Nemesis: Loud Like Love - 11. Chapter Eleven: Exit Wounds

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Exit Wounds

Nick came home after an early morning shift and picked up the post on the mat. It was a Friday, and Zoë had come home from Nottingham late the night before. Nick knew, because he had had to switch on some music to mute out the sound of her and Richard having sex in the master bedroom. Not that he begrudged them this. They basically only saw each other on the weekends, after all.

Now he found Zoë in the kitchen in her dressing gown, with some cereal and a cup of tea. ‘There’s a letter here addressed to Mum,’ he said, putting down the mail on the kitchen table. ‘Do we open that?’

Zoë nodded and picked up the letter. ‘Yeah. Not sure what it could be, though. Her mail generally gets sent to Aunt Karen . . .’ She opened it. Nick went to the fridge and poured himself some orange juice.

His sister scanned the page. ‘It’s . . . This is from Dad’s sister. Maria.’

Nick nearly spat out his juice. ‘Wait, what? She hasn’t been in touch in years, right?’

Zoë shook her head. ‘She really hasn’t. She says . . . She’s back in England. She’d like to visit. She’s spending Christmas at Dad’s and is wondering if she could come stay with us for a few days before that.’

‘Huh.’ Nick sat down, and Zoë passed him the letter. ‘She and Dad grew up in this house, didn’t they?’

She nodded. ‘Yeah. Dad moved, so Mum got it in the divorce.’

‘There’s a phone number here. Should we ring her?’

‘Yeah. I’ll do it this afternoon.’ She smiled at Nick. ‘Anyway, how was work?’

* * *

‘So, do you think it’s ready?’ Matt unplugged his bass and replaced it into its bag.

Nick’s telecaster was already safely in its case, and he sighed. ‘Yeah. I think it is. Needs a title, though. I mean, we can’t just call it The Break-Up Song. Any thoughts?’

Stuart pursed his lips. ‘Well, there’s something to be said for untitled songs. There’s a long tradition for tracks called Untitled. And Duke Ellington had his T.G.T.T. You know, Too Good To Title.’

‘Kind of a cop-out, isn’t it?’ said Nick, frowning.

‘How about nothing?’ said Matt.

‘What? Don’t call it anything?’

‘No, call it Nothing. That’s the title. Nothing. Fits with the theme, and the word shows up in a few prominent places, too.’

‘That . . . works.’ Stuart sounded surprised. ‘That works really well, actually. What do you think, Nick?’

‘Yeah. That’s not bad. Let’s go with it.’

Nick and Matt took the bus back to Windfield Green together as usual.

‘Less than a week to go,’ said Matt. ‘You really sure you’re ready to play that song?’

Nick took a breath. ‘Yeah. It’s time. I can’t keep being afraid of playing it. You guys are right, it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. It deserves to be played.’

They sat in silence for a while, before Matt asked, ‘So, have you talked to Brian at all?’

Nick shook his head. ‘No, not since I went to see him. He said he wanted to come to the gig, though. So he might be there. It . . . It was a good ending. You know?’

Matt nodded. ‘Yeah, he’s good at that. Proud of you, though. For making the right decision.’

Nick scoffed. ‘For the first time in my life. About time I got something right.’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, Nick. You’ve done plenty right. We all fuck up, to lesser or greater degrees. Doesn’t make you a bad person. Just makes you human. You do know that, right?’

Nick shrugged. ‘I guess. Oh, by the way, something interesting happened on Friday. We got a letter, from my aunt Maria, who we haven’t heard from since before Mum and Dad split up. She’s coming to visit week before Christmas.’

‘What, she just suddenly got in touch?’

‘She’s been in South America for nearly twenty years. Brazil or something. Got married, even. Apparently, they got divorced this year, and they had no kids, so she decided to move back home out of the blue. So now she wants to see us. I don’t even know what she looks like. She and Dad had a falling out, as I understand it. Guess they’re gonna try to patch things up now.’ Nick gave a snort. ‘Cause he’s so good at patching things up with people, my dad.’

Matt gave Nick’s hand a squeeze. ‘How long has it been since you saw him?’

‘About three years? Four? You’d think he’d have time to come up from Plymouth to see his family every once in a while. That time, Zoë and I went down to see him. He pretty much ignored us the whole time, he was so busy with his new family and his new kids. Since then, it’s basically been postcards at Christmas, twenty quid every birthday, and that’s it. He pays child support for me.’ Nick shrugged. ‘Could be worse, I guess. He’s absent, but at least he contributes, even if it’s just the bare minimum.’

‘Do you know why he left?’

‘The woman he’s married to now? He’d been seeing her for a while, and she had a kid. Mum lost it, got so depressed she ended up psychotic. I mean, she was always pretty fragile. That’s when Zoë came back from uni, to look after me. Now she’s my legal guardian.’

‘Shit.’ Matt sat back in his seat and stared straight ahead. ‘I’m sorry, mate. Didn’t know how bad it was, with your family.’

‘We get by, Zoë and me. And now we have Richard, and I’ll be eighteen soon. It’s not so bad.’

‘Still. You’ve had to go through a lot. I mean, not just that, you’ve been bullied and . . .’ He trailed off, giving Nick a sidelong glance.

Nick shrugged again. ‘I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, not right now, but I’ll be okay. I always snap back. I have to.’

* * *

It was only the same day that Dave made up his mind to go to The Oxymorons’ gig in Sapswell. He’d been deliberating back and forth, and most of all he would have liked to spend his Friday night with Patrick. But then Patrick caught a violent stomach bug that was going around, and Dave thought he might as well go than not. He and Nick both had to learn to be in the same place at the same time. They just had to.

He travelled to Sapswell with Alan.

‘How are things with Patrick?’ Alan asked when they were on the bus.

Dave smiled. ‘It’s good. Really good.’ It had been over a month since he had started to think of Patrick as his boyfriend. ‘He’s just, he’s such a genuinely good person, you know? And really, really hot.’ He blushed.

‘Well, good for you. Seems like you’re finally getting over Nick.’

‘Yeah. Wouldn’t be going tonight if I wasn’t.’

They arrived at the venue half an hour before the concert was due to start. Sapswell’s only nightclub was a far cry from the gay club Dave and Patrick had gone to in Birmingham, but the fact that they put on live shows there every once in a while spoke in their favour. Alan had only just turned eighteen, so getting in was no problem, though Dave got the feeling they checked IDs mostly for show. When they got there, they went up to the bar and ordered drinks. A fair amount of people were milling about and dancing.

‘I guess Friday nights are probably busy regardless of the entertainment. I mean, it’s the only real club in town,’ said Dave to Alan, who shrugged.

‘Guess so. It’s my first time in a nightclub.’

There was a DJ set up off to the side of the stage, with the main portion occupied by the band’s setup. Two vocal microphones, one each for Nick and Matt. There was a laptop, a keyboard, and some other equipment next to the drum kit, which was new to Dave. And then, there was Nick’s white telecaster. Dave suddenly began to wonder whether coming had been such a good idea after all, and he drained his drink a bit faster than was probably strictly necessary.

When the music stopped, and the audience, including Alan, crowded up to the stage (and there had to be at least a couple hundred people here, probably more), Dave hung back. He went to get another drink at the bar, and found himself standing next to a familiar figure. Their eyes met.

‘Oh. Hi.’ The guy with the sleeve tattoos scratched the back of his neck, looking awkward. ‘Dave, right?’

Dave nodded stiffly. ‘I take it you’re Brian.’

‘Yeah. Hey, sorry about that thing at the club . . .’

‘Whatever.’ Dave ordered a beer and looked towards the stage, where the DJ’s gear was being cleared away. He couldn’t help it. The thought that this guy had been with Nick, had been inside Nick, made him so angry he could punch him in the face. And the fact that he had given Nick drugs pissed him off even more.

‘We ended it,’ said Brian suddenly, and Dave allowed himself to look at him again, not sure if he had heard him right.

‘What?’

‘Our thing. It’s over. Nick . . . He ended it. So. Thought you might want to know, in case you didn’t.’

Right then, the band came on stage. Dave picked up his beer and moved away from Brian, and the next time he looked, Brian had moved off to stand somewhere else. Dave watched Nick pick up his guitar and approach the microphone. He wore skinny jeans and a loose green t-shirt. He looked good. Too good. He looked hot.

‘Hey, how are you all doing?’ The crowd cheered. ‘We’re The Oxymorons, and this is Dark Reflex!’

And they began to play. In the many months since he had last seen the band perform, at Café Underworld, something had happened. Nick had always looked good, always looked confident, always looked at home on a stage. But this was something new. His posture, the way he held his guitar, the way he sang. The voice was the same, but his artistic expression . . . Dave drained his beer during the first song, and then he just stood there, unable to tear his eyes away.

He hadn’t considered the fact that they might play Dull, but of course they did, and it brought tears to his eyes, especially the part where, just as he had the last time Dave had seen it performed, Nick cried out, ‘You don’t know I exist!’ on the second chorus, so heart shattering and full of anguish. A voice in Dave’s head said, Of course I fucking do, you arse!

A couple of more familiar tunes followed, and still, he looked so good. They all did. They looked professional, confident.

‘Oh wow, thank you!’ Nick grinned where he stood up on the stage, looking out at the audience. He looked radiant. ‘You guys are fantastic! Okay, so this is a new song that we’ve never performed live before, and it’s called Nothing.’

From the first chord, somehow Dave knew. He knew that this song, like Dull, was about him. Nick started it off with clean guitar with a lot of delay, before the rest of the band came in. Stuart had abandoned his drum kit for this, and was sitting with the laptop and the keyboard, and some other equipment, an electronic beat underneath the guitar and bass. Matt had thrown a lot of fuzz on it, and Stuart appeared to be producing synthesised noise. Nick began to sing.

‘You dug a hole in me and filled me to the brim. You turned me topsy turvy til it was either sink or swim. Now the hole you made is empty, need something to fill me up, but there’s just a big fat nothing, and there is no way to stop.’

The sound of his voice, was brutal, and it was painful, and it was absolutely legendary. And there was something morbidly erotic about the song as it crashed into the chorus, in a swell of noise from Stuart’s synths.

’Need you deep inside of me! Scratch the scabs off, come and see. There’s nothing inside my skin. If you’ll just come, I’ll let you in. I’ll let you in.’

When did Nick get this good? Where had he picked this up, this raw desperation, this anger and despair? When had his voice become so full and so harsh all at once? When had he begun playing with such fierceness? But then, Dave knew exactly when.

Dave almost left when the song was over. Almost. He wanted to leave, because he wanted to get away from the two things he had just realised. The first was that he wasn’t over Nick at all. And the second was that he had to break up with Patrick. The latter hurt the most, but he knew in that moment that this wasn’t fair. That he wouldn’t be able to fall in love Patrick while he still loved Nick this much.

And God, he wanted to. He desperately wanted to fall in love with Patrick, to become his, wholly and fully. Nothing would make him happier than to be able to walk away from this and just be with Patrick, who deserved so much better. But he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t, because this hurt so much. More than seeing Nick at the nightclub in Birmingham, more than knowing that he had continued shagging Brian. This pain was beyond any of that. This was the pain of wanting and loving someone so much it almost kills you.

When the show was over, Dave went outside, stood in the cold November night, just breathing. He hated himself. And he hated Nick. And he loved him. He couldn’t get back together with him, he knew that. Especially not now that everything was so confused and chaotic. But he couldn’t stop loving him, either.

He considered simply leaving, but then he felt like he owed it to Alan to say goodbye, and to Matt to let him know how well he’d played, what a great gig it had been, because it really had. And in the end he went back inside.

He found Alan and Matt in front of the stage with each their drink. It appeared that this place had no qualms about serving minors, or perhaps Alan had simply bought Matt his drink. The DJ was back on the stage, centre this time, with the band’s gear pushed back.

‘Hey.’ Dave smiled at them, though he felt like his smile was stiff and mechanical. They appeared not to notice.

‘Hey, Dave!’ Matt threw his arms around Dave’s neck and hugged him tightly. ‘You made it! Alan said you were around here somewhere. How did you like the show?’

‘It was epic!’ Dave replied truthfully, and couldn’t help but grin. ‘You guys have really progressed. You were already good, but . . .’

‘It’s all Nick.’ Stuart had materialised next to him. ‘We’re good. He’s a legend.’ He glanced askance at Dave. ‘Hi, Dave. Keeping well?’

Matt kicked Stuart in the shins. ‘Shut up, Stu.’

‘Don’t call me that, I’ve told you.’ He looked from one to the other of them, and then seemed to get it. ‘Oh. Right. Sorry.’ He shuffled off towards the stairs to the stage.

Matt rolled his eyes. ‘Sorry about him . . .’

‘It’s fine,’ said Dave quickly. ‘I should probably start heading off, though—’

Someone approached them on Dave’s left. ‘Matt, you should go get your bass and put it—Oh.’

Dave’s grin immediately dissipated, upon hearing that voice. He wanted to run, and he wanted to take Nick into his arms and just hold him, and kiss him. Instead he took a breath and turned to him. ‘Hi, Nick.’

Nick looked panic stricken and licked his lips nervously. He had a drink in his hand, and drained it in one. He made a face. ‘Er . . . Hey.’ He cast his eyes down.

They were already here, face to face, so Dave decided he might as well. ‘You were really good. All of you, but . . . You were amazing, Nick.’

‘Thanks.’ Nick’s voice was small and quiet, and his cheeks flushed. Then he looked up at Dave again. He sighed. ‘We should . . . Can we talk?’

* * *

Dave’s blue eyes were unreadable, and Nick regretted his question immediately. He wasn’t ready to talk to Dave. Not really. But he had already said it.

‘Okay,’ said Dave, and Nick felt his gut clench.

They went over to the bar together. Nick ordered another whiskey sour. Dave ordered a cider. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Nick wanted to prostrate himself at Dave’s feet, beg for his forgiveness, beg him to take him back. Beg him to love him again. In the end he just said, ‘So . . . how are you?’

Dave took a sip of his cider. ‘I’m, you know . . . Okay.’

Nick nodded, and said nothing.

‘How about you?’ asked Dave after a few moments. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah.’ Nick drained his whiskey sour and ordered another. ‘No. No, I’m not okay.’ He glanced at Dave, and then he couldn’t stop himself anymore. ‘I miss you.’

Dave looked down at his drink. He shook his head, a pained smile on his face. ‘I know.’ He looked like he was about to say something more, but he didn’t.

‘I’m sorry about Birmingham,’ said Nick. ‘Like, I’m so fucking sorry, I was . . .’ He looked away in shame, couldn’t bear to admit how fucked up he had been that night, and for that whole weekend.

But Dave’s voice was soft when he replied. ‘It’s okay. You weren’t yourself. I mean, it wasn’t fun, but . . .’

‘His name’s Patrick. Right?’ Nick dared another glance at Dave. He looked weary.

‘Yeah.’

‘You looked . . . You looked good together.’ Nick hated himself as he said it. It wasn’t what he wanted to say. He didn’t even mean it. But he had to say something. They were silent for a while. Nick fidgeted where he sat. He felt anxious, restless. He needed something to calm him, but he had nothing, so for want of anything else to do, he downed yet another drink.

‘You sure you should be drinking this quickly?’ asked Dave gently.

‘I probably shouldn’t,’ said Nick, and ordered another. He wished Matt would come over, or Stuart, or anyone. He needed to be rescued from this situation he had put himself in. As though they hadn’t rescued him enough times already. But all he could do was drink, so that’s what he did. He had planned on getting drunk tonight anyway.

‘Brian was here,’ said Dave. ‘I talked to him, for a little bit. He said you broke up.’

Nick scoffed. ‘We were never together to begin with. We were just . . . fuck buddies.’ Dave seemed to flinch at hearing this, and once again Nick regretted opening his mouth. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s okay. You don’t need to apologise.’

‘I do, though.’ Nick wasn’t sure how many drinks he had knocked back, but he was beginning to feel dizzy. ‘Dave . . .’ Speaking his name hurt, but he did it again. ‘Dave. I miss you.’ He looked at Dave, tried to catch his eye, and in the end he reached out and grabbed his hand. ‘I love you. Please, I just . . . I love you so much, and I need you, and I’m sorry!’ He heard his own voice break, and he tried not to cry.

‘Nick . . .’ Dave pulled his hand away and sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t. I just can’t. It’s over, and I need you to accept that. I wish . . . I’d like to be your friend, but I can’t as long as . . .’ He fell silent.

In one final, desperate, last ditch attempt, Nick took Dave’s face in his hands and brought their lips together. He knew he shouldn’t, knew it was wrong of him to try, but he did it anyway. Dave didn’t respond. He pulled himself away and stood up.

‘No. We can’t.’

Nick knocked back his drink, got out of his seat, and rushed towards the bathroom.

Matt found him in there a minute later, sobbing and hyperventilating in a toilet stall. The world was spinning. He felt sick.

‘Hey. Hey, Nick, it’s okay.’

‘It’s not okay. It’s not okay at all!’ And then he leaned over the toilet bowl and threw up.