Hollow Stars

by Lauryn Dyan

  No, decidedly not. There is a difference between making that choice when you’re eighteen and on the precipice of defining your life versus deciding it when you’re already married and settled. I’m not saying you can’t change your life once you’re older but the repercussions are a whole different animal. You can be selfish and unapologetic at eighteen.

  I brace my hand against my tightening chest and decide if we’re doing this, I’m going all in. I need to know what made him that way. To discover if that’s something else we share.

  “Is that why you disappeared entirely when you first left? It’s like you decided you wanted to pursue your dream and never looked back.”

  He makes a slight grimace.

  “That wasn’t my intention. I met your mom at twenty. We had a family by twenty-two. I saw all these young, single people around me caught up in the crazy, urban lifestyle of the city. Made me feel like I’d missed out on certain rites of passage. I let myself get swept up in it. And, with the freedom of freelancing, I lost all track of days and times and spent the better part of that first year blacked out.”

  Well shit.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Love you Houston!” I cry. “How about we bring Run Before You Walk back out to help with this last song?” The crowd goes crazy and I beam. The screaming may not completely be for me, but it’s still intoxicating; their ecstatic voices wrapping me in a warm cocoon. Ace and the rest of his band come bounding onto the stage and the cheers and shouts amplify. We haven’t played together to an audience before and we’re just as giddy with excitement as the crowd to try it out.

  Each RBYW member clusters with their Tracing Stars counterpart and we launch into our song “Predator Never Prey”. We’ve been practicing it together the past couple weeks on the bus, and between soundchecks when we can squeeze it in, but we’ve never played it like this. All those other times we were either extremely focused on figuring out how to make it work with the extra instruments and vocals, or we were laughing and goofing around. Now we’re playing it like it’s the national anthem after a great war victory. Proud and furious. We smile and belt it out, caught up in the hysteria of the crowd.

  Ace and I alternate lines of the chorus:

  “Predator never prey

  Pacing outside your door with every bad intention

  Hoping to tempt you away”

  We reach the instrumental break and he and I dart to opposite sides of the stage to touch the outstretched hands of the fans at the front of the barricade. As the guitars reach their apex, I extricate myself from the tangle of arms to jog back to the mic, spying Rickly and the rest of Sheltered cheering us on from backstage. I wink and give him my most dazzling smile before we rock the last note and the venue erupts in a chaos of hollering and applause.

  ***

  “How were we?” I yell to Rickly as I skip off the stage.

  “You were fucking amazing, as usual.”

  I grin from ear to ear. Tonight, my euphoria might just burst straight from my chest and take out the whole venue. I wrap my arms around him unashamed of my sweat, and as his hands knot in my hair, we kiss like it’s the first, and last, time.

  ***

  “Kennedy? Are you still with us?”

  After my father’s admission, I zoned out on the vertical blinds that cover the one large window in the room. If I let my vision un-focus, the parallel lines seem to blur and move. Playing tricks on my eyes, somehow, is better than letting his words play tricks on my mind. Yet the vibrating image isn’t enough to block the thoughts from coming.

  Did I ever have any other fate than to be a blacked out mess? Suddenly, nature has knocked nurture the fuck out. Damn his genes for doing this to me.

  In a way, it’s nice to have someone to blame besides myself. Isn’t that what I’ve been trying to do all along? I pinned this fiasco on Rickly as soon as I trudged through the double glass doors. Since then, I’ve alternated between blaming him and denying I had anything to do with my demise. Now here is my perfect scapegoat. It’s not my fault. My DNA is wired to have a fatal flaw.

  I wish I could take that route, but it’s not the only reason I’m here. I have to admit that or I’ll never get better. Perhaps the reason I haven’t found the root of my problem is it isn’t one thing. It’s a mix: my mind decaying away from a predisposition to blackout while being exploited by an outsider. Yikes.

  I shift my eyes back to Craig.

  “I’m still here.”

  “Describe what you’re feeling,” he requests. His soothing tone sounds very practiced. Perhaps they teach ‘inflection for psychiatrists’ at one of those fancy schools whose insignias loom silently over us.

  “I’m feeling...conflicted. I guess that’s the best way to sum it up.”

  “How so?”

  “In a way, I understand what he went through.” I gesture to my father unsure if I should call him dad or Daryl. Both sound wrong. “Pursuing a dream, losing your inhibitions. I did that, too. I suppose that’s why my mom asked you here.

  “But I struggle with the part where you left us behind. Even when I was at my messiest, I never abandoned the people I care about.” I think of all the texts I shared with my mom and sister when I was on the road. Of Rickly, holding his hand and crying as things spiraled out of control. Of Sonny, flanked by the rest of the band with an unreadable face as I was driven away. I left them because I had to.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s completely inadequate, but that’s all I can say. I loved you and your sister, and your mother, but it’s like when I left I flipped a switch. I changed from one Daryl to another. It was almost like those seven years in Arizona where I played house never happened.”

  I’m not sure I’m ready to accept his apology so I just nod. At least he’s being honest with me.

  “Good,” Craig breaks in. “This is a strong start. Kennedy, is there anything else you’d like to talk about today?”

  I pause.

  “I’m not sure…not today, at least.” I address my dad. “You’re still a stranger, but now I see we share some common ground.”

  He smiles ruefully.

  “Yes, unfortunately, we do.”

  ***

  “That was unreal,” Ace gushes. He’s been practically floating since the end of our show. “I can’t believe I get to do this for a living.”

  “Same here,” I echo, lifting my locally brewed beer to cheers our success across the dark wood table of tonight’s bar of choice. ‘For a living’ is a bit misleading since none of us make much money, but it keeps us from a nine to five. Taking in the faces of the friends and bandmates I now consider family, I could make nothing and I wouldn’t give this up for anything.

  We have the day off tomorrow, which is rare. You’d think that’d make us wild, but it’s had the opposite effect. We’ve taken over a small section of a pub, encircling a booth with every spare chair strewn about the dim room to relax, dream and reminisce.

  “Your turn is coming soon,” Jack adds to Rickly who slouches at the end of the booth with his arm around me. “I bet you get signed before the end of the tour for sure.”

  “I’ll fucking cheers to that,” Bert calls, as he straddles a backwards chair.

  “Agreed,” I add, kissing Rickly on the cheek.

  A casual smile plays on his lips.

  “Hell yes,” he responds. “We love touring with you, but I’m ready to make a real album. Our demos sound so rough.”

  “They’re killer,” Davey says. “Better than our first demos. We recorded those in Sonny’s garage. Sounded like shit. I swear you hear her dog barking in the background.”

  We laugh remembering those first few songs we worked so hard to capture. It was a struggle. We soundproofed that garage as best we could, but it wasn’t great. Oli is an audio nerd, so he got all the recording equipment and handled the mixing. He did a great job with his limited resources but it’s a miracle anyone ever listened to those tracks.

  “And look at you now!�
�� Rickly says, enthusiastically. “We’re gonna make. I can feel it. No matter what we have to do.”

  ***

  As dusk descends, I sit cross-legged on the metal frame bed in my room. I haven’t physically moved an inch since I plopped down but, mentally, my brain has been on overdrive replaying my session with my father. While I gained some deeper insights of him and our connection, the shell-shocked sensation his words evoked hasn’t cleared enough to let me come to any new conclusions. I consider napping to clear my head but I’d rather not be up all night jumping at every noise.

  Instead, I stretch to get my blood flowing and slid my hands down my robe to smooth the ruffled, gray terrycloth. A soft crinkle, as I pass my pocket, reawakens my senses as I remember my mystery song. There are still three paragraphs left riddled with potential clues to help me figure out something about my other self. I summon all my remaining energy to focus as I unfold the heavily marked paper, the pencil now smudged from being stuffed away for safekeeping.

  My hope deflates as I read the first verse:

  “Every night defines another city

  The people before me scream my meaning

  Their love has made me dizzy

  Can’t fill these holes I have amassed

  My existence all too fast”

  Nothing new there. Pretty much sums up my life on tour in five, poetic lines. I imagine the music accompanying the words as a somber ballad, but the tempo picks up as I re-read the chorus:

  “Weaving, leaving, barely seeing

  The map ahead, twisted road behind

  Blinded eye no longer bleeding

  From what can’t be

  My dark and gaping empty mind”

  It boggles my mind I wrote this. It’s like I’m being asked to consider a song by a professional songwriter for the band to record. Other than our covers, we only played our own material. This is a new experience in many ways.

  As I come to the second verse, the music returns to somber.

  .

  “Every day beside me lurks betrayal

  The suspects before me hope to break me

  Their faces make me shameful

  Can’t see the proof through the tableau

  My realizations all too slow”

  I raise my hands and rub my temples. Betrayal is an emotion I’ve come to know well. It struck powerfully when I was first institutionalized, and convinced Rickly had landed me here. It’s the multiple suspects part that has me reeling. I never even considered someone else might be involved. Heat rushes to my face so powerfully my eyes feel like they’re boiling picturing all the people I care about in on this. Am I naïve? Did I miss this ‘proof’? Every time I’ve gone over the tour in my head, I’ve always studied Rickly. Perhaps I need to investigate beyond my evil boyfriend. The thought is soul crushing.

  I skip the repeated chorus and read on to the bridge, the tempo of my internal melody taking on an intense and booming cadence to punctuate each rhyme. A few of the words are smeared, but it’s easy to decipher:

  “Empty and gone, forgotten and wrong

  The words are an echo that can’t be defined

  Playing the pawn, in secret and song

  The pictures are broken and can’t be aligned”

  Damn. That’s a depression conclusion.

  I skim the chorus scrawled at the bottom of the page one more time before I set the paper down on my white sheets, unsure if what I read is making things better or worse. I wish I could talk to the girl who wrote this. Did she figure out what’s happening to us? I want to interrogate her like a detective hot on a lead but she’s safely locked away in the ironclad cell in my head. There’s got to be a way to break down those walls, and I’m not stopping till they’re fucking rubble.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Everyone on the tour has split into different factions to enjoy their day off. It’s actually only a partial day off if you don’t count our drive time later this evening to New Orleans. Still, it’s a day with no sweaty performances, probing interviews, flashing cameras or other obligations. That stuff is definitely fun but it’s grueling with the way it’s all crammed together. We are due for some downtime.

  Most of RBYW is visiting family or friends since this is their hometown. A few of us opted to join them, eager for some normalcy. In our band, Oli gets the most homesick, having been such a central part of his family growing up. He, Rickly and I are going to Ace’s to see his mom and stepdad and have a home-cooked meal. I have to admit, I’m pretty excited. There’s just something about a mom fussing over you that makes you feel special. Makes me miss my own mom.

  She and I don’t talk as much as either of us would like but this lifestyle makes it hard to connect. I call when I can, but we mostly text, our lives boiled down to short word and photo-based snippets. I probably ought to tell her more about Rickly. She knows we’re together but she’s not on Snapchat or Instagram, so she’s only seen him once in a blurry group photo. I’ll have to snap a good selfie of us to share. I wonder if she approves of me dating another crazy musician? She’d crap a Bible if she knew how frequently we share a bunk.

  If it isn’t obvious, my mother is pretty conservative. “I used to be fun,” she’d joke. Story goes, she met my dad at community college while partaking in some quintessential, young adult antics, details not divulged, but it was less than a year later that they were married and nine months after that I was born. I was their honeymoon baby. She blames the margaritas in Mexico. Maybe that’s why I love tequila. She settled into her new role of wife and parent easily, actually planning her second pregnancy with Helena. Then, well, I’ve already been through this. Dad vanished and God swooped in, effectively morphing her into the woman I know today. I tap out a quick text to check how she’s doing before turning my attention back to the guys.

  RBYW’s manager, Billy, is chauffeuring us. He and Ace have been friends forever. He’s dropping us off before he goes to see his own family a few blocks away. The two of them sit up front chatting while I’m squished between Oli and Rickly in the back. All the guys have long legs, except Billy, so there isn’t a ton of room. I guess I’m used to small spaces now because it doesn’t bother me.

  Rickly lightly rubs the side of my thigh with his knuckles while he gazes out the window. I love how the butterflies in my stomach mimic the motion, fluttering side-to-side with each stroke. It’s such a small gesture, but somehow it makes me feel closer to him.

  “So where did the rest of your guys go?” Ace asks, over his shoulder.

  I take the lead.

  “Jack joined Paul to meet up with his brother at the University of Houston, and Sonny and Davey are with Trecia at her parents.” Trecia and I may not get along but she and Sonny seem to have bonded. It’s only natural the females would stick together, it’s just too bad we can’t all hang out. I’m sure she’s not thrilled about me going to Ace’s, but Rickly’s here, so what can she say?

  “Aaron and Bert went with Paul, too,” Rickly chimes in. “Nuts was going to show Trent around the city with some of his friends.”

  The side of Ace’s smirk is visible on his turned head.

  “Good luck to Trent. If you think Nuts is crazy, you should meet his friends.” We all laugh. Nuts is a goof. With a nickname like Nuts, it was inevitable I suppose.

  The city gives way to suburbia and, after another fifteen minutes, we pull up to a quaint brick house complete with a white front porch, yellow rose bushes and picket fence. It’s almost too normal to be the place where a rock star grew up.

  “This is it. Thanks for the ride, Billy. See you around four?”

  “For sure, man. Tell your parents ‘hey’ for me.”

  We exit the car and cross the brick drive to enjoy some good, old-fashioned southern hospitality.

  ***

  Darkness fills my sparse room. I must have fallen asleep, or blacked out, after digesting my newly written song. Panicked, I shoot up from my bed worried I misplaced the fragile paper when I laid down but qui
ckly realize it’s tucked inside my fist like I’ve been holding onto it for dear life.

  “Freaking dammit,” I mumble. I nearly destroyed my most helpful piece of evidence to date. Gently, I unwrinkled the mutilated paper, smoothing out the creases as best I can. The writing is now more smudged than ever, but it’s mostly legible. Thankfully, the words are still fresh in my mind so I read it with ease, repeating it over and over to commit each line to memory.

  “Weaving, leaving, barely seeing…,” I chant again, no longer needing the paper as a guide. I close my eyes and sway to the melody imagining the song coming to life with the band in the studio. What I wouldn’t give to be there now. To sing this for Sonny as she puts notes to each verse. To let Oli, Jack and Davey layer in their instruments as we shape the sounds into a proper song. To play it for Samantha as we perfect it for the label and our fans. I let the fantasy overtake me in the dark of my asylum.

  My vision is so vivid I swear my bandmates are here close enough to touch. I revel in the moment, perched on a stool in the middle of the scene by the mic, the center of the story. The bright, studio lights illuminate each face but, slowly, they shift into darkness like the bulbs have been blighted like the sun by a passing cloud. Davey and Sonny are enveloped in shadow first, huddled behind Sonny’s keyboard talking in hushed voices. They exchange a look with Samantha across the room as she stoically listens to our song. The hair on my neck stands on edge as she uncrosses her arms and walks out of the light toward them. Her hand is outstretched gripping something small I cannot see. Davey sneers as he reaches for it but the movement causes the shadows on his face to distort until he looks like Rickly. The two-faced monster turns toward me.