Scar

  Scar

  Book Two

  Of

  The Punk Series

  Copyright © 2014 P.J. Post

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: So What Now?

  Chapter 2: Kamikaze

  Chapter 3: A Little Time

  Chapter 4: Perennials

  Chapter 5: Sweet's

  Chapter 6: Reunion

  Chapter 7: The Palomino

  Chapter 8: Annie's Song

  Chapter 9: After-Party

  Chapter 10: Just Like That

  Chapter 11: Shit Gone Wrong

  Chapter 12: ICU

  Chapter 13: The Lady Doth Protest

  Chapter 14: Curtis Ray Lamont

  Chapter 15: Friends

  Chapter 16: Stairwell Confessions

  Chapter 17: A Father's Love

  1

  So What Now?

  So what happens now?

  The hot summer rain has faded to a light sprinkle and the sun is fighting through the early afternoon clouds, scattering random beams around the sky like the prelude to a rock concert. And standing here in the parking lot of the Garage, in this moment, feeling her against me — all of the reasons for my rage and that driving need to isolate myself, protect myself — finally dissolve, washed away by the rain and Tonya’s embrace.

  I’m happy right down to my goddamn toes.

  Even though it may be temporary and our future far from certain, I feel a peace that I haven’t known for years. Maybe this is what safety and forgiveness feels like, as if I’m finally home.

  Tonya is ignoring the rain, focusing on me as she looks up with that odd expression that I’ve never been able to figure out — a mixture of mischief, child-like glee and suspicion. She’s cocking her head to one side while her wet hair falls across her face, a wry twist of a smirk gracing those unforgettable lips.

  A stray beam of light finds her face and sparkles off the droplets on her cheeks and hair. He big brown eyes catch the light and become luminous. They have a penetrating, knowing look to them.

  All I can say for sure is that she’s fucking adorable.

  She slides her hands off my chest and then without a word, turns and walks back across the parking lot. I watch her go, unable to look away. Her soaking-wet t-shirt clings to her lacy underwear and pale skin. She slowly and almost deliberately places one small, bare foot in front of the other, reaching out with her toes and then she gently lowers her heel to the pavement. Her ass tightens with every step.

  She’s just being herself, a weird combination of the girl I met two years ago and the new and improved Tonya. She’s sexy and desirable as hell. But she’s not like those other women who work so hard for attention by wearing revealing clothes and nightclub makeup, or the way they move and talk with practiced mannerisms. It’s not the way she looks in that t-shirt either. Tonya has a passionate soul.

  It’s something buried way down deep inside, and I’m pretty much an authority on burying shit.

  I stare at her, mesmerized, until she disappears inside the Garage, never looking back.

  Does she know that I’m watching the graceful shift of every curve, the way her hair drifts in the breeze, the ripples left behind with each step in the rain-water puddles — the way the very air follows her? I wonder if she knows what that does to me.

  I think she must and that feels good too.

  I glance up at the sky and then around the parking lot, replaying how things ended with Shauna just a short time ago, and then the closeness that Tonya and me shared this morning.

  I cross my arms over my chest and grin. The same breeze that teased at Tonya’s hair has picked up and I take in the fresh smell of the morning rain and a newly cut lawn from somewhere across the railroad tracks. It reminds me of being a kid, long ago, before everything turned to shit.

  We’re both still hiding secrets and I’m sick and tired of it, but something I remember my mom saying is that everything has it’s time in the sun. I think she meant that truth eventually wins out in the end. I’ll hang my hat on to that for now and wait — all things in their own time.

  I look up at the clearing clouds and close my eyes against the brightness of the emerging sun. A shiver runs down my spine as the sun’s heat falls upon on my face, chest and shoulders.

  I smile at the omen as I splash through the puddles, the water cool against my toes, and, like the air, follow her inside.

  She’s leaning against the wall near the stairs, waiting in the shadows. Her hands hang to her sides, flat against the sheetrock. Her mouth is small, with just a hint of humor at the corners. Her eyes have that hopeful sparkle that I’ve missed so much.

  She’s breathing heavy, like she’s excited, anticipating what’s coming next — waiting and hoping.

  Or maybe that’s just my own wishful thinking.

  She raises her hands to my chest again and then tickles my stomach as her fingertips gently slide down to my jeans. She looks down as she slips her fingers in my front belt loops and then leans against me as I enfold her within my arms. She’s warm against my bare chest, her body soft, yielding and yet, the muscles underneath are hard, and I feel them tighten as she lets go of the loops and wraps her arms around my waist.

  “Todd said I was due,” I say.

  “Due for what?” she whispers.

  “Peace of mind, I think.”

  “You okay, I mean, ending it with Shauna?” she asks with concern.

  “Yeah, I think so, thanks,” I say.

  “I worry about you, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.” I sense our emotions rising, but I’m afraid of them, afraid of what I might say or do — afraid I’ll fuck it all up. This is a new and unpleasant anxiety. For the first time in my life, the consequences are real — I have something to lose.

  “I have a question for you. Is this like a Spring Break wet t-shirt contest or what?” I ask, grinning at her as I try to ease the tension.

  She shrugs and then looks up and smiles at me like she could care less what she’s wearing right now. And I think I understand her.

  I’m looking forward to feeling the sun on my back again for the first time since I was nine, and I think Tonya is relieved to be liberated from her wrist-bands and long-sleeved flannel shirts. I don’t think she would have been so cool about her appearance even as recently as yesterday. She’s been changing a lot over the last week and still is. I don’t think it’s about hiding from our pasts, but more that we just don’t give a shit anymore. I know I don’t.

  The past can’t hurt us.

  The familiar ghosts are still here. They just don’t haunt my every decision like they used to, but even that feels unnatural, like the second hand shoes I had to grow into. Of course, now I have new fears, but even so, the Garage seems more alive, the memories sharper and the emotion palpable — maybe because of those fears. The last apples of the season are always the sweetest.

  And even though she seems to be in a better place now, I know that she’s still vulnerable and isn’t ready to talk about her past, but that doesn’t stop the questions from bouncing around inside my head like a pinball machine. I feel the apprehension in her body, like she’s uncertain of what to do and maybe even what to say.

  Her eyes are like a mirror.

  Are we friends or something more? Should we be flirting or kissing? Should we be declaring our love or should we be afraid?

  She pulls away, almost reluctantly sliding one hand across my stomach before walking over to the rehearsal space. I can still feel her fingertips on my skin, a lonely trail of lingering goose bumps. I lay my hand over my stomach as if to capture her warmth. She turns on the stereo, shoves a mix tape into the cassette player and Talk Talk begins to chastise me from the speakers.

  She folds her a
rms across her chest, standing in front of the garage doors and stares out at the afternoon like she’s lost in thought. It reminds me of my dream.

  I shove my hands into my pockets and just watch her while I wait for her to return from wherever her thoughts have taken her.

  She seems to notice me staring at her and glances over. “What are you grinning at?” she asks.

  “I had a dream about you the other night.”

  “And?”

  “And, it was just a dream.”

  She laughs. “Do I want to know?”

  “Probably not.” I can’t suppress a smile. “You were standing right there,” I say pointing. “You were nekkid.”

  And there’s that odd expression again. She holds up a hand. “Yeah, I don’t think I need to know.”

  She’s being playful and I like her this way because it means she’s happy. It reminds me of our friendship over the last six months, but it’s also like the smell of the rain and the freshly cut grass that sends my mind back in time before the bad stuff came — to a time when I would run down the street laughing with friends, fly kites and play baseball in the park — a time when I was sad to lay my head down on my pillow at the end of the day because the adventure was over, but I was excited about waking too, because each new day brought with it new adventures and new possibilities.

  Hope.

  And maybe it’s the lilt in her voice, or how her eyes can’t seem to stop looking me up and down, but everything seems different than before, but somehow — the same too. I think we’ve felt like this about each other for a while now. I’m just now catching up, like a deaf man hearing Mozart for the first time or maybe it’s like we’ve been flying kites together all along.

  Maybe.

  “But do you want to know?” I ask with a little more intensity than I mean to, testing her feelings.

  “Maybe,” she answers coyly.

  Everything with her is a goddamn maybe. I’m having trouble separating reality from desire.

  “I think my sub-conscious was telling me something, like: ‘wake the fuck up already’. It was weird,” I say.

  “My body is weird? Do I look weird now?” she asks, feigning insult as she steps back and places those little fists on her hips.

  “No, no, no. Um, never mind.”

  “I really don’t want to know, do I?” she asks, laughing.

  I laugh with her. “No, you really don’t, but it was sexy, no — it was sensual.”

  It was unbelievably profound is what it was, but I’m pretty sure she’s doesn’t want to hear the details.

  “Sensual doesn’t sound quite so dirty. So did you wake up?” she asks. Her eyes appear hopeful again.

  I can’t help but grin as I recall the dream, but it was anything but comforting at the time. Realizing I had sexual thoughts about my friend, maybe my best friend, was fucked up because until last week, I thought of her more like a sister, one without girl parts.

  Her body is not remotely weird. She’s the embodiment of femininity and sultry. Her t-shirt is clinging to her body now, caressing her breasts, flowing over the lace and her flat stomach. Her waist is incredibly narrow, or maybe it just seems like that compared to the shapely curve of her hips. She’s tiny.

  She has girl parts now, goddamn it, and I can’t believe I ever thought about her like a sister. I want to devour her, lick and taste every inch and this time, unlike all of the drunken lays in my past, it isn’t my libido that’s in control — it’s my heart.

  I must have been having an off day when she auditioned for the band, considering I didn’t hit on her. I’m usually about as shallow as the puddles out in the parking lot. But, she’s an amazing singer, and at the time I needed a singer more than a lay.

  Or was it respect even then?

  That she found me and auditioned for the band is incredible enough. It’s as though fate was intervening, reconnecting us.

  “Hey, I asked you a question. Did you wake up? What’s in your noggin?” she asks, frowning as she steps close again and pokes the uninjured side of my head.

  “Yeah, I woke up. I’m just glad I met you,” I say, and then add tentatively, “You’re my best friend.”

  “Best friend, huh? You’re looking at me funny, what?” she asks and her expression shifts slightly, a hint of anticipation dancing around the corners of her eyes.

  “Nothing,” I say. I want to tell her how I feel so badly that it hurts and part of me thinks she wants to hear it too. But I can’t lie to her about knowing that she’s Bethany, and then we’re back to her explaining her attempted suicide.

  She steps close and hugs me again, laying her cheek against my chest, and then very softly says, “I hear your heart.”

  I lay my face against her wet hair.

  “Can I trust you?” she asks quietly, her voice growing husky, almost catching.

  “For as long as this heart beats,” I whisper.

  I’m at war with myself. Part of me is dying to confide in her, but common sense — fear — is winning the battle.

  I don’t know why she tried to kill herself, but I know that those baggy clothes she was hiding behind were more than a fashion statement. In time, we’ll talk about whatever happened, but as much as I want to comfort her and make everything okay again, I’m also terrified for her; like whatever it was hasn’t happened yet and maybe I can save her this time. But I can’t and I’m already feeling a helpless guilt that I wasn’t there for her and cursing my drunken memory. I know that working through it isn’t going to be easy because even though it’s been a couple of years and she seems to have learned to cope, I wonder if her emotional wounds, unlike her wrists, have really ever healed.

  I’m afraid that they may not ever.

  But no matter how long it takes — I’m never going to give up on her. Time is something we have a lot of, with nothing to get in the way but ourselves. That’s what she said two years ago, nothing but ourselves to get in the way.

  But in the end, when it’s all been said and done — I worry if we have the ability to really stay out of our own way. My track record sucks.

  She pulls back and then with a mischievous glance and a glassy twinkle in her eye walks up the stairs.

  I watch her go and miss her more with every step. I’m a love-sick puppy.

  Jesus Christ.

  I don’t know what to do with myself again. I’m not fond of waiting around for others, even though it’s becoming a habit lately. But then waiting hasn’t been so bad, not really when I think about how she just grinned at me.

  On that sultry summer night two years ago, I fell in love with a girl that could have been my world and over the last six months, I fell in love with my best friend — the same girl, the same love all over again. I wonder at the Fates and what they have planned, because how often does someone get the opportunity to fall in love with the woman of their dreams — twice?

  How can this not be meant to be?

  But the peace I’m feeling in my heart is a nervous peace just the same. I’ve been wrong before, but I swear I hear the compassion in her voice, feel the emotion in her touch and see the love in her eyes. But I don’t know for sure — there’s still something under the surface, something preventing her from unlocking her heart completely — from openly trusting, but then, I’m not being totally honest either.

  Doubt sucks.

  But I love her and I have no doubts about that whatsoever.

  I’m wondering what she’s doing upstairs when the phone rings.

  “Get that, okay? I’m getting in the shower,” she shouts down to me with that same playful tone.

  Now I’m imagining her in the bathroom upstairs, her arms extended over her head as she stretches out her body, arching her back as she pulls that wet t-shirt off. It’s sliding up her body and across her breasts before it slips away from her face. Her dark, wet hair flips back down in strands across her cheeks as she drops the shirt to the tile floor. Those brown eyes are staring at me with aroused intensity while she
starts to shift her hips and slide her underwear…

  I answer the phone. “Yeah?”

  “Where the hell have you been?” It’s Todd, my other best friend and the bass player for our band.

  “Around. Long story.” I’m suddenly irritated. I know life goes on and I have shit to do, but right now I don’t want to think about anyone but Tonya. It’s like I’m intoxicated by her smile and those breathtaking eyes of hers.

  “Dude, dick move to disappear like that,” he says.

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “No, really, man — I was worried.”

  “Sorry. It’s been a fucked up few days.”

  “Whatever. What’s up with Shauna?”

  “We’re done, just — it’s over. It didn’t work out, you know?” I can’t tell him about how I feel about Tonya, not yet anyway.

  “Yeah, I guess so. Sorry to hear that, unless it’s a good thing?” he asks.

  “It sucks, but it’s for the best.”

  “It kind of sounded like things were going downhill at the Café.”

  “Yeah, downhill is a good word for it, off a cliff is more accurate,” I say.

  “You’re not going to go all Sid and Nancy on me are you?”

  I laugh, my irritation forgotten. “No. I’ll get over it.”

  “I’m sorry if you’re having an emotional meltdown, dude, but you need to get over your pity party for a few minutes. We need to talk.”

  Todd’s sympathy seems to be in shorter supply than usual, but I can’t focus on what he’s saying because now I hear the water running upstairs and the image of soap on skin invades my imagination — a delicate hand running down the porcelain skin of a flat stomach. Todd’s distracting me and now I’m frustrated again.

  “It’s not a good time, man. I’m not in the mood for bullshit,” I say.

  “Well, get in the fucking mood and fast, dude. You know, back here on planet earth, we have a show in exactly six days and we don’t have a drummer.”

  Shit.

  The Palomino show.

  I completely forgot our drummer flaked out and left for California with Chad, the front man and guitarist for that really gnarly band we played with at The Underground.