Breaking Down

Chapter 8:

          I was in the recording booth with a borrowed Ibanez guitar laying down a new track I had been working on for weeks. I had the song stuck in my head and I couldn't get it out. If my Dad was here, I could sing him the melody and he would pluck out a counter melody to fill it. He would know the exact note that I was missing to change the song from ordinary to extraordinary.

        My Dad and I used to sit together for hours playing and writing. Just the two of us. He even used to let me shadow him at the studio he worked for. During slow periods, he would let me go in and record something to bring home to my Mom. I'm not even sure how many terrible songs I wrote and gave to her as a present for her birthday, holiday, or just because I made it. I could see him smiling at me when I had the headphones over my ears with a serious look on my face. He would always praise me and tell me how talented I was. I missed how simple everything used to be back then.

         That was before I became a bad daughter. It was before I got sick.

         I pressed my fingers into the strings and began picking out the tune playing on repeat in my head. I hit a wrong note and cringed. It wasn't what I was hearing in my head at all. Why couldn't I get this right? Where was the note hiding?

        "Jessa, what the fuck?" Nate screamed into the intercom. "I'm about to pull you out of there."

         "No, I can do this." I said, looking down at my tired hands.

          "You sound like a drowning cat. No one will buy this garbage." He barked, tearing me down just a little more.

         "I can be better. I'm sorry, Nate. I'll try again." I fought back the tears.

          I started playing again and this time Keith wasn't ready. Nathan was throwing things around the room and got up in his face. I laid my head on the guitar and watched as the spit flew across the room. The two boys were at each other's throats.

          My fingers were starting to bleed. I had split open the calluses from playing for so long. I picked at them for a while, pulling off some of the dead skin while humming the song in my head, trying to figure out the irksome melody.

           I had been in this room for sixteen straight hours. My head was pounding and my pulse felt slowed down. I hadn't eaten anything in probably two whole days, maybe three. I had lost count. I was tired, but I couldn't give in. If I went to sleep, I wouldn't wake up. I was on my way down and it would only be a matter of time before I hid in the shadows. I was close to crashing.

          "Jess, sweetheart. We're ready." Nate called back through the intercom to get my attention back.

         I began to play my song. The sweet tones were mixed in with minor chords giving the song a somber chaotic feel. I lifted my head to the microphone and moaned out the first verse in a breathy whisper. Nathan liked it when I opened a song sounding like sweet innocence turned twisted. It was the exact reason he had signed me to his label in the first place.

         He once told me back when we were younger that the sounds that came out of my mouth could bring a man to his knees. I remembered that night like it was yesterday. I had just been put on my medication by Dr. Schroeder and I was angry at the world for what was happening to me. My parents didn't understand me. I lost every friend I had except Nate and Cam. I was an angry girl. I was only fifteen and I had been handed a life sentence with my diagnosis.

          I snuck out that night to go to a party Nate invited me to. I was depressed and wanted to just feel something other than the pain. That was the first night I had ever drunk alcohol. He handed me the bitter liquid and told me he would take care of me. He said not to worry about anything because he would make sure I was safe. As he took my hand and led me upstairs away from the party, I started to get nervous. He laid me down on the bed and started telling me how perfect I was. I believed him when he looked into my eyes and said I was the only one for him. Nathan Webster stole my virginity that night and then bragged about it the next day to all his friends.

          He was looked up to like a king and I became the whore he liked to parade around with on his arm. Other girls would stare at me and make comments just loud enough for me to hear. They were really cruel. I tried to tell myself those girls were just jealous, I had Nathan and they wanted him. Deep down, I knew it was because of the rumors he spread around about the things I let him do to me. At some point, I had to stop caring about what they said.

          I kept playing and singing as the blackness lined the edges of my vision. I tried to push through the ache building in my bones. I had nothing left inside me; I was depleted. Only a few more minutes, just a few more and I would be finished.

          I started to get dizzy and had to drop the guitar down. I closed my eyes in the middle of trying to record my imperfect bridge. The room was completely dark now. Everything was moving in slow motion.

         "Jess, what's going on?" Nathan called through the intercom.

          "I don't feel good." I slurred out in slow motion. "I can't...move."

          Nathan and Keith raced into the room to me.

         "Dude, she needs to go to the hospital." Keith said, trying to hold me up on the chair.

         "No..." I mouthed slowly. "I'll be fine. I just need to take a break."

          I got up off the chair and stumbled, falling to the floor.

          "Should I call an ambulance?" Keith asked.

           "Fuck no. Too many drugs. I can't have cops in here asking questions. Load her in your van and we can drop her off outside the emergency room." Nathan hissed.

           "Good Idea. Should we put her in a t-shirt at least before we go? It's cold outside."

            Keith grabbed my feet and Nate grabbed me under my armpits.

           "She's got a bra and underwear on. She'll be fine." Nate said, walking backward, leaning into the door to open it.

            The two boys walked down the hall carrying my dead weight. When they opened the front door, I was hit with a stinging blast of arctic wind. It was freezing outside. My body was cold to the bone.

            "Put her in the back." Nathan yelled as they walked me around to the back door of the rusted white cargo van. They slid me on the cold metal floor and I closed my eyes.

             I just gave in. That was the moment I decided it was time to give up.