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Chapter
5: Reliving the Past
“I am going to kill Spaz for not telling me there was a bloodstain on my shirt
before Darren came into my room. Jeez! I don’t even think he believe all that
bull shit that I told him about having burgers last night. Ketchup, yeah right!
I barely believed myself. I’m just thankful that he didn’t say anything and
left me alone after he dropped off the coffee and flowers. Hmm… He’s so
sweet,” Faith explained as the camera sat focused on her face in her little
bunk on the bus.
“Faith!” Ben was yelling outside. “Faith!”
“I’ll continue this later,” she told the camera, turning it off and
putting it down then emerging from behind the closed black velvet curtain.
“What do you want, Ben?” she hollered to him as he came up behind her.
“I’m bored,” he whined. “Can I watch one of your tapes?”
“Yeah, sure,” Faith replied as she pulled a large black container out from
beneath her bunk and opened it to reveal hundreds of small tape cartridges and
videos all neatly organized by date and content. “Which one do you wanna
watch?”
“You and Darren making out,” Ben joked. Faith slapped him in the back of the
head. “Ow, I’m just kidding. Actually, I wanted to watch that documentary
you made about high school life. That sounded interesting.”
“To tell you the truth, that whole documentary was about my drug addicted
friend and the wild parties she went to on weekends and during long breaks. I
followed her around school for a few weeks to see how it affected her. She was
always strung out and shit. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for her by the
time I finished taping. My teacher cried when she saw it. Then she gave me an A
and told me that if I ever made one of those documentaries ever again, she’d
fail me because it dealt with things that weren’t appropriate for school,”
Faith explained as she pulled out the video and handed it to him. Before he
could grab it, she added, “You’d better return this to me as soon as you
finish, or you’ll be paying one hefty fine. Got it?”
“Don’t get you panties into a twist. I’ll get it back to you,” Ben said
as she gave it to him. He started to walk away when she realized that she now
had nothing better to do.
“Hold up, I’ll watch with you. I don’t know what to do with myself on this
bus,” she hollered, catching up to him in the spacious living area towards the
back of the bus. Faith ran past him and plowed head first into the black leather
couch.
“Hey!” he protested. “Give me some of that!”
“Me, couch. You, floor,” Faith replied, getting comfortable.
“I don’t think so,” Ben said as he picked her up and placed her on one
side of the couch then took the other for himself.
Faith laid her head on his lap and answered, “Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay, this works,” he contently replied.
“Good, now who’s gonna put in the video?” she asked.
They looked at each other for a couple of seconds and finally got the same idea.
“Darren!” both of them yelled so that they could be heard.
“What?” he replied as he popped his head into the area. Staring at Faith
with a quizzical expression on his face, he added, “My, you look
comfortable.”
“I am,” she said defiantly. “Don’t worry. We’re just watching a movie.
You wanna watch too?”
“Sure, what are you watching?” Darren asked as he walked into the room and
sat down at the foot of the couch.
“Her documentary,” Ben said. “Here.” He handed the tape to Darren.
“Jeez, why do I always get stuck doing your dirty work?” he retorted,
standing up and putting the tape into the VCR below the wall screen. Faith moved
from Ben’s lap to Darren’s and got comfortable again on the floor.
“Hey, thanks for the couch!” Ben cheerfully replied as he stretched out.
Faith flipped him off then smiled up at Darren as he laughed.
“Diary of a Druggy?” Darren asked. “What?”
“The basic idea, I follow my strung out friend through school and parties,
catching the most graphic things you could possibly think of. It’s not a video
for people who are faint at heart,” Faith explained.
The three of them sat there as the video played, Darren and Ben more interested
than Faith since she had seen it so many times before. Both had their mouths
gaping open during some of the more graphic drug scenes. Faith looked away when
she saw her friend shooting up heroin and placed her hand over her elbow
remembering the night before. There was now a huge black, blue, purple, and
brown bruise over the area that the needle had gone through, a painful reminder
of her near death experience.
Faith stood up, unable to watch anymore and walked to the bathroom. ‘I can’t
believe I’m turning into her,’ she thought as she looked at herself in the
mirror. Her eyes were sunken into her face and her skin was a pale pasty white
color, a complete contrast to the way it had looked only a few days ago when she
was out in the sun, slurping up margaritas and daiquiris.
“I have to stop,” Faith told herself as she looked deeper into the mirror.
“I can’t let Darren find out what I’ve done to myself.”
Faith emerged from the bathroom and walked over to her bunk to put on a large
black hoodie. The last thing she wanted Darren to see was her bruise. She walked
back to the couch and lay on his lap again. His fingers ran through her hair as
he continued to watch, not noticing that she had even left for that brief period
of time. By now, the video was almost over. Just before the credits rolled, a
small message came onto the screen.
“Dedicated to the loving memory of Rebecca Granger, June 21, 1983 to November
30, 2001. We will miss you, Faith, Spaz, and Mor.”
“She died?” both Darren and Ben asked when they finished reading the
message. Faith just nodded.
“I’m so sorry,” Darren replied as he scooped her up into his arms and
hugged her.
“How did it happen?” Ben questioned.
“Overdose at a party,” Faith answered as she held onto Darren a little
tighter. She let go and stood up to get rid of any feelings that she might still
have been harboring after the death of her friend. Her hand began to shake as
she started pacing the floor.
Darren stood up and embraced her again as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Are
you okay?” he whispered into her ear.
“I promised myself I’d never cry again. I promised myself that I wouldn’t
watch that video and feel awful about not getting her help. All those promises
down the shit hole the second I see the end of that video,” Faith replied as
she wiped her cheek with her hand and pulled away from him again. “Excuse
me,” she added, walking back to her bunk and closing the curtain.
Darren couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor girl. ‘Losing a friend to a
drug overdose must be harder to live with after doing a documentary like
that,’ he thought.
Ben walked past him with the tape in his hand. He slipped it beneath the curtain
and kept going past the bunks. Darren stayed in the living room wondering how he
could make Faith feel better. He kneeled down at her bunk and gently pushed back
the curtain to reveal her back to him, shuddering as she continued to cry.
“Faith, honey, are you all right?” Darren asked again as his hand gently
rubbed her back.
“Leave me alone, Darren,” she angrily replied, pulling away.
“Don’t shut me out. I don’t like it anymore than you do,” he said.
“Come on, turn around and talk to me.”
“I can’t,” Faith answered. “I don’t want to talk.”
“Then I’ll just wait until you do,” Darren replied, climbing into her bunk
and curling up beside her with his head on her shoulder and his arm around her
waist.
Faith turned around, amazed that he was still there. No other guy she had ever
known was this persistent when it came to talking about her problems. She stared
into his blue eyes and began to smile.
Darren wiped the tears away from her face, noting how her eyes seemed paler than
before, as did her skin. “Are you sick?” he asked, his hand gently pressing
up against her forehead to feel for a temperature. She shook her head. “Why
are you wearing a hoodie?”
“I’m cold,” Faith replied. “I’m always cold.”
“Oh,” he simply said.
“Darren?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
“Can I kiss you?”
The question caught Darren by surprise. He nodded as her lips fell onto his. He
pulled her into his chest, his hands wandering the length of her body as she
filtered hers through his hair. His fingers ran up her arm and wrapped around
her elbow.
Faith could feel the pressure building up against her bruise. When it got to the
point where pain shot up her arm, she wailed, “Owww!” and pulled away from
Darren. He looked at her, puzzled by why she was acting so strange. She held her
arm against her chest as more tears filled her eyes, except this time, they were
tears of genuine pain and discomfort.
“What’s wrong?” Darren immediately asked as he took her arm and pulled up
the sleeve of her hoodie. “Oh, my God!” he hollered, seeing the awful
bruise. “Where did you get that?”
Faith hesitated before she answered, “A pipe fell on my arm as we were
carrying equipment to the truck last night.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about it? It could be broken,” he replied.
“It’s not broken. It’s just badly bruised,” Faith said.
“At least put some ice on it,” Darren replied. “It looks horrible.” He
pulled her out of the bunk and dragged her to the kitchen where Morgan, Spaz,
Ben, Lee, and Karl were gathered around the table talking and laughing.
“Well, Faith is finally up to grace us with her presence,” Spaz said as she
moved over to make room for her on the seat. “How was your little three hour
nap?”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” Faith replied as she held out her arm and waited for
Darren to put ice on it.
“Where did you get that?” Lee asked as he took her arm and examined it.
“A pipe fell on it last night as we were packing up,” she answered as Darren
returned and slipped the ice over the area. She cringed, the cold slicing
through her like a knife.
“Ohh, that must have been painful,” Karl replied as he shuddered.
“It was,” Faith answered. “Just be glad it didn’t happen to you.”
“Oh, it as,” he said. “Twice, actually. The first time was during the
Affirmation Tour, but the pipe hit me in the foot and almost broke a toe. I was
in an air cast for several days. The second time was a few months ago when I was
at home cleaning the basement. Pipe fell right onto my shoulder and nearly
dislocated it. I was in a sling for weeks.”
Faith began to laugh at his stupidity, as did the others. She was glad someone
was trying to be funny. Yet her thoughts kept running back to the tape and
Rebecca. She couldn’t stop thinking about the day her real best friend had
died. It was hard to face even some seven months later, especially with her
birthday only two days before.
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