The talk
They sat in the sand in silence for what felt like an awkwardly long amount of time. How did either start the conversation he wanted to have, when she was clearly only humoring him for a reason neither could quite determine? They both looked anywhere but at each other, her keeping her focus primarily set to the water and the waves, he on the sky above. She almost wondered if he was counting stars or wishing like hell that he hadn't decided to pull her out of the water. Finally, somebody had to say something.
"So we've been sitting here for awhile, is there something you wanted to say to me or…?" she let the question trail off, not knowing where to go with it anyway.
"Yeah, umm, well, I'm Darren, first let's get that out of the way. I don't know if you know who I am or not but" but what? Where should he even go with that? But if you do please don't tell people I'm scared and sad and sitting on a beach with a stranger about to cry? But I am 'somebody' and having all of my hopes and dreams piled in my lap has got me ready to consider killing myself? Of course he wasn't going to say any of that. Thankfully, he didn't have to, she opened her mouth.
"Criss right? You're Darren freakin' Criss? Of course you are, because why wouldn't Darren Criss be here to be the knight in shining armor when my life is going to hell? You have got to be kidding me!" she looked up at the sky like she was asking God if he thought he was funny and shaking her head.
"Umm, yeah, guilty as charged, I'm Darren Criss" he said softly, "so, what's your name?"
"I'm Elizabeth, well Liz, all my life everyone has just called me Liz" she returned.
"Hi Liz" he smiled at her a little as she finally looked at his face, and he back to hers.
"What did you want me for?" she asked looking around, suddenly feeling uncomfortable again. She could not believe, of all people to be walking on this beach at this moment, when she needed more than ever to be alone, it was him. Why? What purpose did it serve any God to just throw him in front of her in a moment when she could almost care less who it was that was there? She had something to do and needed to get it done tonight.
"Well, I'll tell you my story if you tell me yours, seem fair?" he questioned, "but you have to start."
"I really do not have time for this, I have a long and tedious story and I am sure that you have better things to do right now than listen to me telling you the sob story that is my life. Why don't you go get in your fancy car and drive off to some Hollywood party and be the stud that everyone says you are, and just leave me alone? I am nobody that you need to be concerned with anyway!" she shot back at him, a little more angry than she had anticipated sounding. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to him, she had actually been a fan for awhile. The irony of him showing up right now, when she least needed him to be around was not lost on her. She didn't need him wasting his time on a lost cause. She felt weak and she felt cold and she felt like he was exposing her, and she didn't like it. No one had ever cared what she had to say or think, why should HE? Why NOW?
"I meant no offense, I just, I, I'm sorry" he whispered. The conviction and sadness in his voice, she heard it crack as he apologized to her, making her feel like even less a person.
"I didn't mean to sound so rude, I'm sorry, I just don't understand why you're here or why you felt the need to talk to me of all people."
She looked back at his face again, the tears on his cheek reflecting from the light of the moon. How could she have said those things, she knew just from being a fan, that Darren wasn't the Hollywood show boy that they tried to make him be. He had a heart and feelings which he wore on his sleeve most of the time.
"I really am sorry, I didn't mean those things. I love you, I mean, I love your work, to be honest some of your songs have gotten me through some really awful times in my life. There just comes a point, when even the most heartfelt and honest and meaningful song begins to lose its meaning and doesn't fix you like it used to, and that's where I am now, there is no fixing this, fixing me, it's just not worth trying anymore" she broke down by the end of her words, tears free falling from her eyes, she thought she had already gotten rid of all of them, apparently she was wrong.
He shook his head and put his head down, his hand going straight to his eyes, trying cover or hide the tears that were falling but it wasn't working. She knew he felt awful, the sadness seeped out of him just like she knew it must be with her too.
"You first" she whispered softly, reaching over tentatively to pull his hand off of his eyes. "and umm, the beach was made for tears, that's why it is full of salt water, don't try to hide them here or from me, because I know I can't hide mine from you" there was an almost smile on her face, trying to make him feel better. She didn't like him feeling the way she did, she didn't wish it on anyone.
"I feel like this is going to sound incredibly selfish, and I don't want to make you mad, I just, ok, well you said it first, so first I have to agree. There comes a point when the songs just do not help, when you feel that the meaning is gone. That moment can happen for the singer as much as, if not more than, for the fan, and that is where I am. I feel like the best of me is gone, I have done everything I wanted to do and I loved it for awhile, I did. But no one really knows or gets what it is that comes with all that, unless they have been there." He started. He looked over at her hoping she didn't look pissed that he was whining about being the poor little rich and famous kid that everyone loved. She wasn't.
"I have actually thought about that, it would really suck, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes" is all she returned. She got it, she could tell he was really hurting and that whatever it was, he needed to get it off his chest and she was going to at least respect him enough, and listen long enough, so that he felt better and could return to a life that she never would see again.
"So, I'm just there. I had all these songs and all this music pouring out of me and it just felt right, it felt like me. I could sing what I wanted, say what I wanted, go where I wanted. Then suddenly everybody knew me, everybody loved me, and now it just feels like they don't get me, they don't want me, they just want a piece of me, to say they know me or have a connection to me, like I am a property up for grabs in this fucked up game and everyone is trying to win. I don't want to be someone's damn prize. I am a person, and I want to feel like it again. I want to be able to breathe, to walk, go places, talk to my friends, hang out, I want to be able to shout 'fuck' when I stub my toe and not have it plastered in some magazine or hear a report on my inability to be a positive teen role model on the news the next night. I listen to my old songs and I just, I remember how they used to make me feel, the emotion that brought those songs out of me, and I can't get it back, they don't feel the same anymore and I don't even remember the last time I was able to sit and write new music, not for a lack of trying, but because it just isn't there. Do you have any idea how that feels to a fucking musician? It's like, it's, it's like if you took a baby away from his mother I imagine, it hurts that bad to feel like your talent, the one thing that everyone loved you for, is just gone!" by now the tears were pouring down his cheeks and he didn't even care anymore, he was all but pleading with his eyes boring into hers, for help. When she looked full into his eyes, she couldn't even breathe.
"I'm sorry" was all she could stammer. She got up on her knees and wrapped her arms around him, just hugging him and holding on to him while he sobbed. He felt like such an ass, he knew what she was here for but he couldn't stop himself from taking advantage of the situation, of having someone who was so nonbiased and free of judgment, who was willing to sit and just listen, who said it was okay for him to cry and who understood, though she had never been there, what he must be feeling like at this moment. He cried into her shoulder, letting her rock him back and forth slowly, for a long time, just being. Not escaping his pain and his hardship but just really feeling like being able to speak its existence freed him from it over time. He felt better. And then he felt foolish. How could his life be so awful if something as simple as sitting on the beach talking to someone about it and crying it out made it this much better already? Had he really been on the verge, actually thinking about ending it all when this was all it took to get a little peace back in his mind? He felt like a fool and he would not tell that he was out here because inevitably he thought he might end up sinking to the ocean floor by his own accord. He would leave that one locked away inside himself for awhile he thought. He started to move slightly, so she pulled back, releasing the hold she had on him. He sat back, looked at her for a minute with red puffy eyes and began to wipe at them with the back of his hands. She just looked at him, kept his eye contact, and asked if he felt better.
"Yeah, actually I do a little" he nodded and kind of smiled a little at her, feeling like he was talking to an old friend he had known for years rather than some stranger he randomly met on a beach. Thinking about the reality of how he met her, he got worried all over again.
"Oh my God, I did not come and talk to you so that you could fix me or help me, not really. I need to know why you were out there, what you were going to do."
"I would like to tell you because you have been sweet and opened up to me like I asked, and I told you that if you went first, I would tell you, but it's even later now and you don't need my stresses added to yours." She smiled gently and stood up slowly and started to walk away, the bottom half of her dress clinging to her legs where the cold water had soaked it.
"Hey! You can't just do that, you told me if I told you that you would tell me!" he hollered across the sand, but she kept walking. He ran after her and grabbed her arm, pulling her back up into the sand further away than before, almost knocking her down, not out of anger but out of fear for her.
"I am not letting you go back out there, you have to talk to me. You let me talk to you and I feel so much better, you let me sob on your shoulder for fuck sake and I don't even know you, let me know you! After you talk to me, you can do whatever you want, hell, if it's too late, I will personally bring you back here tomorrow so you can do whatever the hell it is you think you need to do!" he was pleading with her, needing to hear her story, to know her.
She looked at the sand once again, she could not look him in the face, why did he care so much? She didn't know how to react to that, she wasn't used to it. Slowly, thinking well ahead of her words, she began to recount her life to this man. She told him about getting raped at a party when she snuck out for the first time ever. And how when she was six months pregnant and just realizing she truly was, that she knew she had to tell her parents. She told him how they kicked her out of the house and told her to take her piece of shit car with her because they didn't have a child who would ever need it anyway. She never told them she was carrying a rapists child, they assumed she was just a slut, sleeping around, they never even asked who the father was. She told him about the job she got at a gas station that would let her keep her car in their garage so she could sleep in a little bit of safety at night as long as she would work a late night shift. She even told him about when she was eight months pregnant and the gas station got robbed, by her rapist.
"He walked in and I froze. I knew it was him and I knew he recognized me, what was I supposed to do?" she was cracking, the strain in her voice, the fear on her face as if she was seeing it fresh in her mind. He had apparently approached the counter, put his hand out to touch her belly, she pulled away, and he asked if it were his baby. When she slowly and in fearing for her life, told him it wasn't, he jumped the counter and beat her within an inch of her life calling her everything from a slut to a bitch and anything in between that dripped off his venom dipped tongue. Darren could not believe what he was hearing. He was afraid for her, he was saddened for her, and he knew there was really nothing he could do. It seemed, the flood gates had opened and she was willing, no more like, needed, to tell him everything. She had lost the baby while laying in a heap on the floor behind the counter of the gas station, unconscious. The next day when her boss came in and found her there just regaining consciousness, he fired her for not having called the police immediately, telling her that it had to have been an inside job because anyone else in their right mind would have called the police immediately. So now, at that point she had no place to go, no place to stay, no money for food or clothes or anything. She had lost her family, her baby, her job, but mostly her own sense of self worth at this point.
"Wow" slipped out of Darren's mouth, he had no idea what else to say. What could he say? Nothing he said could fix that kind of damage. He just stared as she continued talking. To him it seemed she was talking to the water, the sand, the sky, the air, to anything there but him. She didn't want to look at him, she was embarrassed, she was ashamed, she was hated by her worst enemy, herself.
"Yeah, and that's the start of my tale" she whispered, "that was all when I was around sixteen years old, I am twenty three now and things haven't improved by much since." Then she looked at him again, for the first time since she really began talking and he could see the hatred in her eyes, the fear, the hurt, she had been abandoned by everyone who had been anything to her, and broken and abused by anyone else along the way. This time he was the one who felt the need to hold her, he didn't even know most of her story yet, and he didn't know if she would be willing to tell him anymore or if he could mentally or emotionally take hearing anymore. He got as close to her as he could, reached out to her and she instinctively pulled away, as if she were afraid he was going to hit her, or worse. That stung him. Never in his life would he ever imagine treating anyone like that. He rested his hand on her shoulder for just a moment letting her get used to his contact without rushing away from it. He hoped to get across to her that he meant no harm and never would. Then, he didn't really try to hug her, he kind of scooped her up out of the sand, and he held her. She lay in his lap like a baby feeling both childish and embarrassed. After a moment, the tense muscles in her neck and shoulders subsided and he was able to pull her in. He cradled her, resting her head against his shoulder, and just let her lay there and cry. She had done this for him and he knew she needed it much more than he ever could have thought of needing it. He began to hum softly as her head was buried into his neck and he could feel the sobs slowly easing. He didn't know if it would help her or not but for now, he needed it. It felt good to have a tune in his head again and it was soft and it was relaxing and he thought if nothing else they both needed that just then, so he continued to hum as he rocked her softly.
