A/N: I don't own anything, especially the songs that will be used. Rated M for future Chapters.
Chapter 1: Next 5 Minutes
Our day begins in the middle of the night. I'm not paying attention to anything but the music we produce, no scratch that, the noise in my ears. Stacie is screaming in the microphone, Amy is flailing, and I am the clockwork. I am the one who takes this thing called music and lines it up with this thing called time. I am the ticking, I am the pulsing, and I am underneath every part of this moment. We don't have a drummer. Stacie has thrown off her shirt, she's on her bra now, and Amy is careening into feedback and I am behind them, I am the generator. I am listening and at the same time not listening because what we're playing isn't something I'm thinking about and then her in the crowd and I fall apart.
I fucking told her not to come. While she was busy ripping me into pieces that was the one fragment I begged to keep. Please don't come to the shows. I don't want to see you there. And she had said yes, and it hadn't been a lie then. But it turned into a lie at some point, because here she is, and everything about me goes from crying out to just plain crying-all in the time it takes for me to see the shape of her lips. And then I see-oh fuck no-that she's not alone, that she's with some guy, and while she'll say she's come to watch me, there's no doubt in my mind that she's come so I can watch her. It's over, she'd said, and wasn't that the biggest lie of all? I am stumbling as she leans into this guy and rocks her head like I'm making this music for her, when if I could, I would take it all away and give her as much silence as she's given me pain and I find myself bleeding invisibly across the stage.
Stacie is taking the song somewhere it's never been before: a fourth minute. I'm rutting now, waiting for the wind-down. Amy looks like she's on the verge of a solo, which is never a good place for Amy to be. I move my feet, turn away from her, and try to pretend she's not there, which is the biggest fucking joke I've ever not laughed at. I try to get Stacie's attention from the periphery, but she's too busy wiping the sweat on her chest to notice. Finally, though, she gets a burst of energy strong enough to end the thing on. So she throws out her arm and howls and I run us into the ground with a final lurch. The crowd sends us a burst of their own noise. I try to hear her voice, try to separate that single pitch from the shouts and applause. But she's as lost to me as she was the night I cried and she didn't turn back to see if I was okay. Three weeks, two days, and twenty-three hours ago, not that I'm counting or anything. And she's already with someone else.
I am the equipment bitch for this gig, so while Stacie jumps into the crowd to find her most willing admirer and Amy blushingly retreats to her understanding-but-used-to-be-a-jerk boyfriend, I have to immediately detox so I can pack up our gear. I go from chords to cords, amped to amps. One of the guys from the next band is cool and helps me recover the cases from the back corner of the stage. But I'm the only one who can touch the instruments, putting them carefully to bed for the night. Then I offer to help the new band set up, and am glad when they say yes so I can be connecting them to the soundboard instead of spending all my energy resisting her.
My eye is still used to searching for her in a crowd. My breath is still used to catching when I see her and the light is angled just right. My body is still used to hers moving next to mine. So the distance-anything short of contact-is a constant rejection. We were together for six months, and in each of those months my desire found new ways to be fueled by her. "It's over" can't kill that. All of the songs I wrote in my head were for her, and now I can't stop them from playing. This null soundtrack. I'm tired, she'd said, and I told her that I was tired, too, and that I wanted to take some time for us, too. And then she'd said, No, I'm tired of you, and I slipped into the surreal-but-true universe where we were over and I wasn't over it. She was no longer any kind of here that I could get to.
I keep my back to the crowd as I store the equipment and instruments somewhere safe. Then comes the moment when I can't keep my back to it anymore, since there's only so long that you can stare at a wall before you feel like an idiot. I am saved by the next band, which cranks the volume even higher and soon engulfs us all in beautiful chaos. I dare a glance into the crowd and I don't see her anymore.
I think Julie will like this band, and the fact that I know this stabs me again, because all the knowledge of what she likes is perfectly useless now. I wonder who the guy is. I wonder if the two of them knew each other three weeks and three days ago. I'm glad I didn't really see him because then I'd think of them naked. Now I just think of her naked, and it's such a vivid touch of memory that my fingers actually move to take it in. I turn my head, as if I've been actually seeing her, and see Amy and her boyfriend Bumper making out to the music in a corner-of-the-universe way. Stacie, I figure, is still at the bar, still performing. We're underage, but that doesn't matter here. The crowd is mostly older than us-college or should-be-in-college-and I'm aware of not really fitting in. Some of the older guys in the crowd check me out, give me a nod. It's not like I wear a Badge of Straight or anything. I nod back sometimes, when I think it's a musical acknowledgment and not an invitation.
I find Stacie at the bar, talking to a girl our age who looks familiar in that Type kind of way. When I get to where they're standing, I'm introduced as "Beca effin Mitchell," and she's introduced as "Cynthia-Rose" Stacie thanks me for being equipment bitch, and from the way the conversation doesn't continue from there I know I'm interrupting. If it was Amy, my agitation would probably be noticed. But Stacie needs you to spell emotions out for her, and right now I'm not in the mood. So I just tell her where I left the stuff and pretend I'm going off to search for a clear spot on the bar to summon the bartender from. And once I'm pretending that's the truth, I figure it might as well be the truth. I still can't see Julie, and there's a small part of me that's wondering if it was even her in the crowd. Maybe it was someone who looked like Julie, which would explain the guy who didn't look like anybody.
The band stopped playing their music. They're kinda better than average, and the band gets a lunge of applause and cheers. I clap, too, and notice that the girl next to me puts two fingers in her mouth to whistle old-fashioned style. The sound is clear and spirited, and makes me think of Little League. The girl is dressed in a flannel shirt, and I can't tell whether that's because she's trying to bring back the only fashion style of the past fifty years that hasn't been brought back or whether it's because the shirt is as damn comfortable as it looks. She has very red locks and a haircut that reads private school even though she's messed it up to try to hide it. The next band opened for Le Tigre on their last tour, and I figure this girl's here to see them. If I was a different kind of guy, I might try to strike up a friendly conversation, just to be, I dunno, friends. But I feel that if I talk to someone else right now, all I'll be able to do is unload.
Amy and Bumper would probably be ready to go if I wanted them to, but I'm pretty sure Stacie hasn't figured out yet whether she's coming back with us or not, and I'd be an asshole to put her on the spot and ask. So I'm stuck and I know it, and that's when I look to my right and see Julie and her new guy approaching the beer-spilled bar to order another round of whatever I'm not having. It's definitely her, and I'm definitely fucked, because the between-band rush is pressing towards me now and if I try to leave, I'll have to push my way out, and if I have to push my way out, she'll see me making an escape and she'll know for sure that I can't take it, and even if that's the goddamn truth I don't want her to have actual proof. She is looking so hot and I am feeling so cold and the guy she's with has his hand on her arm in a way that just a friend would never, ever think of, and I guess that's my own proof. I am the old model and this is the new model and I could crash out a year's worth of time on my music and nothing, absolutely nothing, would change.
She sees me. She can't fake surprise at seeing me here, because of course she fucking knew I'd be here. So she does a little smile thing and whispers something to the new model and I can tell just from her expression that after they get their now-being-poured drinks they are going to come over and say hello and good show and-how could she be so stupid and cruel? — How are you doing? And I can't stand the thought of it. I see it all unfolding and I know I have to do something, anything, to stop it.
So I, this random person in an average band, turn to this girl in flannel who I don't even know and say: "I know this is going to sound strange, but would you mind being my girlfriend for the next five minutes?"
End of Chapter 1.
