Our Hands Are Free

Dan poured the bags of mail onto the floor of the bus after we had clarified the system we had for sorting the mail. First we would separate the packages from the regular envelopes, that way it was easiest to navigate about the pile. Then we would organize the letters first, alphabetical by last name. We had piles going for each letter of the last names, and then we would sift through them by person from there. And then we would move on to the packages, adding them to the already existing piles we had created.

We each began our sorting – silently tossing the envelopes into the proper piles. It was painfully silent, but I would much rather it be silent than have Dan interrogate me about the information I had given him.

I spoke too soon.

“Man, it’s so quiet in here,” Dan spoke up with an awkward chuckle.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice quiet. “It’s kind of nice, though. It’s a nice break from the noise behind stage.” I was hoping that he would get the hint and understand that I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t know why I was trying to avoid talking to him so much, but I think that I was slightly embarrassed from my nightmare the other night and having Dan wake me up and talk to him. I told him that I had been the one to kill my fiancé. The father of my child.

“You know,” Dan spoke up, clearly not taking the hint, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said the other night. How you said you were the one who killed Ryker…” his voice became softer at the end of his sentence. “What else happened?”

I bit my lip to try and hold back the whimper that I wanted to release when he said his name. I was picturing him again. But this time I was picturing the way he would smile at me every morning – his emotional eyes greeting me, telling me good morning, every morning we had together. I missed those eyes. “What do you mean?” I finally responded. “I said everything that happened.” I was getting angry now. What else happened? What else was there for me to say? He died. He’s dead. That’s what happened.

“What about your daughter? Where is she?” he asked.

Now that was prying too far. Telling him that she was with my father would give him the opportunity to ask about my family – Dan knew that my relationship with my father was never the best. I used to mention it freely back before everything happened. I remembered telling Dan about how my dad finally started to accept me again because he approved of Ryker and thought that I was finally doing something right by agreeing to marry him. “Dan,” I groaned. “It’s none of your business.”

“Oh,” Dan said, his face shocked as he stopped sorting for a second. “I know, I’m sorry.”

I immediately felt bad for turning him down so harshly. Dan was such a nice guy. He had never done anything wrong to me – he was just trying to talk to me. He was only trying to understand my situation. But that was too close for comfort. Even a nice guy like Dan made me uneasy about sharing my secrets. I didn’t want him to see me differently. He knew the old me – he knew how fun and courageous I used to be. But now I was different, that was clear to anybody who knew me from before. I wasn’t fun, and I sure as hell wasn’t courageous anymore. I was weak and reserved, and I didn’t want Dan to judge me on how much I had changed because of what happened to my life. Not more than he probably already was, at least.

“No, I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head a bit. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just hard for me to talk about.”

Dan nodded as he continued to sort the mail. “I get it,” he said, still nodding. His voice was sad and I knew that he wasn’t saying it to be sarcastic, but rather as if he really did get it. I wanted to snap at him again.

Really? You do get it? You get what it’s like to have the love of your life die from something you did? You know get what it’s like to have your daughter taken from you and given to the one of the many people who despises you? You get it, Dan? I don’t think you do.

Having my own internal monologue helped to ease the tension that I was feeling within my brain. But I couldn’t help but notice how badly my hands were shaking as I sifted through the mail, tossing the envelopes into their rightful piles, but nearly missing because my hands were out of control.

I dropped the papers that were in my hands and stood up quickly. “I need a cigarette,” I said as I tip-toed my way around the piles on the bus floor and headed toward the door. I stepped out, my hand already fishing for my cigarettes before the door could even shut completely behind me. I smacked the box in the palm of my hand for a second before I pulled one out, immediately shoving it between my lips and feeling somewhat of a relief just from the texture of the filter on the end of it.

I lit the end up and exhaled, watching the smoke swirl around. I felt like it had been a long time since I had actually sat by myself and enjoyed a cigarette. The last time I was actually enjoying my cigarette, Vic walked up, and ever since then, I had hardly even been smoking at all. I was still on the same pack from a month ago – that was a huge accomplishment for me. I had always been a smoker, but once I quit drinking, I started smoking more. Killing one bad habit with another.

The cigarette wasn’t taking the edge off like I expected it to, though. I was still shaking as I exhaled, the smoke coming out in uneven streams because of my uneven breathing. Why wasn’t the cigarette working for me anymore? I took another drag, prolonging it until my lungs burned horribly – which had to be a lot since I had been smoking for so many years and my lungs were nearly immune to the burn. I coughed the smoke out, the burn still resonating in my lungs. I felt like I could feel the tar coating my lungs and killing them off a bit quicker. I continued to cough, dropping my cigarette to the ground and stomping it out as I tried to get the burn out from my lungs. My coughs were nasty and I could feel the mucus in my throat – I sounded like a seventy-five year old smoker instead of a twenty-five year old smoker.

“Dang, you okay?”

I looked up just as my coughing was subsiding to see Austin standing there, holding a water bottle out to me with his eyebrows visibly cocked from behind his sunglasses. I took in shocked breath, not expecting to see him there, causing me to choke on the air and the burn to return. The coughing returned and I leaned over, placing my hands on my knees when I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up from coughing so much. My throat was so dry, the friction of my coughing caused me to gag, but nothing came up.

I spit a few times, trying to get the mucus I could feel out of my throat. I reached my left hand out for the water that Austin was offering me, keeping my head down and my right hand still rested on my right knee as I remained hunched over. I pulled my hand away quickly when I could feel the closeness of Austin’s hand.

“What the hell?” Austin asked, a slight chuckle offered to mask the annoyance in his voice.

I motioned to the ground near my foot. “Set it down on the ground,” I managed to say, although my voice was raspy and hardly understandable. He hesitated for a moment, but I saw his shadow move forward and then the water bottle came into view. I reached down and immediately picked it up, pulling it to my lips and allowing the liquid to slide down my throat – the dryness immediately feeling better as I continued to drink the water. I drank about half the bottle before I remembered that it wasn’t even mine. I stopped drinking it and held it out to Austin, balancing the water bottle in the palm of my hand so there was no way he could come in contact with my hand while he grabbed the plastic.

“What’s with your hands?” he asked as he pulled the water bottle away slowly. He stared at my palm for the one second that I had let it remain there, completely visible. I could see his eyebrows furrow and his face looked shocked as he saw the discoloration and welts from my scars.

I quickly rolled my hand into a fist and pulled it up to my chest, covering it with my other hand. I felt violated – my hand was burning was his gaze and the tension was building in my head. That cigarette didn’t do shit, I thought to myself, all that coughing for nothing.

“Nothing,” I muttered, finally answering his question.

“Let me see,” he demanded, holding one of his hands out. I almost laughed at his words and expectations. Why would I just place my hand into his and let him touch it, inspect it, read it.

I chuckled a bit, even though I thought I was going to be able to suppress my laughter.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked, seeming a bit irritated, but also confused. He had a smile pulling at the corners of his lips, though, so I knew that he couldn’t be that bothered by my laughter.

I shook my head so a second and bit my lip as I smiled. “I’m just kind of surprised, is all,” I said. I really couldn’t explain why I thought it was so funny that Austin didn’t know about my hands being a sensitive subject. But then again, I did a great job at hiding it when we having sex. And I did touch his hand when we were in the bathroom, but only to shove it down my pants.

I blushed at my thoughts, suddenly feeling awkward under Austin’s stare. He had seen me so vulnerable and in a state of mind where I was completely beside myself. I didn’t know who I was when I was hooking up with Austin. Maybe that’s what kept me so drawn to him, the fact that I was able to slowly forget who I was and all my fears while we were hooking up. But it wasn’t a good thing. I didn’t like the idea of being someone else – no matter how much I hated the person I was or the things that I had done, I didn’t want to try and be somebody else. I didn’t deserve that luxury.

“I’m surprised,” Austin said. “Why can’t I touch your hand?”

“It’s not just you,” I said, my voice small once again. “I don’t let anybody touch my hands.”

“You let Vic,” he stated, his voice changing. His face was solid, his jaw clenched a bit as if just thinking about Vic made him angry. Or maybe he didn’t like thinking about me with Vic.

I shook my head, already feeling their friendship crumbling because of me. “Don’t be like that,” I said. “Vic’s your friend. Don’t act like his name brings you pain.”

Austin looked away and relaxed his jaw. “It doesn’t,” he said calmly, looking off into the distance. He was acting different, though. Awkward and shifty.

“Oh my god,” I said through a breath.

“What?”

“Are you jealous?” I asked, my eyes staring right at his sunglasses. I couldn’t see through them, but I could tell that he was looking in my direction, just not in my eyes.

He huffed. “No,” he lied.

I chuckled in disbelief. “I told you that this was nothing. I told you that we don’t have a thing, Austin! You don’t like me, and I don’t like you. We just hooked up, that’s it.”

“I know,” Austin sighed. “I never said I liked you,” he spat, his eyes now looking right into mine.

The way he said it did hurt my feelings. Not because I wanted him to like me, but because he said it as if it applied in a different context. As if he didn’t like me as a person in general. “Good,” I breathed out.

We stood there in a dense silence. The fans and music from the stages in the venue could be heard, but even with that noise, things felt so painfully silent. We stared at the floor – him occasionally kicking the dirt beneath us while I continued to clutch my hand to my chest, the burning still there.

“Hey, Sa- Oh, hey Austin,” Dan said as he opened the bus door. “Are you guys okay?” he asked, his voice awkward and careful.

“Yeah, we were just talking,” I said, my eyes fixating on his face, but I just couldn’t read it.

“Oh, alright, just head back in when you’re done, there’s not too much left,” Dan said with a smile.

I turned and grabbed the bus door before he could disappear entirely. He stood there, watching me walk up the steps in confusion. “I’ll just head back in right now,” I said, not even thinking to turn and say bye to Austin.

I heard Austin sigh before he kicked the dirt one more time. He muttered something to himself and then walked away, disappearing in an instant.

“Um, that was awkward,” Dan commented as we made our way back to where we were sitting in front of the pile of mail.

I didn’t want to add any input to his lead-way into asking about what happened with Austin, so I changed the subject. “Wow, you sorted a lot!”

“You were out there for quite a while, actually,” he said with an awkward laugh. “But it’s okay. Any excuse to stay out of the heat, right?”

His face lit up as he spoke – his smile never fading even as he reached for the last bit of mail to sort.

We didn’t say anything for a long while and went back to sorting the mail in silence. I don’t know what it was, but I felt a little more at ease with Dan. I appreciated that he was looking out for me and trying to get me to open up, and opening up to him bit by bit was starting to help alleviate the bloating of thoughts from my mind. I just hoped that the questions I knew he wasn’t asking weren’t taking up space in his own mind – I’m sure Dan had his own things to worry about; he didn’t need to be trying to figure my life out.

The rest of the sorting only took an hour at the most, and then it was time to deliver all the mail. Our timing worked out perfectly, actually. We parted our ways for delivery right when the venue closed, so more of the bands would be back on their buses or somewhere around the parking lot where we could find them.

I only had two more stacks of mail to deliver – the first stack was to a solo acoustic artists that I had never met before. He was clearly stoned when he answered my knocking on the door to his bus, immediately inviting me in and offering me something to take the edge off. Apparently he could see that I was tense, but I assumed it was because of the way my hand shook as I held out his stack of mail.

The last stack was fairly large. So big that it was place in its own ziplock baggy. Usually while on the road the artists only got a few letters a week, but this stack was much larger than I was used to. I held up the ziplock bag, hoping that Dan had written a name on the outside of it, but there was nothing, and all of the envelopes looked as if they were strategically placed so I wouldn’t be able to see any names from the outside. I cursed Dan for making things more complicated for me as I opened up the bag and reached inside to pull out an envelope.

I groaned as I read the name. Vic Fuentes. I felt as if Dan had done this on purpose – like he was forcing me to go see Vic, but then again, Dan didn’t know that Vic and I were…whatever we were. Complicated. I headed toward the bus after contemplating just making Dan deliver it, but I didn’t want to make Dan even more suspicious, especially if he was trying to get me to go to Vic’s bus – he had to have some sort of clue as to what was going on.

I knocked on the bus door, feeling nervous and scared as I heard the music turn down and the voices silence for a moment. The bus door swung open, and I really hoped that it was someone else answering, so I could just hand them the bag and tell them to give it to Vic, but of course I wasn’t that lucky. Vic was standing there, a red cup in his hands, his eyes slightly red and glossed over. He was definitely intoxicated.

“Samia!” Vic exclaimed. “I’m so glad you’re here, I need to talk to you about something.”

“Actually, I’m just here to deliver your mail. I need to head back-“

“No,” Vic said softly, interrupting me. “I need to talk to you about something.” His voice dropped and his tone was gentle. He reached out with his free hand and gently touched my shoulder, leading me over so we were standing in front of the bus, a few feet away from the steps that lead to the door. He stood in front of me, probably so I couldn’t just try and turn around and walk away – which I was already thinking about.

Vic set down the cup he was holding before he lifted his snapback with his left hand and ran his right hand through his hair. He placed his hat back on his head and adjusted his hair around it, staring at his faint reflection in the bus to make sure his hair was placed just how he wanted it. I felt my heartbeat accelerate when he turned to flash me a large smile.

“Okay, so what is it?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. I wanted to be more open to talking with Vic, but I was so indecisive when it came to what I wanted to do – did I want to listen to the way my heart was beating when Vic smiled at me, kissed me, or held my hand? Or did I want to listen to the way my mind was panicking when he mentioned us trying to take things to the next level?

“I, uh, heard a rumor that you and Austin Carlile know each other,” he said, his voice unwavering. He sounded so confident in his words, the only reason he stuttered was because he didn’t know how to word what he was hinting at. But I knew exactly what he was hinting at.

“Yeah, I told you,” I said, trying to refer back to my previous lie about how I had met him from working behind the Skullcandy stage that his band was playing at.

“Remember that thing I said before? At the hotel room?” Vic asked, his eyes staring right into mine. “I’ll give you a minute to either tell me the truth or try to come up with a better lie.”

Vic had told me that he knew exactly when I was lying at the hotel room, and I thought that maybe it was just because in that moment my lie was horrible. This lie, however, was believable. But he still saw right through me. He still knew that I was lying. How could he tell? Why was he was only one who could see through my lies? I shook my head, not wanting to think about it anymore. I didn’t want to tell him the truth, but I also didn’t want to lie to him anymore.

“Who told you?” I managed to say. It was the only way I could give him the truth – by indirectly confirming this ‘rumor’ he had heard.

Vic sighed and shook his head, turning to look behind him for a moment as an irritated laugh escaped his lips. “It’s not a matter of who told me, it’s a matter of why you didn’t tell me.”

“What do you expect me to say? I don’t have to tell you who I spend my time with or what I do when I’m with that person. I’m not your girlfriend!” I didn’t expect myself to get so angry, but here I was, raising my voice and waving my arms around as I yelled at Vic. I knew that I had no right to be angry, and sure, my words held some sort of reasoning behind them, but I was mostly demonstrating a nasty defense mechanism of mine, where I yelled and tried to hurt the other person so they would just drop it. But this time, it wasn’t working.

“I don’t care! Girlfriend or not, we’re still friends. I consider you a best friend, like we agreed on back when we made that pinky promise. But apparently promises mean nothing to you.”

I closed my eyes, my breathing escalating rapidly as his words rung in my head.

Promises mean nothing to you.

“I feel like you don’t trust me. Is there something you have against me?” Vic asked, breaking the long silence that had overcome us as I was lost in my thoughts, repeating the words that Vic had said to me.

I shook my head. “No,” I said, as if it was the stupidest thing he could have asked. I clearly didn’t have anything against him. He was the only person I allowed to hold my hand – I thought he realized how much that meant to me. How huge that was for me.

“I’m starting to think you do. You say that you trust me, but it seems to me that you trust everybody except me,” he ranted.

“What are you talking about?” I nearly shouted. “What makes you think that I trust so many people? You know that’s not true!”

“Do I really know?” he challenged. “You’ve opened up to Alex, Dan, Mike, and even Austin! But not me.”

I scoffed. “I did not open up to Austin.”

“Well you sure as hell opened up your legs to him,” Vic retorted, his eyes burning right into mine.

I immediately felt my eyes sting with tears at his words. Without any hesitation, I lifted my right hand, pulled it back, and launched my palm right at Vic’s left cheek – slapping him hard right across the face. The sound was so loud that it echoed through the parking lot.

Vic’s head turned to the side at the impact of my slap. He ended up falling to his knees – a combination of the alcohol in his system and the slap causing him to lose his balance. He clutched his left cheek with both of his hands, a groan escaping from his lips.

I was so hurt that I was furious. Out of all people that I knew, I never expected Vic to say anything like that to me – to judge me like that.

“Samia…” Vic whimpered, his tone suddenly a lot calmer as if I had literally knocked some sense into him. “I didn’t-“

“No, Vic,” I spat, interrupting him. “Fuck you! Fuck you for judging me like that. You want me to open up to you? You want me to trust you? Yeah, forget it. You find out one thing about me and you say that to me! This is why I don’t trust people. I finally think that I’ve found someone to accept me, someone that I truly care about. Someone that I can have a connection with since my fiancé fucking died, and this is the shit that happens. This is why I don’t trust people – especially you. Fuck you! Fuck you. Fuck you!”

I was glad that my vision was blurred by tears because I knew that Vic was looking at me with so much pain and sorrow. And I knew that his face twisted in confusion when I mentioned Ryker. He didn’t know that about me, and I didn’t mean to say it to make him feel that shitty for what he’d done. I didn’t want him to pity me, but it just came out. I actually felt connected to Vic. I trusted him. But I should have known better. I should have known not to trust anyone.

“If you’re judging me for fucking Austin, then I can’t even imagine how you would react to the rest of my life,” I managed to say. “Stay the fuck away from me. I can’t believe you.”

I walked around him, the tears falling from my eyes the second I started to walk. I heard him calling out to me, saying he was sorry, but I ignored him the best that I could.

I picked up my speed, weaving in and out of the buses from memory to try and get back to my bus as fast as I possibly could. All I wanted to do was take a long shower, eat something, and go to bed and cry.

I was about a bus away from my destination when I collided into a tall, lanky figure. The man’s arms wrapped around me, catching me as my knees buckled from the impact. I wiped my eyes and looked up Mike looking down at me. His face worried and confused.

“Sam? What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice worried.

I pushed myself away from him. I didn’t want anything to do with anybody in that moment.

“Woah,” Mike said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to grab onto you like that, I know how you don’t like-“

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not why. Sorry, I just…” I shook my head again and continued walking forward so I could just get my bus.

I was about two yards away when my knees buckled again, but this time it wasn’t from running into anybody. It was from the sobs that had hit my body – taking all of my energy away from my walking and channeling it into my crying. I couldn’t control the way I fell to my knees. I held one hand out to try and catch myself from the fall, but a rock ended up stabbing its way into my right palm. I retracted my hand, crying out in pain as the scar tissue on my hand was ripped open from the jagged edge. My body plummeted into the ground, my forehead scraping against the dirt.

“Shit, Samia!” Mike cursed, running to my side. “Jesus, are you alright?”

“No,” I cried, my voice cracking from another sob that rang through my body. “I’m nowhere near.”

“Let me see your hand,” he demanded. “It’s bleeding.”

“No! No,” I panicked, holding my hand against my chest. I could feel the blood soaking through my shirt, but I didn’t mind.

“Wait, look at me,” he said, turning my head before I could even look at him. He lifted me so I was laying in his lap, my head resting on his thigh. “You scraped your forehead.”

“Oh no,” I groaned. The last thing I needed was a visible scratch. How would I explain that? Oh yeah, I fell. No, I wasn’t drunk. No, I didn’t trip. I was crying so hard that I couldn’t support my own weight anymore.

“What’s going on? Woah, Sam?” It was Dan. Fucking perfect.

“She tripped and hit her head,” Mike said. “And her hand is bleeding, too.”

“Come on, bring her inside,” Dan instructed.

Mike looked at me for a moment, as if to ask if it was okay if he brought me onto the bus. I nodded and lifted my head so he could put his arm beneath me to carry me.

“Don’t worry, Sam, you’re going to be okay,” Dan said as Mike carried me past him.

I shook my head. “No, I’m not.”

Notes

Hey guys! Man, it's been a while, hasn't it? I hope this update helped to make up for how long it's been since I've updated.

Let me know what you think about this chapter. What is going to happen next? Things are kind of all over the place for Samia right now, aren't they?

Thank you all for reading! muahhh

xoxoxo