Rock All Night(47)

Finally the time came.

The band strode out to roars and screams, with Killian playing the opening guitar part to ‘Paradise City’ by Guns ‘n Roses – which is what they opened the show with. It was weird at first hearing Axl Rose’s high-pitched vocals in Derek’s rumbling voice, but after you got used to it, it was pretty f*cking awesome. Riley was absolutely insane as she thrashed the drums.

The crowd went wild.

Especially the women in the pit. They reached out like last night, with Derek moving almost-but-not-quite close enough for them to touch, their fingernails brushing the denim of his jeans. A thousand screaming females, their pretty faces lifted in rapture, their arms outstretched, willing to do anything for their god.

I seethed in silence a little more.

The band followed up with some of their own hits, but interspersed the show with a variety of covers. ‘Black Dog’ by Zeppelin. ‘Last Night’ by the Strokes. ‘More Human Than Human’ by White Zombie (without the female orgasms, though I’m sure plenty of Derek’s female fans would have been happy to supply them). ‘Helter Skelter’ by the Beatles.


And then… halfway through the show… Derek threw me for a loop.

“Hey, I wanna do one for my dad,” he said to the crowd. “He used to live in Southern California, and this was a song he used to sing for me… probably more than anything, this song led me to be what I am today… so… thanks, Dad.”

And then the band did ‘Under The Bridge.’

I stood there on the edge of the stage and just watched, mesmerized, as 15,000 people in the audience sang along. Thousands of people held cell phones and lighters over their heads, and the audience was suddenly a sea of tiny points of light swaying in the darkness, a community of souls held together for three minutes by one beautiful song. And the way Derek sung it, it was beautiful… and wrenching. Heartbreaking. It reminded me of that day in Ryan’s basement, and the story of his father, and all the pain and the joy I’d felt so long ago in Athens.

For a minute I let go of my resentments and my anger, and just let the music take me over.

By the time Derek was finished, I was wiping tears off my cheeks.

Then they went on to more of their own hits, and more covers, and played non-stop for almost two solid hours.

But before they were finished, there was one final surprise.

“I sang ‘Under The Bridge’ for my dad. This next one’s for a girl I know,” he told the audience.

And as he looked back towards me from center stage, the band cut into a song by Cheap Trick.

‘I Want You To Want Me.’

I was floored.

After all that bullshit on the bus… after chewing me out at band practice… the whole ‘if you want me, you make the first move’…

Then he goes and sings ‘I Want You To Want Me.’

He kept looking back at me as he sang it, almost taunting me with it.

The crowd loved it. The entire amphitheater sang along to the chorus, shouting it back at him.

I didn’t know how to feel.

Elated? Yeah.

Angry, definitely – for having the balls to sing it after the ‘pretty f*ckin’ please, shut the f*ck up’ speech.

Confused, for sure.

More than anything, though… I wanted him to be telling me the truth.





34




The concert was over and the band went backstage to shower. I didn’t get an invitation this time – in fact, I barely got any recognition that I existed. Derek just smiled faintly as he and the others walked past me, and then they were gone.

I went backstage and waited.

It was all the same as last night. The women waiting in line. The famous people, the rich people, the beautiful people. The rockers and the actors and the celebrities.

The band showed up and things went crazy. Drink, food, drugs, alcohol.

I kept to the periphery as more half-naked women threw themselves at Derek.

The longer I watched, the angrier I got – not to mention more and more jealous with each passing moment. It felt like he was doing this to spite me – waving all these hot little boob-jobbed playthings in my face –

And then I remembered ‘I Want You To Want Me.’

A little voice in the back of my head whispered, You know, YOU were the one who threw him out last night.

YOU were the one who spurned all his advances.

YOU were the one who said ‘no.’

Another voice almost shouted, But he’s going to hurt me!

And then I realized: THAT was the problem.

That voice.

And what it was saying.

Not the part about getting hurt – because that part might be true.

But that I was so damn scared of it happening.

I remembered what Shanna had told me just two nights ago:

That’s what it boils down to: you’re afraid to get hurt. And especially by the one guy in the world who can really, really hurt you. Just so happens, he might be the one person who can make you really, really happy, too.

The last 24 hours had been all about not getting hurt. Hell, in some ways, my whole life had been about not getting hurt. When I walked away from Derek four years ago, I was trying to protect myself. Yeah, I had told myself at the time that I was a good girl, that I wasn’t my mother, that I didn’t want to be a cheater, that I didn’t want to hurt Kevin –