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"YOU'VE BEEN DOWN THE river with Holden King?" Mum said as I walked in the door. "You look just like you did when you'd sneak down there with him in high school."
God, I thought I'd been so careful back in those days.
After I left Holden, I'd walked home, fighting my way along the overgrown bush track to the main road. I couldn’t get back in the car with, even if the walk home killed me.
Once I got to the road, I probably could've got a ride with someone but that would've meant talking to them. They'd remember me from high school and want to know what I'd been doing, asking me a ton of questions. It was only 5km home. I could walk it.
The last thing I wanted when I arrived home was questioning from Mum. It was like poking at a raw wound. I flinched but she didn't even notice.
"How's he dealing with things?" she asked. "I thought it was strange, you going out for a run this morning. You had plans to meet him, didn't you? Did he tell you if it was an accident or not?"
"I didn't ask." I tried to keep my voice even. If I lashed out, the questions would never end. "I need a shower."
“It’s good that you saw him.”
I stopped on my way out the door, so sick of this.
“That’s rich coming from you. After telling me he was no good, that I should have nothing to do with him. Badmouthing him every chance you got, now you think it’s good I saw him? Because he’s rich and he’s famous. Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?”
Mum sighed. “He’s changed. People do. Everyone deserves a second chance.”
I walked out and slammed the door behind me, like I had a million times before.
Once I got in the shower, I let myself cry, even though I’d thought I’d cried every tear I had. Had I done the right thing? When I'd walked off on Holden, I felt like I was walking out of his life forever.
First thing I needed to do was get back to work. I'd lolled around for far too long. After my shower, I put on my PJs. All the ones I'd packed were in the wash but I found some old ones Mum hadn't thrown out. They were indecently tight over my boobs but no one would see me.
I rang Alex.
“I’m ready to come back,” I said.
“And the issues?”
“The issues are there but I can work on them.” I bit my lip, waiting for his answer. I needed that place in my life. I needed it so badly. If Alex didn’t want me back, I’d be trapped in limbo, my nightmares of being stuck in this town would become frighteningly real.
"Thank fuck. I wondered if you'd dropped off the planet." Alex exhaled. "The place has been a nightmare since you left. Come back as soon as you can."
"It might be a day or two." Even after my freak out, I wanted to go to Holden's dad's funeral. The man had been a train wreck and I'd never thought much of him but it would be the right thing to do, like Dad had said. I wasn't sure if many other people from the town would go and, if they did, it'd only be out of idle curiosity.
I guess the man had tried his best. He'd been a shit father and a shit husband but he'd stuck around. Even with Holden's mum screwing half the guys in town. I guess Holden never had much of a role model there.
Shit, I’d been so blind. That was it, the reason he was always so nice, the reason he cared so much about what every random person thought of him. It wasn’t because he was interested in them, not in that way. He tried, with everything he did, to be the opposite of his family, even if it meant going too far in the other direction.
"A couple of days is fine. I guess. But Mark has to go," Alex said. "He's useless. He moves things around behind the bar for no reason."
Even with the sick thud eating away at my stomach, I grinned. “I know, right. I’ve told him a thousand times. We could get Babs –”
“No way, you’re not poaching my upstairs staff.”
I laughed. No matter what else happened, Trouble was a constant in my life. That place and those people were my family. That’s what Holden needed. His own family, one he made. I’d have thought he’d at least have found something like that with his band but he hadn’t.
I sat on the bed and tried to read a book. I only had kids; books. Horse books, I'd been obsessed at one time. All I'd wanted was a horse. Then I went near one and realized they were big, smelly things that shit everywhere. Ha, that was a metaphor for my love life if ever there was one.
Still, it was some easy reading to take me away from my current problems.
I'd almost drifted off to sleep when something hit my window. I knew that sound. Holden. He always threw rocks at my window when he wanted me to come out. I tried to ignore it but the next rock hit louder. I turned the page in my book. If I opened the window, I'd just get myself further into this mess with no way out.
The next rock nearly broke the window. Fuck, I needed to stop him before my parents rang the cops.
I opened the window just as the next rock came flying. I ducked to miss it and the window frame crashed down.
"Carlie, what's going on in there?" Mum called.
"Nothing, Mum." Jeez, I felt like a kid again.
At least the glass hadn't broken. I lifted the window again.
“Stop throwing rocks.”
"Carlie," Holden hissed. "Come out."
He'd been drinking and was trying to sound like he hadn't. I could tell. I sighed and climbed out the window to the garden. Holden ducked out from the shadow of a tree.
"I really need to talk," he said. "I don't know what else to do. Carlie..."
He sounded wrecked. What the fuck had happened?
"Not here," I said. Mum would be out in a flash, investigating what was going on. Hell, if she saw Holden, she'd probably invite him in for coffee so she could pump him for information.
"I've got my car."
I glared him, not that he could see the daggers coming from my eyes in the dark, but how stupid was he?
"Give me the keys," I said. "You are not driving in that state."
He fished his keys out of his pocket.
"Where are you parked?" I asked.
He nodded down the street and I walked off. He caught up and walked beside me.
Then he stopped. "Carlie..."
"What?"
He looked me up and down then took off his jacket and put it on me. I'd totally forgotten my skimpy pajamas. His jacket didn't cover much of my legs, but at least my boobs weren't flashing everyone in town.
I got in the car and adjusted the seat.
"Where to?" I asked. I didn't want to drive back to the lookout.
"There's no one home at my place," he said. "They're holding some kind of pre-funeral wake at Uncle Jacko's. They'll be there all night."
"Have you been there?" I asked.
"Hell no. That's the last place on earth I want to be. I'm staying in the hotel out on the highway."
Obviously, since that was the only hotel in town.
"Okay, but are you sure you want to go back there?"
Holden nodded. “I need to.”
The memories would hurt like hell for both of us but if he wanted to go there, I'd drive. He leaned over to the backseat and grabbed a bottle.
"Haven't you had enough?"
"I've not even started," he replied.
I sighed but didn't say anything. If he needed something to cope with this, I wasn't going to fault him. Hell, if a guy can’t get crazy-drunk the night before his dad’s funeral, when can he?
I turned the stereo on to break the silence. Country town radio with ads for tractors and fertilizer. Then they went to a song.
"Do you want me to turn this off?" I asked Holden, as the first bars of “Rock Princess” started.
"No, but you turn it off if you don't want to listen to it."
I left it on. I'd never listened to the whole song. A shiver went through me as the words filled the car. They hung in the air between us. Holden cut to the bone with this song. I can see why he'd had so much success but the words were like a punch in the guts for me. Still, I forced myself to listen until the end.
Such a bittersweet song, mourning a lost love.
When it finished, I turned the radio off. I couldn't bear to listen to anything after that.
"Did you mean it?" I asked. "Or were they just pretty words?"
"I meant it," he replied. "Christ, Carlie, how could you even ask? Even now, you're not sure of me."
How could I be sure? The night he’d left me, he'd been at a party. I'd had to work. Holden was making a kind of living with his music. He'd gotten an advance for the album and we'd been living it up while the money lasted. I'd bought some new clothes and I thought I could cope with things.
Except we fought. So many arguments about silly things.
"Don't go to the party until I finish work," I'd said to him. "Wait for me and we'll go together."
But he hadn't wanted to do that. He told me people had expectations of him. He said that but I heard it as him not wanting to arrive with me. I embarrassed him. I wasn’t good enough. We still hadn't sorted it out when I'd left for work.
When I got to the party, Holden wasn't anywhere to be found. It was at another fancy bar, all done out in glossy red and black. I asked a few people but no one had seen him. Or, they'd seen him but weren't telling me. I got a drink from the bar, then realised there was a back room.
As I walked towards it, the management guy came running over, saying he had to talk to me. That was strange. He'd never even looked at me before. I had strong suspicions he'd been filling Holden's head with advice to drop me. He grabbed my arm and tried to lead me from the door but I knocked him away.
When walked into the room, Holden was there with another woman. Before that, it'd only been circumstantial evidence. The sort of thing you can explain away. Weird phone messages, being evasive about his whereabouts, that kind of thing. But this was living proof right in front of me.
He couldn't explain this away. He had his jeans around his ankles. No further evidence needed. I screamed and he turned toward me. I flew at the pair of them. There was nothing he could say to make this better. I punched and scratched. I think I screamed too, I was in too much of a fury to know what I was doing. The place turned black.
Eventually, someone pulled me off him and carried me out. When I got home, Holden's things had already been packed up and taken away. I curled up in a ball on the floor and cried for two days.
That wasn't something that a song could fix. When I looked over at Holden, I could tell he was thinking about that time too.
He was about to say something when I turned down the driveway. We were at the house. It still looked the same. Grass overgrown, with old cars and junk littering the front yard. The front window still had tape over the broken glass.
I didn’t have to ask Holden what he was going to say. I knew he was sorry.