January 2020
"You cheated on my Mom," Maya offered, leaning back in her seat, as she struggled to process the turn that her morning had suddenly taken.
She figured that being blunt was the best way to tackle this situation. She needed to keep enough distance that her own emotions couldn't get involved.
"Yeah, I did," he agreed, folding his arms in front of him, "I was a mess and your mother knew that the both of you deserved better, but Dani, she didn't expect things of me, she was always just happy with whatever I would give her."
"That doesn't exactly reflect well on you," Maya pointed out.
"Not much of my life does."
They lapsed into an awkward silence and Maya took a sip of her drink. Kermit wasn't aging well. The framework of the man that had contributed to her genetics was still there, but there was something in the way his skin seemed too thin and the wrinkles in his face had become more pronounced. He was becoming a product of his lifestyle and it was a cautionary tale if she'd ever seen one.
She couldn't help comparing him to the Kermit in Dani's memories.
My husband's daughter,
Like any cliché startup band, we practiced in a garage. It's always hot in Nevada, but that garage kept me on the verge of heat exhaustion through every practice. And we practiced often.
There were five of us all together; your father and I, Leah Donavan, who played the keyboard, and Chris Price, who played the drums. We didn't have very much in common, except for the music. It was clear that the only reason I was there was because they trusted Kermit.
This was Kermit's last chance; the last thing that was going to get him out of this town and that would let him make a name for himself. Kermit's first love will always be music. I wish you could have seen his passion, the way he came alive whenever we would play. It was as though this was the very reason that he had been born and I've always felt that it was a privilege that I got to see him like that.
He wrote most of our music, along with Chris. Leah would contribute on occasion, too, but I felt completely out of my league when it came to writing about my feelings. I was, also, busy with school and completing my senior year. I don't think that I ever imagined that we would ever get anywhere.
Our first gig was at a bar. I found out that we had it the week before we were supposed to go on and there was absolutely no way that my parents would ever let me do this. I was too afraid to voice my concerns, but Kermit seemed to automatically know, anyway.
He waited until our practice had finished before following me out to my car.
"You're having second thoughts," he'd commented, not even phrasing it as a question.
"I'm still in high school," I reminded him, "I still live at home with my parents and they have expectations for me."
"Look, Dani, if you want out, I won't try to stop you. You can get married, have a van full of babies and sing in the church choir. But, you're incredible. Watching you sing is practically a religious experience; it's what brings you to life. You don't have to want this as much as we do, but, Dani, your voice is wasted on this town."
"I don't understand you," I sighed, leaning back against the edge of my car, "We've never been friends, not really, but you still believe in me more than I've ever believed in myself."
"I envy you," he admitted, running a hand through his hair.
"What?"
"Your mother brags about you every chance that she gets, have you noticed?" he paused, as I shook my head, "I used to watch you, trying to see what she saw and then one day I did. You don't need to stand out, to be the center of attention, your content to just be. I'm not sure that I've had a single content moment in my entire life, where I haven't wanted something more, something better. So, you can imagine my surprise to come home and realize that not only are you content, but under that quiet exterior, you've been hiding someone extraordinary."
"I think you have me confused with someone else," I laughed, "I want things, Kermit. I want to be someone, I want adventure. I'm just not as forceful as you when it comes to going out and getting it."
He looked at me and I couldn't meet his gaze under the intensity. I still don't know what he saw, what he sees, but his lips just pulled into his careless smirk and he shrugged. He leaned against the car next to me, our shoulders brushing and I pretended not to notice.
"You're chasing reality and I'll always chase fantasy," he offered, as though that somehow explained all of it. I think it does now.
"I'm going to have to sneak out. Can you get me a ride?" I questioned and a smile lit up his entire face.
"I'll get you there," he promised, bumping his shoulder against mine, before he turned back towards the garage.
Things start to blur together after that. There were a string of bars and I got far more adventure then what I bargained for. Chris had a van and we learned pretty quickly that it was best if we all drove together. Walking across the parking lot was a terrifying experience, even with your father by my side.
I was so terrified that word of what I was doing would somehow get back to my parents, that I was careful to never give my name. We used to joke about stage names, but I mostly remained anonymous.
Graduation was fast approaching and I had applied to more colleges then I could count, but it was around this point that I started to realize just how much I had come to love singing. Kermit's passion was contagious and somewhere along the way I'd come to need the rush of being on stage, just as much as I needed to breathe. None of my other dreams seemed as important as this one.
We didn't talk about the future. All of us lived in the moment and enjoyed every second like it just might be our last. When you're young, there's a part of you that thinks you're immortal; that nothing could ever touch you. We were never going to age based on sheer willpower.
My parents were pushing for me to make a decision on college, but I wasn't ready to commit to anything. The band was finally starting to gain a following and we were all ready to follow Kermit to the ends of the earth and maybe beyond.
It was the biggest night of our career. There was a talent scout out in the audience and the tension was starting to get to all of us. Kermit had been snapping at everyone and Chris couldn't seem to sit still. It was Leah who suggested they needed something to take the edge off.
I never got into the drugs and alcohol scene, though the others did. I pretended not to notice because it was easier than admitting that I didn't approve. Kermit found the entire thing incredibly amusing and I know there was plenty of joking behind my back about how young and innocent I was.
I don't think Kermit had gone beyond recreational use, but I'd seen what the drugs and alcohol did to people who I'd once respected and there was no way that I was going on stage with them if they were high.
One day you'll look back on your life and you'll realize the big moments; the ones that define you as a person. This was one of mine.
I walked away and the band went on without me. They ended up with a recording contract and my father had to pick me up on a street corner. Needless to say, he wasn't happy.
I was ready to hate your father, but he called me that night to make sure that I made it home safely. I think I might have loved him then, but it was the kind of love that was attached to heartbreak. I went back to my ordinary life, while Kermit was the one to take on the role of extraordinary.
Most of the time, I think I made the right choice. If I'd stayed, I would have forever remained in your father's shadow, never to take on a life and career of my own. However, your father never would have met your mother. I guess it doesn't matter much, now.
-Dani
Maya blinked and snapped herself out of the memory. Kermit didn't appear concerned at all by the silence and she found herself wondering what he was really doing here.
"I know what happened between you and Danielle and my mom, but I don't know why you ended up deciding to get clean," Maya finally said, leaning back in her seat.
"The first time, it was for you. I wanted a life with you and your mother, I wanted to do things right. But, then, I couldn't find a job and I let myself slip. I was on and off the wagon for years after that."
"And now?"
"Dani and I lost a baby and we were pretty messed up for a long time after that. She needed me in a way that she's never needed me before and I couldn't be there for her if I wasn't sober. So, I got sober and I removed the temptations. I've tried to pull my family back together to the best of my ability. It isn't perfect, but we're trying," he replied.
"Why did you lie about donating a kidney?" Maya demanded.
"I know that I've never done the right thing when it comes to you or to your mother. I finally had a chance to do something that might make up for what I've done, just a little bit. And I was scared; scared of what your mother would say when I told her that it wasn't me donating a kidney, but my daughter, scared that she would refuse. I knew that if I could just get there with Olivia, she'd give in."
"But Dani stopped you," Maya filled in the rest of the story.
"It wasn't anything against you, she just didn't want me using our daughter to fix my own mistakes. It probably doesn't help much, but I am sorry. I don't know what I would have done if there hadn't been someone there to help you," his voice broke off and Maya watched the emotion flicker across his face.
"I've got to get to class," Maya stood up, grabbing her drink from the table. She tossed it into the nearest garbage and then turned to head towards the door, before one last question came to her, "What was the point of all this? Of coming to see me?"
"I guess I just wanted to see you all grown up and alive."
"So, you can pretend that I was better off without you? That leaving my mother and putting the one woman who was willing to put up with you through years of endless misery was the right choice? You're not my father, Kermit. You told Danielle, once, that you broke everything that you touched. You were right," Maya spun on her heel, leaving him behind.
Maya can barely concentrate in her lecture. Her body's there, but her minds trying to process the encounter with her father. She was supposed to feel better after confronting him and laying out all of her feelings and anger. Every time that she'd tried to forgive him, she'd learned something new that had brought all those ugly feelings back.
The resentment and anger and hate were going to eat her alive and she knew it was only a matter of time, but she couldn't let go. She hadn't figured out how.
She could hear Riley's voice in her mind, telling her that she was going in circles; letting the past continue to hurt her, even when it was already over and done with.
Maya blinks and the class is over. There's still several students talking to the teacher in the front of room and Liam is looking at her with a curious expression on his face, but she'd clearly missed her cue to dart from the classroom.
She shoved her empty notebook back into her bag and pulled it over her shoulder, turning to go.
"Everything okay?" Liam questioned, following her towards the exit.
"Fine," Maya offered, trying to shove her feelings down deep enough that she could give a convincing performance.
"Okay," he shrugged, clearly not believing her, but not going to press. She's so used to people pressing that she has to bite back the automatic response on the tip of her tongue.
"You told me that you were working in SoHo, you never mentioned going here," Maya pointed out, when it became clear that they were headed in the same direction.
"I'm doing this as a favor to a friend and the gallery doesn't require that my art is actually created in SoHo," he replied and Maya got the feeling that this was a topic she shouldn't press, either.
"You never mentioned how you knew the Friars'," Maya tried another route.
He ducked down a staircase and Maya followed him, wondering if he was going to even bother answering.
"Smart people don't mention any association to them at all," he snorted, "But I probably don't have to tell you how messed up their family is, you are dating their son."
"Lucas isn't like them," Maya automatically defended him.
He pushed open the door leading outside and Maya followed him out into the abandoned courtyard. She felt like she had just plunged herself into ice water, but she forced herself not to react to the elements, as she waited for his answer. He pulled out his package of cigarettes and Maya winced at the smell, as he lit one.
"You really think that their actions and influence aren't going to impact him? You smoke for long enough and you're going to get some kind of cancer. He's spent his entire life in that messed up environment and he's choosing to stick around there. Maybe, he's not like them, now, but give it a few years," Liam blew out a cloud of smoke that hovered in the frigid air, "Nature or nurture, it doesn't matter because it all comes from them, anyway. We're products of the people that made us."
My husband's daughter,
There will be people in your life who you write off. You're convinced that you'll never see them again and then, out of the blue, they'll suddenly be there.
Kermit showed up at my graduation.
I hadn't talked to him since the night that I had walked out on the band, though I wasn't really expecting to. I'd had the adventure that I was searching for and then found myself back in reality. It wasn't nearly as dazzling, but it was safe.
I had plans to work for a year before going off to college. I'd spent all of my life dying to leave, but I suddenly found myself apprehensive over the giant world that was spread out before me. I, also, had no idea what I actually wanted to do with my life. I loved to sing, but there weren't a lot of careers that were going to get me anywhere on my voice, alone.
He caught me as I was leaving the high school, on my way to search for my parents. I'd had to go pick up my yearbook and they were already out in the car, but Kermit pulled me aside and it didn't really take a ton of convincing.
He didn't look like he was sleeping well, but he was groomed and he almost looked respectable. I can remember receiving plenty of stares and a few glares, as my classmates realized who was pulling me away from the crowd and to a more secluded area of the school.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, as he dropped my hand and left several feet of space between us.
"I just wanted to thank you," he stared intently at the ground and it was the least sure that I had ever seen him.
"For what?"
"We would never be where we are now, if it wasn't for you. What happened that night was wrong; you were one of us and we shouldn't have ever put you in that situation."
"It all worked out, didn't it?" I offered, not wanting to deal with this situation. He felt like he was suddenly a million miles away from me and I had this feeling of being left behind.
"I don't sing as well as you do," he assured me.
"Well, you're the one with a record deal," I reminded him.
"You'll do well in college. You're smart and you'll be able to handle the class load. You don't have any limits or restrictions; the entire world is in front of you."
I think he'd probably rehearsed most of this. At the time, I thought he was trying to make himself feel better for what had happened, but I know differently, now. In his pursuit for happiness or peace or freedom; he'd put himself on a course that would keep him from all three. And, I think he's just started to realize what the drugs, alcohol, and fame would do to him, but he didn't have anything else.
"I'm not leaving. I'm going to work for a year and then make a decision on college," I replied, folding my arms across my chest.
"What?" he looked up and surprise flashed across his face.
"It's not a big deal," I shrugged it off.
"If you don't get out of here, you'll be stuck," his eyes burned into mine, "You need to get out of here and live your life."
"That's easy for you to say," I pointed out, "College is expensive and I haven't figured out what I want, yet. I have time."
"If you're not careful, you'll end up with way too much of it."
"I'm going to be fine, Kermit. Congratulations on the deal, you worked really hard for it," I squeezed his arm, before turning to go and find my parents.
A word of advice; when you're leaving something behind, don't look back. It has a way of pulling you back in.
I spent the summer waiting tables and working at the movie theater. It wasn't fun work, but my savings account appreciated it. I gained a new appreciation for what Kermit must have felt like working at the gas station. You're suddenly stuck watching other peoples' lives moving forward, while you're standing still. He would have felt like a caged animal.
It scared me how easy it was to get caught in it. I could have spent my entire life living that way and never left. It would have been easy and simple.
It was that same summer that I heard a demo of one of Kermit's songs on the radio. He had the talent, but the band didn't do well. The opened for someone else that was on tour and I'd get occasional postcards in the mail.
By the end of the summer Leah was headed to rehab and had to be replaced, as well as, they'd found a new lead singer. I think that Kermit was still writing the music, but he'd been pushed into the background.
I stopped listening and, after a while, the postcards stopped coming, too.
In the fall, my mother pulled some strings and I got an entry level job at her bank. It was the first time I started to recognize the truth in what Kermit had said. I was saving money, but I felt like I was digging myself deeper and deeper into a life that I couldn't get out of. I made friends in the same social circles as my parents and I dated the kind of men who were looking to settle down and start a family.
Once, I think that all of it would have been enough. But your father was always able to stir something reckless in me; something that kept me from ever being able to settle with anything I didn't have to fight for. I missed the rush of performing and I missed singing.
I requested a transfer to Las Vegas, figuring that I work at the bank during the day and find somewhere to sing during the night. I don't know what would have happened, but I like to believe that I would have been able to make my own way.
That said, my request was approved. I was packing my bags and getting my affairs in order, when your grandmother changed the literal course of which I was deciding to travel. I'm sorry that you never got to meet to her. Kalvin was strict and unbending, but Penelope was a very different kind of woman.
She was a classical pianist, though those days were far behind her when she moved in next door. I believe that she was the one to give your father his love of music.
I used to open my bedroom window in the summers and listen as she'd play for hours, while her husband was at work. She mostly played the kind of music that you would expect, but, every once in a while, I'd catch a showtune. I think she played them for your father, though it's seemed like too personal of a question to ever ask.
Kermit started out on piano and most of his songs, including his three hits were written on the piano, though he favored guitar. I don't think he ever played the piano in public, though he played up until the day of your grandmother's death. I was there when he closed the keylid on your grandmother's piano for the last time and that piano sat collecting dust, as we hauled it all over the country for years.
Eventually, it was my daughter, Jennifer, to open the lid and start playing again. Listening to her play is like getting a glimpse into the past. Her big sister, Olivia, got my voice and Kermit's charisma, but Jenny has a talent with music that might rival all of us. I wonder sometimes if you're drawn to it, the way the rest of us are. If that passion is DNA or inherited from time spent in your father's presence. Maybe, someday, you can tell me.
Penelope stopped playing after Kermit left. The neighborhood became quiet and empty. Most of the children were grown and gone and the streets looked like the beginnings of a ghost town. I wasn't worried that I would miss much, when I left, because my home and that street were a reminder of a childhood that had slipped through my fingertips and gone.
I was packing up my car, when your grandmother came out of her house. Penelope was a beautiful woman; not in that intimidating way that lots of beautiful people are, but in a way that came from being comfortable in your own skin. Kermit has her eyes, though they're more gentle on her. She was short, but she had a presence that filled every corner of a room. I don't think there was anyone that could ever dislike her.
She walked out to my car, as I sat shoving boxes into the backseat. There wasn't a lot that I had decided to take with me. Maybe, I knew, even then, that I would be living a nomadic lifestyle. I have things that have to be moved now, but there was a time, when my life was forced to fit into a suitcase and a carry on.
"Do you talk to him?" she asked, quietly, leaning against the edge of my car.
I didn't have to ask, who she was talking about.
"He used to send postcards, but they stopped a while ago," I replied, closing the car door and turning to face her.
"I saw you pick up his things off the street," she said, quietly.
"It seemed like the right thing to do," I offered, unable to lift my gaze from the curb.
"I saw your band perform together once, but I've never been able to figure out why you didn't go with them," Penelope admitted.
"The lifestyle wasn't something that I wanted," I said, figuring that it was best to skirt around the drugs and the drinking.
"And the banking job, is that what you want?"
"I don't know what I want," I admitted.
"You have a beautiful voice and a talent like that deserves to be shared," she complimented me.
"Maybe I'll find something in Vegas," I voiced what I had been thinking about.
"Not something worthy of your talent. I have a friend at Julliard who's on the board of admissions. I'd like to get you an audition. I think you'd enjoy the school and it would use your talent," she offered and I looked up for the first time.
"I could never ask you to do that," I replied, almost too startled to speak.
"Sometimes, you have to follow a dream, even if it seems doomed to end in failure. You're young and if things don't work out, you'll bounce back, but you don't want to live your life full of regrets. If you're happy with what you're doing, then do it, but if you're doing it because it's safe, that's no way to live your life," she explained, with the same passion that came from her son.
"Did you give Kermit that same advice?" I questioned, thinking of the way Kalvin had claimed that Kermit had thrown his life away.
"Kermit likes to push boundaries and his problems go a little further then not wanting the same things that Kalvin wanted for him," she replied, "As I'm sure you've seen."
I had seen, but I wasn't ready to admit it. I go back and forth in my head, still, trying to decide where Kermit's problems began; where things slipped from partying to addiction. He was a good person, who had always been so kind to me. I didn't want to see him as anything else. The excuses still come easy, even after all of these years.
"I don't know the first thing about Julliard or what the audition process would entail. I've done a couple of school productions and some gigs with Kermit's band."
"Your mother mentioned to me that you've had years of singing lessons," Penelope added.
"You think I might have a shot?" I questioned, surprised at how quickly I was able to slip into hope.
"Yes, I do," Penelope replied, without any hesitation in her voice, "Actually, I've already called and they've agreed to meet with you next month, if you're interested."
"That's not a lot of time to prepare," I pointed out.
"Too much preparation and you'll just drive yourself crazy, but I'd be willing to help you," she offered.
"In exchange for?" I questioned, knowing that these kinds of opportunities didn't come without a price.
"Your audition is already set up and I'll help you regardless of what you say, but there is something that I was wondering if you would do for me," she admitted, "These belong to Kermit and I'd like for him to have them back."
She held up a stack of papers that had been carefully taped back together and I instinctively knew that they were the ones that Kalvin had torn apart when he'd kicked Kermit out. I could see, now, that they were sheet music.
"You want me to get these to him?" I asked, looking at her in surprise.
"I don't have any way to contact him and even if I did, I'm not sure that Kalvin would approve. But whatever he's done, he's still my son," she replied.
"I can do that," I agreed, taking the pages of music from her.
Kermit had sent me a PO box to write to, but I'd never found the right words to say. I think he was probably convinced that I was mad at him for everything, but I wasn't. We'd just never really been friends and without the band, I wasn't sure what we were. I'd thought that I loved him, but after months of distance, I wasn't sure if I even really knew him.
I could have sent the sheet music to him, but I felt like it was something that was supposed to be delivered in person. So, instead of heading to Vegas, I found out where he was going to be performing and I headed to LA.
My parents were not thrilled, when they heard from the bank that I had resigned without giving notice. Any normal person would have used vacation days and kept the bank as a backup plan, but even if I didn't get accepted into Julliard, I'd decided that I was heading to New York with a one-way ticket.
I'd spent my entire life surrounded by red rocks and burning from the heat of the desert. I was ready to experience something new, anything new.
I didn't have a plan beyond showing up, which was incredibly stupid, in retrospect. There were thousands of people there to see the main act, hundreds there to see Kermit's band, but I figured that I would find him, somehow, anyway.
I wasn't an overly assertive person at the time, but I didn't have anything to lose. I went up to backstage security, fully expecting to be turned away, but my name was on the list. Kermit's put my name on the list of every venue that he's ever played, but I didn't know that at the time.
I thought it was some kind of weird setup by his mother, that he'd known that I was coming. I wandered around backstage, until I ran into Chris.
"El," he greeted me, pulling me into a hug. No one, but Chris, ever called me El and no one's called me that since. But Chris liked to push entirely different boundaries from Kermit, "You came."
"You knew I was coming?" I questioned, wondering if I could get a straight answer out of the drummer.
"No, but Kermit's been waiting for you to come back, since you left," Chris snorted, "He's a lovesick fool, if you ask me, but I guess it paid off."
"Are you drunk?" I asked, my nose wrinkling at the smell that came off his breath, as I pulled away.
"Maybe," he shrugged, as though it were little concern to him, "I'll take you to Kermit."
He led me through a maze of hallways, before pausing at a door, which had Kermit's name written on it in masking tape. I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest, as I thought through what I was going to say.
Chris opened the door without knocking and I got a glimpse of Kermit and a disheveled fake-blonde, pull apart, as they looked at Chris in shock.
"What are you doing, Man?" Kermit demanded, not noticing me behind Chris's bulky frame.
"I missed the sock on the door," Chris joked, not looking overly concerned, as the blonde tried to straighten herself out, "There's someone here to see you. I'll take her back to my room, while you straighten yourself out."
"If she's claiming she's pregnant, it's not mine," Kermit replied, "Send whoever it is away."
I was halfway down the hallway, before I consciously registered that I was moving. I'd driven all night to see him and he assumed that I was a cheap hookup. Chris caught me before I could get too lost.
"He didn't know it was you, he said he'd be out in a minute," Chris apologized, grabbing my arm to stop me.
"I don't need to see him, just give him these for me," I suggested, pulling the papers out of my purse and shoving them into Chris's free hand.
"He wants to see you," Chris insisted, "He was just being stupid."
"It was good to see you, Chris," I smiled at him, before continuing down the hall.
It took me several tries to find my way out, which gave Kermit plenty of time to catch up with me. I was just making my way out the back entrance, when it was his turn to grab onto my arm.
I spun around, as he struggled to catch his breath.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean," he trailed off, as I stared at the bloodshot eyes rimmed with shadows and the puncture marks left on his bare arms, along with ugly bruises.
"Kermit," I whispered, struggling to process the person that was in front of me, the person that I had been so sure I was in love with, "What have you done?"
His hand dropped from my arm and we stared at each other in silence. In the back of my mind, I knew that he'd need to leave soon to go and perform, but I couldn't drag myself out of this moment.
"Where are you staying?" he asked, his eyes never leaving mine.
"I don't know, I didn't have a plan," I admitted.
He pulled his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a card, "This is the key to my hotel room. Will you wait for me there?"
"I don't know," I sighed.
"Please, Dani," it was my nickname that won out in the end.
"Alright," I agreed, taking the key from him.
I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, when I found the room that had been written out in marker on the front of the card. I inserted the card and pulled the door open, relieved to find that the maid had cleaned it. Kermit's suitcase was shoved into the closet and blank sheet music was sprawled out on the table, along with a keyboard. But, those were the only personal items in the room.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, watching the electronic clock, as the numbers changed. At some point, I must have fallen asleep because I awoke to gentle hands brushing my hair out of my face. I snapped awake and found Kermit hovering over me.
He'd changed into a long-sleeve shirt and his hair was wet, as though he'd recently showered.
"The music?" he asked, holding up the taped together papers.
"Your mother gave them to me, she wanted you to have them back," I explained, rubbing my eyes as I tried to force myself back into wakefulness.
"How is she?"
"She doesn't play anymore," I offered, knowing that he would understand what I meant.
"She stopped playing professionally when she married my father. But I used to lay on the floor next to the piano and watch as her hands danced across the keys. I don't think that she was unhappy with her life, but the look on her face when she played. He doesn't understand," Kermit paused, looking away.
"What it's like to love music, to feel it, the way you do," I supplied and his eyes snapped back to mine.
"Everyone wants something from me and I feel pulled in a million directions," he confessed, his eyes pleading with me to understand.
"And this helps?" I pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, running my fingers over the bruises and injection sites.
"Sometimes," he yanked his arm away, pulling the sleeve back down.
"I quit my job," I changed the subject, watching as his shoulders relaxed once the pressure was gone, "Your mom got me an interview at Julliard."
"I told you, you were great," he offered, though there was something sad in his eyes.
"I haven't gotten a place, yet. But I don't think that I'm going to go back to Nevada, even if I don't get it. I need something new," I explained, rambling, as I tried to figure out what to say to fill the silence.
"So, you'll stay in New York?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Once the tours over, we're going to record an album," Kermit explained, "I'll be living, here, in LA."
I could see where he was going, but I found myself flashing back to the woman in his dressing room earlier that day. I think some part of me knew that once I gave myself to him, there was no going back. I'd follow him down every rabbit hole and chase his dreams as if they were my own.
"Will you be taking Leah back?"
"She's out of rehab, living with her boyfriend. When she left, it was a breach of contract. They don't care about the partying, but they don't want us back, at this point, if we go too far," Kermit explained.
"And you haven't gone too far?"
"You don't understand. This is normal, everyone's like this," he laughed humorlessly, "It was good that you got out when you did."
"I should go," I stood up.
"You can't drive home tonight," he argued.
"Well, I'm not going to stay in this hotel room with you. I won't be another cheap girl who walks out of here tomorrow morning."
"Out of all of this, that's what you're going to judge me for?" he asked, looking at me incredulously.
"It's one thing to abuse yourself, Kermit, but it's another to take someone down with you," I pointed out, folding my arms across my chest.
"You think I don't know that?" he snapped, "I'm not taking anyone down with me, everyone else is already there."
"Well, that makes all of this okay, then," I laughed, throwing my hands up in the air, "Self-destructing people should definitely band together because that can't possibly make the situation any worse."
"You're not here, you don't know what it's like."
"You just told me that I shouldn't be here, you don't get to go back and forth," I argued and he caught one of my flailing hands in his own.
"You're the best, most wholesome, good thing in my life. I want you to run as far away from me as you can get before I ruin you, but I miss you, Dani, every single day I miss you," he whispered, leaning forward and burying his head into my stomach, as his hands moved around my waist.
At some point, the standing got to be too much and we both ended up curled on the floor. I didn't know what to say and just being there seemed to be enough for him, though I think there was a part of him that wanted me to insist that I stay with him. But seeing this life had left me unsettled and nothing was ever enough for Kermit.
I was afraid that he'd see the real me and realize that I wasn't enough for him and I wasn't sure I could handle that.
I woke up the next morning in the bed. Kermit had tucked me under the covers and left a single strip of paper on the pillow next to me. I knew he was gone, off to another city and he hadn't even bothered to say goodbye.
The paper had five words on it, written out in his messy script, "Tell her to keep playing."
I think it was in that moment that I realized that I had it all wrong. I was the one who wanted him to ask me to stay, to ask me to save him.
I drove home with tears running down my face.
-Dani
Maya's head snapped up from her sketchbook, as banging echoed through the dorm room. Riley was in her afternoon class and Maya was working on a sketch for one of her classes. She set the book aside, as she padded across the room to the door.
"What did you do?" Olivia demanded, as Maya pulled the door open.
"What are you doing here?" Maya returned. She and Olivia had a system that didn't involve her ever visiting Maya on campus.
"Dad went to see you yesterday and he never came home. What did you say to him?" Olivia demanded, tears running freely down her cheeks.
"The truth," Maya offered, folding her arms across her chest.
"You have your family, now, Maya. You have the father that you got to handpick and the best friend, who's your sister, who shares her family with you. You have more family then you know what to do with. Why can't you just let things go?"
"He came to talk to me," Maya defended herself, "I didn't seek him out. In fact, I asked for him to leave me alone."
"What did you say to him?" Olivia repeated, her eyes blazing.
"I told him that he was right when he told your mother that he ruined everything he touched. That he ruined her and me and everyone else," Maya returned, steadying herself on the door.
"You don't know that. My mother would never say that," Olivia took a step back, her eyes going wide.
"You didn't read her letters, you don't know what she would say."
"I want them back, now," Olivia said, her voice not as sure as before.
Maya left the door open as she pulled the bundle of letters out of her bedside table and returned to the doorway. Olivia took them from her hands, clutching them to her chest, as fear flickered through her eyes. Maya recognized the look of someone who was watching her entire world start to crumble and she instantly regretted everything that she had just said.
"You think you're the only one in this world who's broken, Maya Hart? You really think you have the monopoly on pain and suffering? Your abandonment only gets you so far in life before you have to grow up and start accepting that your problems come from your own bad choices," Olivia snapped, "You have your family. Are you really so bitter that you can't let me have mine?"
Olivia spun on her heel and retreated the way that she'd come, leaving Maya behind.
Thanks to everyone who's still reading! This last semester was a lot more work then what I planned on and getting back into the mindset of writing this story was not easy. Hopefully, the length of this chapter helps to make up for it. I would love it if you would leave me a review!