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CHAPTER 61 After the sex, Kim told Dave to go away, and maybe tell the others she wouldn’t play that night. She felt she was fully justified; what business did her band have, playing without her? She had started the bloody thing, she wrote all the bloody songs. It was her band. With much effort, she dragged herself out of bed again and started a shower running. She felt the need to clean away the remnants of Dave’s touch. She hadn’t really wanted him, she just felt that after Xavier, she had no right to deny him. As she stepped under the water and relished the feeling of it rolling down her skin, she decided (again) that men were disgusting. Too big and too hairy and too overconfident in their tiny little packages. Even the nice ones were out for sex. Of course, she understood where Xavier was coming from. If she had ended up with a stranger last night, she would be hating herself right now, instead of just hating men and their pricks. No, the pricks were fun. It was just everything else that pissed her off. Maybe she should turn to girls again? A new pet every city, then off to find another. She put her face into the water, her eyes closed. This wouldn’t help her, switching streams again. Thoughts of it had just brought back thoughts of Jessie. Beautiful Jessie, who was changing so much. Losing weight and gaining glamour. It was hard to recognize her anymore, and that’s what hurt Kim most. Kim felt she was the one who changed her. She didn’t want to watch Jessie slip away from who she used to be. She just wanted Jess back... Without the complications that would damn them again and again. Kim thought of the half-American’s bare skin, and the way she would shiver and moan and gasp at the subtlest touches. She remembered tracing her hands down those sweet thighs, touching her. Tasting her. Living inside the burning moment with her. Was it what love felt like? She didn’t know. She couldn’t. It was a word that wasn’t supposed to exist. A weakness. There were tears mixing with the shower water. How long would this all last? How long until she was back in her own country, being miserable in the privacy of her own home? Kim ran her hands thorugh her soaking hair, combing it with her fingers. She started singing softly, a song from the album they were touring for. “I do not want to live on in your memory if I can’t learn how to remain alive. There are so many things in front of me that just don’t make sense. Please don’t be incensed. None of this is about you. There’s consideration and blame enough to go around. I feel so forgettable. Will you forget me when I’m gone? Will you forget me when I’m gone?” “I won’t.” Kim whipped around, pulling the shower curtain around her. She almost fell, and stared out through her hair at Jessie, who was holding out Dave’s extra set of keys for the room like an offering. Kim turned the shower off and lowered herself to the floor of the tub, keeping the curtain around her. “You look sick.” Jessie was quiet. “But not that sick. You’re not missing two shows in a row.” “Who bloody cares if I miss this one? You can always replace me, right?” Kim drew her legs up, and her feet made a squeaking sound along the bottom of the tub. “I didn’t want to replace you, but what choice did I have? Did you want us to let the crowd storm the stage? They weren’t amazingly happy when you left. Though I’m sure there’s already a bootleg of the So Goth song circulating.” “I’m not bloody playing. The band doesn’t need me.” “Maybe that’s because you never let them need you.” “Oh, so it’s my fault now?” “Unless I’m mistaken, you were the one who walked off the stage last night.” Jessie shrugged. “If you want to say you weren’t, I can pretend to believe you.” “Jess...” Kim made a move to stand up, but she decided against it when she slipped. “You’re not this bitter.” “Well, maybe something’s making me this fucking bitter. A piece of advice, Kimberly: grow up. You’re the oldest, and you’re acting like a spoiled child. You can’t always get your way. Life isn’t always fair.” “Jessie--” “You have my friendship back, but I don’t know how long you’re going to keep it.” She threw the keys at Kim, and they bounced harmlessly off the shower curtain. “Miss as many goddamn shows as you want. Just remember that we’re still under contract, and Carroway isn’t going to treat you like his prize possession forever.” Kim closed her eyes and listened to Jessie’s receding footsteps. She hadn’t even thought that the door would have been left open until she heard the new voice. It was Heather. “Just because you’re PMSing doesn’t mean that everyone else gets to suffer, you bloody selfish bitch!” She tore at Kim’s shower-curtain shield, forcing her unsteadily to her feet. “We are not going to put up with your bloody attitude and this slacking of yours any longer, do you understand?” Kim wrenched back, holding the shower curtain tighter around her. “Do you bloody mind? I’m bloody naked here.” “Not like it’s anything we haven’t seen. Not like it’s anything the entire world hasn’t seen. You love showing off that grand naked body of yours, why should you be so bloody worried now?” “It’s bloody different!” Kim reached past Heather, who was looking less dirty than usual, and she grabbed a towel. “It’s hard to play a bloody set with the girl in pink crying, the bassist tripping over her notes because she can’t sing and play at once, and everyone else bloody upset altogether. No one could keep rhythm. No one could remember what songs we even bloody knew. I am not letting you do that to us again.” “Since when did you ever use the word ‘us’?” Kim lost the shower curtain and wrapped the towel around herself. “You’re the girl who’s bloody well against everyone.” “I started using that word when it no longer included you.” Kim winced. “You’re abandoning you’re band, and still think you have a right to call it your own. Quite frankly, I don’t give a shit about whatever new problems you have accumulated, because it’s always the same: you fucked up and you can’t admit it. Boy problems, girl problems, mental problems. If you’re so bloody miserable, why not just shoot yourself in the bloody head and be over with it? You’re a rock star, verging somewhere on the edge of icon; it’s what’s expected of you! At least then they won’t be expecting the rest of us on the bloody stage, waiting to see if you’ll come back.” “What the hell would you know about boy problems or girl problems, you filthy thing? You do your best to keep everyone the hell away from you.” “And so do you.” Kim stepped over the edge of the bathtub, then stalked out into her room. “What the hell right do you have to be attacking me, anyway?” “All of us should be in here right now screaming at you, but no one else had the guts.” “Oh, someone else had the guts.” Kim narrowed her eyes. “She couldn’t have been hard enough on you; you’re still doing perfectly fine. Everyone knows what you two were up to. If anyone could reduce that ego of yours, it would be her.” “Again, something you couldn’t know about.” “Don’t assume you know so much about me, bitch.” Heather narrowed her eyes, which were lined thickly with olive green. “I happen to have someone around who’ll share my bed as soon as fight with me.” Kim opened her mouth in disgust. “God, don’t tell me you’re fucking one of the boys from Wasted Assumption?” For a moment, she feared it had to be Xavier; he was the only one with enough of an open mind to even consider. “How many people in this fine band of yours are comfortable fucking boys?” Heather shook her head. “They believe everything they’re fed, and I couldn’t settle with anyone so gullible.” “The only girls on the road are us, though...” Then Kim understood, and she backed up until she hit the bed. “Elke...” “I have to give you credit; I barely had to spoon-feed you the answer.” “Oh god, Elke...” “She decided a long time ago to stop chasing someone she couldn’t have.” “Alix... Elke... No, not her.” “She hasn’t been Alexandra for years; your first girlfriend saw to that. And to tell the truth, I don’t even think she likes you anymore. Now, you’re playing the show tonight. I’ve already talked to Carroway, and he wants to talk to you.” Kim didn’t respond. Heather walked to the bedside table, picked up the phone, and dialed it. As it rang, Heather handed it to Kim. “Talk to him. No one else can stand to listen to you whine.”
This chapter includes the lyrics to
Forgetful Forgettable, off the grrls' second
album,
Blackened Princess. |
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Talk to LL,
the author. |