Real Ugly (Hard Rock Roots #1)

Chapter Twenty-Three: Naomi Knox

I storm across the parking lot, angrier than I was before, so pissed off that I can hardly think straight. My hands are shaking, and I see red. The problem is, I can't figure out why. Nothing happened just now, and I hardly told Turner anything. I was going to, was going to break it down, feed him every last detail, but then I remembered: I hate him. I hate him, and I fucked him yesterday. Gonna have to get used to dealing with that.

Dax tries to intercept me as I climb on the bus, but I ignore him. I could never love Dax because I ... because I hate Turner so much. There's not room for any other emotion inside of me right now. I thought I was okay, that I could fuck him and forget about all of it, but I'm not. If I thought telling Turner about the abortion would free me from his hold, then the only person I was fooling was myself.

There's so much shit going on around me that I can barely breathe. I want to be empty and carefree and emotionless and instead, I get all of this drama and angst. Fuck.

I strip off my clothes in the middle of the hallway and don't care that Wren is probably whacking it to my naked body. I put on some underwear and a tank top before I fall into bed, forgetting until the last second that Hayden gave me that horrible photograph. Scrambling out of the sheets, I dig my pants out of the dirty laundry and try not to imagine what Spencer would've thought if she'd found it.

I unfold the image and stand looking at it, highlighted by a shaft of brightness that's leaking from the partially closed pocket door that separates the kitchen from the bunks.

I see Hayden naked, standing over a lifeless body. It's naked too, but it's hard to tell whether it was a man or a woman since it's soaked in red, beaten to a near pulp. Bile rises into my throat, and I crumple the image up in my hand, tucking it under my mattress for safe keeping. Hayden didn't tell me shit about this, and I didn't ask. What right do I have anyway? I've killed before, and my guess is, so has she. The picture is just so fucking horrible that I don't even want to think about it. I don't want to know. Whatever it is, it's her secret to keep. All it is to me is a key, so it doesn't change anything. You know what they say – let sleeping dogs lie.

So I crawl into bed and slip my headphones over my ears. They're big fat ones, neon green, and they block out everything around me, sliding over my ears like shields. I turn the music up so loud that Wren actually comes over, jerks the curtain back and turns it down for me.

"You're not Beethoven, dude," he says, looking like a shadow creature in the dimness back here. I can't even see his face. "If you go deaf, you can't write us anymore music."

"Fuck you, Wren," I tell him and then turn over, doing my best to force my mind away from everything – Katie, Eric, Hayden ... Turner. Turner. Turner. If I didn't know any better, I'd say I was obsessed with the man. After awhile, I give up trying to deal with this on my own and go for the pills I have stashed in the drawer beneath my bunk. I know just the right combination to knock myself out and make me forget, at least for a few hours anyway.

Once I've got a good night's (or day's I guess since the sun is rising outside the bus) sleep cradled in my hand, I down the pills and fall into the pillow. A short while later, Turner's face appears floating above me.

*****

I'm so drugged up that I'm not sure if what I'm seeing is a dream or a hallucination or if Turner's really right there, bending down low, smelling like soap and mint toothpaste. He climbs into the bunk and slides the curtain closed, pulling my headphones off my ears but leaving the music on, setting them beside my head as he runs a hand down the side of my face.