Page 21 of Convergence

I hadn’t moved any seats in Ev’s truck since my legs fit fine in his back seat, but I had opened his windows with a button, and I was pretty sure his truck was automatic. I didn’t see how the windows or the transmission of either vehicle mattered.

“So?” I asked and adjusted my seat.

“My parents bought me this car when I graduated from high school. I’m thankful for it, don’t get me wrong, but basically my dad’s a dick,” Nate replied and pulled his lips in like he was self-conscious.

“What happened?” I asked. “I mean, um, if you want to talk about it.”

“Well, my dad owns a chain of grocery stores in the area back home and he thinks he’s hot shit. I’ve been working for him at one of his stores since I was twelve years old. At twelve, I was sweeping up and tidying. Then, as I got older, I started working in different areas of the store. This summer I worked in the warehouse doing some deliveries to the stores while some of the guys took vacations or whatever. Anyway, he has always stressed the need to work hard to earn success. Not a bad lesson, but working every day after school and over the weekend, on holidays, not having many friends or a girlfriend, only participating in rugby, wasnot enough. He would always say I needed to work harder, work longer, to earn what I had. Acted like I was some lazy kid because I liked to listen to music while I worked or because I would rather get my homework done. I had great grades and was in love with science, but it was notworkinglike my dad did. So even now, with his adult son, he has to exert this control over me. He got me this car as agift, without me asking for it, and made sure it had everything manual and not automatic or electric, so even my comfort in my seat had to be worked for,” Nate explained. He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel and the foot that wasn’t on the pedals bounced.

I listened, absorbed in his story. It was the most I had heard Nate talk about something serious or about his family. I had little to say, so I reached over his hand on the gearshift to pat his thigh affectionately. “Thank you for telling me. It means a lot. Truly, I was not judging you for your car.”

He gave me a glancing shy smile before his GPS said our destination was on the right. It was previously a warehouse in this industrial area but was now a concert venue. Nate hummed curiously as he looked around and followed a few other cars to a parking lot probably four or five blocks away from the venue.

“I fucked up, I’m sorry, we have to walk,” he said entirely genuinely as he turned his body to face me.

It was nearly December and close to twenty degrees outside. I shivered in anticipation. We had not brought coats thinking we would not want to carry them around all evening. Nate blasted the heat so we might carry the heat with us on the walk to the concert. It did not work for more than a few seconds into the bitter cold wind coming off Lake Erie.

“This is the s-econd t-time you’ve almost had me d-die from exposure,” I shivered in a warning tone as we hurried down the sidewalk with a few other concert goers.

“I know I’m s-sorry,” he groaned back as we stood in a short line.

“Now you have to buy me a drink,” I taunted with a grin.

“Deal,” Nate grinned back as we stepped up to the bouncer and Nate handed him both of our IDs since I didn’t have pockets.

Once inside, we headed straight to the bar. Loud music was playing, but the band was not on the stage yet. At the bar, many other girls wearing short dresses, shorts, or tank tops were shivering, waiting for drinks.

The heavily pierced and tattooed bartender cast smiling eyes up and down my body. “Another cold bitch looking for something to warm her up! I’m making all you fuckers coffees with baileys or hot toddies.”

Nate wrapped his arm around my shoulders as everyone turned to look at us. I smiled at the bartender. “She’ll take a coffee with Baileys,” Nate ordered for me as we both leaned against the bar. Then he looked down at me, his eyebrows raised like he was nervous he was wrong. “Right?” I nodded with a grateful smile.

I looked around at the people piling into the venue while we waited for our drinks. It was mostly men, but some women, and many of the fans were wearing masks that looked like goat heads or devil masks. I couldn’t tell if it was one or both without staring too intently. Many people wore face paint as well, and I saw a lot of repeated designs in the masks and paint, so I assumed it was symbolic of the band‌. I had heard the name of the band, but it escaped my memory, and the font on the t-shirts looked more like blood smears than legible English.

I was out of my element, and this was more people than I had seen in months. It was a bit jarring to the senses to suddenly be surrounded by other people after months of being so isolated. I stuck close to Nate and didn’t make eye contact with anyone as more and more people crowded in to get drink orders.

When Nate and I had our drinks, we stepped aside, and he grabbed my hand to keep me near him in the crowd. “Are you good?” he asked over the din of people around us.

I nodded up at him. “There’s a lot of people here,” I said and finished my drink in a long gulp.

“I know. We can go if you’re freaking out,” he offered, his hand warm and strong in mine.

I made a face and gesture to say I was fine and wanted to stay. We set our empty drinks on the bar and headed into the crowd by the stage.

We stopped near an open area where a few people were standing. I knew enough about metal shows to assume that was the mosh pit, if that was still what it was called. Maybe my first metal show was not the time to join a mosh pit, so I clung to Nate’s warm hand. His thumb absently stroked up and down on my hand as he looked around at the crowd.

It wasn’t long before an opening act came on and I learned all the bands performing were local bands. People were decked out in t-shirts and masks and hats and other merch as if they were a major label band, and I understood then how enthusiastic the metal community in the area was.

The music was blaring loud this close, I could feel the hammering of the drums in my body. It wasn’t my normal taste in music, but I could appreciate their talent and admire the hold they had on their fans. The opening band wore various scary looking face paints and ripped up clothes. It reminded me of what I’d seen in advertisements for haunted houses around Halloween. I looked at Nate next to me to see him smiling and looking down at me. I mouthed “What?” to him and he shook his head as if to say, “Never mind” and looked back at the band.

The opening band played maybe five songs before the main act came on stage. Some of the band members wore the goat-devil masks and some didn’t. As they took the stage, more people were crushing in towards the front and into the mosh pit. My five-foot self drifted away in the current of people, but Nate grabbed me and held me to him, laughing. I gripped his flannel shirt, dreading being separated from him. As the crowd settled a little, I couldn’t see the stage other than a few glimpses under people’s arms as they moved and cheered. Nate shifted to stand behind me, his hands on my shoulders and his body warm against my back.

I was watching a guy next to us who was rocking his body to the first song and bobbing his head so that his hair flipped in front of his face and back over. Nate squeezed my shoulders and I looked up to him and he jutted his chin at our neighbor and raised an eyebrow at me, silently asking if I wanted to do that. I nodded in response. When in Rome, I figured. Nate moved one leg to be in front of mine so he had more secure footing, banded a strong arm around my ribcage, and did a slow bend to show me the movement. His front pressed against my back, his body almost curled around mine, and I could barely breathe from it. His chest pulled back, and I went with him back to standing. Then, as the music took on a deeper, slower, more bass filled tone, Nate rocked our bodies with the music, his slightly curled brown hair flipping over and tangling with mine. He stopped and ran his hands through his long hair with the curl at the bottom and marveled at how long it was now. I laughed as he experimented with banging his head and having his hair flip like the guys on stage and around us. His eyes were alight with joy over his hair.

The next song was heavy on the drums and the screaming from the singer brought up feelings of anger in me even though I didn’t understand what he was belting out. People around us were screaming along with the song and I looked up to Nate when I felt his chest rumbling like he was screaming as well. He was screaming, not to the lyrics, but as loud as he could. I couldn’t hear him over the deafening sound of the band and crowd, but I knew he was screaming based on the bulging veins in his neck and puffed-up chest. He looked down at me and made a face to suggest I follow suit. Again, when in Rome? I couldn’t remember the last time I screamed. Like screamed, screamed.

I took a deep breath, tilted my head back, and let out the loudest sound I could. I wasn’t even sure if an actual sound was coming out of me because of the level of sound around us. But it felt amazing to scream. To scream out my grief over my mom, my anger with my dad, my confusing feelings about Nate and Ev, and my frustration at being so isolated. I also screamed out what I now realized to be a blinding rage at my own anxieties over speaking to people. I balled my hands into fists so tight I was sure to have nail marks in my palms. When I screamed three chest cracking- lung bursting times, I looked up to Nate with unexpected tears streaming down my face. He smiled down at me, a smile I had not seen from him before, touched with warmth and almost devotion. I gasped as he leaned down and pressed his sweaty forehead against my equally sweaty one. He grabbed my face and rather forcefully wiped my tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.

“See? You needed to rage!” Nate mouthed to me with that same smile. “Drink?”

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