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I hand Pedro the phone. Their conversation is short and doesn’t make me any more inclined to go easy on my sister when I see her. “Satisfied?” I ask Pedro who returns my phone.
“Moderately. Now I have a month to convince Onyx that she’s met her last match.”
* * *
I pullup to the house to find Khadijah sitting by the front door with a forlorn expression. She jumps as soon as I slam my car door.
“Cam, if I had known the extent of what you were going through, I never would have agreed to the concert.” She wrings her hands and worry lines her face.
I pass her to open the door. Before entering, I pause with my back to her. “Did Rhys and Hanson agree to the gig?”
“Yes.” Khadijah rests her hand on my arm.
“So I’m the last to know. Why, Deej? Why didn’t you talk to me first?” I push through the house, walking until I reach my temporary music room.
She runs in front of me, her eyes pleading with me to listen. “At the time I thought your answer would have been yes. You agreed to play the Founder’s Day concert, so I figured a performance for your girlfriend’s grandmother would be fine.”
“Believe me, agreeing to the Founder’s Day concert wasn’t an easy decision for me.”
“How was I supposed to know? At lease with the private show, Kenya will melt knowing you were part of something that means so much to Onyx.”
“I think somewhere deep down you believe what you’re saying, but the Khadijah I know would have told me about it long before now; if just to give me an extra push to tell Kenya about the band. Instead, you kept hiding it from me. What was your big plan? To trick me into showing up and surprise me with a performance I’m obviously not prepared to do?”
“No!” Khadijah hugs me tight so I can’t move without hurting her. “I was coming up with other options. Like, doing it a cappella. Or auditioning a temporary replacement…”
“Replacement?” My heart sinks to my toes.
“Just for this gig… And maybe for the Founder’s Day concert. Just in case.”
“Just in case?” I whisper brokenly.
“You know you would have to quit before I’d ever think about replacing you for real. Even then, Liquid Obsession couldn’t exist without you.” She tightens her arms around me.
Her tears hammer at the barrier I’m trying to build to protect myself. I’ve been here before. It will take time, but I can weather this storm.
Khadijah grabs my face until all I see is hers filled with remorse. “Please believe me, Cam. No one can take your place. No one. You will always be my brother. I’m not like them. I’ll never throw you away.”
“Let go,” I say, testing the strength of the dam holding my emotions inside. “I have enough to deal with and you pulling this stunt behind my back isn’t helping me with everything else piling on me. Just leave.”
She frees me. “I’m giving you space, but I’m not letting you go. And if you don’t think I’m serious, I’ll call Mom and Dad if I don’t hear from you in two days and we’ll hash this out like a family.” She backs away. When she gets to the door, she says, “Two days, Cam.”
When she leaves, everything I’ve held inside me bubbles to the surface into one long, tortured scream. I want to hurt something, to feel a physical pain that prevents me from swimming in this emotional morass. I look around the room and pick up the drumsticks. I fling them with all my strength.
They crash against the hi-hats, stopping me from damaging anything else in the room. This is Kenya’s house, left to her by her parents. What kind of monster would I be to mar these walls?
I run out of the house. I don’t know how long I stay outside allowing my feet to hit the pavement. When I return, my turmoil is no less quiet, but my muscles ache. Somehow I find myself in the music room again. Not just in the room, but sitting on the stool facing the drums.
A week ago I couldn’t do this without my heart doing the Daytona 500 and flaming out. My hands shake as I grab the discarded sticks. Drumming used to help me manage my anger and disappointment when I was younger. Could it help me now, given the months I’ve shied away from doing anything music related?
Sweat and an elevated pulse could be from my recent physical exertions from which I haven’t cooled down yet. I’ll choose to associate my body’s current condition with running through most of Escondido rather than the possibility that I’m ignoring a panic attack. I need an outlet for everything that’s been happening to me!
I slam the ride cymbal and let the sound reverberate in the room. The acoustics in here are amazing. I test the tom drums, the snare, and the bass. Each time, the vibrations flow from the drum through to my hands. I stop focusing on the instruments and let the riotous thoughts propel my movements.
Kenya’s house is far enough from her neighbors that I don’t have to worry about the noise. Without her here, I smash the cymbals and hit the drums like I’ve been possessed. Sweat pours down my body and my hair hangs over my forehead. Hours pass without food or drink as all the toxic thoughts and emotions I’ve carried with me for months spew out of me.
Khadijah’s actions hurt me. She reminded me of the time she sided with management over the song I’d poured my heart and soul into. She discarded me then and I fear that Kenya will, too. I go harder at the drums, winging it and pouring all my anxiety, my stress, my everything into the music until I black out.
When I finally come to, I’m on the floor. My body is light and my heart no longer has chains tightening around it. In my hands are my drum sticks. They aren’t the ones I used to sleep with as a kid, but I’ve been transported to that time when they served as a reminder that I belonged to a family. I still do.
