29. “Snarl”“How come the groom doesn’t have his own stand? How come he just has to hold the bride’s dress and look like a wedding fetishist?” Ryan demanded, shoving the Civil War groom in Amir’s face and shaking it around. “He’s the only hot one in this set!” He flipped through the pile of people in front of him. “Fuck! Amir! You didn’t divide these evenly. I’ve got all the ugly ones, and you’ve got all the hot chicks and that one hot guy that I told you I wanted!”
Amir just sighed and pulled out one of the three Mary’s, one from the 1920's, one from the 1860's and then the one from the Colonial era. He selected one with blonde hair and handed it to Ryan. “Here, you can have her too.”
“Look, I’m not going to play paper dolls unless you at least give me Sam, or whatever the hell his name is!” Ryan said, pouting.
“Fine, here you go.” Amir handed over one of the other random hunks of papery man meat. They had dragged out a card table to play with Amir’s fucking paper dolls because “I spent all that money on them, the least we can do is play!” and, well, someone forgot the Playstation and there was nothing on TV.
Of course, it might have been more because of the empty case of beer in the hallway, but, well, who needs to mention that?
I sat in the corner and flipped through a magazine, letting the pages of celebrities spill over and bend, gossip mixed and misused, one star’s divorce became another’s miracle baby. Rivals were standing next to each other and apparently hugging. Ryan and Amir stopped their bitch fest and then started to whine about how Colette’s bra totally wasn’t going to impress Angus once they got to bed.
Peeked at Jay. He was sitting on the sofa with his eyes closed, sunglasses discarded for the moment. The bottle of ibuprofen had long since run out and he had to deal with the pain of seeing the world through eyes unused to great deals of light. He had been managing to stay awake for longer periods of time, it might have had something to do with the fact that I was weaning him off sleeping pills so that he didn’t become addicted to those as well.
Paige came in and sat next to Jay. He stared at Jay for a little bit, as if wondering how much Jay had changed...then he touched Jay on the leg. “How are you feeling?”
Jay opened his eyes slightly and sighed, turning his head a little to face Paige. “Tired...” he whispered. I watched in shock as he leaned his head onto Paige’s chest and Paige let him. My heart almost shattered. I wanted to go and mess them both up, but instead I just watched. I knew that something was going on. Paige put his hand on Jay’s head and ran his fingers through his hair gently.
“Are things going okay with Bobby?” Jay moved a bit and looked up at him, narrowing his eyes.
“Why do you care?” But the words weren’t as forceful as they perhaps should have been. Part of it was because he was still swimming in the seas of not really caring about anything in a meaningful way. Paige continued to stare at him. “Yes...I love him.” The only reply was a blank stare, Jay started to look like he might start crying or have an emotional outburst of the kind that he’d been building up to for the last few days. “God Paige, why are you being such a fucker about this?!”
“I’m worried about you...about Bobby.” The rest of what he said was drowned out by Amir reaching for one of Ryan’s dolls and making the noises of their conjugal relations. I resisted the urge to smack them because then Paige would know that I was listening and perhaps save his scheme for a time that I wasn’t around to (hopefully) counteract it.
“He doesn’t cut because of me, he told me.” Jay whispered loudly, frowning unhappily. Paige’s hand continued to stroke his hair. I wanted to slap him, especially because I thought that I could see where this line of conversation was going. But to do that, I’d have to go through Ryan and Amir who were blocking the way to the sofa.
“I’m just worried about you getting hurt. You know I’m your friend right?”
“No...I don’t know.” He grabbed Paige’s hand and pushed it away, trying to sit up. Paige somehow convinced him that getting up wasn’t all that great of an idea. I tried to remember the last time that they were “alone” together. It seemed like it was ages ago, but it was more likely months.
“Jay, even if you don’t think I’m your friend now, we at least have known each other for a really long time, right?” Jay nodded, closing his eyes and half-listening. “I’m really glad that you’ve turned your life around, that you’ve found someone who you can trust.”
“Then why are we even talking about this? You haven’t really cared enough to call or anything since that...”
“I’ve been really mad at you for what you two did to us. Do you know how long I had to bow and scrape to...why the hell are you laughing?!”
“I’m not laughing fucker.”
“Anyway, do you think Bobby’s emotionally stable enough to go on tour with us?”
No hesitation. “Yes.” I muttered a thanks to whatever powers existed.
“But it’ll be obvious that something’s wrong. Do you want to be known as the band with the insane drummer who totally fucked himself up?”
“Better than being known as the band with the threesome.”
There was a pause, I risked peeking over the magazine. Amir’s head was in the way. Big surprise. Paige cleared his throat. “He’s really stressed out now though, isn’t he? I mean, he went all psycho on his arms, and then there was what he did in the kitchen.”
No response.
“Don’t you think it’d be better if he stayed here, with Gavin, while we found a different drummer to go on tour? Maybe he wouldn’t feel like cutting if we weren’t around. Because no matter how much you deny it, I’m sure some of it is your fault.”
The magazine ripped in two in my hands, but no one noticed. Amir and Ryan were busy having a little duel over who got to fuck the “hot” paper doll. Abraham Lincoln was winning. They were in the way, and I knew that if I did anything violent to get them out of the way Paige would use it against me. So I had to sit and listen. And hope.
“It’s not my fault.” Small croak. Heard him trying to get up.
“Fine, let’s say it isn’t your fault. He got to see Gavin, he’s got a loving relationship with you, we’re working on the third album, shouldn’t he be happy?”
Silence.
“I mean, shouldn’t he stop cutting then? Maybe it’s just too much stress for him. You don’t want him to end up dead, do you?”
Another pause.
“Wouldn’t it be better if he stayed here while we were on tour?”
“How would that solve anything?”
“He wouldn’t have the temptation or the added stress...We could get someone to look after him.”
“A fucking nanny?!” Jay pulled away and glared at Paige. “You want to put Bobby away somewhere, don’t you?!”
“No...really, it makes sense if you look at it. He’s going to wear short sleeves and stuff, he does that now. Aren’t the reporters going to ask questions? The fans?”
“So?”
“So?! Do you know how much they’ll freak?! It’ll be more about him than anything else, we might get dropped from shows and stuff just because of him! Everyone will look at us weird!”
“What the hell is your problem! You fucking want me to just abandon him because he’s got scars all over that might cause people to ask questions?!” Jay stood up and snarled at Paige, pulling off his shirt. “I’ve got scars that might make people ask questions!!!” And, indeed, he did. The marks on his arms, the huge scar on his chest, there was no explaining that kind of thing away.
“Yeah, because that guy ran you over!”
“No Paige, it’s because I let that guy run me over. Because I thought that maybe you were someone I could spend the rest of my life with. But you just thought I was a slut...” He grabbed his head. “Fuck, just let me go to bed...”
I somehow found my way out from between Ryan and Amir’s now french- kissing forms and followed him.
He stood in front of the mirror staring at the two pills. When I came in he looked at me slowly and smiled weakly. “You heard...”
I nodded and hugged him. “I heard. He was trying to convince me to leave too...I don’t know.” He chugged some water with the pills and sighed.
“For a second there I thought I was getting my friend back.”