Sara V

July 15, 2016

I still think about all the things I’ve discovered over the past three years. Most of them have been good, few have been painful. I’m much better than I was back then, but nothing is ever easy. Facing things that I hid away was the hardest thing I ever managed to do. Moving on, it’s the best thing we could do.

For the longest time, I thought my mother was sweet and kind. It’s the lie I was able to tell myself to hide away from the abuse from my father. It was a lot easier to pretend I had one good parent than two bad ones. I still think about it, how she would hurt me because I would do badly in school. She made fun of me, called me ugly and would like to pinch me. The only time she ever left me alone was when I fetched her a pack of cigarettes. I always kept one on me just so she wouldn’t hurt me.

The night of her suicide. I found her alive, bleeding out, but alive. She was crying with blood turning the water a sickly shade of pink, then red. I watched her. I could have called my brother, I could have called 911. I let her die. It still hurt to think about it. Maybe if she was a bit kinder, I would not have had that hatred of her. I would save her today if I had that chance. I would because I understand now. My depression comes genetically from her side of the family. She was suffering and nobody was helping her. It still haunts me.

I was lucky to get the help I needed when I did.

And I still think about how my brother left us over the summer of 2014. He disappeared for a year without contact. He left me at one of my lowest points in life. Of course, he apologized for it later, said he had his reason and knew I was strong enough without him. I’m still mad he left days after Freyja broke up with me.

Now he’s back from New York and I’m anxious to see him.

I scroll through the photos on my phone. It’s nothing but memes and photos I took of Freyja. It was easy being with her until her parents gave her an ultimatum. It was either her family or me. She chose her beliefs and it broke me. Andrew left and I had nothing to help me stand, but I stood. Cody and I shared a class in community college. He helped me get together with Freyja and we’ve been close friends ever since.

Tonight is the first time I’m playing with him ever since I got popular on Youtube.

I wonder how Freyja is doing. I wish we stayed in touch but being so far apart and with school piled on, it made us so distant. I still wear the necklace we both got together when we went to that concert. I hope she still wears her. But that’s all behind me. I’ve just finished my first year at the New York Film Academy. The Los Angeles campus has been perfect for me. I never get tired of the sun. Although coming back home to Darkwood isn’t bad either. It’s sometimes nice to smell the rain.

I look at the clock on the side of my bed as I get ready for the day. It’s already five in the afternoon. I get my guitar out of my closest and knock on Grace’s door. “It’s time, come on!” I yell.

Grace opens the door immediately. It still baffles me on how different she looks now. She changed so much during her Senior and Junior years. I almost didn’t recognize her when I came back home. She’s now my height and probably has a better understanding of facial aesthetics than me. God, she’s pretty.

“Isn’t it a bit early?” she asks adjusting her bra.

“I want to hit up the record store before we get there. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

On the drive to the record store located on 9th and Pine, Cody calls. He’s wondering when I’m going to arrive at the Venue.

It’s a twist of fate how close I am to Cody now. We didn’t talk at all until we started going to community college together. He took a year off so we ended up in the same year. I busted my ass to get an associate’s that year. But I still managed to have time to hang out with Cody and his new friends. They’re all musicians and they convinced me to join them in their set.

It’s soothing and relaxing to play. By no means am I the greatest at it but recently I’ve been learning how to write my chords. Over the summers I’ve been playing acoustic guitar for Cody at his shows. They’re never big or anything serious, it’s just five people messing around on stage. Cody always cracks jokes with the audience and they seem to love them.

However, they’re always sold out. His fan page already has 150,000 likes. Nowhere massive, but large enough to get him noticed. Fame never really suited him as it doesn’t suit me. We’re still a bunch of kids having fun on stage together.

Grace waits outside the store to smoke her weed. I look around for Chris Isaak’s ‘Heart-Shaped World’ on its vinyl. It’s a rare one to find nowadays. Good thing I called ahead to see how many they had in stock.

As I pay for the album, I look at the cashier who looks a bit like my brother. The only difference is that this guy is shorter and his hair color is all wrong, but they are similar. It just reminds me of Andrew. I’ll see him soon, I know it.

“God it’s gonna rain all weekend,” Grace says as I walk out the store. She’s holding her hand out to feel the light rain. “Fucking bullshit.”

“Do you have any plans?”

She shakes her head, “Besides tonight? No.”

I giggle, “Then why are you complaining?”

“What if something comes up? You never know. What if I meet Kanye?”

Grace gets inside the car before I do and packs a bowl into her pipe. “ You’re not meeting Kanye.”

“You met Emmah, a girl can dream, Sis.”

Driving past the streets of Seattle, the sun starts to set. At a red light, a guy is laying down to my left staring at me. He imitates a gun in his hand and shoots himself, imitating the sound and everything. On the opposite side of the street, my right, I see another man peek his head and arms inside a car window. He gets out fast and notices me, he shakes his head. This city is always like this. With the weirdos and homeless. Grace notices it too.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“Way to be more obvious,” she chuckles. “Hey check this out, Sara.” Grace hands me her phone where it’s a meme. This one is about Taylor Swift and her tannie haircut captioned ‘the can I speak to your manager look’. I fake small laughter, I’ve seen it before. Grace laughs getting her phone back, “That’s so Mom.”

When we arrive, Cody is outside talking to the drummer, Ricky. They greet us and inform us that we’re starting a half-hour earlier. We go inside to get some basic tuning done while Gracie sits down and orders. When the show begins

I notice the venue is much more packed than usual. I guess they started to let more people in than what’s allowed.

Ricky beginnings with a hard kick and snare. It is fluid from there. The song is a darker tone so I’m not needed much. It’s one of Cody’s newest ones. He raps about being trapped in a box, but his schemes are so complex it’s hard to put the meaning together. Most of his songs are like this, except the ones more personal to him. Those are more stories than anything.

Halfway through our show, I notice Cody is angrier than usual. During one of my small breaks, I look over to see what he’s staring at. Behind Grace, a woman is leaving with a tall man. I only get to see their backs; I wonder if Cody knows them. The two head to the bar but I can’t make out who they are.

“This next song will never be in an album,” Cody tells the audience. “It’s called Petrichor.”

Petrichor. It’s a song we all practiced but never once have I heard Cody rap it. He said he wrote it three years ago. Ricky signals me because I’m supposed to start it. It’s a slow start with a repeating four notes until Ricky starts the drums and snares.

The song breaks me to hear it. It’s so sad, he puts so much emotion to it. It’s about Emily, the only song he ever wrote about her. It’s taken him this long to muster up the courage to play it. The song ends and Cody turns away. I look back at the crowd and the girl with the tall man leaves the venue. I get it. Emily’s here.

The show ends and we all go backstage to wrap up all the equipment. The only thing, Cody disappears. I text him but there’s no response. Grace comes back here and says, “Sara, you’ll never guess who’s here!” But I already know.

“Yeah, it’s-”

“Sara, you have a visitor,” Cody interrupts me. He walks in behind Grace and places his hands on her shoulders to move her out of the way. “We’re all going to eat at the restaurant across the street.”

“Cody, it’s an IHOP,” Grace explains then giggles.

“Who?”

“C’mon, wrap up and head outside,” Cody takes his leave. “We’ll be waiting. Grace, come.”

“Yeah, yeah!”

I stand still for a moment. If it’s not Emily, then who? Andrew? Andrew’s back and he does love a good show. The bandmates and I clean everything up and dump everything onto the label’s music truck. The bandmates decided to go to an afterparty afterward. I turn the corner of the alley and I see Cody and Grace by the entrance talking to someone. Grace laughs and hugs them. She’s taller than who she hugged so I still can’t see who it is. It’s not Andrew, he’s a 6-foot monster.

Cody notices me approaches and moves out of the way. Standing between Grace and Cody is a small light blonde girl with an angelic aura. She’s a white tank top with light blue ripped jeans. Her necklace shines on her collarbone and she smiles when she sees me. It’s Freyja. I almost drop my guitar case as I start to run towards him.

Freyja grins and wraps herself around me, making me drop my case. She still smells like strawberries. I’m at a loss for words and can’t even mutter one. “You okay? It’s been a while, you look good,” she says.

I let her go and take a good look at her beautiful face. I stutter then take a breath. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you text me?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” She smiles gently.

I almost scoff but I hold myself back. I never thought I would see Freyja this soon. All those feelings I had for her, they come flooding back. Her lips are full and need to be kissed. I want to kiss her. “I’m so glad…”

“So am I,” she pets my cheek with the back of her hand.

“So...iHop?” Cody breaks the awkwardness we must make everyone feel. Freyja and I look at him and nod.

“You look great,” I tell Freyja as we walk across the street. We almost hold hands when we grace them against each other. It would be great if we picked things off where we left off but I’m thinking too optimistic. I have to slow these thoughts down, I’m getting way too excited.

“I try.”

Cody and Grace stop dead in their tracks as soon as we reach the sidewalk. I look over to what they’re looking at, a group of four. “Sara it’s-” I recognize them.

“Sara fucking Mera!” his voice screams. My brother. Andrew starts to sprint down the sidewalk before I can react. “AAAAAAAAH!” All of a sudden I’m being tackled and lifted by the strongest of hugs. It hurts.

It’s like I’m being star-stuck. I can’t speak and I wait until Andrew puts me down. “You…”

“Aw, sis. You’re crying,” he laughs wiping my tears with his fingers.

“Ease up man,” I hear Cody say.

“Andrew!” Grace hugs my brother.

“Aw shit, even Jana fucking Kramer is here!”

“It’s Freyja, you dick,” Freyja laughs.

I wipe away the tears as soon as they come but they never stop. I’m overloading on serotonin and dopamine right now, it’s not fair. “You jerk!” I yell, punching my brother in the chest.

“Aw, come here, Sis,” Andrew wraps himself around me again, this time much gentler than I remember. “You can’t be that happy to see me.”

“It’s not that, you asshole,” my voice comes out with a mixture of crying and laughter. “I hate you,” I tell him but he knows I really love him.

Andrew lets me go again and I notice that the group of people he was with are already here. It’s Emily, Jerrica, and Soran. Why was he with them?

Emily and Jerrica introduce themself to Cody and Grace. I look at my former best friend and we both smile at each other. We hug because even though she cut us out, we’re always going to be friends. I say hi to Jerrica and Soran. Freyja introduces herself to everybody. I’m able to manage my tears after the introduction end. I take a glance at Cody, he’s staring intensely at Emily.

“We’re all headed inside if you all want to join us,” Cody offers.

“Hell yeah, we’re in! I gotta catch up!” Andrew yells again.

“You’re so loud,” Jerrica sighs.

I’m confused. I remember when Andrew was living with us, he was texting a girl named Jerrica. No, it couldn’t be, there’s no way.

“Yeah, okay,” Emily gulps.

“Awesome, almost everyone’s here!” Grace grins. She’s right, all that’s missing from our group is Chris.

We take out seats in a big booth that’s able to fit all of us. Soran and Emily sit by each other, next to Jerrica and Andrew Grace and Cody sit next to Freyja and me. We all get water to start with. Nobody is looking at the menus because they’re all busy talking to each other. I don’t hear any of it because my brother is grinning directly in front of me.

“So, Andrew,” Cody breaks away his attention.

“Yeah, Cody-kun?”

“Did you happen to run into each other, or?”

I see Emily hides her face in embarrassment and Jerrica rolls her eyes more annoyed than anything. Andrew looks at Jerrica who looks at him back and they both smile. “Oh that,” he says nonchalantly. “Jerrica and I are engaged.”

I spit out my drink. Grace almost chokes on hers.

Andrew just starts to laugh while Emily calls him stupid. “You just had to announce it in the most casual way possible, huh?” Jerrica starts to laugh with him. Jerrica shows off her ring, grins and it feels like my head is about to explode.