In Pieces

I just wanted to make sure Matt would go back to his room to get out of there. I crossed my arms and waited, for a moment I thought I was alone in there... but I remembered she was there too, giving me a pity look, that once more didn't effect me, I just felt like throwing up.
She was kinda expecting me to say something, so I made clear I didn't want to talk.

"I have nothing to talk to you Anne, I guess I saw enough."

She answered, and I was focusing on not hearing her voice, so I tried to listen to the song on the radio... .com/watch?v=Ho9L2J2RIy8

But her voice got to me anyway...

"But Dave, I have to explain that..."

Explain what? Explain how to have sex with the brother of the guy you're dating? Or explain how you still have the guts to talk to him?

"You don't have to explain anything, Anne! Actually, there's nothing to explain… "

"But D..."

To the hell with but! There's always a but! I had to finally look at her, to see if she could notice my lack of patience, and I'd only go on with that conversation if she had a good answer to my question.

"Look, Anne. I have only one question for you. I just want to understand WHY. Why did you do this to me? I'm not enough for you, not good enough, come on Anne, why?"

Come on, this is your chance to at least try to make things a little bit better for you…

"I was drunk Dave, I didn't know what I was doing..."

Bullshit. I'd knew she'd blame it on the alcohol, as usual. And since she wanted to get into this, she'd have to liste to me. And I'd say it out loud.

"YES, YOU DID! Don't give me this lame excuse, you knew very well what you were doing… It's always the same excuse Anne, that was your excuse to do a lot of stupid things when Matthew was in the hospital, same thing with our first time that you preferred to call a "drunking mistake", it's always the same fucking excuse! You know what's funny? You can always blame the alcohol for your mistakes and I can't… you just left me in Hawaii, without a chance to justify myself because of my mistake, and now I have to happily accept your pathetic excuse? Nobody forced you to do anything, I'm pretty sure Andrew didn't force you to do anything you didn't want to! You did this because you WANTED TO. You know... I really thought you liked me... really, I believed you when you said you loved me!"

And that definitely wasn't an attitude of a person who truly loves another one.

"But it is true, it have always been, I LOVE YOU, David!"

How dare she say that? I never felt so angry, and I screamed for her never to say that again…

"NO YOU DO NOT! Don't say it again, because it's a lie, that's not love! If you loved me, you'd NEVER had sex with my brother! This is anything, but love! Actually, are you sure you know what love is? Because I was when I told you this, I tried to prove you through my acts and not only words… What was it, only one brother was not enough? You had to have both? I bet if Matthew wasn't your brother, you'd have sex with him too!"

It was painful to say that, I had never offended Anne in all this years of friendship, but she deserved to hear it, and at that moment that's what I believed, she worth nothing.

"David, you are insulting me..."

Good, that's what I intend to do.

"I am insulting you?"

So I decided to show her what an insult really was in our situation.

"Anne, you humiliated me! Do you have any idea how I felt when I saw YOU on the bed with my brother?"

She must have an idea of what she felt when she was in bed with him. She started saying something, but I guess she felt I'd tell her to shut up, so I went on.

"You know, I thought I knew you, but I can see I don't... I look at you know and I see a stranger... You are a completely stranger for me, Anne! You know, in my life I met a lot of women, but for some reason I always believed you were different… unfortunately, you proved me you are just like everybody else… you know what?"

If you don't, you're gonna hear it anyway.

"Now I can see it was not that permanent."

"That's too much already, David!"

Poor girl. Let me draw so you can understand.

"Too much? Ok, picture this then, Anne: what if you had a sister and I slept with her? How would YOU feel?"

"..."

Time's up. No answer.

"See? Anne, I was not 100% honest with you, I made a lot of mistakes and I knew that. You had to forgive me a lot of times too. I could forgive anything coming from you, I could try to understand anything, but not this… that was too much for me…"

"Dave..."

"Look, Anne. I could try to understand if you had sex with ANY other guy. We are not together for real, I don't have the right to demand anything from you… Even if it was Kyle I could make an effort to understand, but not Andrew! You chose the only guy you could NEVER have anything with!"

The part where I said I'd understand if she had sex with Kyle was a lie.

So she said the best thing of the day.

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm so sorry, I really am..."

Make me laugh…

"Sorry? You think it's so easy, right Anne? You think you can do anything you want and apologize later, saying you're sorry and everything is gonna be alright! But I bet you were not sorry at all when you were under MY FUCKING BROTHER!"

Or on top of him, whatever.

When I thought about that, I got even angrier. In a few seconds, everything we had been through came rushing to my mind, and even facing a lot of problems, I had never stopped thinking about her, her opinion was important in everything to me. While I was singing on the AI, I imagined her applauding me, when Matt had the accident, I imagined how bad she could have felt being away from him, while I was signing that contract, I thought about how dissapointed she would be if she found out, when I got arrested, I thought she'd be the only one to understand me… and what about her? When did she think about me?

I went on, I didn't care if Matt would her something...

"I know I did a LOT of bad things. We broke up a lot of times because of me, but I was thinking about you THE WHOLE TIME! You made me feel the worst person in the world when you left Hawaii, during the entire flight back I was thinking about what to do to make things up with you, make you realize I never wanted to hurt you, and when I get here what do I see? That was the way you found to punish me for my mistakes? Throwing in my face that if things didn't work out between us, you could fall in his arms and he would want you too? You never valued me, now I can see I was only another one in your list, I repeat, I always thought you were different, but you're like everyone else!"

She started crying, and I could only be angrier with her, those were faking tears for me, everything I had done for her was in vain, if I could, I'd erase it all, starting with her, but I couldn't... she tried to hug me, I pushed her away, I was out of my mind, uncontrolled, and if she touched me again, I don't know what I'd do... that's when I looked away and saw the biggest prove of how pathetic I had been all that time thinking about her, the proof of my dedication, I wondered if she could see that or if it was obvious just for me…

"You see this?"

I felt my arms weakening when I lifted the guitar, I was so uncontrolled that if I had the guts I'd have broken it on her head, but I'm such a wuss that when I saw her tripping, and curling up in bed, I still hesitated, almost put the guitar down and held her for being scared, and then I realized that kind of attitude had spoiled her so much, and had to show her that David she knew, didn't exist from that moment on, I was gonna erase all the evidences that I had loved her someday, starting with the guitar.

"This is the proof that I always thought about you, even when you were engaged to Kyle! And know I now you don't deserve 1 minute of my thoughts, you don't deserve this, YOU NEVER DID!"

With a pain my heart (and in my wallet), I closed my eyes and in one stroke, I smashed it against the wall. The noise was deafening, the strings loosened, I still smashed it a couple of times on the floor to make sure the pieces were irrecoverable, just like the relationship with Anne was for me.

I felt relieved, and a little scared with my own violence.

"I can't Anne, I can't even look at you right now... You know... I'm angry with myself, for caring so much about you."

Before leaving, she made the question I didn't even have to think to answer.

"Can you forgive me someday?"

February 30th, maybe.

"It's over, Anne... you took care of this… I'll never forgive you."

I left the room with my hands shaking, sweating, I bet I was all red, but I didn't care if Matt saw me, he must have heard all the fight, or not, whatever. But I wouldn't be ashamed to talk about it anymore, I wasn't wrong, and I had said everything I wanted to Anne, and finished every hope she might have that I would forgive her.

Matt showed up.

"Still here, David?"

No. You're hallucinating.

"Yeah, but I'm already leaving."

"Did something happened? I heard a strange noise in there..."

"Matt, don't bug me. Ask your sister what happened."

I knew I shouldn't be so hard on him, but I was too nervous... On the way to Andy's, I was remembering the feeling of smashing the guitar.
It was good.
I could do it more often... on stage, preferably.

I got to Andy's, and he opened the door himself, I thought he was scared to see me, because his eyes were widened, but I remembered this was usual.
He hand't changed anything, just his hair was a bit longer, but the smile and the plaid shirt were the same, and they brought the memory of those days when we used to mess around the city and play all the time. He hugged me.

"Get in, man! My parents and Alexis are waiting for you excited!"

Alexis is Andy's sister, we were not very close because I felt kinda intimidated around her, but she was pretty, older than us, and I must confess I had had some dreams about her already.

I got in, they were in the living room and all welcomed me very well, I must have spent a couple of hours telling the American Idol experience and how things were now, I didn't give too much details about that part, and then Andy invited me to go outside so we could talk.

We sat on the sidewalk and he started.

"So Dave, you seem kinda down, I haven't heard about you in the media recently… what happened?"

"it's a long story And, I'm gonna tell you everything, but so sum up, I don't have a label right now..."

"I bet there's a girl in the middle of this."

"Two, actually."

He laughed.

"Two? Don't complain, then! No label, but 2 girls? You're fine!"

"Actually, no label and no girls, none of them, and I need your help..."

"Look David, I have a girlfriend, you know, I think you are a good looking guy, I respect homossexualty, but it's not gonna happen... if you were rich, at least..."

He made me laugh a lot.

"You idiot! I'm serious! I talked to some labels, but I wanted to perform with a band, you know I prefer that rather than going solo, or that the guys make me play with some random guys, and don't have any harmony with me…"

"And you were thinking about…"

"You, of course! We could talk to Neal too, if he's not in another band already, and then we have to find a drummer and a bass player.
"Deal! Oh, and just to let you know, I'm not gonna learn how to play "Time of My life"… such a boring song!"

I laughed again…

"Deal then, I'm looking forward to start rehearsing, I'm gonna talk to Neal today, I need some distraction, things are not easy man."

"I can see you've been through some bad stuff, but at least you have someting to write about…"

"That's right, I'm gonna go then, I'll talk to Neal and you help me with the rest of the band, ok?"

"Deal, I think I'm gonna go to the church to get the guys from the gospel band!"

"Do that! And let them know we're gonna sing "Fuck Her Gently" on the concerts, so they have to know how to play that one!"