DAMAGED

KAT

I was sweating, not from the mix of heat and fatigue that always flooded through my system as our set wound down but from him. He was there, in between boys in rank leather jackets and girls throwing themselves closer to the stage in abandon. He was watching us, watching me. How many weeks had it been since they came back from Washington, his face different somehow? Casey kept mum on the whole trip home but he was different too, lighter. His wit sharper but with a boundless energy he hadn't had before. They both had shed baggage in Washington. I stopped, leaned into Johnny to catch my breath and tried to find his scruff in the crowd. I wanted him to watch, I wanted him to want me but never have me. The having is what hurts. I let him go in Cambria, the moody bastard who had gutted me when I was already pretty fucking low. This guy, the one following me across the stage, the one giving me songs show after show wasn't that same Court. I had felt lighter too but that never meant I stayed that way, even now, four vodka shots and some shitty wine later I was turning back into the same Katastophe I had always been. What you know doesn't keep you on edge and up all night thinking about the hotels rooms when you didn't have to be alone. I was scared of the version of myself I had found in Cambria. A woman who could walk around in the middle of the night and didn't need to fill every silence with noise but Court scared her away when he played an old Chris Cornell song, had made her feel things. All of the things.

I regretted the drinks, they were swirling in the chaos of my stomach and all I wanted to do was throw up and sleep but he was watching. It wasn't that I didn't want to disappoint him it was that I did. I wanted to let him down. That would stop the songs and the sheepish smiles, the look of panic if he couldn't find me. The sloppy grin when he did. I had been flush with these feelings before, glowing and wildly vulnerable until I wasn't. It was that feeling that changed me, burned down whatever had withstood the first disaster. What if at the end of the day I wasn't damaged or hollow, but just ashes and anger? I slurred the last part of the lyric. I had been doing so well. I wanted to disappoint Court but instead I was just fucking everything up for my band, I was letting down Joe. I was letting myself down and only because I panicked over the guy who came back knowing what he wanted when I had depended on him coming back just as haunted as he left. I was disappointing everybody but him. He saw it coming. I could hear it in the song choices. They weren't random. They were pointed and direct and if I didn't want to really hear them than I wouldn't have followed the notes he left me. No matter the regression, this was happening and I'm not entirely sure I know how to stop it. It's going to level me. On some level I think that beneath all the bullshit I wanted it to level me.

"Katastrophe Hale, girls and boys!" I snapped back into focus. The spinning slowed to a lazy merry go round of too much alcohol. I could handle that. I curtsied to the crowd.

"And what about Harper, guys? Make it louder. She likes it loud." I grimaced. Introductions were the weirdest, most unnatural part of performing and not a one of us were very good at them. The crowd cheered relentlessly. These festivals had our popularity on a steady rise. The use of one our grittier songs in some crime drama hadn't hurt either. If I lingered on the feeling I would have to admit that we were, that I was succeeding and if I did that I would sabotage it so I swung the mic cord and acted the part. It was what I was good at.

I could feel him, his eyes never left me but I didn't return his stare. It unnerved me. I closed my eyes and did something we had been planning for a few weeks. I did it with the wrong intent but I was curious. The sped up chords of Overcast High pulsed through me. This was Court's song. This was his song for the woman that was as much a part of him as his music. There is no point in taking a swing unless you think it will connect...and hurt. I was swinging hard. It did hurt, but not in the way I wanted. I finally returned his stare and he didn't waver. I wasn't breaking him. He was breaking me, with his startled eyes but he shrugged and sang along. Court threw himself into the song he had ripped himself open to write and was singing like blood hadn't been shed in its making. Goddamn, maybe I could fall in love with him. The surprise of him was that intoxicating. I broke eye contact first, shame and awe twisting me inside out. Court Reilly had returned from Washington with his heart back.