Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Soul Purpose
21. Blackout.
“Into the off-white room, she lived her life just to live up to the moon.
Teared eyes, sunrise.
She hasn't slept a wink all night.
This is the part where she looks in the mirror.
And she puts her face in her hands and says,
’Oh when, oh when will I ever stop all this?
Just a little bit more, that's all I need until I'm done with it.’”
Like A Ghost – The High Court
Despite having been kissed goodnight rather thoroughly, Defne wasn’t able to sleep well that night. She couldn’t stop thinking about how she hurt her best friend so thoughtlessly. She hated her big mouth and her instant flaring anger sometimes. And this was one of those times. All night, she turned from one side to the other in the small bunk bed, trying to figure out what she was going to do to make Zack forgive her, painting horrible confrontation scenarios in her mind.
Come morning, she had barely slept over three hours.
But this time there was no one to tolerate her morning-bitchyness. No one to calm her tense, sleepless nerves with sweet-smelling warm coffee: Zack had gone out before she could even drag her tired body out of bed.
As she stood in front of the tiny mirror in the bathroom of the bus, she noticed the dark circles under her eyes. Her throat felt sore – probably because she had cried so much the other day, or she was getting sick. But she could also feel the loathsome headache forming between her brows, proving that her sinuses were filling up with heavy congestion.
She sighed heavily and gulped, trying to see if her ears would make that weird sound that they always did when she got sick. Her throat hurt even more and yes, her ears sounded weird.
Defne stared at her reflection blankly. She looked really pale, lifeless almost. But she couldn’t possibly be sick when there was a show she was supposed to perform in, in the evening. And they had another show in two day’s time. She was so fucked.
So the singer swallowed a pill – Extra Strength Tylenol – to spare herself the fever and the impending headache. To help her body function properly throughout the day.
She had people to seek and find, apologies to make. People to run away from in order to not permanently attach her lips against theirs. And a soundcheck. And a show…
--------------------------------
“Your complexion is white, you lie and say you're alright.
What you don't understand is that you're not only hurting yourself.
Dark circles and the veins in your eyes,
tell your whole life story and they face never lies.”
Like A Ghost – The High Court
Of course Defne wasn’t able to find Zack anywhere, since there were a thousand possibilities of his whereabouts. Well, she couldn’t find him for some time, at least. She knew this city a little from last year’s tour. But still, she had the shittiest sense of direction ever, so it took her a few hours to find the café they had spent some time in almost a year ago.
So when she stepped into the small cozy interior of the coffeehouse, she immediately spotted the hunched figure seated on a booth near the large windows. He seemed to be staring off into the space absently, his head held between his hands, calloused fingertips massaging his scalp.
She stared at him for a few moments before gathering up the courage to walk up to the booth tentatively. Her heart beat furiously with every step she took and the urge to turn around and run away strengthened as she neared her friend.
He didn’t notice her, he was too lost in thought to acknowledge anything that happened around him. His big bright blue eyes had gotten even wider, but there was a dullness to the color this time. They weren’t sparkling like they always did. It reminded her of the surface of a muzzy frozen lake in winter. Sorrow sat heavy on her chest. Was she the reason for his winter?
She took care to get in his line of sight and tried to catch his attention without touching him. Her hands were shoved deep in the pockets of her hoodie and she was acting like she wanted to occupy as less space as humanly possible.
He blinked once. Twice. Slowly. And then he raised his eyes upwards to meet hers. His face was the perfect picture of blankness, devoid of any type of emotion. He almost looked calm but that wasn’t it, either. He didn’t look anything. Nope. Nothing. He could have not been there at all.
“Hey…” she breathed softly, tentatively.
He only responded with a kind of an odd nod-shrug combination. Defne sighed. She already knew this wasn’t going to be easy but she had at least thought he would talk to her. Yell at her, scream in her face, anything. But not this type of nonchalance she was so unused to.
“Uhmmmm… Can I. Ahhh, can I s-sit d-down?” she stammered, her whole body shaking with all the nervous effort she placed behind the words.
He shrugged one shoulder, averting his eyes to stare outside the window.
Her breath hitched, making the burn in her throat even more painful and she struggled to breathe properly as she sat down in front of him.
They sat across each other silently for who knows how long, none of them uttering a single word to break the silence. But the lead singer was not one for uncomfortable tense silences. The violent urge to talk, to make a noise to cut through the air, made her speak up after some time.
“Can… Can we t-talk?”
He didn’t answer. Not verbally, not physically. There was no sign that he acknowledged her at all. She could be at the tour bus, right then and it wouldn’t have made a difference for him.
Defne released a trembling breath. “Please.” she almost begged.
His eyes finally found her, but he stared at her coldly. She had always thought his eyes were bright and lively and warm. Just like the rest of him. But now they were cold, like a stone: A stunningly beautiful and precious sapphire. Yet, cold in contrast with her own warm dark ones.
“About what?” he asked, his voice blank.
“I. I just… last night, I was… I’m…” she trailed off, not being able to place the words in her head into an understandable formation. She bowed her head in shame. This was useless.
She could feel his strong gaze on her as she studied the patterns on the table. But still, the lead guitarist didn’t say a thing.
She sighed, her eyes locked on his hands at the other end of the table. His right thumb was drawing little neat circles in his left palm. He was trying to stay calm and relaxed by preventing his body from tensing up. He clearly wasn’t as nonchalant as she had first thought.
That gave her the courage she needed to explain herself properly.
“Last night. I-I took my frustration out on you. I didn’t mean t-to but… I just couldn’t keep it all inside. And. My mouth is big. And clearly independent from my brain. Or my heart, for that matter. I. I only need you to know that, I didn’t mean any of it. What I said. I just get all crazy when I’m pushed around and driven into a corner. You know I do. But I still don’t surrender. I don’t know why, or how but I always choose to bite back. To hurt back. And I know that it’s not the nicest habit… Still, I’ve never been able to change it. And I’m aware that I can’t take back what I made you feel. I can’t make you forget, or pretend nothing ever happened. That’s why I’m only hoping for your understanding, maybe… at least that, before you could forgive me. If you could, that is -”
Her voice didn’t crack until the very last sentence. But in the end she couldn’t keep her throat from closing around the words sharply, making her choke out the sentence in sorrow.
“I’m sorry.” she whispered, having lost her voice.
He studied her before talking, himself. He took in her forceful gulping down of air and the nervous shaking of her hands. Her eyes seemed to already be mourning some kind of a loss.
“I know.” he stated mildly. “I saw it in your face last night. And I can see it now. But the difference is, I refused to acknowledge it yesterday, because I was… I was angry too and for the right reasons.”
She nodded silently, trying desperately to maintain eye contact.
“At night. When I was lying in my bunk, I realized why you ran off.”
Defne stared at him hopefully. He remembered…
“And I. I shouldn’t haven been so hard on you when you were already miserable. I just… I didn’t remember -”
“It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to remember…”
He shook his head, sending his golden locks flying over his broad shoulders.
“I could have been there for you. And you wouldn’t have run off, because I wouldn’t have let you. Just like I didn’t let you last year.”
Her face twisted in pain. “Zack… why are you? Why do you always have to be so good? Please. Please don’t forgive me. I. I deserve to at least suffer a bit for hurting you the way I did. I -”
“Yeah, well. I’m not gonna lie to you. It stings.” His voice sounded broken.
“I’m sorry.” she cried as her throat contorted in pain once again. “I. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t. I. I was so mad. And sad. You, you are my brother. You guys, you’re the only family I have with me. I need you so much…”
He gave her a watery smile. “You’re like the little kid sister I always secretly wanted to have.”
Her eyes started to water as she stared in his damp ones. She couldn’t help herself. She gave a half chuckle as she wiped at her face.
“You know, siblings always fight with each other.” she muttered.
The corner of Zack’s mouth moved a tad bit higher. “Yeah, they do.”
“And I’m so sorry, Zack. Not just. Not only because I said those things to you. But. But for running off like that. I know I shouldn’t have. I’m not gonna come up with excuses. No. I’m just so. So grateful that I have people that care about me so much they get all worried about me.”
He cupped her smaller hands in his, reaching over the table. “Just. Don’t ever do that again.”
She nodded in agreement. “I won’t.”
“Good.” And he gave her his best winning smile, finally. It should have been captured and pressed on a front cover.
After a while she got up and moved around the table to sit close next to him. He draped a protective arm over her shoulders in contentment as she fumbled in her hoodie pockets to get a green package out.
“I thought I should get these while I was trying to find this coffeehouse.” she murmured.
Zack gave a sudden bark of laughter as he saw what she was holding. “Skittles?” he asked between his big laughs.
“Not just skittles. Sour Skittles. I got them for you.” she said shyly. She opened the package for him and poured some candy on the inside of his palm. It was a silent peace offering. The final step to making up.
“I want the blue ones.” the guitarist said.
“I know.” she smiled at him, picking out the blue colored candies among the others and depositing them in her friend’s hand.
They just sat and enjoyed their Skittles for a while, talking and smiling. But Zack couldn’t hold back his curiosity any longer so he just asked out of the blue.
“How did you even manage to find this place?”
She laughed.
--------------------------------
The stage had never felt so uncomfortable before. The walls of Defne’s head resonated with the loud loud sound and she couldn’t do anything about it besides scream into the mic – which only produced more sounds to hit her square on the head. She had to scream because she couldn’t sing properly, her voice had started to get hoarse because of her sore throat. So she had settled for experimenting her own version of distortion on her vocal chords. It didn’t sound so bad but her head was throbbing nonetheless.
At the end of the set, she could barely stand on her two feet. If it hadn’t been for the mic stand she leaned her weight on, she would have probably fell right onto the floor. She had trouble breathing and her head had started spinning like she had had too much alcohol to drink. But the spinnies would be fun while these head-spins complete with constant throbbing were not pleasant at all.
She walked slowly and cautiously as they made their way to the backstage. She was so grateful she had gotten off the stage finally, a feeling she had never experienced before.
My Chem was getting ready to get out there as usual. And Soul Purpose stayed to wish them luck, as usual. The only problem was that Defne’s body wasn’t working the way it was supposed to be working. The only thing she could do to stand on her feet was lean against a wall and hope that whatever was wrong with her head would be okay soon.
And as the guys passed by her one by one, she struggled to receive their high-fives and told them to rock out. She pushed herself away from the supporting wall as Gerard leaned in with the innocent intention of pecking her cheek.
But her eagerness, maybe, had made her forget about her poor physical state and the sudden move made her vision swirl violently. She swayed from side to side under the worried frowning gaze of the frontman. And then.
Blackout.
A/N: I seriously need to write these chapters in normal hours of day. Again I’m sleepless. Gahhh!!! And I feel old, I’m all achy…
You’d make me a very happy girl if you rate and/or review =) And my neck would thank you a thousand times for it. I’m inflicting some pretty hard torture on the poor guy for some time, now. And it’s protesting…
Heee, and The High Court! The song quoted is so beautiful, I owe crash a thank you for making me discover this great band :)
So, what do you guys think, huh? Let me know!!!
< 33333333333
“Into the off-white room, she lived her life just to live up to the moon.
Teared eyes, sunrise.
She hasn't slept a wink all night.
This is the part where she looks in the mirror.
And she puts her face in her hands and says,
’Oh when, oh when will I ever stop all this?
Just a little bit more, that's all I need until I'm done with it.’”
Like A Ghost – The High Court
Despite having been kissed goodnight rather thoroughly, Defne wasn’t able to sleep well that night. She couldn’t stop thinking about how she hurt her best friend so thoughtlessly. She hated her big mouth and her instant flaring anger sometimes. And this was one of those times. All night, she turned from one side to the other in the small bunk bed, trying to figure out what she was going to do to make Zack forgive her, painting horrible confrontation scenarios in her mind.
Come morning, she had barely slept over three hours.
But this time there was no one to tolerate her morning-bitchyness. No one to calm her tense, sleepless nerves with sweet-smelling warm coffee: Zack had gone out before she could even drag her tired body out of bed.
As she stood in front of the tiny mirror in the bathroom of the bus, she noticed the dark circles under her eyes. Her throat felt sore – probably because she had cried so much the other day, or she was getting sick. But she could also feel the loathsome headache forming between her brows, proving that her sinuses were filling up with heavy congestion.
She sighed heavily and gulped, trying to see if her ears would make that weird sound that they always did when she got sick. Her throat hurt even more and yes, her ears sounded weird.
Defne stared at her reflection blankly. She looked really pale, lifeless almost. But she couldn’t possibly be sick when there was a show she was supposed to perform in, in the evening. And they had another show in two day’s time. She was so fucked.
So the singer swallowed a pill – Extra Strength Tylenol – to spare herself the fever and the impending headache. To help her body function properly throughout the day.
She had people to seek and find, apologies to make. People to run away from in order to not permanently attach her lips against theirs. And a soundcheck. And a show…
--------------------------------
“Your complexion is white, you lie and say you're alright.
What you don't understand is that you're not only hurting yourself.
Dark circles and the veins in your eyes,
tell your whole life story and they face never lies.”
Like A Ghost – The High Court
Of course Defne wasn’t able to find Zack anywhere, since there were a thousand possibilities of his whereabouts. Well, she couldn’t find him for some time, at least. She knew this city a little from last year’s tour. But still, she had the shittiest sense of direction ever, so it took her a few hours to find the café they had spent some time in almost a year ago.
So when she stepped into the small cozy interior of the coffeehouse, she immediately spotted the hunched figure seated on a booth near the large windows. He seemed to be staring off into the space absently, his head held between his hands, calloused fingertips massaging his scalp.
She stared at him for a few moments before gathering up the courage to walk up to the booth tentatively. Her heart beat furiously with every step she took and the urge to turn around and run away strengthened as she neared her friend.
He didn’t notice her, he was too lost in thought to acknowledge anything that happened around him. His big bright blue eyes had gotten even wider, but there was a dullness to the color this time. They weren’t sparkling like they always did. It reminded her of the surface of a muzzy frozen lake in winter. Sorrow sat heavy on her chest. Was she the reason for his winter?
She took care to get in his line of sight and tried to catch his attention without touching him. Her hands were shoved deep in the pockets of her hoodie and she was acting like she wanted to occupy as less space as humanly possible.
He blinked once. Twice. Slowly. And then he raised his eyes upwards to meet hers. His face was the perfect picture of blankness, devoid of any type of emotion. He almost looked calm but that wasn’t it, either. He didn’t look anything. Nope. Nothing. He could have not been there at all.
“Hey…” she breathed softly, tentatively.
He only responded with a kind of an odd nod-shrug combination. Defne sighed. She already knew this wasn’t going to be easy but she had at least thought he would talk to her. Yell at her, scream in her face, anything. But not this type of nonchalance she was so unused to.
“Uhmmmm… Can I. Ahhh, can I s-sit d-down?” she stammered, her whole body shaking with all the nervous effort she placed behind the words.
He shrugged one shoulder, averting his eyes to stare outside the window.
Her breath hitched, making the burn in her throat even more painful and she struggled to breathe properly as she sat down in front of him.
They sat across each other silently for who knows how long, none of them uttering a single word to break the silence. But the lead singer was not one for uncomfortable tense silences. The violent urge to talk, to make a noise to cut through the air, made her speak up after some time.
“Can… Can we t-talk?”
He didn’t answer. Not verbally, not physically. There was no sign that he acknowledged her at all. She could be at the tour bus, right then and it wouldn’t have made a difference for him.
Defne released a trembling breath. “Please.” she almost begged.
His eyes finally found her, but he stared at her coldly. She had always thought his eyes were bright and lively and warm. Just like the rest of him. But now they were cold, like a stone: A stunningly beautiful and precious sapphire. Yet, cold in contrast with her own warm dark ones.
“About what?” he asked, his voice blank.
“I. I just… last night, I was… I’m…” she trailed off, not being able to place the words in her head into an understandable formation. She bowed her head in shame. This was useless.
She could feel his strong gaze on her as she studied the patterns on the table. But still, the lead guitarist didn’t say a thing.
She sighed, her eyes locked on his hands at the other end of the table. His right thumb was drawing little neat circles in his left palm. He was trying to stay calm and relaxed by preventing his body from tensing up. He clearly wasn’t as nonchalant as she had first thought.
That gave her the courage she needed to explain herself properly.
“Last night. I-I took my frustration out on you. I didn’t mean t-to but… I just couldn’t keep it all inside. And. My mouth is big. And clearly independent from my brain. Or my heart, for that matter. I. I only need you to know that, I didn’t mean any of it. What I said. I just get all crazy when I’m pushed around and driven into a corner. You know I do. But I still don’t surrender. I don’t know why, or how but I always choose to bite back. To hurt back. And I know that it’s not the nicest habit… Still, I’ve never been able to change it. And I’m aware that I can’t take back what I made you feel. I can’t make you forget, or pretend nothing ever happened. That’s why I’m only hoping for your understanding, maybe… at least that, before you could forgive me. If you could, that is -”
Her voice didn’t crack until the very last sentence. But in the end she couldn’t keep her throat from closing around the words sharply, making her choke out the sentence in sorrow.
“I’m sorry.” she whispered, having lost her voice.
He studied her before talking, himself. He took in her forceful gulping down of air and the nervous shaking of her hands. Her eyes seemed to already be mourning some kind of a loss.
“I know.” he stated mildly. “I saw it in your face last night. And I can see it now. But the difference is, I refused to acknowledge it yesterday, because I was… I was angry too and for the right reasons.”
She nodded silently, trying desperately to maintain eye contact.
“At night. When I was lying in my bunk, I realized why you ran off.”
Defne stared at him hopefully. He remembered…
“And I. I shouldn’t haven been so hard on you when you were already miserable. I just… I didn’t remember -”
“It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to remember…”
He shook his head, sending his golden locks flying over his broad shoulders.
“I could have been there for you. And you wouldn’t have run off, because I wouldn’t have let you. Just like I didn’t let you last year.”
Her face twisted in pain. “Zack… why are you? Why do you always have to be so good? Please. Please don’t forgive me. I. I deserve to at least suffer a bit for hurting you the way I did. I -”
“Yeah, well. I’m not gonna lie to you. It stings.” His voice sounded broken.
“I’m sorry.” she cried as her throat contorted in pain once again. “I. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t. I. I was so mad. And sad. You, you are my brother. You guys, you’re the only family I have with me. I need you so much…”
He gave her a watery smile. “You’re like the little kid sister I always secretly wanted to have.”
Her eyes started to water as she stared in his damp ones. She couldn’t help herself. She gave a half chuckle as she wiped at her face.
“You know, siblings always fight with each other.” she muttered.
The corner of Zack’s mouth moved a tad bit higher. “Yeah, they do.”
“And I’m so sorry, Zack. Not just. Not only because I said those things to you. But. But for running off like that. I know I shouldn’t have. I’m not gonna come up with excuses. No. I’m just so. So grateful that I have people that care about me so much they get all worried about me.”
He cupped her smaller hands in his, reaching over the table. “Just. Don’t ever do that again.”
She nodded in agreement. “I won’t.”
“Good.” And he gave her his best winning smile, finally. It should have been captured and pressed on a front cover.
After a while she got up and moved around the table to sit close next to him. He draped a protective arm over her shoulders in contentment as she fumbled in her hoodie pockets to get a green package out.
“I thought I should get these while I was trying to find this coffeehouse.” she murmured.
Zack gave a sudden bark of laughter as he saw what she was holding. “Skittles?” he asked between his big laughs.
“Not just skittles. Sour Skittles. I got them for you.” she said shyly. She opened the package for him and poured some candy on the inside of his palm. It was a silent peace offering. The final step to making up.
“I want the blue ones.” the guitarist said.
“I know.” she smiled at him, picking out the blue colored candies among the others and depositing them in her friend’s hand.
They just sat and enjoyed their Skittles for a while, talking and smiling. But Zack couldn’t hold back his curiosity any longer so he just asked out of the blue.
“How did you even manage to find this place?”
She laughed.
--------------------------------
The stage had never felt so uncomfortable before. The walls of Defne’s head resonated with the loud loud sound and she couldn’t do anything about it besides scream into the mic – which only produced more sounds to hit her square on the head. She had to scream because she couldn’t sing properly, her voice had started to get hoarse because of her sore throat. So she had settled for experimenting her own version of distortion on her vocal chords. It didn’t sound so bad but her head was throbbing nonetheless.
At the end of the set, she could barely stand on her two feet. If it hadn’t been for the mic stand she leaned her weight on, she would have probably fell right onto the floor. She had trouble breathing and her head had started spinning like she had had too much alcohol to drink. But the spinnies would be fun while these head-spins complete with constant throbbing were not pleasant at all.
She walked slowly and cautiously as they made their way to the backstage. She was so grateful she had gotten off the stage finally, a feeling she had never experienced before.
My Chem was getting ready to get out there as usual. And Soul Purpose stayed to wish them luck, as usual. The only problem was that Defne’s body wasn’t working the way it was supposed to be working. The only thing she could do to stand on her feet was lean against a wall and hope that whatever was wrong with her head would be okay soon.
And as the guys passed by her one by one, she struggled to receive their high-fives and told them to rock out. She pushed herself away from the supporting wall as Gerard leaned in with the innocent intention of pecking her cheek.
But her eagerness, maybe, had made her forget about her poor physical state and the sudden move made her vision swirl violently. She swayed from side to side under the worried frowning gaze of the frontman. And then.
Blackout.
A/N: I seriously need to write these chapters in normal hours of day. Again I’m sleepless. Gahhh!!! And I feel old, I’m all achy…
You’d make me a very happy girl if you rate and/or review =) And my neck would thank you a thousand times for it. I’m inflicting some pretty hard torture on the poor guy for some time, now. And it’s protesting…
Heee, and The High Court! The song quoted is so beautiful, I owe crash a thank you for making me discover this great band :)
So, what do you guys think, huh? Let me know!!!
< 33333333333
Sign up to rate and review this story