DAMAGED

KAT

Days trickled into weeks, towns into cities back into towns. I ignored him and he ignored me. I watched his set every time he played. He scattered notes to me all along the tour in songs. The second note had been Punk Rock Girl by The Dead Milkmen; I had openly rolled my eyes in the crowd and walked away. The third note had caused my stomach to tighten; all I needed was the first verse to feel emptied out. Just Like A Woman by Bob Dylan sucked the fight out of me. I always walked away after the song. When he sang Candy by Paolo Nutini my skin burned with the intimacy and pleading in his voice, I was blushing and running away at the same time. That was how I counted the dates we played by the notes he scattered across the sets. I still ignored him but the urge to not do so felt heavier with each song.

It was better this way. I wasn't distracted from my band and the music. I worked harder to fall back in love with the other bands I toured with. I watched what Harper and Johnny were really like once they stopped hiding what they were. They were sweet and odd, but still the same. Johnny still stayed buried in his phone and Harper still had naked dance parties. They didn't try to change each other. I did all the things a person does when living a normal life. With the exception of once a week when I ignored a phone call and every night when I pretended that I had not liked sharing my bed. I read the books I had bought in Texas, it was all I did on the bus. I lost myself in books that had seemed intimidating or boring in school. They were still difficult to focus on and not be distracted by every sound. The worlds that fell out of them were astounding and the way these writers saw the world I was in blew my mind apart. I bought them to feel less stupid and uneducated but having not read them before left me in a lesser version of those same feelings. The bus rolled to a stop and I looked out, my eyes burned from lack of sleep and my mind couldn't process state names or cities when I was this tired, it was a deep red clay and brown colored world outside my window and that was all I got.

"Psss...Kat. Stop reading nerd. Lets go get some breakfast. Just you and me." Harper's face was half lidded and sleep stretched when she peered over at me. I yawned in response. I stood up and walked the aisle with my eyes closed. I should have slept but I was reading my way out of an insecurity that I had for years. I hated feeling like the least educated person in the room; you couldn't use a shitty public education and a rough childhood to excuse you forever. That was probably what I missed most about having Court around; he talked to me like he just naturally expected me to be as intelligent as him.

"Harp, order me a tea. I need to shower first." I rubbed mercilessly at my eyes.

"Tea?" Her face was one part shock, two parts confusion. "You are reading all the time and now you don't want coffee but tea instead...did you start watching Downton Abbey?" She laughed but she was right, I was acting outside of myself. I liked it though.

"Should I be watching Downton Abbey?" I grinned.

"Duh. Everyone should be watching Downton Abbey Kat. I watch it with Everett." She jumped off the bus like a kid getting out of school. "I mean you don't even know what you're missing." She was muttering more to herself than to me as she walked off in the direction of the diner. This was the last festival show before break; we were all trying to shift into fast-forward. I had meetings all day Monday and then three days and a half to myself before flying back to a different more metropolis area of New Mexico. I ignored the sounds of the other buses pulling in and started looking for a shady spot by the main office by the motel to wait for Joe.

"Oi, Kat. Wait up!" I turned at the familiar sound of Will Sullivan. My lip went into an automatic pout; these were his last dates on the tour. I liked him, would miss him popping in.

"You not eating?" His voice was cigarette rasp and a few years away from being pure Tom Waits. When he smiled though it was contagious. You could not hang out with Will Sullivan and not smile, he was always happy. The man was an anomaly, I didn't know anyone who wrote and performed music and stayed as genuinely chill as he did. Perhaps, he was just never bothered by what set the rest of us back or he because he rode that fine line between being fun and being an alcoholic, he looked further on one side today.

"Yeah, I'm just going to shower first." I pushed a section of my hair that blew into my face; it was getting too long again. "How drunk are you already?"

His face looked up at the sky, "A smidge maybe more, you?" His eyes were on me now, studying my face, looking for the familiarity of our affliction.

"Not drunk enough Will, not nearly drunk enough."

"Kiss me Kat, you can get contact drunk from my lips or just kiss me because it's a beautiful day in a town I cant remember the name of and we're still too young to not spend our lives drunk and in love with every damn thing." He spun around me in wild circles, his smile manic, and his voice sing-songing my pulse into frenzy. It wasn't like I had never thought about it. I had and many, many times. It wasn't even like we had never kissed but this felt different, a shift in the energy between us. He was making me dizzy so I did what my body dictated; I grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him. I kissed him with what ran through my veins and not what pumped back out from my heart, this kiss was unfiltered and unmanageable. His hands were in my hair and then on my face and I didn't know what kissing a tornado felt like until now. I didn't know I wasn't ready to be in the eye of something as wild and destructive as Will Sullivan but I tried to exist inside it with him anyways, the longer and harder he kissed me the more I felt Court sliding backwards.

"That's fucking awesome." I paused at the sound, when had the kiss stopped and recovering from it begun? My breath was uneven and cheeks flushed. I thought the words had come from Will, I thought it was his way, complimenting me on something I wasn't even sure how much I had to do with but it wasn't. Of course it wasn't, because that would have been simple and the kiss would have just ended and been laughed over. Court.

"Yeah, it kinda was." The words fell out of my mouth and spread out between us, words I didn't want to say but I did. His face changed in front of me, it wasn't just obscure shadows anymore but defined in hurt. How had I hurt him? He was in love with someone else and we were just the sum of my impulses and his loneliness. Impulses are supposed to be forgotten and not to line an expression in betrayal. This wasn't one of his books.

"Good luck with her Sullivan, she's a decent fuck but no heart." He laughed and all I saw was his back, the slouched beanie barely clinging to his head. I stepped back from Will as he stepped forward. He pulled me against his chest and just held on, I did feel drunk now. The kinds of drunk where you have just woken up and realized you don't know where you are or who you have become. Being held together by Will made me feel clean and dirty simultaneously.

"Shhh...this was my fault. I should have thrown myself in the ring sooner. I saw your face with him and his with yours but you guys don't really make sense. I'm going to let you go and you're going to go get your shower, its me remember, fun Will." His voice cracked on his name. I didn't know what to do but I held onto him. Had I just never noticed he was into me? I touched my mouth, my chin on his shoulder. Will Sullivan, gentleman, it was so hard to wrap my mind around. I felt his lips against my hairline then he let go. The same place Court kissed whenever he allowed himself to feel close to me. Kisses of comfort didn't feel all that much different. I didn't know if I wanted Will to let me go. We made sense, him and I. Court was unreachable, had been even before this.

"We aren't anything to each other, you know that right? Court and I. He doesn't have the right to get angry but he is right, decent fuck and zero heart." I muttered to Will's retreating back. He paused, the whole length of him stiffening.

"That's utter bullshit. Don't let that be what you take from what just happened. He isn't that bright if that's what he got out of his time with you. I'm drunk but not a fucking idiot. I could kiss you until you grew old under my lips and I would but right now I would always have to wonder whom you were kissing. I want it to be me. You have my number. Drop by my set later and lets sing goodbyes for now instead of saying them. You know, the Katastrophe Hale I know doesn't let some singer talk to her like that." This time he left and kept walking.

How had I missed these facets to Will, was it just because I was always drunk on either alcohol or self-absorption? All I wanted was a drink but it was the last thing I needed.