Page 46 of Fall From Grace
“My brother and just one girl? That doesn’t seem right. Are you feeling okay?” Very out of character, him joking. “Seriously, though, what’s going on? Did a girl finally turn you down?”
“It’s… complicated.” As I say it, I wince. How cliché. I hate it. I really do.
“Of course it is. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
I tell my brother about Wren, how I met her at a club before the semester began, how I took her home. I don’t get into the details of what we did that night, but it’s pretty clear that we fucked. I then go on to say she’s in one of my classes, and I made the mistake of sitting near her and being in a group with her for a semester-long project. I tell him she was in the throes of abad breakup with a long-term boyfriend, but I don’t say that she basically confessed to me that I was her first.
Doesn’t feel right, telling my brother that much. That information is for me and me alone.
“She… caught me in the cemetery earlier in the week. For some stupid reason, I went there with a guitar.” I swallow hard. “She caught me playing Pray for Me.”
“Fuck,” he breathes out the word. “What the hell were you doing, playing any of our songs in public like that? What if she puts it together?”
“It wasn’t in public, it was a fucking cemetery. It’s dead during the day. And she won’t. She was too shocked to see it was me. She probably doesn’t even know the song.” Wren doesn’t strike me as a Black Sacrament fan.
“Still, that was stupid.”
“I know that,” I growl out. “I don’t plan on doing it again. It was the first time I… the first time I actually sat down and played anything.”
“You have a house, so why didn’t you just play in the privacy of your own home? Why risk it?”
“I don’t fucking know. It felt fitting, being surrounded by dead people.”
Deacon’s voice is hard when he reminds me, “You did this to yourself, you remember.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I haven’t forgotten that.”
I sit there in silence for a while, until my brother speaks again. “So this girl, she’s got you real fucked up. You like her, or what?”
“What would be the point? It isn’t like she could ever know the real me.”
My brother is quiet for a while, and I start to wonder if maybe he didn’t hear what I said—I did say it under my breath.But eventually he tells me, “Pope isn’t the real you. Pope’s an asshole. You don’t have to be.”
“You say that like it’s easy to be someone else. You don’t know what it’s like, not really.”
“No, I don’t, but I know you. You’re my brother, so I know there’s more to you than Pope, more to you than your lyrics and the mask you used to wear. If this girl is bothering you that much, then you need to figure out why. Maybe… maybe you’re just scared she’ll like you for you.”
I scoff. “I’m not scared of anything, bro.”
“Right. That’s why you skipped class? That was you being brave?”
“I’m not five years old. I don’t have to do anything.” I groan and rub my face again. “You know, talking to you was supposed to make me feel better, but I think I feel worse now than I did before, so thanks a fuckton.”
I can imagine him frowning at me as he says, “You did this to yourself.” His tone softens a bit when he adds, “If she just went through a bad breakup, the last thing she probably needs is you, but… after you left the band, I thought the same thing about Angel, and now I can’t see the band without her. I can’t see us without her. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes those things are bad, but sometimes they’re good. The only way to know which one it is, you have to give it time.”
If somebody would have asked me six months ago whether I thought I’d get girl advice from my younger brother, I would have probably laughed and then flipped them off. But as much as I hate to admit it, he’s not wrong. I suppose there are some similarities in our situations, if you zoom out.
Still, I’m not used to this shit. I don’t like it.
“Look,” Deacon says, “I gotta go, but if you need to talk, you know I’m always here, right? Bishop and Priest are, too. Youmight not be part of the band anymore, but they’re still your friends. They might not say it, but they miss you.”
I’m not someone who reaches out. It’s why I haven’t spoken to Priest or Bishop in… fuck, I think since it all went down. I saw them at the bar, when I gave my goodbye to my brother before I went home to Mom and Dad, but I didn’t stay and talk. After nearly being framed for kidnapping, I was done and I wanted out.
“Sure” is all I can say.
“I’ll tell them you said hey. Talk later.” And then he ends the call, and I’m left sitting there in the semi-dark, wondering if I feel any better than I did when we first started talking.
Honestly? I don’t know. I thought I’d feel… better. Maybe not one hundred percent better, but better. I don’t know what I was expecting, talking to my brother about what’s been going on in my life lately—I don’t really have much experience sharing my feelings and all that sappy shit.
