Open Your Arms

Chapter 75

June 4, 2006

"I'm almost done," Missy quietly says as she continues to paint my toenails. I've never been good when it comes to this. My mom always set up appointments when I was younger for pedicures, but now I just don't go anymore. I see it as a waste of money. My feet are completely fine the way that they are. "Okay I'm done!"

I pull my foot away and look at my coral blue stained toenails. "I love it." I lean over and begin to blow on my toenails. 

"How's your brother doing with the divorce?" Missy remembers and walks into her bathroom to put the nail polish back in the cabinet. 

"He's doing better," I can say now. At first he was really upset after he told us, then he told my parents and that was a whole different fiasco. They were really upset and my mom started crying. We still don't know if she was crying over disappointment or for Axl. "They switched Vanessa's schedule and now she sees them both half of every week and then they switch weekends."

"That's going to be so much better," Missy walks out of the bathroom. "Want to go get a snack?"

No. 

I stand up and go anyway. I don't want to eat as much anymore. As I near downstairs, Bam's laughter echoes throughout the stairs. 

For some reason, my eyes stay stuck on one of the bedroom doors that are open. It's Bam's office, but it also has a bunch of his music in there. 

"Hey, Missy," I whisper. "Do you think that Bam would mind me going to look at all his music?"

She smiles. "I'll keep him away. Go hurry."

I rush back up the stairs--thankfully I'm not all the way downstairs--and go into the room with his music in it. Stacks of CDs are on the side, but I'm not looking just to look. I'm looking for one specific thing. 

I lean down and look at all of the music he has. He has a wide range of music taste, but they're mostly the rock genre. 

My heart leaps when I find the one that I'm looking for--the HIM section. I look at all the albums and they're all the ones that I have seen before, but then my eyes land on a blue one called Dark Light that I've never seen before. It must be their new one. A white one strikes my eye, too, called And Love Said No. 

I grab both of them and look at Dark Light first. The cover art is different from their previous albums, but it looks good. I turn it over and look at all the tracks that are on it. 

"You looking through my shit?" Bam's voice startles me and I jump. 

I laugh. "You fucking scared me."

He notices the CDs that I'm holding up and smirks at me. "Why are you looking at those?"

I feel embarrassed that he caught me looking at them. "I'm just curious."

He taps the white CD. "Look at the list of songs on that one."

I turn it over to the back and see all of their greatest hits. But then when my eyes see the fifth track, I gasp and cover my mouth. 

"Oh my God," I whisper. "They did this?!"

"Do you want to listen to it?" Bam grabs the CD, not waiting for me to give him an answer, and puts it into his boombox. He skips to the fifth song and as soon as I hear Ville's voice, I feel at ease, still overwhelmed with excitement, though. 

When the chorus hits, I'm still in shock that they did this. 

"When did this come out?" I ask him.