Friends and Foes

I made a new friend last night. Her name is Molly. She has short, curly blonde hair, a bubbly personality, and a great attitude. I met her at Sean’s gig last night at the bar. She’s recently moved to the city from a small town and we really hit it off. In fact, we have a shopping date this weekend.

“I think he is so hot,” Molly giggled as she nodded towards Guy.

“He has a girlfriend.” I said.

“If you’re his girlfriend I’m going to feel like such a ditz…”

“I’m dating the lead guitarist; his name is Sean, that’s how I know Guy has a girlfriend.”

“What about the bassist?”

I smiled and suppressed a laugh.

“He’s engaged-”

“Oh-”

“To the keyboardist.”

“OH.”

Molly’s eyes widened in embarrassment and we started laughing together. Sean took a five minute break and came over. I introduced him to Molly and he pulled me aside. I excused myself and followed him. As he was pulling me I noticed Gerry eyeing us with a look I couldn’t quite interpret. When we whipped around the corner I saw Gerry check his phone again.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Sean swooped in for a kiss that was much more passionate than I had expected.

He had me up against a wall, slid his hand under my right knee, pulled my leg up, and tried to hitch it above his waist but I stopped him.

“What are you doing? Not that I’m not enjoying this, but it isn’t very professional…Gerry’s going to get angry.”

As I was talking Sean was undeterred, he started kissing down my neck and unbuttoning my shirt.

“I don’t care about Gerry,” he mumbled in between kisses.

“Sean, did something happen?”

“Nuh-uh.” Sean was becoming even more aggressive and I was losing the will to protest.

“Break’s over.”

We jumped at the sound of Gerry’s voice in the hallway. Sean pulled away from me really fast and tried to stand in front of me and hide me from Gerry. It felt like I was a teenager trying to hide from my parents after kissing a boy on my front porch or something. My face turned hot as Sean nodded, squeezed my hand, and then left for the stage. Gerry and I were left alone in the hallway.

“White lace. Nice,” he sneered looking at my bra, “You might want to stop in the bathroom before meeting up with your blonde friend again, you look like a mess.”

Gerry checked his phone one more time as he turned and walked away. I was left speechless and in a state of shock for a few minutes trying to process what had happened. I went into the bathroom and buttoned the two buttons Sean had gotten undone, smoothed my hair, and readjusted my silver pleated skirt. I had to take a moment to recompose myself before going out to meet Molly again.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“I’m fine. I’m sorry I had to leave for a second, Sean wanted to talk to me about something important.”

“Oh, okay.”

She could sense I wasn’t telling the truth and as a result an extremely awkward silence fell between us. I was feeling worse and more ashamed by the second so I made up an excuse about feeling ill and left. Sean called me later after he got home and I knew it was coming but I just didn’t want to answer the phone. I knew he’d be even more anxious if I didn’t though, so I tried to answer it with a nonchalant attitude.

“Hey.”

“Are you okay? Why did you leave so early?”

“I started feeling sick. I would have told you but you were on stage and I knew I wouldn’t be able to last until your next break. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“No. No, I’m fine. Are you okay?”

“What do you mean? I’m perfect.”

“So the whole groping-me-in-a-back-hallway thing…that came about from nothing?”

“Oh. THAT. I just felt like being spontaneous.”

“Really? It wasn’t to maybe get back at Gerry?”

Sean sighed into the phone. He knew he’d been figured out.

“When you put it like that it makes me sound like a huge creep. Most of it was wanting to be spontaneous and a little bit of it was wanting to get back at Gerry…”

“Give me a percentage.”

“70 percent spontaneous and 30 percent revenge.”

“I see. So…you used me.”

“Faith, it wasn’t like that-”

“Really Sean? Because you just admitted to it.”

“I messed up.”

“You sure did.”

“How can I fix this?”

“I’ll fix it for you. I’m not going to anymore of your gigs. This fight between you and Gerry is only made worse by my presence in your life, so I’m going to avoid being a presence in your rock star life. I’m not going to be used as a tool in a fight I have no business being involved in.”

Sean was sad that I told him I’d stop going to his gigs but he understood. I didn’t tell him what Gerry had said or that Gerry had even noticed me and I wanted to keep it that way. If Sean knew what Gerry had said or how he’d made me feel, it would only make Sean’s work issues worse and I don’t want and will not be involved in Sean’s work-life. I let him go soon after that and went to sleep dreading my date with Elise and hearing Gerry’s words repeating over and over and over in my head.