it must take to play that way is…just staggering.”

I’m impressed that she can see past her initial, visceral reaction. “You should see a live show of that kind of music. People leave bloody. For real. Broken bones and shit. It’s brutal. But you’re right, it takes a sick amount of speed and technical precision to play like that.”

She shudders, making a face of disgust. “I’ll pass on the live show, thanks. I can imagine.”

I laugh. “No, I really don’t think you can.” I lift up the sleeve of my shirt to show her a thick ridge of scar running along my left bicep. “I got this at a death metal show. It was…shit, I can’t even remember who was playing. I was a little…blasted, I guess. Some local band at a dive bar in the back end of Denver. I shouldn’t have even been allowed in, ’cause I wasn’t even seventeen yet, but security was a little…lax. Anyway, this guy in the pit had spiked bracelets on his wrists, the spikes were wicked sharp and two inches long, and he was flailing around, kicking, thrashing. He must’ve slashed a dozen people to ribbons, and the band was egging him on. The harder he thrashed, the harder they played. The bouncers had to finally throw him out because he was getting little
too
psycho even for a death metal show. Well, I got too close, and he caught me on the arm. The spike actually got caught, and I had to kick him away from me to get it loose. It was insane. My mom was
so
pissed. I needed like, thirteen stitches, and we really didn’t have the money. She was late on rent because of my ass.”