I looked up from my guitar, hearing a soft knock at my door. I’d been playing for the last hour or more. I needed the music. I needed to feel it in me. I needed it to take me away.
The last few weeks had been exhausting to say the least. To think just a few short weeks ago, I’d been sitting here happy and content with everything that was going on in my life. I was giving myself to the men, partying and going to school. Moving through the motions of my life, thinking that I was in such a good place.
The reality was that I had no idea what a good place was until I had found Kit. Being ripped away from him had hurt me much more than I’d ever expected. It was like I didn’t realize until he wasn’t there that he’d taken up residence in my heart. Not knowing if I would see him again almost broke me. Even though, I did well to conceal the hurt – lashing out at my so called father with a strength that even I didn’t know I had.
Returning back to the clubhouse was comforting, but also very strange. As much as I loved this place, it having been my home for so long, I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be with Kit in Troy. I’d made my decision even before we’d left Edward Keaton’s home and had told Kit so. I wanted to go back to Troy. Screw school. Screw how much it would hurt leaving my friends and the people who had become my family. I didn’t want to be without him. My heart, my head, and my body were now all now on the same page.
I knew I should be helping with the funeral arrangements, but I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that he was gone. Caleb and I had been close. He was fun and sweet and took his prospect status seriously. He had protected me once, possibly saved me from a place that I didn’t even want to envision in my head. He was my protector and from the sounds of things, he had been Kit’s too.
We were happy, we were together because Caleb had been strong enough to stand up and do what was right, and now I couldn’t even thank him for that.
Dana stood in the doorway, her eyes red and bloodshot, and her usual cocky smirk completely gone.
“Harmony?”
“Hey,” I said quietly, unsure of the reason for the unexpected visit.
Her eyes shot around the room. “If you’re busy I can come back later.”
I frowned. “No, it’s fine. Come in.”
She stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind her. She stood nervously, twisting her fingers together and shuffling in place. “Where’s Kit?”
“Meeting with Optimus,” I said. “Dana, what’s going on?”
She nodded. “Caleb loved hearing you play.”
My throat dried. Dana and I had barely ever said more than a few sentences to each other, and the words were never kind or complimentary.
“Okay…” I said, drawing the word out like I didn’t understand the reason for her comment.
She finally took a seat at my small desk. “Caleb and I got close recently. I guess Optimus told him and the other prospects to keep an eye on us since all the drama happened, and you left with Kit.” She cleared her throat, but a small smile formed. “I really liked him, Harmony.”
“Say what?”
She laughed lightly. “He was cool. We hung out quite a bit, he made me laugh and never made me feel horrible for being a club whore.”
I nodded. “Caleb was very kind-hearted. He never judged any of us.” I felt tears burn in my eyes, thinking about the young boy who would always tease and flirt with me, and whose smile could bring you out of a bad mood in point five of a second.
“His favorite song was ‘Hotel California.’ Every time he was in charge of the stereo he would play it every hour.” Her smile grew. Dana and I had never gotten along. I always saw her as the club girl who would just do anything to get to the top – to get a Brother’s patch. She talked down to the other girls and I’d never seen a genuine smile on her face until now.
“What are you getting at here?” I asked, a little confused by this enlightening conversation into who Dana really was.
“There’s two things he would have wanted at his funeral. That song, and for you to play it.” Her eyes brimmed with tears as she looked up at me. “I know this probably sounds stupid, spending a couple weeks getting to know him, and suddenly I’m talking like I knew his whole life story. But I just felt like we connected.”
“It doesn’t sound weird at all,” I told her with a soft smile, thinking about how quickly Kit and I had formed a bond. It felt like I’d known him forever. “You cared about him.”
“Not romantically. But yeah, it was like I had spent the last two years, being this person, this club girl. All I ever wanted to do was to please these guys and hope that one day they might see something in me that would make them claim me, just like Kit did in you. Caleb was the first person to see through my shit, to not see me as a club girl, but because he liked my company. I didn’t have to flirt or fuck or strip to get his attention. He just wanted to know me because he wanted to know me.”
Dana surprised me. As much as I wanted to hate her, to convince myself that she was just a bitch like she had shown us all, I couldn’t. She was hurting too. She had her reasons for doing what she did. She smiled and stood, moving to the door.
“I’m sorry, Harmony. For things, I may have said or done to you.” I sat stunned, unsure of what to say. She laughed. “I know, I know. Unexpected right?”
“You can say that again,” I muttered.
“Hold on to Kit, hun. You never know what might happen tomorrow.” I saw the sadness shimmer in her eyes. I knew there was a story there, maybe one day I would get to hear it and I would understand the real Dana. But it wouldn’t be today.
The door swung open to reveal Kit and Leo. We all stared at each other for a minute before Dana shook off her solemn mood and gave them a beaming smile before squeezing between them to retreat a hasty exit.