Wait until the music's over

18. Panicky and Grumpy

"Hahaha yeah, sure! Anyway you can use my shower to make yourself presentable, so you can take your time and don't have to hurry"

Well, that's something.

"Really? Ok, thank you!" I answer and storm out of her room at the speed of light.

I can barely hear her voice telling me where the clean towels are, then I shut and lock the door behind me and open the window wide. If anxiety didn't already wake me up, at this point the almost polar cold from outside would have done it at its place, since I'm only in my underwear. I stay at the window for a while, I try to convince myself that it's not a heart attack and to put to practice those notions of yoga breathing Layne taught me the last time something like this happened to me. In ten minutes I feel much better, at least the sense of being on the verge of dying has gone away, I still fell a burden on my chest and some kind of undefined uneasiness.

"What the fuck is happening to me?" I ask myself loud while I sit on the toilet bowl, only after opening the shower not to generate any suspect.

It's because of dope, I'm sure about it. Too much. I must quit. I can't have a stroke for real right now. And where the fuck did that I love you come from?!

Oh my god, you're not on paranoia for that, are you? What if it was that? Come on, Jerry, seriously, words spoken while fucking don't count, everybody knows that, it's a universally accepted rule, no woman believes in one I love you told while you're banging her. And Angie didn't even hear it.

But what if she heard it? Maybe she pretended not to. Or maybe I managed to kid her but the moment I said the three magic words she thought she had heard them. Maybe she wasn't expecting to hear them, or was she? The fact is I don't love her. I like her, ok, but I'm not in love, I don't wanna lock myself in any fucking bedroom, I don't wanna travel anywhere, I don't wanna... Holy shit, just stop this senseless mental masturbation! You didn't say anything, she doesn't know anything and all this doesn't mean anything. And if you get a panic attack for this bullshit you're a total jerk. Should I have a hot or cold shower? Shit, I gotta get out of here.

Staying at home is a bore. Ok, staying at home in convalescence is a bore. If I didn't walk with this limp I could at least use this forced holiday to do some pre-Christmas cleaning, but I can't. Uff. And then what's the point in having a lot of spare time when everybody you know has something else to do? Meg comes home for lunch every time she can, Stone came over one morning, Jeff calls me every evening. It's not the same thing though, I feel in a cage. And Jerry's disappeared.

Since that morning together I've only talked to him once, on the phone, the night before he left to go to New York with the band. He sounded pissed and cold and not really talkative, I thought it was because it was late and maybe he was tired. And then zero, no news from him, it's been three days today, and bad feelings about him start filling my mind.

That morning everything seemed fine to me though, I mean, everything was perfect, so perfect that I wish it would never end. Anyway dating a musician has its downside and we couldn't even have breakfast together because he had to go. But what if he left for different reasons?

I'm so lost in my reasoning that I only realize Meg has come back home when she puts a hand on my shoulder, almost giving me a heart attack.

"Please, forgive me my dear, I didn't mean to scare you!" Meg immediately apologizes.

"Don't worry, scare each other is the spice in our lives. It's just that I didn't expect you to come home for lunch today also, you didn't tell me yesterday. Actually you didn't say anything, you ran to your room and stayed there until this morning, when I heard you leaving"