Exit Wounds | Noah Sebastian

T H I R T Y T W O

It's been a few weeks since Finn died.  I've been doing okay, but my heart hurts more than I can explain.  Noah only missed one show, but they were going to make that up at the end of the tour.  We picked up at the next show and the show went on, as they say.

The world kept turning regardless of if I felt like I wanted it to stop or slow down, even.  Jolly and Sage had to walk on eggshells that first week.  I could tell they were both so worried to upset me.   Noah paid a little too much attention to me lately.

I had been distant, I knew it, but I didn't know what box to put my grief in.  So, my grief was in all of my boxes, leaving a stain on every single one of my emotions.  While everyone around me treated me like a glass doll, needing to be handled carefully.  So carefully.  It made me want to scream.

"What are you thinking about?" Noah asks, sitting across from me at the table on the bus.  It's late, Jolly and Sage had already turned in.  I was still up, having my third glass of Macallan.  Noah wearily eyes my drink, but doesn't say anything.

"I'm trying to not think of anything," I tell him, just like I do every night when he asks me this.

"Pushing your feelings down and ignoring them is just going to prolong your grief," he says, just like he does every other night when he tries to get me to stop drinking.

"I guess you just know everything, don't you Delaney," Noah spits, his voice raising slightly.  I don't react to him saying my name the way he used to, I know it's what he wants.  He wants to invoke some feeling of any kind in me, but I am just numb.  I was numb before the whiskey, I'm don't feel anything at all with it.

I sip the drink in front of me, "stop trying to therapist me, Noah. And keep your voice down, Jolly and Sage are sleeping."

"I don't care, Laney.  If you don't want to talk, that's fine, you don't have to.  But I have some things to say and you're going to listen," he pauses, searching my eyes for signs of life, but I don't meet his gaze.  I have to fight an eyeroll, he's been giving me the same speech for weeks now.  "You can't keep doing this, ignoring your pain, one day you are going to explode like a bomb.  And you aren't going to mean to, but you are going to hurt everyone around you.  If you don't get some help, and stop medicating with whiskey I'm going to send you home.  Finn wouldn't want this, Delaney, he would hate seeing you like this."

All of those words are new, I think to myself as I finish the Macallan.  All I can think is if he sends me home, I won't have him breathing down my neck.  I can deal with my pain without being judged.

"Send me home then," I shrug at him.  A few weeks ago I would have challenged him, fought back even, today I just want him off my back.  The way his face falls tugs something deep inside of me, but not enough.  He doesn't say anything else, throwing his hands in defeat, and disappearing into his bunk.

I sit up a while longer, watching cars pass the bus on the interstate.  I know what Noah is saying makes sense, but I didn't know how to start.  I didn't know how to tell him I was so lost in my pain that I didn't know how to crawl out of this shallow grave.  I didn't know how to tell him how dark my thoughts have gotten.  I didn't know how to tell him I was so, so scared the same thing was going to happen to him.  I didn't know how to get help, because I don't know what I need. 

The bus pulls up to the next venue just before sunrise.  I wasn't ready for sleep, and I was feeling trapped here.  I let myself off the bus while the driver settles in to get some sleep.  When I round the bus Nick is standing by their bus, smoking a cigarette.

"Hey," he calls, his deep voice quiet as if not to spook me.

"Can I have one of those?"  I don't smoke, haven't smoked since I was in college.  He extends his pack and I stick the cigarette between my teeth and he reaches over to light it for me.  I barely inhale the first drag, feeling it fill up my lungs before exhaling the smoke out.