During sound check and before the show, Sam watched in horror as Alex downed drink after drink. A girl from the opener helped Sam with her makeup, smiling kindly and telling Sam she looked beautiful, and don't let him see you cry. How do you know this? Sam thought. The girl said you can't hurt him with your hands so hurt him with your mind. Sam nodded and the girl then shushed her and Sam was surprised to discover her mascara was running.
On stage Sam just prayed nobody could tell. It was warm but not warm enough to sweat, and Alex was so drunk, so incredibly drunk, and he heckled the audience and his own band between songs. People weren't paying attention to her anyway. They couldn't.
Muscle memory was what got Sam through this show -- and all their shows -- and her escape this time was thinking about the emails Alex had no doubt read. She'd been lying to him for a long time but he wasn't her boyfriend -- she told him over and over and over, it's not going to happen, I'm not going to sleep with you, I don't want to be with anyone right now, I like being alone. He understood, but he was older by ten years and she was so perfect for him, they were incredible together and made great friends and great bandmates and it was so easy and fun and free. He knew she didn't want him but it felt more like a "right now" than an "ever" and she was a girl worth waiting for. So he did. He had no idea she was in love with someone else.
Someone he hated. Someone married with two children. Someone so awful to her, so verbally and emotionally abusive, that her roommate once held a knife to his throat and forced him to leave. Ben wouldn't have really cut him, but the guy had to go: Sam was a mess.
And still, she loved him, Greg Finch. Alex cringed, imagining them together. A little over a year ago they were at a music festival -- Greg was working for Rolling Stone at the time and Sam went along as his "intern." No, the scare quotes weren't fair. She was interested in music journalism, she had a knack for it, and he understood why Greg would want to groom her to be his protege. But is that where the affair started? Was it already underway? He felt sick to his stomach thinking about it, remembering the way she looked standing in line for beer, and when Alex went over to introduce himself his stomach flip-flopped. He hadn't felt that way in years. She seemed perfect -- friendly and witty and confident -- and when Greg came up and ripped her a new asshole for disappearing she ripped him a new one in response. That didn't happen. No, Greg Finch was the biggest prick in music journalism and nobody fucked with him, nobody argued, and nobody talked back. Except Sam. And Alex's hate for the guy was not unrequited -- this was public knowledge. That day, as Alex stood, sweating, in the Austin sun, Greg Finch said "stay the fuck away from her," and that was that. Alex didn't see her again for a month.
At that point she and Greg were through -- professionally and, apparently, romantically. She told Alex that Greg had wanted her to be just like him, cruel, vitriolic. When she refused that was that they had a nasty blowout --this was when Ben threatened him with a knife, and that was that. They hadn't spoken since. And Alex had no reason not to believe her.
But Sam and Greg had been in touch several times since then. It was all nasty, hurtful, mostly on Greg's part but Sam had a sharp tongue too. That they were in touch wasn't what did it though. It was the things about him. Early on, Greg accused Sam of using Alex to make him jealous.
"You know I hate him," he wrote, "and I know you're doing this to make me jealous."
Sam never denied it, just told Greg to fuck off and not contact her again. But he did.
Two months later: "You are pathetic." A month after that, "you're a whore with daddy issues." Alex put the pattern together quickly: anytime they -- Alex, Sam, and Alex's band that she was now playing with -- released a song Greg sent her another email. A reminder that he was watching. A foreshadow of their next album release. No doubt he would review it, and no doubt it would be scathing.
The seventh email Greg sent is what pushed Alex over the edge. But he was furious already: she'd lied to him about everything and stupidly he waited for her, thinking she just needed some time, not realizing there was someone else. They confided in each other, or so he thought. On stage, Alex bared his teeth as this entered his mind.
"I see it now. Your fucking game. You string him along, enough to make me jealous, but you know if you sleep with him I'm done. You know then it's over. You're transparent, you're pathetic, and your last song was shit."
Alex shook as he read this, and the one from her that followed two weeks later when they were playing in Greg's city: "If by any chance you want to see the show you're on the list."
That was it. Alex then spent the next ten minutes staring blankly ahead, unable to speak or move, in complete shock. And that's when Sam emerged from the bathroom. That's when she saw him and knew.
After the show, Sam stayed close to the girl from opener that helped with her makeup. But it wasn't long after the encore that Alex found her, and he said "Hey," and pointed, alcohol on his breath, "we're leaving."
"All of us?" She asked hopefully, not that her bandmates could help her once they were in their hotel rooms.
"No," he said.
"Can't we--"
"No."
They were quiet in the cab. Sam tried to speak a couple times. "If you'll just let me explain..." and "please just listen" were both met with a stern "shut the fuck up."
Back in the hotel room Sam sat on the bed, stomach in knots, as Alex paced. Finally, he stopped. "Go to bed," he told her, and went into the bathroom to take a shower.
When Sam heard the water turn on she covered her face with her hands and cried. Everything was a mess. She dragged herself to her feet and removed her jewelry, taking care to place her earrings and her necklace back in their little boxes. She brushed her hair and removed her makeup at the sink by the bar. Her eyes were swollen but no longer red, and she dabbed some chapstick on her lips before undressing.
She was pulling on her pajama top when he came out of the bathroom, hair still wet from the shower. Horrified, she quickly covered herself, but there was no point -- he'd seen her and was about to see her again. Without a word he walked up to her and pulled her top open, ripping the only button she'd managed to do.
"Get on the bed," he said.
She was too scared to disobey.
Alex removed her pajama shorts and was pleased to find she wore no underwear. He grasped her breasts, unsure if he wanted to hurt her or turn her on, and he decided, apparently, that he wanted a little bit of both. He twisted her nipple, gripped her breast firmly and squeezed until she almost screamed, and then he bent down to suck on it, flicking his tongue over it while she lay motionless beneath him. She had nearly, at this point, convinced herself she deserved this, and anyway she didn't want to make him angrier. She was going to do whatever he wanted. And looking at her he knew this.
"Whore," he said softly, and inwardly she was horrified at the way his face contorted -- she'd never seen him like this before, he looked like a different person. They had fights, sure, and he'd been angry, but not like this.
She whimpered as he bit on her collarbone, her breasts, her nipples, her stomach. She'd heard things about him. When people go on tour together plenty of things can happen. And then they talk. She heard he was rough, which she could see. He had that kind of personality. She heard he knew his way around a woman's body. She wasn't sure, at this moment, how she felt about that. She heard he was big. Some said uncomfortably so, but most seemed pleased. Sam swallowed, remembering the last time she'd had sex -- nearly a year ago, when Greg came down to have it out with her one last time and they screamed at each other until finally he grabbed her by the hair and threw her down and fucked her. Closing her eyes she tried to picture it -- maybe if she was wet this wouldn't hurt so much. But a second later the back of his hand hit her cheek so hard she saw stars.
