when all else fails (i'll be here) | part two

[whisperdlullaby]

spring 2008

I knew I was a joke to Alex; some kid in an emo band who used to wear vests made of roses and would paint makeup on his face. I could see it every time he looked at me, mouth pulled thin but eyes laughing, like he was recalling a joke once told to him. He probably was. I could imagine what him and his friends said behind closed doors, with their long hair and eccentric clothes that hung off their too-thin bodies.

I didn’t let it stop me though. I was desperate for his approval, acceptance that I didn’t understand. I felt like I was in high school again, that awkward, gangly freshman thirsty for someone to notice me.

At first, Brendon didn’t mind him; agreeing when I made offhand comments (“He’s really talented. I was listening to some songs he wrote.” “Did you know he was in Donnie Darko?”), and even inviting him up on stage during the end of one of our sets. But, then he’d watch with his eyes in thin slits as I came out of his dressing room, or left his bus late at night, my own red and blown-out, the feeling of snot running down my face.

It was a sunny, May afternoon, the busses parked like checker-pieces next to a large, open field a few blocks down from our next venue. Alex and I were the only ones on my bus, the sounds of laughter and acoustic guitars trickling in through the open window from where we sat in the back lounge. By then I was still unsure as to whether I had his full approval or not, whether the small twinkle of laughter in his eyes were just my imagination, but it was often that we’d sneak away to do lines in hotel suits, dressing rooms or even washrooms at bars. Up until then I had been doing coke recreationally, at parties with friends, hidden from the eyes of my bandmates, but with Alex around, it was becoming increasingly more.

In New York, three days earlier, Alex had fucked me in a grimy bar bathroom, the remnants of coke still on the toilet lid. I figured it had to count for something.

When Brendon came into the lounge, jeans rolled past his calves and t-shirt hooked through a belt loop, his eyes fell on Alex’s hand on my thigh, the lines of coke spread out on the table in front of us. There was a moment where we only stared at each other, Brendon frozen in the doorway and me on the couch, caught in what I had been doing so well at hiding. If Alex hadn’t known what Brendon and I were already, he did then.

For a moment, I waited for him to yell at me, to take the small fold-up table layered with coke and fling it across the room. But instead, he took one last look at me, eyes like glass, and left as suddenly as he appeared.

Three lines later, the expression of his heart breaking across his face stayed with me, frozen in ice.

*

fall 2008

Brendon glared at me, face stony and eyes flaring with anger, worry, disgust - maybe some pity. With a flat voice, he said, “You said you stopped.”

My eyes dropped to where his hands had fallen to his sides, fingers digging violently into the plastic. I licked my lips, searching for an excuse, any way to get out of this unscathed. I brought my gaze back to his, to his flushed cheeks and furrowed eyebrows, and thought that it might not be possible, after all. “Some guy offered me some at the bar last night. I was drunk and feeling a little down. It’s not a big deal, I haven’t even touched it.” I shrugged, eyes darting from Brendon’s, to the baggy, and back up again. I wasn’t lying, not technically. I did get it from a guy at the bar, and I hadn’t touched it - not yet. But, it wasn’t the first purchase I’d made since Spencer, Brendon, Jon and Keltie had sat me down for an interrogation a couple months back, and I promised to stop. I’d bought a few actually - apparently I had just done a better job at hiding it. “Plus, what are you even doing searching through my shit?” I demanded, a poor attempt to turn the tables onto him.

He wouldn’t have it though, because no matter how sneaky I thought I was, Brendon knew all my tricks like his own. “If you’re ‘feeling down,’ then talk to me. Talk to Spencer or Jon. Fuck, talk to Keltie even.” He crumpled the bag in his hand, teeth baring in disgust. “Don’t try to mask it with this shit.”

My eyes slipped to the floor, and I mumbled, “Just because you choose not to do it, doesn’t mean I can’t. I like it, and I know what I’m doing. I am an adult, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Brendon exhaled, shakily, clenching and unclenching the bag in his fist, once, twice, three times. His voice dropped as he said, “Maybe it’s all great now, but in a few months - years - down the road…” He trailed off, scared to speak the words, scared it’ll make them true.

I shrugged, not meeting his gaze. I’d heard it countless times before; from Keltie, from Brendon, from a lot of people, but what did they know? They were basing it off of people who didn’t know what the hell they were doing, how to limit themselves. I did, and so did my friends. I could stop, if I really wanted to, but at that moment, I didn’t. It was fun, a rush. It offered me a kind of happiness that I’d never found anywhere else. I wished they’d all stop looking at me like I was collapsed on the dirty concrete of a back alley, needle sticking from my arm.

“I know,” I said, the lie falling out from my mouth like warm butter. “I’ve stopped. It was just a stupid mistake.” I forced my eyes to meet Brendon’s, keeping a steady gaze on his. I could feel my heart pound against my ribcage, the thump-de-thump in my ears as Brendon searched my eyes, hesitant to believe me.

Exhaling once more, long and defeated, Brendon threaded his hands through his hair as he said, “Do you promise me?”

“I promise.” I nodded, adding yet another promise to a long string that I could never keep.

He took a step forward, tongue darting across full lips. A hand circled around my wrist, and he looked up at me through round, doe eyes. Even now, even through it all, they left me woozy in the head, weak in the knees. “I’m just worried,” he said in a whisper. Sliding his hand down, he intertwined our fingers together and pressed our bodies closer. “I’ve just - I’ve heard so many stories. I don’t want that to happen to you.” He looked down, and murmured, voice scratchy, as if sticking to the walls of his throat, “You’ve changed already. And I just - I’m scared that - I don’t want to lose you.”

“Hey,” I said, softly, nudging his chin up. I felt something I no longer was aware I had, soften inside my chest. He looked up at me, worry and uncertainty flashing through his eyes. “You won’t, okay? I’m right here.”

Darting his gaze away, he tucked his bottom lip between his teeth, his hand hanging limply from mine.

“I promise,” I vowed once more, waiting for the words to catch and pull him back.

He looked up, fingers digging into mine, and slowly, he smiled.

*

We could still hear them, the voices and laughter sharp as they slid underneath the doorway. If I listened close enough, I could hear Keltie as her and Cassie laughed on one of the beds, coolers in their hands. I didn’t know if she saw as we slipped into the bathroom, but no matter how far I dug, I couldn’t find a part of me that cared. Brendon was between me and the counter, my hands clinging to his waist as his own fell to his sides, straight as arrows.

Over the course of the past few weeks, something had changed. Instead of circling around me, like the earth to the sun, Brendon shied away from me. He kissed me, but it was like he wasn’t there.

Our roles had switched. I was now the one pulling, grasping for something tangible between us. Underneath my hands in that hotel washroom, I could feel him slipping away; vanishing, as if into thin air. I was afraid that if I took my eyes off of him for too long, he would be gone entirely.

I couldn’t lose him. He was the one person I needed, the one solid foundation out of them all; even Spencer had given up on me. Brendon was my one ray of hope, shredding a sliver of light onto my path as I fell to the bottom.

I kissed him, tongue pushing into his mouth, and while he kissed me back, the air between us was dead; what was once electricity was now only a tiny shock, barely noticeable upon touch. I was desperate. I had to bring him back to me. Clutching onto his hip, fingers digging into the bone, I nudged my nose against his, foreheads brushing. I closed my eyes, breathed through my mouth and into his, and murmured, quiet as the night, “I love you.”

I waited for him to fall into me; kiss me, tell me he loved me too, for everything to go back to how it once was. But that’s not what happened. Instead, he slipped from under me, backing away as if burnt, eyes flashing with something hard and unforgiving.

I looked back at him, helpless. Raw and vulnerable, turned inside out for him to see. I had let myself out for him, let him see everything, and he no longer wanted it.

He shook his head, the sharpness in his eyes now suddenly dim, a sadness to them. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted for you to say that,” he finally said, voice rough and strained, like it had been grated with sandpaper. It wasn’t in the way I’d hope he’d say it, throwing his arms around my neck and kissing my face. “Out of all the ways I imagined this, never did it involve you high on fucking coke and your girlfriend just outside the door.”

I said nothing, caught and confused, and he shook his head, spitting. “You think I can’t taste it on you? See it in your eyes? I’m not fucking stupid, Ryan. I’m not this naïve, little child you seem to think I am. You think I don’t know that you’ve been lying to me? All you’ve ever done is fucking lie to me!”

Not knowing what else to do, I stared back at him, lost. Over the years I could count the number of times he had gotten mad at me, stood up to me. When I could see the struggle on his face while he tried not to cave under my touch, my look. Even after he walked in on Alex and I in the lounge, he was distant at first, shrugged off my touch, but it didn’t last for long. It never did.

The thing was, I knew how easy it was to mould him into my hand. It was okay if I did this or did that, because all I had to do was kiss his neck in a certain place, or press my finger to his wrist and it was like nothing had ever happened. It was never right, and certainly not healthy, but I was like a child. You let me get away with it for so long, giving me excuses and sweeping it underneath the rug, I forgot how it was really supposed to be.

Brendon blinked at me, arms wrapped around his chest like a blanket. He suddenly looked so small; but I felt smaller. “I don’t even know who you are anymore. It’s like I look at you now - ” He stopped short, shaking his head. With his hand on the doorway, his head tilted down towards the tile, he swallowed.

My mind was still lost, floating somewhere above us, unwanted and battered with the ‘I love you.’ All Brendon had ever wanted was to hear those words from me, those three stupid words. I’d see it in his eyes, or the way he’d scratch at my skin like he was trying to claw something out of me, and I had finally given it to him. It wasn’t wrapped in a pretty bow or presented under a tree filled with lights, but I meant it. I meant it, and he just threw it back at me, shredded up an torn up like trash.

“I can’t - ” He looked at me, eyes catching briefly. I clutched onto the counter behind me, eyes drifting to the shower curtain, the line of seashells that decorated the trim. “I can’t do this anymore, Ryan.”

He had said it before; when I met Keltie. Alex. Coke. He said it, but he never meant it, and I always knew he didn’t. But there’s something different this time, quieter, like it held something instead of just a hollow case. This time, when he said it, it scared me.

Without looking up, I heard the door click open, the noise from the others outside filtering in. I watched his feet, frozen in the doorway, as if waiting for me to argue with him, prove him wrong, beg him to stay, but I had already given him everything that I could.

Without another word, he left.

summer 2011

On my birthday, I expect a voicemail from Brendon.

Whether I admit it or not, it’s the one thing I’ve looked forward, the one push I need.

The past two years since the split, Brendon has called when he’s sure no one would pick up - late at night, early in the morning - and sung ‘Happy Birthday’ through the phone, soft and morose. Every year, I’ve come home the morning after my birthday, sat on my couch and listened to it on repeat until the words become no more than a jumbled mess of hums and syllables.

The thing is, this year, I wait five days after my birthday, ignoring the phone every time it rings, until I realize it’s not coming.

*

When Keltie flies down to Los Angeles for a dance show, she agrees to meet up with me. She’s not Brendon, but she’s something, at least.

The entire ride down Highway 1, I plan ways to win her back. I figure it can’t be too hard; say some sorry’s, I love you’s. I’ll quit drugs, drinking. We’ll get married just like she always wanted, raise a family in Vermont.

She’s not Brendon, but I can pretend. I’ve become a master at doing just that.

By the time I reach downtown, the mountain that bears the Hollywood sign barely visible beneath grey clouds, I realize this wasn’t such a good idea, after all. I had spent so long avoiding my past, scared to see how far down the path I’d really fallen, and here I was facing it head on.

When I pull up to the small café, I’m already considering turning around and driving back home. Instead, I pull into the back corner of the parking lot, quiet except for a pair of crows that sit above me on the telephone wire. I pull a small vial from my pocket, and snort up the remainder. It was full when I left.

By the time I make it to the front door, my sleeves are worn and stretched past the tips of my fingers from where I’ve been tugging. I’m worried that the marks will burn through the fabric, showing what I’m not proud of. Show her where exactly I’ve come. How desperate I am for some taste of normal, no matter how miniscule.

She’s sitting at a table, delicate fingers wrapped around a large, red mug. Another sits in front of the empty seat across from her, small and black. She looks up at the sound of the bell, chiming above my head as I enter. She doesn’t smile.

She looks even more stunning than I remember, with golden waves and features so smooth it was like they had been gone over and perfected with a blending stick. I could almost smell her from here, spicy and sweet; cinnamon and the changing leaves in autumn. I’m reminded of what it’s like to look at her, and know what I’m supposed to feel, but can’t.

As I approach, my eyes catch a bright gleam on her finger, a small band that holds to it. She motions to the seat across from her, the light that reflects from the gold dances across the air. “Sit. I got you coffee. Black, like you like it.”

I sit, unable to pull my eyes from her finger. She’s engaged. Married, maybe. Like Brendon, I always expected her to be there, waiting by the phone, curled up in a bunk. She was someone else’s, and who was I?

“You look like shit,” she observes.

I ignore her, and say, “Who is he?”

She looks own, as if only recalling it’s existence now. “Oh,” she says, easy, “his name’s Jason.” She says no more on it, flicking her eyes across me instead. “You’re too skinny,” she states, vigilantly.

I shrug, tugging on my sleeves. She’s right, after all. Clothes that used to fit me, that clung tight to my skin, now hang in loose sheets like ghosts.

We make small talk. She asks me how I’ve been, and I lie; I ask her how she’s been, and she smiles, telling me the story of Jason and the gold band on her finger, a promise I could never make but she always hoped that I would. She tells me about him with wild, expressive eyes, and a smile that she can’t seem to fight off her face, nor does she want to. I force a smile and nod along, pretending I’m happy for her. She doesn’t have to tell me he’s everything she was desperately searching for in me, but could never find.

When she finishes, she looks over me, the same contemplative expression on her face that she used to give me, as if trying to bore herself into my head and attempt to decode my thoughts. She never managed to, of course; I couldn’t even figure them out myself. “Have you seen him lately?”

I freeze, feeling my skin turn a sickly yellow as I turn away from her gaze. “Who?”

She looks at me, blank, like I know exactly who. I do, but I wish I didn’t. I wait a moment, then slowly shake my head.

“How long?”

The words are heavy and sharp in my throat, and when I finally force them up, they come out in no more than a light whisper. “Awhile.”

We’re quiet for a moment, and I can feel her eyes on me, pitying. I turn my head away further, focusing on a painting of the ocean, the waves tumbling and crashing against a dark sky. “Why do you do this to yourself?”

Running my lips along my cracked lips, dry like sand, I say, “He’s happier now.”

“I bet he’s not.”

I turn back to look at her, my dead eyes to hers, so alive. “Why are you doing this?” I counter, voice still quiet, barely recognizable over the angry whirring of the blenders and Elton John flowing melodically from the speakers above. “Why would you - why - ” I shake my head, lost. Confused as to how this is the same Keltie sitting across from me, suggesting what would have once caused her to cry the makeup off her face.

“Because, Ryan, I want you to be happy. You don’t deserve this. You need to stop punishing yourself. I’ve come a long way from being hurt and angry.”

No, I want to say, I don’t deserve this. I’m always getting what I don’t deserve. People that love me. People that let me walk all over them, one that’s are still there, crawling for me while wounded and broken. I hurt her, just like I’ve hurt everyone that’s ever loved me. Maybe I didn’t love her the way I was supposed to, but I loved her. I loved her and I hurt her. And now she’s here, staring back at me with pity thick in her eyes, wishing I was happy when she should be watching with delight as I crash to the bottom.

“You should call him.”

I shake my head. I let him go. It was the one promise I was able to keep, the one I’ll take to my grave. There are no more calls on my birthday. No more hearing his laughter, rich, getting underneath my skin and washing through me in warm waves. No more beauty marks on right ribs. Freckles to trace with my tongue. Someone to cling onto me no matter how hard I try to push them down. There’s no more, but that’s okay. He deserves better than someone with track marks on their arm, bones sticking out of their nearly transparent skin.

“He’d forgive you, you know,” she says.

He would, and that’s the problem.

She sighs, shaking her head, her blonde hair rolling across her tanned shoulders. “Ryan - come on. Stop doing this. Everyone’s accepted it, so why can’t you? Why do you have it stuck in your head that it’s so awful to - ”

“Don’t say it,” I interrupt her, feeling the blood rush to my face and nausea curl in my gut.

She looks at me, thin lips drawn together in a line. I hate the look in her eyes, the disappointment, the solace, the look that she feels she owes me something. She doesn’t. Finally, in nothing more than a whisper, she says, “He loves you.” She wait’s a beat, and I stare down at the untouched cup of coffee, heart reverberating in my cheeks. “And you love him. Why is that so wrong?”

I can’t handle this anymore; it was stupid idea to come. I stand up so suddenly that the chair nearly goes flying out from beneath me, screeching murderously against the floor. “I gotta go,” I mumble. She protests, calling my name, but I ignore her, walking briskly towards the door with shaking legs. I don’t know why I expected this to go any differently.

I can hear her high heels clicking behind me, calling my name frantically, but I keep my eyes forward, attempting to sort my thoughts enough to remember how to walk. She catches up to me by the time I reach my car, yanking the keys from my hand as I fumble to get it into the lock.

“Ryan, stop it!” she demands, shrill, eyes livid and shocking against her pale hair. All I have to do is look at her, the charm bracelet dangling from her thin wrist, her pencil skirt clinging to her spider legs, and her eyes, wide and terrified, and I begin to cry.

I turn from her, falling back against my car and slowly begin to sink down towards the concrete. I’m still shaking, and when I pull my legs to my chest, my knees knock against my teeth. It feels like everything is slipping away from me. It’s that despair, but it feels so big, so huge, that not even some white powder can try to cover up, sweep underneath the rug like dirt and hope no one notices. I’ve always known there’s something not right, but this feels like too much. For once, I want to be able to look at her, have her beneath my fingers, and want her to be there.

“God, Ryan, why are you doing this?” Her momentary anger is gone, the desperation back as she kneels on the ground beside me, knees scraping against the gravel. Her voice is higher this time, more scared, like she doesn’t know whether to run in the opposite direction or try to glue me back together. She spent two years trying to do just that, watching as the cracks only became deeper underneath her slender hands.

Her arms wrap around my shoulders, pulling me into her as she presses her head against mine. Her scent is stronger now, and through my tears and hiccups, I can smell the rich scent of cinnamon and her fruity shampoo she buys in cases. “I just want to understand,” she murmurs into my ear.

But that’s the thing, everyone always wanted to understand. Why I said this, or why I felt this, did this, but I didn’t even understand myself, so how could they? I couldn’t understand that no matter how much I loved Brendon, there was still some mornings I’d wake up with such shame that I could barely get out of bed. That sometimes he’d touch me, and all I’d feel was disgust. That I had to fuck girls, and hurt him, because I felt that it made up for it. That I’d get so irritated, so angry, that he’d still love me, even after all I did. I couldn’t understand why I could never feel for Keltie, for Z, or even Jac, the way I felt for him, like I could breathe him in, claw myself underneath his skin and stay there. I couldn’t understand why my father, the teachers at school, the fucking priest, were still haunting my thoughts, holding me down in chains underwater.

“So do I.”

She sighs, quiet and desolate, her warm breath trickling down my neck. The sky above us is dark, a thick layer of clouds blanketing the sky and trapping the sun out. There’s always clouds now, hanging above me, miserable and unrelenting. I can’t remember the last time I could feel the sunlight, the rays soak into my skin.

A couple passes by, but they don’t see us where we’re sitting on the ground, hidden between two cars. I try not to think about how I’m on the verge of a breakdown in the middle of a parking lot in L.A., my ex-girlfriend next to me, telling me I should be with the man I cheated on her with for the entire course of our relationship. I don’t need to feel more pathetic than I already do.

Without much of a second thought, I turn my head, and before Keltie has a chance to reply I press my mouth against hers. She still tastes the same, like her blueberry lipgloss and sugared coffee. For a moment, she kisses me back, and I don’t know why I’m surprised by this. Her and Brendon, they always kiss me back.

I pull back, my eyelids still drawn and head down. I can hear her steady breathing, feel it as it brushes against my cheek. Swallowing, I mutter in anguish, “Why can’t I feel anything?” I push my palm into my face, choking back the tears threatening to resurface. “Fuck. Why - ” I shake my head, feeling ashamed as a small whispers escapes from my throat and into the air.

She tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, her perfectly painted nails against my skull. “It’s okay,” she whispers, dropping her head against my shoulder, soft hair tickling my nose. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

I shake my head, because it’s not. The last time it was there were oceans and blue skies and trees in bloom as the highway rolled beneath us.

“Everything will be all right,” she says after a few minutes, and maybe, I’d believe her if I could tell from her voice that she did too.

spring 2009

It took a month after Valentines Day for Keltie to finally answer my phone calls. I expected her to yell at me, to shoot the same malicious words and insults at me like she had done that last time we spoke, like Brendon had done. She didn’t though, instead she sat silent and reserved on the other line, and I was surprised when she agreed to meet up with me the following week when I flew in to New York to visit Alex.

We met at Central Park, and when I arrived, she was already there and sitting on the bench across from the duck pond. A bright, yellow umbrella was clutched in her hand, shielding her from the rain.

I said hi, sat down next to her, no umbrella of my own. I was already wet from the walk over, raindrops sliding down my face like cold tears. She didn’t return the greeting, or offer me shelter underneath her umbrella.

The pond was deserted, the ducks taking their own form of shelter, except for a single one that floated along the edge. We both watched it, silent. Finally, she began to speak, but as soon as the words came out of her mouth, I wished she hadn’t. “You love him.”

I shook my head, went to protest, to lie, but she cut me off. “You love Brendon, and not me. You always have, and I’ve always known but wished I hadn’t.” Stopping, she tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, pondering what to say next. She kept her eyes straight ahead, expression lifeless, as if she couldn’t see me sitting right next to her. I was transparent. “I thought that maybe I could change you, that eventually you’d love me. That you could look at me the way you looked at him.” Sighing, she shakes her head, light rouge brushed softly across her high cheekbones. “Now I know it was selfish of me. It was stupid. Useless.” She spits out the last word, it slipping like venom between her painted on lips.

The text hadn’t even been from him. It was from this girl, Kate, who I foolishly slept with at a party or three. I had no reason for it. I was high and drunk and horny, and she was there, willing. She wasn’t Brendon, and neither was she Keltie. She wasn’t expecting anything; no ‘I love you’s written out in roses, no promises I couldn’t keep, no lie telling her she was the only one. Or, maybe she did, but I didn’t care enough to notice. But, I had known, even through the distance on the telephone line, that this wouldn’t be about her.

“I don’t - ”

“Stop lying to me, Ryan,” she said, sharp, even, and I snapped my mouth shut. “I’m so sick of you always lying. To me, to everyone. To yourself. How does it feel to constantly be living a lie?”

I couldn’t tell her. I had been doing it for so long now that I couldn’t even remember what the truth felt like it anymore, or if it even existed.

“You love him,” she said once more, and I wished she’d stop. “I’d tell myself that you guys were just close friends. You had been through a lot, so of course you guys could relate in ways that most people couldn’t. I told myself that the way you looked and talked about each other was just friendship. Love you’d have for a friend.” She paused, as if giving her words a moment to sink into my skin along with the rain. “I told myself the way Brendon always stayed one step back from me, and spoke to me like it was a chore was only my imagination. My insecurities and paranoia. Or the way that he’d look at us together.” She shook her head, her blonde hair wound in loose waves, cascaded down her raincoat. “God, even the way you looked at me. You always seemed somewhere else, always a few inches from my grasp even if you were right there.” Her knuckles were white from where she was grasping onto the umbrella, eyes still blank as she stared across the water, the bare branches on the trees rustling in the wind. “It was stupid. So fucking stupid. It was just me living in a fairytale again, thinking I could heal the wounded prince and then everything would be perfect with time. I should’ve known Brendon had been trying the exact same thing all along.”

While the rain was only a light drizzle now, I was soaked. My clothes clung heavy to my body, the cold rain seeping to the bones, like it was there to stay.

“I’m done pretending,” she said, quiet. “And so should you.”

Without another word, she stood up. I looked up at her, silent, as hers watched mine vacuously. “Bye, Ryan.”

“Bye,” I said, the words barely making it from my mouth. There was too much I wanted to say, words that I had left, but I wasn’t sure where to find them. I wished I could’ve begged her to stay, asked her not to give up on me, not yet, that I could still be her prince, but the thing that had once been second nature to me suddenly seemed like the impossible.

Alone on the bench, I watched as she walked away down the empty path, yellow umbrella coating her like armour.

The rain began to pick up, but I stayed, watching as the lone duck floated mercilessly across the water, as if searching for something he’d never find.

*

By the time we reached Africa, the tension between us was too thick and too intrusive, impossible to ignore or turn an eye on. There was a clear divider between us all, separate sides of a war zone. Brendon had barely spoken to me since that night in the hotel washroom, but those three words hung between us, sounding like a bad reminder whenever our eyes met.

As I expected, it didn’t take long before he wound up in my bed, tangled in the sheets, chest rising and falling ceremoniously against mine. It was not the first time we’ve fucked when angry, or hurt, when I pushed in a bit harder and his nails dug into my flesh a bit deeper, but it was never like this. There was a space between us now, even from where we were connected. It was empty; a distance that couldn’t be measured with a ruler or map. It was desperation, the final attempt to claw something back that was already long gone.

Brendon changed without a word, pushing his hands through his tousled hair and blinking rapidly, as if it would erase what had just happened. I pulled the blankets tighter against my body, all bones and skin and tainted blood, and tried not to think of the baggy of powder sitting on the bottom of my suitcase. Four hours after landing, I had already found a supplier.

His shoulders were sagging now, as if competing with his feet. His clothes were on, but instead of leaving, he stayed with his eyes tilted towards the cream tiled floor. “Why are you doing this?” he asked, quietly, a noticeable shake slipping in between words.

He lifted his eyes to look at me, but I turned away before they could reach mine, hands picking at the soft cotton. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Maybe I would. If you’d let me. Let me understand. But you don’t - you don’t - ” He stopped and shook his head, Adam’s Apple bobbing as he swallowed back the tears.

“I like it,” I replied, evenly, trying not to let my emotions seep through and show. The last time I had done that, put myself out for Brendon to take, he threw them back at me. There was nothing left now. “You have no idea what it’s like to live your whole life feeling like you’re never good enough, and this one thing, this one, little thing can make that all change. At least for awhile.”

Brendon stared at me, the air thickening between us, suffocating. When I turned to look at him, he was biting onto his bottom lip, tears welling in his eyes. So quiet, it was barely a whisper, he said, “Not even me.” It wasn’t a question, and the statement hit me in the ribcage, puncturing the bone.

I looked at him, and said nothing.

It might’ve been true, but not in the way Brendon was thinking. The things I felt when he kissed me or told me I was perfect, that I was more talented than I’d ever comprehend, or the way he believed in me more than anyone else ever had, was something that coke couldn’t compare to. But the thing was, I wasn’t good enough for that. I didn’t deserve everything he poured into me so easily. He deserved much more; someone who could give the same back, that would be able to tell him how much they loved him, at all times, not in a hotel bathroom while their girlfriend laughed outside. He didn’t deserve to be someone’s secret, something to be ashamed of. He deserved to be paraded around, put on a pedestal for everyone to see. He deserved everything that I couldn’t give to him.

He wrapped his arm around his chest, head falling as if there was no longer any support to hold it up. He sniffed, and looked away so I didn’t have to see the single tear that escaped. Closing my eyes, I tried to remember what it felt like to be anything other than this.

“Okay, then,” he said, but it was barely there. “Right.” He stopped, as if waiting for me to tell him that what he was thinking was wrong, that he could make me feel more than some silly drug ever could.

I didn’t.

The sound of the door slamming, the noises he made as he tried to choke back the tears, echoed for hours, through the coke and the comforters that I buried myself inside; the ones that smelt like him.

If only he knew he was more than I could ever hope for it to be.

*

Sitting on the couch, Spencer and Brendon stood before me, eyes red and expressions stony. Jon was behind them, looking vaguely uncomfortable with his head down and hands shoved in pockets. I stared up at them, wishing I had snorted a quick line while I still had the chance.

Spencer said, “Ryan, you have a problem.”

I blinked. Thought, here we go again.

“I mean it. Do you think we’re stupid? Do you think we can’t see you? How you’ve changed?” Spencer demanded, eyes flashing with anger. Disgust, maybe. It was no question who’s idea this had been.

Brendon bit onto his lip, and said nothing. He couldn’t even look at me anymore.

Jon kicked at the ground, tangled curls falling in front of his eyes.

“You need help,” Spencer said, stony and serious.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I laughed, but it sounded scratchy, faded like an old record. “I don’t have a problem,” I said, but even then, I was beginning to feel the doubt. It wasn’t like it used to be, when I could go a few days without feeling much but the want to feel good again. Now it was the burning in my veins, as if my blood was poisoned, the tainting in my vision, the crawling under my skin if I waited longer than a few hours without a line or three. I couldn’t even really hide it anymore, nor did I care to. It didn’t matter, anyway. “I know what I’m doing, and in case you need reminding, this is my life, and what I do is not up to you. I’m sick of letting you guys make me feel bad, treating me like I’m some child.” Even as the words came from my mouth, they felt foreign, not like my own.

Brendon turned around, back to me, palms tucked under his armpits. A small, choked noise slipped from inside his throat, and I watched as his back shook underneath his too small t-shirt. Something subtle tugged at the bottom of my gut, but I pushed it away. I had been trying too hard not to let Africa and the day I let him walk out of my life, flood back to me in fractured images.

“It may be your life, but we can’t sit around and watch you destroy it anymore,” Spencer replied, solemnly. “This has been going on for over a year now, and we can’t do it any longer.” He paused, and looked me straight in the eye. This wasn’t the same Spencer that I had approached in his yard, with the Spiderman shirt and grass-stained knees, asking if I could play soccer with him. This wasn’t the same Spencer that took me in when no one else would. Or, maybe it was. Maybe I was the one that was no longer in the memories. “It’s either you get help or it’s over. We’re done.”

Jon didn’t say a word. Instead, he only stood there, head to the ground like if he stared at it long enough it might open up and swallow him whole. He was anything but an angel himself; sure, he might not have taken it as far as me, but he had done his share of partying and drugs. During our Rockband tour, there had been plenty of times when we were in the backroom writing songs, and had occasionally indulged in a line or two. And yet, there he was, joining in on Spencer and Brendon’s own little version of Intervention.

“Ryan,” Spencer said again, sharp. “I mean it. It’s either us or the coke.”

Maybe this was Spencer, but this wasn’t me. I wasn’t that kid, naïve and unmindful to my own mother leaving me or my dad drinking himself into oblivion. The kid that believed in his band more than he believed in himself. I was somebody else now, my life had split awhile ago, pulling me in two separate directions. That kid, he got lost somewhere along the way, and it was time everyone brought in the Missing posters and carried on with their lives.

Brendon was still turned away, face in his hands, while Spencer stood beside him, motionless. His eyes said the same thing Brendon’s did, pleading me to tell him differently, to stop him from letting this happen. I looked at him, and knew it was time for them to let go. That if they couldn’t do it, I would do it for them.

Picking myself up off the couch, I looked at Spencer, and then Jon, trying to push away the sound of Brendon’s stuttered breath. I looked at Spencer, holding his gaze for what seemed like the last time, and then turned, disappearing out the front door.

fall 2011

Alex says, “I’m sorry, Ry, but I just don’t think it’s going to work anymore.”

He says, “I don’t know what’s happened to you.”

He looks down at my arm, as if he can see what’s hidden beneath the knitted cotton of my t-shirt. There’s a needle on my table, a spoon next to it.

I say nothing, and Alex says, “You’ve taken it too far.”

I stare at the needle, the ceramic pot, the trash that layers my house. I haven’t been outside in days. My mirror in my bathroom is in shards all over the floor from where I had thrown the radio into it. I couldn’t look at myself; the marks on my face from where I had been picking at it because I couldn’t stand the sight staring back anymore.

And now there’s Alex, standing before me, with his stupid, greasy hair and his chapped lips, looking at me in the same way he had back so many years ago. I’m a joke, and I always have been. Except, I’m not that kid trying too hard anymore, I’m the kid that went too far. I’m that kid that sticks needles into his arm, trying to feel something that is no longer there.

Alex was supposed to be the one, solid foundation in my world of cracks, and now I don’t even have that anymore. He’s leaving me, just like everyone else.

Hand on the door, he says, “You need help, man,” and then he’s gone.

*

I don’t know what I’m looking for when I decide to head to the basement, but when I see them sitting there, eyes glazed over and needles hanging from their veins, I figure this must be it.

The disgust burning inside is stronger than it’s ever been. I’m the guy that breaks down in parking lots, can’t even feel cocaine anymore, and got told he was pathetic by a man who locks himself in his basement for days because he thinks the FBI are after him. I already look like a heroin addict, with track marks and scabs on my face, I figure I might as well be one. At least they look happier with the drug running through their veins than I can remember being in a long time.

There’s still music flooding in from upstairs, causing the ceiling to vibrate above us. Taking one look at me in the doorway, a longing expression on my face, a guy with frizzy, red hair that I had seen around at parties like this but never spoke to, outstretches his hand towards me. In his palm there’s a needle, brown liquid floating inside. I’ve never spoke to him, but I know that he’s a dealer, and I know why he’s offering it to me for free. It’s the same reason dealers will show up at high school parties and give desperate teenagers a taste of cocaine along with his number. So they get hooked, crave it, and come to him for more.

I see the trap right in front of me, waving like a red flag, but I go right for it, anyway. What does it matter anymore? Alex is gone, Jon is gone, Spencer. Brendon. My mother, father. It doesn’t matter what detours I take along the way, it all leads to the same destination. I might as well take in some scenery along the way.

As I tighten the thick band around my bicep, I try to block out the thoughts that if I wasn’t heading towards the very bottom before, I certainly was now. How I keep making stupid mistake after stupid mistake, until one day I won’t even have the choice to make another. I don’t think about any of it, all I care about is feeling like they do; like they can breath, to feel things like no one else ever has.

It hits me before I’ve properly removed the needle from my arm, so hard that I have to sink back into the couch, letting it rush through my body and turn my organs into jelly. It isn’t like the first time I did coke, it doesn’t make me feel perfect, or normal, but it numbs me to the point where it no longer matters, and that’s more than I could’ve ever hope for.

I suddenly wish Brendon was there to experience it with me - not to do it, I wouldn’t let him - but just so he can catch me if I begin to slip through the cracks. Just like he’s always been there with his soothing voice, smooth like honey. Or his smile. God, his smile.

I look around, the people melting into the couches with me, becoming one with it. I feel warm, like my blood has been wrapped in insulation, and that’s nice, because I’ve always been cold. I look at the people, smiling so loosely, doves coming from their eyes.

I look at them, and in my head I can hear Keltie, hear her saying that everything will be all right, eventually. I can hear as Brendon sings it, smooth, carrying me over the waves.

part three