Midnight Blue

by L.J. Shen

  “This is bullshit.” Alex shook his head. “Will is not a martyr, and Waitrose is not a saint, and none of them would listen to you, anyway. Let’s go, Indie.” Alex pulled me by the hand, and the relief I’d felt at leaving the place was instant, but then Fallon grabbed his wrist. Up close, I could see madness dancing in her eyes, and I wondered how could they even call what they’d had love? If they were both high all the time, they never even had the chance to truly get to know each other.

  “You never did the math, did you?” She laughed bitterly, losing any trace of self-control. “You never figured it out on your own.”

  “Figured what out?” Alex asked, squeezing his fingers into his eyelids tiredly. He’d had enough of her. I could see it now. He wasn’t in love with his ex. He was merely annoyed that she’d left him for someone else. “What are you talking about, Fallon?”

  “The accident,” she said. “The day you helped me?” She tilted her head, and there was something in her eyes that made my skin crawl. “It was her parents.”

  The next few seconds moved in slow-motion.

  I looked up at Alex.

  He looked down at me.

  His face was white. That’s the last thing I remember. Ashen, with realization and grief. I didn’t feel the fall. Rather, I saw it, as the sound around me muffled and their figures became dotted with inky black spots. My eyes watched Alex’s shoes and Fallon’s dress a second later. They closed despite my efforts to stay awake. More than anything, I wanted to hear what they were saying. They were yelling through the fog of lightheadedness. I strained my ears to listen.

  “Fuck, fuck, no!” Alex yelled. “Fallon, no!”

  “I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  I blacked out, never coming up for that air I needed to survive.

  Everything around me fell apart. And I fell with it.

  Hudson: Sup, girls?

  Jenna: Hi.

  Hudson: Is it just me or did Alex look uber hot at that London gig? Indie, are you in charge of his wardrobe? He looks so much less hobo.

  Hudson: (I’d tap it either way, but don’t tell him)

  Jenna: Where is she?

  Hudson: Ghosting our asses. But why?

  Jenna: Indie, answer.

  Jenna: Indie.

  Jenna: INDIE.

  Jenna: INDIGO!

  I came to in a bed.

  My Parisian bed.

  Or, should I say, our Parisian bed.

  God, I wanted to throw up.

  Alex’s stuff was still in our room, as if nothing had happened. I looked around, examining the collection of fancy water bottles and organic snacks on the dresser, the guitar picks, the strewn notepads, Polaroid pictures of Alex and me from London, which we took when we found Blake’s camera in his suitcase. The room felt saturated with deceit, swollen with lies. My head pounded, and I wanted to stand up, walk over to Blake’s room, and hand in my resignation.

  I was alone.

  Swallowing the sour taste of puke that occupied every inch of my mouth, I wiggled in bed, trying to summon the energy to get back up and start packing. A minute after I woke up, Alex came out of the bathroom. His eyes were red-rimmed and his hair was a mess. He wore gray low-hanging sweatpants and nothing else. He looked like he’d just attended his own funeral. I tried to drag myself up and rest my back against the headboard.

  “I’m going to make this right, Stardust. I’m going to—”

  “Don’t,” I growled, my voice so harsh I couldn’t believe it came from me. “Don’t pretend like we’re still okay. We’re not. I want you to tell me everything. You’re a liar, Alex, but this time I need every truth you have to give me. That’s the least you can do after everything we’ve been through.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his hands on his lap. Yesterday, I hadn’t known how I could look at his face without my lungs contracting like he held them in his fist. Today, he was a stranger dressed as the man I loved—yes, loved. I fell in love with him earlier than I’d realized—with one version of him, anyway.

  Once upon a time, a mere mortal fell in love with a rock god. You probably know this is not a fairy tale by now. Mortals and gods don’t mix.

  “Four years ago, Fallon came home looking like hell on heels. We’d just moved in together. I was sober back then. Sort of. I was mostly on painkillers, a functioning alcoholic. I didn’t do cocaine and didn’t know I had a problem. I thought I just lived hard and played harder. So many people in my industry do. Anyway, she came back, and she was high as a kite, but she was also very upset. Said she ran over a deer on her way back from Calabasas and asked me to go take a look at the car. I did. It looked…” Alex rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the ceiling, sighing. “It was wrecked. I asked Fallon, again and again and a-mother-fucking-gain if it really was a deer. There was so much blood. She maintained it was a deer and asked me to help her get rid of the car. So I did. I…I…”

  “You helped her cover it up. Even though you knew, deep down, that she was lying,” I finished for him, my eyes hard on his face. “That’s what you’re telling me.”

  He shook his head, raking his fingers through his hair. “I was drunk. It wasn’t the only thing that didn’t make sense. So many things looked wonky. It was just another thing on that list. But I’m going to make sure she turns herself in, Indie. If she won’t, you bet your arse I will.”

  “Spare me the excuses.”

  “I said I’m going to make it right.”

  “You’re also a self-proclaimed liar,” I felt my lower lip trembling like a leaf.

  “I’m not lying to you now. I promise.”

  “You let her get away with murder.” My voice pitched high, too high, and I became dizzy again. He scooted toward me, and I slapped his hand away when he tried to take mine. “No.”

  “I would’ve never let her get away with it had I really known. I didn’t know. I just suspected, but half the fucking time I was seeing and feeling things that weren’t there. I was paranoid. And shit-faced. No matter how bad it looked, I chose to overlook it and buy what she was telling me.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to take the next breath. I missed Mom. I missed Dad. I missed normalcy, and Saturday dinners, and Christmases, and even the dreaded Sunday mass. I missed the opportunity and promise of being normal, whole; I missed my big brother and how he took care of me. I even missed the great father Craig could have been to Ziggy, had Alex picked up the phone and called 911 when Fallon came home that night.

  Then, maybe, my mother would have survived.

  Then, maybe, I wouldn’t be on this tour, my heart shattering into a million pieces as I tried to hold it together, feeling like my pain was bursting at the seams, my whole existence gathered together with pins and needles stapled by my old sewing machine.

  “Consider this my official resignation,” I said, eyes still closed.

  “No,” he said. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  “I wouldn’t push me, Alex. You’ve done enough. Respect my wishes and let me go.” I opened my eyes now, staring at him, at everything that he was. A traitor I’d opened the door to and willingly let into my life. It had taken him mere weeks to slip from the hallway and into my domain. He’d conquered every single inch of me and used it against me, unbeknownst to him. I didn’t see his beauty, his sex appeal, or his dazzling bone structure. I didn’t see the funny, complex, tortured guy I wanted so badly to fix. All I saw was a broken prince with pleading eyes who was on the verge of tears. Man tears. Not angry or exasperated or annoyed. But real and sad and deep.

  All broken princes die. Hadn’t he said that? Maybe he was right. The scariest part was that, at that moment, I wanted him to be right.

  I smiled, surprising myself. I didn’t know I had a mean streak, but I guess Alex had dug it out from deep within me and dumped it onto the morgue table along with my heart. I knew that once he’d find my poem—the one I’d written after our night in his childhood bedroom—he’d see wh
y this was over. Why we could never be together.

  “If you leave me,” he said, “you take my soul with you.”

  “It’s always been my soul,” I said, my tone quiet and defiant. “You don’t have a soul. Not for a very long time. You proved it by turning a blind eye all those years ago when you could have saved my mom. You don’t need me. You need you. Time for you to pack a bag and travel the different planets. Find your soul, Alex. You’ll never truly be happy without it.”

  She left me a note.

  On a sheet of paper.

  From a notepad.

  My notepad.

  The notepad I’d used to write songs. Songs she’d inspired. Songs that were meant for her, and maybe even to her, and held her legacy, each word pregnant with so much more than its meaning. It was a cross between a poem and a letter. About us. About me. About the fucked-up thing that we were. Then, underneath it, underlined and in red, something else. More recent. The ink pressed so hard against the paper, it had torn around the letters.

  You’re beautiful, Alex, but you’re empty. No one could die for you. And no one should have died because of you. –Indie

  She’d quoted The Little Prince, and somehow, that hurt even more. The Little Prince was ours. I’d written her a song about him—and she’d twisted it against me. It dawned on me, in a Parisian hotel that looked exactly like all the rest, but also very different, that I’d finally found her. The girl who was worth all these songs I’d written. Then I’d lost her. The girl whose life I’d helped ruin.

  There was a light at the end of the cold, dark tunnel of my existence: even I knew I couldn’t cancel the remainder of “Letters from the Dead” tour. Jenna was going to rip me a new one and stuff it with dynamite if I even mentioned such possibility. The insurance company was on my case, my record company breathed its rancid, corporate breath down my neck, and I was actually making a decent comeback and building a buzz around my next untitled album. Besides, my mates relied on me. Mates who, as much as I wanted to kill, I owed, too. Our relationship was messy and abnormal and completely off the rails. They constantly betrayed me in a bid to bring me back to life. And it had worked.

  Until now.

  I made a promise to myself that no matter how this shit was going to pan out, I was going to make sure Fallon did the right thing by Stardust and her family.

  I stood by the kitchen island of my hotel suite, clutching her note until my fingers almost snapped. The scent of Indie was still in my nostrils and on my pillow and inside my fucking guts, when the door behind me opened. I’d been trying to get high off of bath salts unsuccessfully for twenty minutes when Lucas walked in and shut the door behind him.

  Yeah, I was using again. Or at least trying. Shit, I wasn’t even good at being a drug addict. How embarrassing was that?

  “Don’t even think about it.” I sniffed, trying to light up the little rocks of salt. How the fuck could you get high on them? I needed new mates. New, young, loser mates who’d teach me how to get high on pathetic things. And it hadn’t even been a full four hours since she’d left. I dreaded to think how I’d fare a week from now. Heroine? Crack? Riverdale? I’d die if I became the very thing I loathed.

  “Don’t think about what?” I heard Lucas moving behind me, but didn’t turn around.

  “Everything. My answer is no, no matter what. Don’t talk to me. Don’t apologize. Don’t offer your condolences. For the last time—I shagged Laura long before you’d met her. There was no need to shit on my only serious relationships, twice in a row.” I dumped the salts onto the counter in frustration, essentially walking right into a conversation with him. Idiot. I was an idiot. A part of me—albeit a small and insignificant and muted by the general bullshit swarming in my head part—realized I deserved it. Everything that had happened to me. Indie leaving. Fallon acting like a crazy bitch. My mates and agent babying me, lying to me, micromanaging every single breath I took, from my love interest to my records, deals, interviews, and general wellbeing. Lucas appeared by my side and wiped the marble counter with his arm, throwing the half-baked salts to the floor.

  “You think this is about Laura?” he screamed into my face. “Are you mental? What’s wrong with you? It’s not about Laura, and it’s not about Fallon. It’s not even about Indie. It’s about you, you arsehole. I’m in love with you.” He shook, spitting the words in my face.

  I turned around to fully face him. The words trickled in like rain through a cracked ceiling. Slowly but surely. If only I could wrap my head around them. “Huh?”

  He took my arm and pulled it. I let him, too stunned to think of something coherent to say. Our faces were inches from each other, but far enough that I could see his expression. Tortured, almost like me.

  “I’m in love with you. Have been for the past—hmm, let’s see, I don’t know, twelve years? Everyone knows. It’s obvious and plain for everyone to see. I started playing the drums because of you, for fuck’s sake. You needed a drummer, couldn’t find one—no one wants to be the drummer, it’s a lonely, reclusive job—so I did it. I wanted to be close to you, and you wanted to start a band, so I learned to play an instrument. Then I became your instrument. Then I picked up your leftovers—Laura, your idiotic lady friend, Fallon, and everyone else around you—to have more pieces of you. More precious pieces of Alex-fucking-Winslow, the guy who, unfortunately, possessed it. The charisma, the talent, the presence, those eyes. Those damn eyes, Alex.” He let go of my arm and cupped his hands over his eyes, shaking his head in exasperation and pacing around the room.

  I wanted to light a cigarette to do something with my mouth—I sure as hell felt too inadequate to speak—but was too shocked to move. Everyone knew? Was I even living in the same universe as my mates? They seemed to have been keeping a lot from me.

  “I broke you and Fallon up, not because I liked Will, or her, but because I love you. And loving you comes with the price of completely disregarding my own wishes and needs. Fallon made you fall deeper into drugs and depression. She was toxic for you, so I kicked her out of the way. And I’d do it again if I could. In a heartbeat. I would slay for you, Winslow. Now, Indie did the opposite. She rebuilt you. But of course, watching you fooling around made me want to hang myself every day. Knowing I’d pushed you into each other’s arms just about killed me. And I still did it. For you.”

  Lucas threw himself across the black velvet couch, burying his face in one of the pillows. I inwardly wondered what kind of arsehole goes around living his life not knowing one of his best mates is in love with him. Me. I was that arsehole.

  “You’re gay,” I said, rather dumbly, rubbing my sweaty temple. I wasn’t sure why I was so sweaty, but it might have had something to do with the fact I was so numb, I couldn’t even distinguish how fucking hot the room was. I’d been too busy trying to get high and to not think about Indie. Two things I’d categorically failed at.

  “Gay as they come. And please, no Alfie jokes.” Lucas started rolling the zipper of his leather jacket. Up. Down. Up. Down.

  It was weird to talk about him when my own world was in shambles. But I could no longer afford to be a shitty mate, and acknowledging that was a start. Plus, he looked like a sulking child. Sad and annoyed and defeated. I fell down to the settee beside him and nudged his shoulder with mine.

  “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t even sure what I was apologizing for. Not being gay? Parading half the female population of Hollywood at the Chateau in front of him? Making him play fairy godmother to me for over a decade? Inadvertently destining him to become a fucking drummer?

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m nearly thirty and still mostly in the closet. I lied to you for years. Pretty sure we’re even.” Lucas wiped the snot from his nostrils with the back of his hand, staring down.

  I didn’t know it was possible for my heart to break even more after Indie, but it did. It broke for Lucas. I jerked him into a hug.

  “Oi,” I said, honing in on the wall in front of us. Nothing was okay, and yet I had to assure hi
m it was, because Indie was right. I needed to find my soul and show it to people around me. “Look at me.”

  He sniffed again and looked up.

  “When did you figure out you like dick?”

  “When we were twelve? Maybe thirteen? I’m not sure. I just remember wanting your heart long before wanting your dick. It was a January evening. I spotted you walking up and down the road with Tania on your back, yelling to the closed windows, ‘who knows how to tune a guitar?’ and thought…this sonovobitch is going to have a bathroom full of Grammys someday. You looked like a loser, but you were so far into what you were doing, I couldn’t help but admire that. Your voice had just broken, and so had your chin, with a dozen pimples or so. Do you remember that?” He laughed. “God, you were a joke.”

  “I’m still a joke.” I smirked. I remembered that day. Dad’s mate, Duncan, had finally agreed to tune Tania and taught me how to play the first few chords of “Smoke on the Water.” “It’s just that, I’m not really sure if me being a joke is funny anymore.”

  “You’re definitely still funny,” Lucas said, swatting my chest. He’d never done that before. Maybe he’d always wanted to, but didn’t know how I’d react. The thought depressed me.

  “Please don’t relapse, Alex.” Lucas was serious again. But it was too late. Even though I hadn’t gotten high that evening, I knew with certainty that I would. And that I’d regret it. And that it’d take at least some of the pain of what had happened with Stardust away.

  “Question,” I averted the topic. I took a fag out of the pack on the coffee table with my teeth and lit it, my arm still wrapped around his shoulder like he was my little brother. “If we were together, would I be top or bottom?”