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Part I Chapter 18

Win had spent the rest of the evening avoiding AJ, hiding in the bus with a book held in front of her face, staring the words but not really seeing them. She felt incredibly stupid. After leaving AJ’s room she ran as far and as fast as she could, away from him. Honesty. That’s what he wanted about everything, honesty. He’d been honest with her, he’d told her about everything that had gone on in his life, but she couldn’t be completely honest with him. He might understand that she’d been homeless, that she was an orphan, that she had no family, friends or money. But there were other things that he just might not understand. She couldn’t risk him finding out, if he did, she might lose him, she might lose the life she had, the life she always wanted and finally had.

The concert went smooth that night and when AJ offered to help Win she told him just to go to his bus. He argued with her but she was adamant that he get some rest. In fact Dennis had spoken to her to convince AJ to get some sleep because he was working too much. He left with a sour glance at her but she breathed a sigh of relief.
Sending AJ away had put an extra burden on her. She had a lot left to put away, but focusing on her work pushed him out of her mind for a while. Jen and the rest of the band crew were behind on their stuff that night as well considering they were down on four members, leaving a grand total of two, Jen and the other manager Steve. Win finally finished all her duties and offered Jen and Steve some help. They agreed and she started by carrying out the guitars to the trucks.
An hour later the last thing to do was put the grand piano in the truck, and that was going to be a task in itself. A special heavy-duty ramp had been constructed so that the piano could be pushed into the truck, but it took at least five people to heave the thing up, of course Win didn’t know this.
Steve, Jen, and Win pushed the piano out of the back venue door and to the foot of the ramp.
“Hey Win, go do a sweep to make sure we didn’t forget anything.” Steve said as he beckoned Jen over to him.
“You two sure you gonna be okay with that thing?” Win asked skeptically.
“Oh yeah, we’ve done this a thousand times before, go on, we’ll be ready go right after this.” Steve replied. Win gave him a sideways glance and returned to the arena to make sure nothing was left behind. It only took her a minute to see that they had everything and went back out to the truck.
She walked over to the side of the ramp, to make she was out of the way and climbed up into the truck to help pull the piano in when she heard the faintest noise. She looked down at the ramp and saw the wood starting to warp under Steve and Jen’s feet. She jumped back down on the ground and looked under the ramp, then realizing the extra support had not been put under it.
“Jen, Steve, the ramp is cracking!” she yelled over their struggling groans. Win climbed back up into the truck and saw the bottom of the ramp falling away. The piano was close enough so she grabbed Steve and Jen’s wrists and yanked, forcing them to let go of the piano and scramble around the sides of the piano and grab the sides of the truck. The piano rolled back and crashed where the rest of the ramp should have been.
“Shit! Now what?” Steve asked.
“We pick up the pieces and get on the bus. There’s nothing we can do now.” Win said jumping down out of the truck and gathering splintered wood. They boxed up the wreckage and the broken ramp, throwing everything into the truck and going to their bus.
“Daemon is going to have a fit!” Steve yelled as they walked.
“Steve, the ramp wasn’t fixed. Who set it up after the show? The extra supports weren’t under there.” Win replied.
“Still, that’s an expensive piano, that was Kevin’s piano, not just any piano.” Jen remarked as they got on the bus.
“Ouch, that’s gonna hurt.” Win replied.
“Well, no sense in crying over a smashed piano, we’ll tell him in the morning.” Jen replied climbing into the bus, Win and Steve following behind her.
Jen and Steve said good night and headed to their bunks, but Win was standing stock-still. Jen and Steve must have been too aggravated to notice, or had become accustomed to his appearance on the bus because they walked right past AJ who was sitting at the kitchen table. She tried to act natural and walked past him saying.
“I thought you were going to sleep on your bus with Kevin, Brian, Nick and Howie?” she asked as she pulled the curtain on her bunk to check on Jack.
“I changed my mind, I decided I wanted to sleep here.” He said as he sat, leaning back on the window of the bus.
“Then you better get some sleep, it’s late.” She replied as she climbed into her bunk and pulled the curtain closed.
The curtain snapped back open a second later and AJ was staring down at her.
“I think we should talk, don’t you?” he asked.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because yesterday you were fine and today you are acting like something’s up.”
“Nothing is up, go to sleep.”
“No, get up, we are going to talk.” He said firmly.
“Fine,” she said getting up and pushing past him to the kitchen. She plopped herself down at the table and laid her hands out in front of her as if she were inspecting them. He sat down across from her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing is wrong.” She replied, still staring at her hands.
“Don’t lie to me.” Once he said that she pulled her hands in her lap and looked at him, leaning back into the seat.
“AJ, I’m starting to care for you, a lot, so much that it’s scaring me. You are such an amazing person. I’m just waiting for the bottom to drop out. It always has.”
“I’m waiting for you to just to say I’m not worth it, I mean, we are so different, I mean just look at you, you’re famous, you’ve got it all figured out. I don’t even know you, and we’re already talking like we’ve been together forever.”
“So you want to give up?” he asked leaning back, surveying her through his sunglasses.
“I don’t want you to get involved with someone you might not want to be with after you find out a few things about me.”
“What are you afraid to tell me?” he asked concerned.
“AJ,” she said looking away from him pained.
“Is it that bad?”
“Yeah, its that bad.”
“What’s it about?”
“Let me just say that you’re addiction to cocaine and alcohol was a mere five minute childhood phase compared to what I did.” She said, still not looking at him.
“You did drugs?”
“That’s an understatement.”
“What did you take?” AJ asked roughly, his throat was dry.
“Pills, valium, ecstasy, weed, adderoll, tranquilizers, anti-depressants, cocaine, smack, angel dust, crack, my drug of choice, heroin.” As the list grew AJ shifted uneasily.
“I spent the first three years out of the orphanage staying as stoned as I could, trying to forget, who I was, and the situation I was in. I finally hit rock bottom when one of the choir singers found me shooting up in the bathroom before practice.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“They offered me help, and I took it. I spent five days locked in that church basement, waiting for the drugs to leave my system.”
“You still hitting it?” he asked.
“No. I stopped that day, and never looked back. It was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever been through. I can’t even think about doing that again. I wasted three entire years of my life, three years that I could have been closer to something besides living in the streets.”
“So that’s what you’ve been afraid to tell me?” he asked.
“Look, if you want to just forget that we were even thinking about getting serious.”
“Did you forget that I went into rehab? Rehab for cocaine and alcohol addiction?”
“No, of course not.”
“How could I be mad at you for something I’m guilty of as well?” he asked. She kept looking out the window and didn’t answer him.
“I thought you’d want someone better than that.” She finally replied. He got up and slid in beside her.
“How long have you been clean?” he asked.
“Almost four years.”
“Then you are better than that. Win, I know how much it hurts. The guilt never goes away. But we can go through it together. But most of all I don’t care what you did, where you came from, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“AJ come on,” she replied, staring out the window.
“Do you want me to break out into ‘As Long As You Love Me’ right now, I know it’s corny, but I’m not above corny.” She laughed, turning to face him.
“Now that’s my girl,” he said hugging her.
“Come on, lets get some sleep.” He said sliding out of the booth. He headed down the aisle to the bunk he slept in when visiting the band bus but Win grabbed his hand.
“Hold on a second.” She took Jack out of her bunk and stowed him in the empty one before crawling into her own.
“Come on.” She waved him in and he grinned as he climbed in beside her.