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No one else.
I strummed the last bars, letting the audience finish the song as I sang to myself, a step back from the mic. A blanket of silence fell, a true moment of nothingness, before it shattered, bringing with it all the applause and the screams of the college population who turned out to watch the lacrosse team trounce another game, well on their way to holding out as champions for the season.
That was as far as my sports knowledge went. I didn’t pretend otherwise.
My few minutes on the stage roused the audience to a feverish pitch, and my job was done. For those few seconds after the song, their frenzied energy flowed through me. My nerve ends sparked as I gripped the neck on my guitar, flexing my fingers lightly as the emcee of the night muttered his opening words while I dodged around security in my own field event in an effort to get my sweaty rock star ass off the stage.
The energy I collected during the song morphed into a tingle that teased my fingertips to my toes. I’d be a jittering mess if I didn’t get my backside into the small visitor’s room the college staff let me borrow for my kit. Not that I had a lot to take back to the Kingsman’s house, a place that litterally sucked the facade of freedom, my breathing room, dry. One unconnected to my family. A place I could hide away when the after effects of performing got too much.
But my escape strategy was thwarted by a face I knew too well. A face that unfortunately matched my own.
My father and I had little in common, apart from sharing a sliver of the same gene pool.
“Good performance, son.” He beamed around us, catching eyes and smiling like the politician he was born to be.
His meaty hand hit my shoulder in a gesture possibly meant to offer support, though I doubted it.Soul crushingwas more Donald Kennedy’s perpetual style.
“Thanks,” I muttered, omitting the regulardadhonorific anyone else might expect. My hands itched and I rubbed them on my black jeans.
We never used the D-word, unless it was the vulgar variety I threw his way as a teen. I’d still do it but I learned long ago not to waste my breath.
Let me out of the open damn space.
Everything was big at Rippton U. Huge cafeteria. Giant sports stadiums. Larger than life personalities and egos, of which I was supposed to join the ranks.
To be in the spotlight meant that space yawned before me like an abyss I could tumble into and never emerge from.
Let me the fuck out.
Or in. Back to the tight little space the college officials apologised for profusely, knowing it wasn’t the global standard I was used to for international tours.
They didn’t understand that for me, the small space granted as my dressing room was the epitome of perfection. I needed to be in it before my dose of serotonin dissipated, back to the girl I knew my manager would have left waiting for me.
Sex was the only way to avoid the crash that came after without seeking out the substances I weaned myself off years ago, chasing the high, and staying there for as long as possible to avoid the nothingness that inevitably followed.
“Thanks, thanks,” I muttered to the hands that touched me, managing to smile–albeit shittily–for a selfie. My fingers twisted my fingers in my guitar strap as I tried to shake Douglas off. “You’re welcome.”
“Now, we need to talk about your next tour.” My father steered me to the side of the stage, talking too loudly while the officials made shooing motions, and a blonde I didn’t know smiled toothily my way.
My blood sang in my veins, bright colours sparking in the corners of my vision.
Time’s up.
“Later. Got my post performance meditation to do,” I snapped, shoving Douglas’ hand away with enough force that my father stepped back.
A deep frown that I was well acquainted with and usually reserved for delinquents etched the worry lines in his heavy brow. “Fine. Don’t forget. My assistant will block out time in your calendar.”
I nodded, barely listening while he tried to control my life though I signed with a record label that had absolutely zero connections to my father’s type of campaign funds and never would. Still, I suspected he tried with the bribes and did a little campaigning on my behalf, of which I should be grateful but couldn’t find the love due to the clinical upbringing he provided.
My manager Lance was the same. I took the steps off the trundle stage three at a time, hitting the soft manicured grass with both boots, holding my guitar steady, and strode into the tunnel beneath the bleachers on the other side of the stadium. The thing was recently built, courtesy of the tithes every student paid from their personal–not their family’s–bank account.
The moment the walls closed around me bright overhead lights dimmed from the giant flaring banks outside to a few flickering fluorescent bars overhead. My lungs inflated in full for the first time since the last song finished.
Shoving back the clammy impression my father’s hand left on my shoulder, lingering like an unwanted spirit, I headed through the deserted underbelly. Passing the opposing locker rooms on either side, I finally found the small door set back in its own alcove. Beyond, the other end of the tunnel opened into a waiting area for the buses the crowds would pour through later to take the away team and their fans home after the game.
And standing in my alcove, dangling a key for the door, stood a girl.
Her hair hung around her neck in a short black bob decorated with a row of small plastic spiders on a barrette. Heavy breasts were tucked into a purple crop top featuring a unicorn farting a rainbow, and her multicoloured leather miniskirt just showed the tops of her fishnet suspenders tucked into purple ankle boots. Slim in the right places and curved in others, her body was the perfection I needed tonight, especially after dealing with my father, albeit briefly.
