Page 3 of The Chance

“Just get it, Mac,” my brother says in that tone that’s on the verge of caregiver even though I’m the older one. “We can use the five for a water. We’ll share.”

“Goddammit, Rex.”

“I’ll pick up an extra shift next week and we’ll go to the arcade, okay? I’ll break into the claw machine if I have to to make sure you get something else. Since you did all this.”

I want to argue but I also really want the souvenir that the lady comes back with and hands over. Something that says I was here with my brother. A trophy of some kind to remember the moment by.

Grumbling, I wait for her to make our change, snagging the bills quickly when a deep bassy beat echoes across the venue.

I don’t wait to see if Rex follows me, I can feel that he is.

I just dive into the thick of the crowd, worming my way through hordes of already sweaty bodies as I wrap the bandana around my forehead like a band, tying it at the back of my head.

I’m gonna need my hands free for this one.

We make it to the front barricade at the center stage when the lights go down and that beat becomes the first song I ever fell in love with.

Fuck sex and screwing with dudes that don’t want more than a BJ in the back of the locker room. Fuck being poor and unable to afford the damn tickets or shirts to this place. Fuck the assholes who name call and think they’re better than me because their sexuality’s more common than mine.

None of that matters when the drum solo breaks out and the man behind the set sets this place on fuckingfire.

I’m dancing before I know my body is moving, completely unbothered by who all I touch. Jumping when the vocalist growls to jump. Swaying with lifted hands when the songs demand it.

All the while, my brother and best friend is at my side, and in as deep as I am.

The grin that breaks open his face when I glance over at him is almost worth having to sell my drum just to see.

He never smiles like that.

Song after song, the band rocks the house, and I don’t think there’s a single moment that I stay still. It justfeelsright to move around, unbound by expectations of keeping your hands and arms in the ride of life until it’s socially acceptable to do otherwise.

Somewhere around the halfway point in the show, Rex disappears into the thick of the crowd and while I don’t mind, I’m forced to make sure crowd surfers don’t knock me the fuck out.

I came to have a great time, not get a boot to the face.

My sight trails one way, then back to the stage, and it’s that moment that I finally settle. Finally still.

Eyes sliding closed in the middle of the crowd, I experience the deep bass rattling inside my ribcage. I let the guitar riff flow through my veins like a lifeforce I didn’t know I was missing.

Chills race across my skin when I focus on the drumming behind it all, keeping time for each of the other members, tearing up the beat, becoming the foundation of each song.

“This is it,” I mumble to myself and let my eyes spring open, my chest filled to near bursting. “Nothing is better than this.”

My smile stretches my face so wide, it aches.

It’s a foreign feeling, the smile, but it’s one I never want to let go of.

“What a fuckin’ night!” The lead singer barks with guttural vocals into his mic. “We’re Clo, if you didn’t know. And this is our song, ‘Goodbye’.”

The place erupts in a boisterous noise that has a laugh bubbling up my throat.

Is it ever really goodbye, though?

I glance around, feeling eyes on me, only to land on a guy that looks like he’s about my age. He moves closer, and for a moment, I wonder if I know him from somewhere.

But then his gaze dips to my lips and Iknow.

He’s like me.

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