Two Punks In Love

How Lies Begin

Kat

About three years and half years ago, shortly after Leed and Ashlynn were married, I moved in with Trace. He made a big deal of piggy-backing me over the threshold instead of carrying me bridal style. He said he was saving the traditional carry because I wasn't actually a bride yet, but eventually I would be. When he dropped me down in the house, to my surprise, it was stripped bare. He'd gotten rid of every piece of furniture. All the artwork, rugs, drapes. Even the dishes and the barware.

"This is a new beginning," he told me. "Our home. Our life. Our stuff."

I was touched. It was maybe the sweetest thing he'd ever done. It was a very symbolic gesture. Though we never talked about it, I'm sure a lot of Ashlynn's personal touches had remained long after their annulment.

Trace and I had so much fun redecorating. We got dressed to the nines every day for a week and had raucous shopping trips—everywhere from the designer furniture stores down to IKEA. We spent evenings lying on our new mattress ordering truckloads more stuff online. Delivery vans passed each other in the driveway. Trace built a bonfire with Amazon boxes and was nearly arrested for violating a burning ban. We made love on a nest made of packing materials.

It was a crazy, extravagant, romantic, silly time. I will never forget it.

Something I do try forget is the number of nights I've spent alone since then, in the custom bed we had built.

It's like that old Journey song that Leed likes to sing to Ashlynn says:

Lovin' a music man ain't always what it's supposed to be.

I know what I signed up for. I signed up to live a life divided. Trace lives a rock star life, and I have a career I'm not willing to give up to follow him for months on tour, or even tag along to every appearance or shoot. Likewise, he's always been understanding of my ambitions. He doesn't see my job as volunteer work, even though I work for his parents. He rightfully frames it like a professional career in non-profit work. I know he's as proud of me as I am of him. All the time we've spent apart is hard, but it makes us who we are, and I don't think either of us would change that.

So last night is not nearly the first night I've slept without Trace at my back. But it's the first night I've ever slept uneasy because of it.

I roll toward the sunlight streaming across our bed and reread my texts from him.

Last night: I'm sitting in Bodie's hot tub alone. This doesn't feel right. I never knew what it was to really miss someone until you. I never knew what it was to really love someone until you.

Later: I guess you are asleep. I wonder if our tadpoles have brains enough yet? To sleep. To dream...

Even later: Kat. Jesus. Please. Please stay with me in this love.

I replied to the last one: Do you think I could do otherwise? That's what fucking scares me.

His response was immediate: I don't know what that means. Nothing about me should scare you. The past is dead. A cold, blank ghost. You are my burning soul. You are my messy home. You are my grungy love.

Evening reading it now, my heart stutters.

Christ.

There's a reason my rock star is a rock star. He's got game. He's got guts. He's got talent. He's got poetry.

How's a girl supposed to walk through Trace's kind of storm without getting completely fucking drenched? I am saturated with love for him.

Sometimes it just hurts, thinking he didn't always feel the same way for me.