if the time comes, alright?”
“Thanks, Herschel,” I said honestly, and went out to start my shift.
If I lost this job I’d be absolutely screwed, but even as it was, I couldn’t count on fate or luck to get me more hours. If this was how things were going to go, I wouldn’t be able to afford living in my apartment. There was no way I was going to leave Rosebridge. There was no way I was going to go back home to Manchester to live with my dad.
I would choose life on the street over that.
I need to make more money.
This was a wakeup call. I had to get my life back on track. I had one area of expertise. Could I get back on the drums? I hadn’t been able to sit at a drum set in months. I fell apart when the sticks were in my hands. But what else could I do?
When I got home from work that night, Monica, my roommate, was on the couch deeply involved in a video game. “Fucking son of a bitch! I’ll fuck your mom, asshole. I’ll pee in her fucking butt.” She pulled off her headphones and gave me a wave. “Hi, Kendra,” she said pleasantly, her tone doing a complete flip. “How was work, my dude?”
“Fucked,” I said. “My hours got cut. Can we talk?”
“Give me five minutes. Let me just fuck these noobs up, and I’ll be right with you.” She slipped her headphones back on.
I went to my room and changed out of my work clothes, then went to the bathroom to wash my face. I let my hair down from the ponytail I liked to keep it in, and brushed it out. What am I going to do? I thought, looking at myself in the mirror. My eyes had bags underneath them. It seemed like all I’d been doing was sleeping these days, but I still felt tired.
I had to get back on the drums. It was the easiest way I could make money. If I could get back on the drums. If I could play, then I might be able to find a gig in a band somewhere, or at the very least, give lessons.
Lessons.
The thought literally made me feel sick. How could I even think about giving lessons when I couldn’t even stay in school? How could I give lessons when Dr. Adler said I wasn’t any good anymore? It just wouldn’t feel right to charge anyone to learn from me.
I splashed some cold water onto my face, trying to fight away the sickening despair that always seemed to be lurking in the back of my mind. I was doing everything I could not to break down crying.
Deep breaths.
When I went back out to the living room, I found the couch empty except for Monica’s headphones, and I could hear the microwave going in the kitchen. I sat down on the couch to wait for her to come back. In the opposite corner of the room from the couch sat my drum set. Covered up by one of my bedsheets, it looked like some unwanted troll wrapped up in rags, banished to the corner. I stared at it, and found my pulse starting to beat faster. Shit, I was getting anxious just looking at my drums.
Drums had been a part of my life since I was young, and they were probably the one thing my parents did right for me. I was immediately drawn to the way they made me feel physically when I played them, not only the impact that the sound had on my body, but the energy that welled up inside of me as I found the rhythm.
They were the perfect way to let out the frustration I felt from my parents’ constant fighting. I could drown out the noise of my dad’s drunken curses. I didn’t have to hear about my mom’s infidelity, or the walls getting smashed and dishware breaking. I could just exist in my own little world, drumming away in the garage. It came to the point where I hardly missed a day drumming. It’d become a part of me. Starting in fifth grade, I always had drum sticks tucked into my pocket or my backpack. I joined the marching band and the school orchestra. I was good—damn good—and everyone at my school knew it. People who didn’t know my name still knew me as “that drummer girl.”
Having such an integral part of who I was suddenly crumble away felt devastating. No, beyond devastating. The drums had been my refuge, but after Max, everything just went weird. I couldn’t do anything without seeing that scene in the bar replay in my head. My drumming just wasn’t the same after that, even after that memory had stopped haunting me. And after Dr. Adler told me I was losing my touch… well, I really did lose it. I couldn’t pick up a pair of sticks without having a low-key panic attack.
The microwave beeped, and Monica came back to the living room with a plate of pizza rolls. “You want one?” she asked, sitting down next to me on the couch.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I ate at work.”
“Right on. Must be nice, getting to eat Japanese food for free every day.”
“It’ll be twice a week now. They cut my hours.”
“Ow, fuck, that’s hot.” She covered her mouth and spat out a steaming, half-chewed piece of pizza roll. “Son of a god damn monkey fuck, that burned my mouth. Shit! They cut your hours? That’s fucked up. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. But I’m already digging into my savings as it is. I’m worried. I don’t know how I’m going to afford rent if things stay this way.”
“Damn,” she said, making another attempt at the pizza roll. “You need to get a second job, like, now.”
“I know,” I said. “Any ideas? Do you know anywhere hiring?”
“Why don’t you give drum lessons? You never play anymore. It sucks that you dropped out, and shit. You were awesome at playing.”
The word “lessons” made me shiver. “No, I don’t think I could give lessons. Not right now.”
Monica raised an eyebrow. “Alright. It’d be easy money for you, you know.”