“Yeah. Well, that’s people, Whitman. You can’t cut everyone out of your life. You’ve still gotta interact, and so you have to get to the point where you can look at relationships and not be so scared they’re gonna kill you. That’s your Theo, right—is he a healthy choice or an unhealthy choice? That’s all you can ask.”
I dropped my forehead down to the bar top.
“Fuuuuuck.”
“Christ, kid, get your fucking face off there, it’s not that clean.”
Huey grabbed a bar mop and wiped at the wood between us.
“What if—” I shook my head.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
Huey snapped the towel at me and glared.
“Talk.”
The bar top was polished and shiny and it reminded me of the night I took Theo to The Firefly Club. I traced the whorls in the wood and watched the ghost of my face reflected in the sheen.
“I don’t— He probably doesn’t want me anymore, anyway,” I muttered. “I’m no fuckin’ prize, man.”
Huey’s expression was fierce, but he wasn’t a bullshitter. “Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he does. You won’t know if you don’t try.” I slumped in the stool. “And, Whitman.”
“Huh.”
“If you’re looking for a prize, you ain’t lookin’ for love. Love isn’t a reward. It’s not something you deserve or don’t deserve.”
“Oh, yeah, so what is it then?”
Huey’s face was set, but his eyes were distant.
“Fuck if I know,” he said. “But I sure as hell know what it isn’t.”
Chapter 13
Theo
TWO MONTHS LATER
We were in London, at the Towson Arena, and the crowd was electric. We’d been on the first leg of our tour for the new album for the past three weeks, and we had one week to go. I’d been insistent that I would only tour for a month at a time and then needed down time. Standing my ground had seemed impossible before, at the thought that I was messing things up for the rest of the band, or coming off like a diva. But I gritted my teeth and held in my mind how absolutely wrecked I’d felt at the end of our last tour, and I stuck to my guns. Everyone went with it eventually, and somehow, I didn’t care as much anymore.
Our third album was selling, the singles were charting, and I felt better in concert than ever. Somehow, the new songs lent themselves perfectly to being performed live, and every night, I sank into the music like I could catch lightning in my outstretched hand and wield it like a whip onstage.
I stalked and slunk, claiming the stage and letting the audience see it all. As Coco ripped into a solo, I dropped to my knees next to her like a penitent, striking the stage with my fist in rhythm. She bent down over me and I leaned back on my knees, and we were echoes moving sinuously with the music.
The crowd roared as she finished her solo, and I sang the chorus from my knees, arm outstretched to the writhing blackness.
The life I might’ve had
Still seeps into my dreams.
The shadow of a different one
Is all I’ve ever been.
It echoes through the empty house,
I ran so far away.
You raised me like a pet
But I’ve always been a stray.
They sang along, thousands of voices echoing my own words back to me. As I reached out at the hands open for me, a man caught my eye. He was thin and vulpine, wearing ripped jeans and a Metadeath T-shirt, a cocky smile curling his mouth. I made eye contact long enough to communicate a promise, and he nodded once.
After our encore, dripping with sweat, high on adrenaline, and buzzing from the music, I plucked him from the small crowd waiting for us backstage and fucked him against the counter in my dressing room, his hands and his release leaving smears on the mirror.
This was how it had been. A parade of men who, for just a few minutes, gave me something to hold onto. Gave me someplace to land, ferried me back to reality after I had lost myself, escaped into the magic of performing.
But after, when they left with a smile, or a kiss, a pout or a middle finger, it was just me, alone, without even the music. Until the next night, when I did it all again.
* * *
—
The car dropped me in front of my building, and my relief at being home flooded through me. I had two weeks before we went on the next leg of the tour, and I wanted to relax, catch up on sleep, and work on some new songs.
A strange thing had happened, the last week of the tour. We were in Germany and Austria, and Coco, Ven, and Ethan had gone out to clubs every night after our shows. I went with them the first night in Berlin, was pretty sure there was something in my drink besides vodka because I felt wasted after about five sips, and got a cab back to the hotel. For the next week, after we played, I went back to my room and wrote. It started as a stream-of-consciousness dump, just trying to empty my mind of some shit so I could sleep, because I was so wired.