I’ll Wait For You

“Maybe we should share our stories now, to even the score.” His voice came out gruff, as if he had a cold.

One by one, the others exchanged their tales.

Isaac Barnes started with his. “I lost my dad when I was eight to a car accident. My mother didn’t take to it well, especially when I started looking like my dad. She became depressed and didn’t want to do anything in her life. I eventually resorted to drug-dealing and playing music, brought into the lifestyle by my older brother. Getting out of the drug dealing world when my music finally started getting somewhere meant being beaten up, with a threat to never share the details with the police. I don’t speak to my mom anymore. I don’t know if she’s alive.”

The tale, squeezed out in a low, trembling voice, made Elinor’s heart pang in sympathy, and she had the sinking feeling that the stories were only going to get worse from here. This delicate faced, handsome individual who could have easily made it into the acting industry if he ever pursued it, had instead lived in a depressed household, and a world dominated by violence, fear, and drugs, with music as his only salvation. Music for him obviously meant the world, the same as her words once did.

Music for everyone here likely meant the world. Could she really fit in here?

Darren Loveless, the frontman of the group with his electric guitar, dark eyes and a square-jawed face, told of his, being placed in foster care, and diving in and out of abusive foster carers, some who molested him, others who only wanted to look after him for the extra benefits it provided, and not because they cared about him. Loveless echoed a grim prophecy for this child, but the big break for him came in the form of a passionate musical teacher who saw him take an interest in the guitar. So much interest that the teacher had actually bought the young Darren a brand new guitar for his birthday, and let the youth come over to his home to practice in the garage.

Darren ended up being there so much that he eventually had a bed placed in the garage, and insulation added to keep him warm at night, because he often plucked his fingers bloody playing. The teacher had passed away four years ago, but his legacy remained in the form of Darren, who honored him at every moment he had. Elinor saw the thirty-six-year-old in a new light, saw past his masked exterior to someone who had endured much, but loved the ones who loved him.

Not so Loveless in the end.

Freya Eriksson, the tall red-head, had been introduced to piano from the age of three and played it for long hours. She came from a strict musical family that hated virtually all forms of music, unless they were classical and not corrupted by modern times. She also had an uncle that ra*ed her. Her mind’s defense was to fragment, and she had been formally diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder at the age of sixteen, and ended up contained in an asylum for eight months, until her DID was declared under control. It brought shame onto her family, however, and she missed the boat when it came to the grade exams, as she lost desire to play for a few years after.

“I play again of course, and I decided to try a different instrument, because it always sounded sad and beautiful to me. I’m not as good with the violin as I am with the piano, but I’m progressing.”

“Do you still have that DID thing?” Elinor stared at Freya, genuinely puzzled. Freya did not seem unbalanced, or mad.

“Yes. I can have lapses when something triggers a flashback, and I slip into one of the personalities I formed. But, normally, I can see the personalities. Like, I’m the tree, the core. And the branches of the different personalities grow out of my core. When it was bad, my, uh, personalities were not aware of one another. The only time it worked was when I was the core.”

“So you just… drifted through your teenage years as different people?” Elinor strove to understand.

Freya scratched at her nose, red hair tumbling as it became released from her hands. “I created them. To defend my core. Because dealing with what was happening to me was too hard, and drove me close to suicide. They only found out about the uncle when I was rushed to hospital from trying to slit my wrists.”

She said this so casually that Elinor leaned backwards, regarding the tall pianist. “Doesn’t sound so fun.”

“It wasn’t. But you can say that my attempt to end my life worked, as my new one started after I left the hospital bed.”

At this, Elinor smiled. She didn’t know how to react to these heavy, grave stories, if she even could react, since sympathy would not be enough to deal with it, and she sensed they neither desired or cared for sympathy. They wanted understanding for who they were today.

Not victims anymore, but people in control of their fates.

Oscar Ackles, the bass guitarist who had exchanged the least words out of all the group, recounted his tale as bare-bones.

“Drunk mother. Abusive father. Dead sister. Died in crib. Cot death. Parents blamed me. Father lost job. Mother got throat cancer. Father tried murder suicide. Was barely alive when paramedics came. Died on operating table, came back. When I went to school, teacher recommended I try an instrument. Picked bass guitar on a whim. Everyone wanted popular instruments. I wanted to be different, because I was different. Got good. Sung a bit. Now, I’m here.”

“Dear Oscar,” Freya said, reaching over to pat his knee. “Always the most eloquent of us. You’d never think he was a singer from the way he talks.”

“Back-up singer,” he corrected. He flexed his stocky shoulders, and yawned. “No regrets. Happy where I am.”

“I don’t know,” Elinor said, having been on the edge of her seat to listen to what had caused Oscar to die for fifteen seconds. “He does hit all the points. I don’t think he needs to describe any more than that.”

“Exactly.” Oscar flickered her the ghost of a smile.

Last to share their tale of misery and woe was Arina Sastran, the tiny blonde with the agate hard dark eyes. “I was an accident child. My mother didn’t want me, though my father did, even though he didn’t intend it at first either. They broke up about two years after I was born, and I lived with my mother until I was about twelve. She told me my dad was abusive, an alcoholic, he mistreated her, was a monster. She told me how no one loved me, how she didn’t love me, but she kept me anyway because someone had to mother me. She let her brother abuse me.”

Arina took a deep breath, blinked for a second, and continued, “She drank and did drugs, and we’d often have no food in the fridge. She hit me if I did something bad, and when I told her about the abuse, she dismissed it, so I thought it was normal. My dad turned up out of the blue one day, when I was eleven. She screamed at him to not come in, but he kept asking to see his daughter, and when he saw the squalor we lived in, he pressed charges, and eventually gained full custody over me.”

Elinor steeled herself, worried sick that the father would turn out to be a worse individual than Arina’s scumbag of a mother.

“My dad was nothing like what my mother said. He worked in the military, and was strict but fair. He’d tried contacting me for ages, sending me presents and letters, but my mother ripped up every letter and sent back every gift. She lied to me about my dad. It took me a while to realize he wasn’t the despicable being she had described. He noticed I had a powerful voice, and hired a singing tutor for me. He is one of the best people I know. And I refuse to talk to my mother, though she is the one who now sends gifts and letters.”