Random Acts of Trust by Julia Kent Page A

weren’t sure what to say
     
The night you found me, wandering and lost
Naked by the side of the road
My guitar shattered, my body bereft
You fought everything you were told
     
    And the chorus:
When a naked soul finds you
You don’t have a choice
You have to stop and pause
You can turn away and never look back
     
     
But it will yank you back, because
Random acts of crazy draw you in
Random acts of kindness draw you in
Random acts of love draw you in
    I went into the zone, which wasn’t hard, all you had to do was stick me on a seat in front of a drum set and leave me alone. I wondered how Trevor let those words out on stage. I was good with words in a debate and on paper for a class. But when I had something real to say—when someone looked me in the eye and expected the truth from me about how I felt? I might as well be translating to Aramaic, or Quechua after a single weekend with a Rosetta Stone DVD.
    We’d practiced the new song plenty of times, enough for me to drift on autopilot through the zone; my mind stayed with Amy. Amy’s skin had burned a brand into mine and I could feel the heat, the want, and I could feel her ‘yes.’ Maybe that ‘yes’ was what it took to find the words, to write a song about someone. Maybe the lyrics and the music together formed something powerful enough to express all these feelings that bottled up and created a pressure inside.
    Had Darla been Trevor’s revelation? Was there a moment when he touched her, when he looked at her, the first time they made love? I didn’t know. No one had ever made me feel like that. At least, not until this moment.
    Four and a half years of stupidity flowed over me. I couldn’t look at Amy. I’d squandered so much. Was there any chance I could get it back? Give it back to her?
    Normally, when I was in the zone, the song took over and all linear thought disappeared; I became part of everything in the room. Hell, in the world. With Amy on my mind, though, I couldn’t. My hands were the same, the sticks were the same, all the music, the beats, the measures, the same.
    I was changed. She had changed me.
    Amy’s acceptance of my kiss, my touch, my desire, made it so that the zone wasn’t enough anymore. As the song wound down without my ever becoming truly consumed by the music, I realized that I never would again. The only place where I would find that peace and that part of me was in Amy.
Amy
    As the words came out:
When a naked soul finds you
You don’t have a choice
You have to stop and pause
You can turn away and never look back
     
     
But it will yank you back, because
Random acts of crazy draw you in
Random acts of kindness draw you in
Random acts of love draw you in
    ...I wondered about the story here and now I wanted to go and grab Darla—and not by the hair like I’d wanted to earlier—and ask her what had happened. She was with Trevor and Joe? H ow -? What-? Who-? Something about Trevor being naked by the side of the road, and she found him, in the middle of Ohio? This was getting a little too surreal.
    Sam seemed different onstage. Distracted. As he played the song his body was like a powerful drug—I could watch him all night. His knees bounced up, thick thighs pressed against faded denim, and he rotated at the waist to hit all the notes in prefect syncopation. Sweat formed at the edges of his hair and his eyes were half-lidded as he moved, a kinetic force of heat, light, and domination. He owned those drums. The way he touched the sticks, the way he moved so fluidly, knowing exactly what to do next, was the most arousing and sensual thing I had ever seen.
    I wondered what it was like to go to a place inside yourself, where your mind and your body knew exactly what to do, and how to do it. Isn’t that what I’d always read that making love is supposed to be? A sensuality between two people where everything else melts away, there is no past or future, and all that exists in that moment is the two of you. No wall between you.