Chapter 31: Rock Star's Songs Don't Always Mean What You Think They Do

Kat, still in the hot tub with Mac and Tamara...

Tamara is a good friend to Mac. At Mac's request, she immediately seeks another topic of conversation. By turning the screws on me.

She downs her champagne and points her glass at me. "Okay new girl, your turn. Time for us to hear your Shakespearean Rock Opera. How old were you when you fell in love with Teen Trace and his guitar? Twelve? Thirteen?"

"Uhhm, there's really no story there..."

"Oh come on, just tell us!" Mac's head bobs up and down frantically. "Please! I really need the distraction."

Shit. I guess compared to Mac's situation, my story isn't that big of a deal. "Okay," I shrug.

"Well..." I hedge, "We were just always childhood friends. Really good friends. Then he went to college, I got a cell phone and I started texting him. It kinda surprised me when he started texting back. It was just normal...goofy stuff. Memes, funny selfies, whatcha doing stuff. Around that same time, I got these..." I cup my boobs and grin devilishly, "and he noticed every time he came home, but he was conflicted about it. The night he told me Soundcrush got signed, we flirted, we kissed once. Then he became a rock star. Not much else you don't know...you've all seen the entirety of our actual romantic relationship, in the last few days."

Mac and Tamara exchange a look and nod encouragingly. "There's got to be more," Tamara pushed. "Come on girl. What the hell is the damn song really about? The blood-spilling...symbolic or real?"

"Real, but it was Ashlynn's blood, not mine," I explain.

Tamara spits her champagne out in a violent fit of coughing.

"I guess you guys know my sister, right? And her and Trace's...situation?" They look at each other.

"I didn't know you knew," Tamara says slowly.

"I didn't, until Trace told me last night. A lot more stuff makes sense now—like how Ashlynn has managed to survive on her own. I'm glad he's been helping her," I say softly. "It makes sense that he would, given their history."

Tamara chokes on her drink again.

Once she's recovered with Mac's helpful back pats, she eyes me carefully. "Honey, what are you sayin' about the spilled blood in the song? Trace was Ashlynn's first?"

"Tamara!" Mac hisses.

"What?" Tamara shoots a confrontational look at Mac, "You know you want to ask."

"No, God no." I shake my head and gulp down the rest of the champagne. Mac snatches my glass away to refill and return to me, like she thinks it will keep me talking. "She had an accident—a head injury. She..."I hesitate, then keep with lie, "she fell down the stairs in his house. Trace was there...he was the one that called 911. He feels guilty about it, but it wasn't his fault."

"Wait, so the song—Little Sister—which one of you is it really about?" Mac asks slowly.

I blink. I never thought of that. You took my soul when I spilled your blood.

I was never really sure what Trace meant by that line. I interpreted it like it was just one of the things that happened that night—that Ashlynn was "my blood" but that his soul belonged to me. Not really, but that he thought it did, at the time he wrote the song. But now, knowing the lengths Trace has gone to to help Ashlynn, I see the song in a whole new light. Maybe the song was never about me at all.

Maybe his soul belongs to Ashlynn.

Suddenly I feel a little weird in the head, like my world is reorienting. Is it possible that I am so vain and silly and stupid that I heard Little Sister wrong the whole time? That for over two years, I was thinking Trace wrote a song about me and it was really all about Ashlynn? I try to think back to what he said to me about Little Sister at the Fox Concert:

Leed has this stupid idea he's serenading you.

And then what he said to the crowd, when he Leed forced him to talk about the song meaning:

Little Sister is about realizing how much you care about somebody in the same moment you realize you've hurt them. You'd trade your own soul to take that pain back, but the thing is... you can't steal someone's pain away if they won't show it to you. So, it's a plea for the person to trust you, so you can help them.

I remember distinctly now—the morning that Trace left for good, was the three days after Ashlynn's surgery. I snuck him in to see her, because he could not seem to force himself from the hospital without seeing that she was alive and basically okay. She was cognizant, but drowsy from pain medicine. Half her head was shaved, but she didn't seem to mind at all. She was oddly fascinated with how it looked, and she made some joke to Trace about going punk, and since she was going to miss the start of the semester, she might as well follow Soundcrush around like a groupie. She asked him if she should dye her hair pink or purple, and laughed.

He went along with her and said pink was always prettiest on punk girlies, like her. But it really unsettled him, the way she was joking around with him, and wishing him good luck with Soundcrush, reaching to hug him as he said goodbye. He was pale when we left the room. He grabbed me by the arm and told me something was wrong with her, she wasn't acting like herself. That Ashlynn would be upset about her hair, and more importantly about missing school, and that she would never hug him—especially not in her hospital gown. I told him it was just the pain medicine, but he was right.

He was the first one to realize something was off with her, after surgery. And that moment... that's part of the song.

Don't try to smile a little Sister

Cause you think it helps me leave.

Rather you cry a little Sister

It's your tears that let me breathe.

I always thought that part was about me, because I put on a brave face when he left, but it's about her change in behavior, and they way she said good-bye to him at the hospital, and the way it disturbed him so deeply.

Oh, god. What about the verses? Are those about her to? I hear Leed singing them in my mind...

I wish I wished I never

kissed you that night

So I could feel like

I'm not missing your life

Your heat and your grip

Damm, my heart in your vise

Christ!

Sister, I do-oooh-oohh

Miss ya, I do-oooh-oooh

Truth time: if time would turn us

Back to that night

I'd unleash hell

So we could dance in the fire

No Knight, in hindsight

Fuck, why fight what is right

I'd-

Risk wrong for you-oooh-ooh

Cause I'm such a foo—oo-oool

I close my eyes. I think about Trace's kiss. I think about the way it felt to be touched by him, last night. I think about all the things he's said to me, in the last four days. I try to slow my breathing, and remember what I know to be true. He wants me. He cares about me. I can feel it in his gaze, in his touch, in his promises. No, those verses are about me, not about Ashlynn. He's basically saying he regrets turning me down that night, when I offered him more than a kiss. I don't for a second believe he would make a different choice if he could turn back time, but in his fantasy, and his song, he's imagining a different outcome.

But even in that...is part of the reason he regrets turning me down because it might have avoided Ashlynn's accident? What if he had agreed to take our kissing to the next level, like I wanted? What if we had left the party together at midnight looking for more privacy? Would he have taken me back to his empty house long before I was too drunk to walk there under my own power? Would he have made out with me in his bed, or maybe even made love to me? Would he have walked me home with no need of Ashlynn's help, well before his father arrived? Would the last two and half years have been different for all of us, if he had done the wrong thing with me?

Now, I'm really confused about the song, and whether his feelings for me or his regret over Ashlynn are the main theme. I'm not sure I want to know. But Tamara and Mac are looking at me expectantly, wanting me to answer the question.

"Both," I concede. "I think the verses are about me, the chorus about her," I mumble.

"That's messed up," Tamara says softly.

"Actually it makes a lot of sense to me," Mac muses. "I know how Trace's creative mind words. He's not linear. He's always trying to work stuff out in his head, through lyrics. That song...it's about regret. He regrets Ashlynn's accident, and he regrets what happened," she squints, "or didn't happen, with you?"

"That night of Ashlynn's accident—before she got hurt—I insisted on going to a party. Trace came along to watch out for me. It was New Year's, and I sort of...badgered him into kissing me. He didn't want to at first, but then he did, and once he started...he kissed me like he never wanted to stop. And then he did—stop, I mean. All of the sudden, like he came to his senses. I was drunk and fifteen. He was sober, and he felt like a creep. He flat-out told me nothing more was going to happen—that I was too young. I got mad and sad, and drunker, and wilder...I ignored him and started partying with this guy I barely knew, just to make Trace jealous. I followed the guy upstairs to a bedroom. Neither one of us was really in control, but it got out of hand. Trace followed and heard me tell the guy to stop. Trace...made him...stop. Then I threw up all over Trace for hours. Then we nearly got arrested. Then Ashlynn... It was a shitty night," I mumble.

"Awwww, honey." Tamara reaches through the frothy water for my hand. "That's a lot, for anybody. Much less a fifteen year old. Did you ever...talk to anybody about what happened?"

I blink. "I'm talking to you, right now."

She and Mac exchange a glance. "Honey, it sounds like you were...assaulted."

I shake my head. "No, the guy...he didn't...I mean, he just took my shirt off... it didn't get that far. And anyway, I went upstairs with him. I was drunk. It was my mistake. And I was lucky that nothing more happened."

"Maybe you made a mistake, but it doesn't mean you have to feel grateful that it wasn't worse. You are allowed to feel scared, upset, violated—whatever." Mac says. "Trust me. Something kind of similar happened to me once. I let a guy hurt me—sexually. I'm not into that normally, and I did it for all the wrong reasons—because I thought Adam had slept with somebody while we were together. So I let some guy hurt me to get back at Adam. I don't know why I did that. It really messed me up. I've been trying to sort it out, with a therapist. It helps," she assured me. "Or it did. Now I have a new crisis. I've talked to my shrink five times in the last two days," she laughs a little maniacally.

I feel really bad for Mac. I figure considering she's young, healthy, and she says it was the right time, or the wrong time, depending on how you look at it, the chance that she's pregnant is significant. Worrying about an unplanned pregnancy is bad enough. But I have a feeling that Mac is worrying about an unplanned pregnancy with a guy she is crazy in love with, and that makes it even more confusing.

Tamara hugs her. And then surprisingly, Tamara hugs me.

"Just, think about talking to somebody," Tamara encourages me.

This is all too heavy and weird. I've never talked to anybody about that night, not even Trace. Certainly not Maddie or Laurel or Colin. So why am I spilling my guts to these two girls, who I barely know? Cause I feel like I do know them. Or I could. That we could be real friends.

I put my head under the water and when I rise, I slick back my hair and smile. "I'll think about it. Thanks for listening and not being...judgy. Can I ask you guys something?"

They nod. "Are you guys this nice to my sister? I know you guys must know her pretty well...she lived with Trace for months. What I'm trying to say is...I hope you were nice to her..." I say quickly. "I know it probably seems like she's...taking advantage of Trace, but she's really not like that."

They exchanged wide-eyed looks. Mac looks me square in the face. "I like Ashlynn. She's funny. She's a great musician. Her headaches are real, I know that. I saw them come on too many times—one minute she's fine and then she's really hurting. And she doesn't like her drug behaviors. I don't think she wants to be the way she is. She tried really hard, for a while, to get better." Mac plays with the bubbly water for a long moment and then she says, "I mean, I hate to say it, but I think she wanted to get better to please Trace, more than to get better for herself."

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that. Ashlynn was always a people-pleaser. And I know what that's like, because in the last two years, I've become a people-pleaser, too.

"I like Ashlynn, too. I miss her." To my surprise, my voice is quavering a little.

"Oh no, girlfriend!" Tamara splashes me with water. "I know you have to be worried sick about your sister, but there ain't nothing you can do for her, til she wants help. Mac's right—that's why she's still using. Even feeling indebted to Trace couldn't make her stop. Nobody with a drug problem gets clean until they can't stand to live like that anymore. And I am responsible for making you feel like a princess today. Princesses don't have puffy eyes. So don't you dare cry, you have to look beautiful in..." she reaches over the hot tub to check her phone. "Crap. In two hours. Let's go, girl. We gotta lot of work to do."

I hesitate, looking at Mac. I don't know if she should be alone. She's understandably upset.

"Go get beautiful," she says, "I'm fine. I'm just going to sit in the dark with my morning after pill and flip an coin," she jokes.

"We'll hang later," Tamara tells her as Mac waves us off. When we leave her room, Tamara puts an arm around my shoulders. "You ok?"

"Yeah, I just feel bad for Mac."

"Mac will figure it out. Believe me, Adam ain't going anywhere. She definitely has choices. She'll make the best one for her. You need to shift gears and get into date mode. The best way to forget one piece of heavy drama is to hear some fun gossip. You wanna hear about how I broke Leed in for all the fangirls, back in the day?"

"You're kidding right?"

"Nope. How do you think he met Bodie?" she winks. "I was twenty-one, and already modeling in New York, but I was home in Atlanta on a little break. My dad owns a bar Little Five Points, and he had a bartender call in sick, so I thought it would be fun to fill in for her. In walks Leed, the cutest little seventeen year old you've ever seen...all balls and Fake ID ..."

These Soundcrushers like to keep it all in the family, don't they! HA! Let me hear from you guys---do you like the Soundcrush Chics or what? How about the original  song lyrics? I'm working on putting them to melody, but songwriting is a whole different thing, I'm discovering... Thanks for reading!