Secrets in the Lyrics (15 page)

Gable never came last night.  I don’t even have my cell phone to see if he tried to
call.  If I’m really being honest with myself, I knew this is how it would end up. 
No one really sticks around in my life.  I’m easy to cast aside.  Hell, Chad was even
right.  Who would want to be with someone like me?  Someone whose parent’s didn’t
even want them.

Maybe that’s what Gable and I would have been like if that baby had been born.  We
probably would’ve sucked as parents.

I hear a soft knock at the door.  Scarlet sticks her head in.  “Good morning.  How
are you feeling?”

I shift uncomfortably.  “I’m fine, just still sore from the beating.  You understand.”

She nods.  “Yeah, I do unfortunately.”  She says looking at the cast that is still
on her arm.  “Here are your bags, I figured you might want some of your own stuff. 
Plus, I picked up a couple of things I figured you might need from the store.”  She
reaches in the bag smiling.  “Now, I know these aren’t Victoria’s Secret or anything,
but I’m sure they’ll be comfy as hell.”  She pulls out a pack of what we like to call
granny panties, or period panties. 

Panties that have no sex appeal to them what so ever, just pure cotton comfort.

I giggle a little.  “Well, I don’t need to worry about anyone seeing them for a while,
so it’s not a big deal.”

She laughs.  “Yeah, I get what you mean.  I got you some of the mattress thick pads,
too.  I figured the thin ones wouldn’t do it.”

I shake my head.  “Nope.”  I have to ask, I have to.  “Did Gable come by and drop
my bags off?”

She shifts nervously.  “No.  Stoney did.  Gable was still cleaning at the house. 
He had to take the carpet out.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Hey, Nana is on her way up with breakfast.  She said stay up here and she’ll bring
it to you.”

I shake my head. “I’m not really hungry.”

“Ivie, you gotta eat.  You need to get your strength up.  Plus, I let you get away
with not eating yesterday.”

“Okay.  I know Nana can
take me
anyway, so I’ll do what she says.”

She smirks.  “Smart move.”

A few minutes later, Nana Pearl comes in the room.  “Oh, sweet girl.  You and Scarlet
have to stop scaring an old woman like me.  I thought Ryder was gonna be the death
of me, but you girls are too damn much.”

I smile.  “Sorry, Nana.”

She sits down on the bed by me.  “Well, I’m glad you’re okay.  I’m sorry about the
baby, the Good Lord knows more about what he’s doing than we do, that’s for sure.”

I nod.  “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now here, I brought you a little light breakfast.  Just some eggs, grits, bacon,
cathead biscuits and orange juice.”

I laugh and wince at the pain from a good ol’ belly laugh.  “A little breakfast? 
Nana, that sounds like the entire buffet.”

“Well, we need to kick your strength up so you can be a badass rocker chick on that
tour.”

I clutch my stomach laughing.  “You are too funny old woman.”

“Well, I’m just glad I could make you laugh.  I could see in your eyes that you needed
it.”

I kinda frown.  “Thanks. You are right, I did.”

“I saw that boy looking at you at Christmas.  He just needs some time.  He almost
lost you and he lost a child, he’s scared.”

“But doesn’t he realize how scared I am, too?”

“Baby, men are dumb.  They don’t realize because they don’t have hormones.  How are
you doing with that by the way?”

“The nurse told me before I left that they’d hit me.  They haven’t yet, but she said
I’d probably cry for like a solid day or something.”

“Honey, I think my late husband was about to commit me when we had a miscarriage because
I cried for almost two solid days.”

“You had a miscarriage?”

“We did, before we had Greer.  I wasn’t supposed to be able to have kids after it. 
They didn’t know as much as they do now.  So when we had Greer, we realized how blessed
we’d been.  He was the only child we were meant to have, but like I said, the good
Lord knows better than we do.”

“Yes, ma’am, I guess he does.”

“Now, you eat that big breakfast and get your strength back up.  Like I said, you
have to be ready to go on that tour.  We women rockers gotta stick together.”

“Rocker women?  You were a rocker?”

“Well, I knew how to strum a guitar back in my day.  As good as any damned old boy,
that’s for damn sure.”

I laugh.  “Thanks for stopping by, Nana.  You are a trip.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll come around.  Y’all will get a chance to talk about all of this
before you leave, and if not, then it’s his problem.  You, my dear, are a catch. 
Don’t let anyone tell you different.”

I nod and start eating my breakfast as she leaves.  I see why Scarlet got so attached
to her.  She’s pretty badass herself.

After finishing my breakfast, I take a look at myself in the bathroom mirror seeing
the battered body before me.  I never have to worry about Chad again.  He’s gone. 
I take some more pain medicine and lay back down for another nap.

My sister decided to have my band over for breakfast this morning before we leave
for our tour.  Ivie and I have only texted back and forth since she got out of the
hospital a few days ago.  I feel like a big piece of shit and well, as a matter of
fact, my sister has called me that much.  Even my mother, who is all
violence isn’t the answer,
smacked me in the back of the head the other day.

I finally did get the house back in order.  Some company is coming to lay new carpet
next week since my mom is putting the house on the market when she moves to Augusta. 
I know the guys think I’m a huge assclown for staying away from Ivie but I couldn’t
face her.  I’m not sure how I feel and I don’t know what to say.  I know I’ve hurt
her more than I ever intended to.

I can’t give her what she needs, she needs a guy who will stick around.  Hell, at
the first sign of trouble I dipped out.

As I drive down the long gravel road to Ryder’s house, I feel like I’m about to throw
up.  I drove Ivie’s car since I still don’t have one and I never made it over here
to drop hers off. 

Getting out of the car, I see my sister walk out the front door.  I hug her neck. 
“Hey, little sister.”

“Hey.  Um, will you give me Ivie’s keys?  I’m going to go ahead and pull the car into
the barn.”

“Why are you parking the car in the barn?”

“Well, that way it’s taken care of and when she comes back, she’s moving in here with
me.”

“Why?”

She snatches the keys from my hand.  “Are you that fucking dense?”

“I guess I am.”

She puts her finger in my chest.  “She has no fucking body, Gable.  You made promises
to her and you didn’t keep them.  She doesn’t want to depend on Stoney or Keeg to
store her stuff, so I offered and I told her when she comes home, she’s staying here
until she can get on her feet.”

“How did I become the villain in this?  She’s the one who was keeping secrets.”

“We all have secrets, Gable, so get over yourself.  She lost y’all’s baby in a fight
for her life.  It had been less than twelve hours since she found out that she was
pregnant.  Her body was so racked with hormones that she didn’t know how she felt. 
But I can tell you that Nana and I held her when she cried for two days straight a
couple of days after she miscarried.  I don’t think this has a damn thing to do with
secrets, I think you are a fucking coward.”

With that said, my sister gets in the car and spins gravel all over me.  She cried
for two days…  I remember the nurse saying something about a hormone crash or something
like that.  I head into the house and I see Ryder.  I shake his hand.  “Hey, man,
thanks for inviting us for breakfast.”

“Hey, that’s all Scar and Nana.”

“Well, thanks anyway.”

I make my way into the kitchen where Keeg, Stoney and Nana are eating.

Nana looks up.  “Well, look who crawled out from under the rock he’s been stuck under.”

“I managed to squeeze out.”

“Well good, now pull your head out of your ass and get over here and eat some of this
food.”

I sit down and make my plate.  We talk about our schedule a little and some of the
upcoming events.

Scarlet and Ryder have joined us by now.  I still catch the death glares from my sister. 
I notice Ivie still hasn’t been down here to eat.  I finally work up my nerve to ask. 
“Scar, where is Ivie?  Is she still packing or something?”

She shakes her head.  “No, she headed out last night.  She’s gonna meet you guys in
country.  She said she had some things to do before she left, and the record company
sent her a day ahead so that she could talk with the tech guys and all.”

“How did she get there to fly out?  I had her car.”

“Ryder rented her one, even though she fought him on it.”

Great, she is avoiding me. How in the hell is this going to work out?  We are in the
same fucking band.  We are about to be in a fucking country thousands of miles from
home.

“What kind of things did she have to take care of?  Why did they send her ahead?”

“I don’t know, she said it was private and I didn’t push.  As far as the other, you’d
know if you’d been by here.”

With that, my sister stood up from the table and dumped her plate in the garbage. 
She is seriously fucking pissed with me.

How did I screw things up this bad?  Oh yeah, I fucked my band mate.

Flying military transport with all of our equipment was extremely weird and totally
different from flying commercial.  I called Rex a couple of days ago and asked if
I could help out in anyway.  I also said if our instruments were going over early,
I’d be willing to go with them and the tech guys to get our shit together.  I knew
that was always a big deal when we were on the road, so I wasn’t surprised when he
agreed.

I knew I couldn’t handle being on a flight that long with Gable.  Plus, I needed to
stop by my old high school and get copies of my transcripts.  I need to figure out
if this is what I want to do for the rest of my life or if I want to go to college
like I had originally planned.  I’ve been floating around for enough years now.  No
one wants me, that’s been made clear.  Losing that baby was God’s way of telling me
that I’m not even supposed to have a child, so I’ll just figure out what my career
needs to be and that will be my life.

When I sat in the room at Scar’s for two solid days and cried, I said no more men. 
I’ll use B.O.B., as long as I give him fresh batteries, he never disappoints.  He
doesn’t beat the shit out of me.  He can’t knock me up and he won’t break my heart.

~*~*~

The guys finally got here to Kuwait a couple of days ago and we’ve been busy practicing. 
They have us at what they call a Camp, it’s a pretty big base.  Besides practice and
meetings, I haven’t had to run into Gable much.  They have fast food restaurants,
coffee shops, movie theatres and recreation places.  We are going to be playing shows
in Kuwait for a few weeks, then we’ll do a couple in Afghanistan.  They don’t allow
that many to be done there, but they want us to do a few shows at one of the bigger
bases.  The rest of our tour will be in places like Germany, Japan and Italy. 

I love having coffee shops here.  I need my caffeine fix daily, and having decent
coffee just makes it better.  Walking out of the coffee shop here on base, I run straight
into a wall of muscle.  It’s a nice looking guy, I can see from his workout clothes
that he’s ripped and built like a fucking champ. “Excuse me, ma’am.”

“Oh, excuse me. I need to watch where I’m going.”

“You’re with the band, right?”

“I sure am.”

“Wow, okay.  I’m Judd, Ryder’s friend.  You must be Ivie.”

I smile.  “Yes.  Oh my God, I never thought we’d actually run into you over here. 
Scarlet and Naomi asked me to keep an eye out for you, but I never dreamed I’d actually
run into you.”

“Well hey, will you join me for some coffee?  Catch me up on everyone at home?”

An hour later, we have laughed and talked about all of the people we both know from
home.

He shakes his head.  “Well, I’m glad to know Nana has still got her spunk.”

“So at Christmas I had to help Scar keep your mom from finding out about Annabelle. 
What’s the story there?”

He chuckles.  “Wouldn’t I like to know?”

I smile.  “I think you do.”

“She’s confusing.  She’s this gorgeous little firecracker.  You know, all full of
piss and vinegar.”  He rolls his head around making his neck crack.  “We met one night
in a bar, when Ryder was doing anything he could to get Scarlet’s attention.  My job
was to distract Annabelle and well, she distracted the hell out of me.”

“So you guys hooked up for the night?”

“Well it was supposed to be for the night because I was leaving.  But then some shit
happened and she needed me, now we are friends.  She didn’t want anyone else to know,
it’s her story not mine.  I know Ryder and Scar think it’s more, but it’s not.”

“So how long have you been on this base?”

“Well, I’m here for a couple of weeks at the time, then I go to Afghanistan a month
or so at the time and we run some missions.”

“Oh, well are you going to catch our show tomorrow night?”

“Yeah, I plan on it.”

“Okay great, the guys made friends with Ryder before we left so I’m sure they’d be
thrilled to meet you.”  I reach in my backpack and grab some laminated passes they
gave us and hand it to him.  “Here, this will get you back where we are.  Do you want
one for a friend or anything?”

“No, thanks, this is awesome.”

I look at my watch and realize the time.  “Shit, we’ve got practice, I need to go. 
I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

He stands up, giving me a hug.  “Thanks, again.  It was great catching up with someone
from home.”

“No problem.”

Walking out, I see Gable in line grabbing coffee and he gives me a
go to hell look
.  I roll my eyes and keep walking.

He follows behind me to our practice area.  “So who was that?”

“Who?”

“The guy at the coffee shop.”

“None of your business.”

He stops me.  “None of my business?”

“Yep, he’s a friend.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, for real.  But I’m glad you stopped me because I think we need to talk for a
minute.”  He goes to speak but I put my hand up.  “You lost the right to question
me about who I hang out with.  You lost a lot of rights in my life.  You are only
my band mate.  That’s it.  This band is all we have together.”

“So we can’t even be friends now?”

I shake my head.  “No.  Friends don’t abandon someone the way you abandoned me.  You
never even showed up.  Do you think I wanted all of that to happen to me?  I was trying
to figure out a way to tell you and I was going to tell you when you got home.  So,
WE could decide what WE wanted to do.  I can’t help all hell broke loose before that
could happen.  I just never thought you’d treat me like you did.”

“What the fuck?  You took off and flew over here before any of us.”

“I couldn’t be on a flight that long with you.  I’ve been disappointed my entire life,
people that were supposed to be there for me weren’t.  You made this big fucking speech
about how my dad treated me and you did the same thing.  You left me when I needed
you the most.  You are a fucking hypocrite.   Now, if it doesn’t pertain to the band,
we don’t talk.”

I turn my back to him, walking over to our area to get practice started.