Truth

I’d think of the way she’d always pushed me to be a better version of myself. The way she’d pick me up and dust me off when I’d had enough of my shitty childhood. Even if she wasn’t alive right now, I still couldn’t let her down.

Nana was my saving grace when I was a child. Basically, from day one, she was the only one who cared for me. After my mom fucked up so many times and left me in a house alone for days on end, Nana swooped in and saved the day. She was always there to feed me, bathe me, make sure that I wasn’t buried underneath the shit show that my mom’s druggie life entailed. The good thing about my mom never being home when I was younger was that I was truly better off alone. I lived for the days that she’d go on a bender and leave me, because that meant Nana would come stay with me.

I always felt guilty when I thought about the day my mom passed. Shouldn’t there be some moral obligation to be upset when your parents died? I didn’t know my father, so that didn’t count, but I did know my mom, and when she was found dead in an ally with a needle hanging out of her arm, the only thing I felt was relief. Did that make me a terrible person? Maybe. But her being gone meant that I got to live with Nana permanently.

She took care of me, built me into the person I was today. I couldn’t let her down.

That was why I had one tiny little strand of me who wanted to evolve, who was trying to move past the last several months and the constant reminders of all the shit gone wrong, but sometimes, I was afraid it wasn’t enough.

Brooklyn’s soft laugh had me raising my head. She was quite the little ray of sunshine here lately. And to think, it only took a week for her to sweep everyone on the bus off their feet. She wasn’t a joy to me—of course not—but to Jackson and Finn, and even Rod. God, she even had my bodyguards salivating at the mouth. Brooklyn continued to ignore me as much as I ignored her, except for when she’d ask if I’d done my homework yet—which only pissed me off further. But with everyone else, she was the life of the fucking party. Everyone wanted to be around her. The tour bus had never been so… happy. She got into a routine with my friends, my bandmates, playing card games at night, popping their damn Pop-Tarts in the morning, hysterically laughing when Finn and Jackson would joke with each other because, honestly, no one but me in the trio had seemed to mature past the age of sixteen. She still slept on the couch, a fact that I couldn’t ignore when I got up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, and saw her tiny frame curled in a ball with a blanket draped over her.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Jackson whispered as he slid into the booth beside me. I jerked my head over to him and shrugged.

“I get it. It’s hard not to look.” Jackson’s eyes went right to Brooklyn, who I, too, was staring at.

I tried to play it off, even internally. “What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, King.” Then he leaned his head down to mine even closer. “She’s not just hot, she’s like… the girl next door or something.” I fidgeted in my seat, swallowing thick spit. “Like, look at that hair. Can you just picture it all splayed out beneath you? And those eyes…” I finally tuned out Jackson and his annoying-as-fuck whispering self.

But I couldn’t tune out her laugh. It was soft and gentle, genuine. Almost beautiful. I hated to admit it, but she was beautiful, in her own way. It was a silent beauty, something that couldn’t go unnoticed but didn’t smack you right in the face at first. I’d spent the last several days observing, even when I knew I shouldn’t. Brooklyn never went out of her way to get attention or to look like something she wasn’t. She wore simple shoes paired with girly dresses, and she never spent much time on her hair or makeup. She was carefree and sweet.

Except with me. She often gave me dirty looks and long stares full of heated anger.

Jackson swore under his breath, his eyes trained on Brooklyn. “If I could just have a small taste of he—"

I shot up out of the booth, causing the spoon to go flying off the table, the noise causing everyone to look over at me, even Brooklyn with those bright eyes.

I pushed Jackson out of the booth, ready to retreat to the back room to hopefully get my shit together.

I heard Brooklyn before shutting the door. “I guess that means he still hasn’t done his homework.”

Then Finn said, “Just give him time, sweetheart. He’s not the only one who needs this to work out. We need him back to the way he was before…”

And just like that, anger warped into a nasty pile of guilt, and it was pouring onto me from all angles. I was letting everyone down. Not just Nana… but everyone.

???

Another show down, another sleepless night in front of me. You’d think after being up on stage for God knows how many hours, singing my heart out (which took much more effort now that I was certain I didn’t even have a heart), that I’d be dead to the world for at least fifteen hours. That’s how it used to be. Back when I was first starting this musician gig, I’d be permanently exhausted, and after a show, I’d crash on any flat surface possible and not wake up until we were in the next city.

We’d usually drive through the night and I’d wake up in a completely different state, somewhat rested for my next show. But I couldn’t sleep anymore. I couldn’t do much of anything anymore, if I was being truthful.

I almost snagged a bottle of liquor on the way out of the dressing room, leaving both of my bandmates behind to “celebrate” another show, just so it’d help me sleep… but I didn’t. I didn’t want to fall down that rabbit hole again. The last time I drank, I ended up puking on my fans.

Partying together after a show was the norm for us back before everything in my life spiraled out of control. We’d all be on this sort of high after a show, feeling as if we were on top of the world. We’d hang out backstage in one of our dressing rooms—which were excessively large—and chill with all the “groupies” as we liked to call them. Then, I met Angelina, and I stopped doing all of that. I’d usually retreat back to the tour bus, call her, and we’d talk for a little while before I’d pass the fuck out.

How did everything get so out of order?

How did I end up here? Alone. On the tour bus. Trying to write a fucking song.

I kept staring at the spoon. The stupid spoon.

I could hear Brooklyn through the bedroom door, talking to someone quietly. This was the second show she’d been at, and neither time did she stay behind to drink and party with Finn and Jackson—no matter how many times they begged her.

Especially Jackson.

He was my best friend before we even came close to hitting the Billboards, and I loved him like a brother, just as I did with Finn, but he was driving me up a fucking wall.

He’d flirt with Brooklyn any chance he got, then he’d swing his eyes over to me to see if I was watching, like I was on Brooklyn patrol or some shit.