Ryan’s Old Senses Fail CD

Cleaning out his old bedroom to make room for the new baby Ryan loads up a cardboard box with the last of his old CDs still surviving from high school and in these few minutes he has to himself with Whitney vacuuming the living room downstairs he turns a few of the scratched jewel cases this way and that to get a look at the long lost album art that he once as a sad fifteen year-old stared at in this room while his mind raced with all kinds of crazy thoughts and fantasies about the hot girls from school he wanted so bad to fuck and to love and to be with forever which of course now as a thirty-one-year-old man with a new wife downstairs and a new baby coming in less than five months it’s silly to even think about those girls like Lisa C. who was so hot back in Nelson’s class in eleventh grade with that stomach that was as flat and tight as the skin of a snare drum and just thinking that name brings the memory of that time after x-c practice in the summer before senior year when it was almost a hundred out and Lisa C. took off her running tank and leaned against her old shitty Toyota in just those tiny shorts and a sports bra and jesus christ this is not the time to be thinking about this stuff because a Lisa C. boner at 10:36 on a Sunday morning is the last goddamn thing he needs so he laughs to himself and tries to put these thoughts out of his mind because they’re pointless to even think about now and the only reason they’re even in his head is because he’s here in his old bedroom cleaning out his old shit to make room for the baby that will be here in five months so to kill his boner he thinks about his parents and those things his dad had said to him in the driveway last year when they officially handed him the keys to this house that was his childhood home but is now the home where he will build his new family with Whitney and the new baby and in thinking this he remembers his dad standing in the driveway and looking at him gravely and saying it’s about what they need now not what you need son while his dad’s hand weighed heavy and hot on his shoulder and the other hand dropped the keys into his palm and with that same palm he now picks up the next CD from the pile and it looks like it’s the first album from Senses Fail but he can’t really remember for sure because it’s got to be at least ten years since he’s thought a single thought about Senses Fail which is kind of sad because at one point they were his favorite band in the world and this album in particular he remembers very well because of how cool he used to think the album art was with the guy in the business suit in the bathroom and his hand is on the mirror and in the mirror’s reflection is another version of the same guy in the business suit but in that world he’s in the middle of a forest that’s on fire and man that art was so fucking cool back in the day even if it seems a little silly and immature now but in thinking about all of this his Lisa C. boner has finally disappeared so Ryan seizes this opportunity and drops the Senses Fail CD into his box and he picks up the box and goes downstairs and tells Whitney that this is everything from his room worth selling and he holds the box in front of his crotch in case a stray image of Lisa C. comes back to him while staring at his wife who even at her best years ago without the pregnancy was no Lisa C. by any means but in thinking this he feels another boner quickly coming on so he smiles internally at his forethought of holding the box the way he is and then he tells Whitney that he is going to take these old CDs to that used record shop up in Barrier to see if he can get even five or ten cents for some of them which would be better than just throwing them away because every tiny bit helps no matter how small like she always says and before she can answer he starts walking out the door and he tells her he loves her even though in that moment he’s really just thinking about pulling the 2004 version of Lisa C. into the backseat of her Toyota on that hundred degree day after x-c practice and as he walks to his car he thinks that there really isn’t anything bad about doing both of those things at the same time because it’s not like he’s really cheating on Whitney by thinking about the 2004 version of Lisa C. because that version of that hot girl doesn’t exist anymore except in his mind and even if he is thinking about her while saying I Love You to his wife it doesn’t mean the I Love You he just said is false because he really does love Whitney more than anyone else on earth including Lisa C. who is probably sad and chubby now with two or three obnoxious rugrats of her own scampering around her house and with this thought Ryan climbs into his 2007 Honda and heaves the box of his old CDs onto the passenger seat and he closes the door and opens the jewel case of the old Senses Fail CD and then he slips the CD into the stereo and pulls out of his driveway and turns onto Grove Street and makes his way toward the highway and the used record shop while the guitars crunch and the drums slam and the whole thing in general rocks harder than he remembers it doing so back in 2004 but then the singer starts to sing in his wailing whiny voice and it all comes back to Ryan in an instant and suddenly it makes perfect sense that the fifteen-year-old version of him loved this band because it’s just punk enough to be cool and just metal enough to be more dangerous than the shitty classic rock and radio pop his parents and sister used to listen to when he was growing up but at the same time it’s sad and whiney and emo to the core just like he used to be back then with his faux cool exterior of black band shirts and ripped up Converse masking the quiet shy loser on the inside who so desperately wanted to date and fuck all those hot girls like Lisa C. but who at the same time was too afraid to even talk to any of those girls let alone ask them out because even at seventeen he was still so scared of talking to girls and of getting in trouble with his parents or with the school and because of that he didn’t do a single thing wrong for any of those four years of high school not one drop of booze not one puff of a cigarette or a joint or anything like that none of it nothing his mom didn’t want except for the one relationship he had for a few months right at the beginning of his sophomore year that he fell into bass ackwards because Molly had asked him out and had happened to be above the minimum required threshold of hotness for him to say yes to so he had but now Molly slips from his mind as he drives straight past the turnoff for the highway that leads to the record shop and instead he keeps going out toward the backroads where the x-c team used to run during practice back in the day because why the hell not if he’s thinking about this shit now and listening to the same shit he was back then why shouldn’t he drive around these same roads and actually enjoy his past for a few minutes before he has to return to the real world of his wife and baby that will be here in less than five months which if he’s being honest for once and he stops pretending to be the good loving mature husband that he suddenly had to transform into at the drop of a hat last year he’s not at all looking forward to these five months being up because jesus christ what the hell has he even done with his life for it to be ending like this so soon it’s not like he spent his whole childhood dreaming of being a father or anything like that hell no that was the last goddamn thing on his mind as evidenced by the way he had to hold this goddamn box in front of his dick to hide his Lisa C. boner from his wife while walking out the door but of course he can never tell Whitney about that christ no god forbid he actually tries to be honest with her about what he’s thinking but that’s the classic fatal flaw of all relationships isn’t it because how many times has she told him that all she wants is for him to open up to her and to communicate more with her and to share his feelings with her but if he ever did that he already knows what would happen because she’s done it before calling him a pig and a rat and a snake and a prick like she did that day a few years ago right after they’d fucked for the first time and she told him that the only thing she had ever dreamed about was of being a mother and of bringing new life into the world and from there she had talked and talked and talked about how she had known that that was all she’d ever wanted to do with her life ever since she was five years old and then she asked him if he had ever felt that there was only one thing he was meant to do with his life and him still being a little drunk and stupid said that the only thing he’d ever wanted to do was that last thing we just did and speaking of that last thing I think it’s time for a round two and then he rolled on top of her with a big grin thinking he was being funny and clever but instead she kneed him in the balls and threw him off and called him all those things like pig and rat and snake and prick which was bullshit because he was pretty sure she had enjoyed what they had just done and how long after that had it been before she started talking to him again it had to have been at least a month or maybe even longer but who cares now it doesn’t matter anymore because it’s not like she’s going anywhere with his baby on the way and her having just quit her pharmacy job at CVS but honestly he wouldn’t want that anyway because he really does love her more than anything on earth even if she’s awful and awkward in bed and nowhere near as hot as the 2004 version of Lisa C. because either way Whitney is right when she says that there’s so much more to life than just that and yes he bitched about her before but in reality he really does love her and can talk to her about most things with no problem and they have fun every now and then and when he thinks about it from this so-called mature perspective of love there really isn’t much more he can ask for from a wife and he is beyond lucky to have her so with this thought he takes the left at the crossing just before Miller’s Farm and makes a quick u-turn and heads back for the highway because he’s already wasted enough time as it is by now and there can’t be many songs left on the Senses Fail CD and minutes later he merges onto the highway where somewhere very far in the distance the gray road converges with the gray sky and looking there he feels a little bit better about the coming baby and now the Senses Fail singer screams something Ryan can’t understand but he feels the passion behind the scream and thanks to this passion something clicks in his head and he suddenly loves the band again just like he used to years ago and by the time he exits the highway and turns into the used record shop’s parking lot ten minutes later he’s singing and screaming along with the singer whose words are coming back to him a bit and looking at the stereo he sees that the CD is on song 13 which might be the last one so he pulls into a parking space in front of the used record shop and he sits with the car running and the music still going and while the guitars roar and the drums blast the singer screams about burning out instead of fading away and hearing this Ryan feels alone and alive and content with his life and with what’s to come and then the song ends and the stereo says 1 and his ears ring a bit and he ejects the CD and puts it back in its jewel case and is about to drop it into the box but then at the last moment he changes his mind and slips the case into the little empty compartment underneath the arm rest in the center column and with this small piece of himself tucked away in a safe place he picks up the box and opens the door and starts walking across the parking lot with a wide smile on his face because it feels great to finally get rid of all this shit he’s been carrying around since high school.