by L.J. Shen
Lucas laughed harder through his tears. “I’m always on top.”
I said, “Bollocks.”
He said, “See? Still funny,” and pressed his index against my nose, smiling miserably.
I still thought about Indie the entire length of the conversation.
Wondering what she’d think about all that.
Alex,
Remember when we first moved to L.A. and promised ourselves we’d never change? That we’d still be the same blokes from the same shitty town with the mutual hate for Manchester FC (fuck ManU, man, fuck ’em). Well, I think it’s suffice to say we all broke that promise.
I’ll give you one thing—even when we stopped being mates and became competitors, you always had the upper hand. You got the better lass, and the better album, and the more prestigious Grammy. You got the Rolling Stone and NME covers, while I got the Billboard crap. You were still cool to the hipsters even when you broke into the mainstream, while I got invited to the Country Music Awards.
And you got our mates. All of them. Yours.
I want you to know how the idea of Indigo Bellamy started, and, more than that, that I am not your enemy. Never was. Never will be.
I think I owe you an explanation. You think I stole Fallon from you, when, in practice, all I wanted was to save you both. Do I love her? Yes. Will I ever have her, all the way, the way you did, the way you own everything? No.
The night Fallon was involved in that accident, she came back from my party in Calabasas. You were sick at home. She was doing drugs and going behind the wheel.
I knew that.
I let it happen.
I take full responsibility.
There were so many people, I didn’t really care who came and who went. But the day after the accident, she contacted me. Sought me out.
She panicked, and she knew you would leave her if she didn’t go straight to the police.
From that point on, Fallon and I started nurturing a toxic relationship. We became closer, and I fell more and more into her, while she fell more and more into drugs.
We cheated on you, and then the whole thing exploded. I don’t blame you for cutting me from your life. If anything, it’s probably best we stay far away from each other.
But I always knew about Indigo Bellamy’s parents.
And I know it might come and bite me in the arse, but it’s true. I did. I’m partly accountable. I’m a shameful, shameful man.
After everything with Fallon went down, Alfie, Lucas, and Blake said they’d never talk to me again. But they did. Sometime after you kicked your eighth babysitter to the curb, I contacted Jenna Holden, who ordered a meeting with Alfie, Blake, and Lucas. We all agreed that you were spiraling again, and I was the stupid idiot who’d followed Indigo and Craig around, feeling guilty and disheartened about what Fallon did and got away with, and their lives were shitty, too.
I said the plan would be perfect, and they agreed.
I wanted you to fall in love and to get better.
I wanted you to rival me in the Grammys, not in my nightmares.
I knew it would better your life, and Indigo’s life, and if everything went according to plan, maybe Craig’s, too.
Indigo didn’t know who circled that Wanted ad she ended up calling. She thought it was her brother or sister-in-law. It was Hudson who slipped that paper into her bike’s basket while she was shopping.
Not for one second did I think Fallon was still so into you. So fiercely in love with you. What kind of person confesses a crime like she committed? A desperately drugged one. That’s who.
You might look at this and see betrayal, but your mates only wanted the best for you. I did, too. I’m sorry it didn’t work out, and I’m somewhat relieved—although mostly terrified—for coming clean. Do with it as you wish. I’m done hiding. I’m done playing kismet. I’m done fucking up my life and others’.
But don’t take it out on your team. They love you. They chose you.
You win.
P.S.
I still pretend to spit every time someone mentions Alex Winslow’s name.
Faithfully,
William George Bushell
Here’s the thing about addiction: that arsehole friend who comes sneaking into your life when you’re down and low? That’s it. My addiction crawled in, because I could no longer purge it out. I had no reason to behave, because she wasn’t there, and everything felt hopeless, and wrong, and final.
So. Fucking. Final.
I found out a lot in the three weeks that marked the end of the tour. The first thing was that when you want to get your hands on narcotics, you do, even when the entire world and its sister are watching you. I snuck groupies into my room with coke stashed in their bras. I didn’t touch them, but I definitely touched the drugs. I downed a bottle of vodka in the bathroom in Canada and popped some Xanax in New York. When we landed in Tennessee, I dropped in to say hi to a country singer I mentored on a reality TV show and drank a bottle of whiskey in his bedroom. It was pathetically easy, almost to my dismay. I’d had my chances all along. I’d simply chosen not to use them for, I don’t know, whatever reason. Actually, the reason was crystal clear to me now. Her. Stardust. She kept me high on something much stronger than coke. Even before I’d gotten my hands on her little body, she was there to taunt, and fight back, and keep me entertained.
Once an addict, always an addict.
The worst part is that you don’t quite understand the severity of your addiction until it’s already five steps ahead of you, running toward the finish line, ready to ruin your life. I had my gaps between lines and bottles of alcohol, so I tried to convince myself I was still relatively sober, and when I was relatively sober, I called her. All the time. She never picked up. I got her email address from Blake and sent her messages. Stupid messages. Creepy messages. Messages that could have landed my arse in a lot of trouble.
To: [email protected]
Subject: I need you
I met Jesus at Times Square after a gig and he told me we were all going to die and that I should count my blessings, and I could only count one thing, and it was you.
Are you mad at me, still? Actually, don’t answer that. We’ll talk about it when I get there. I shouldn’t be contacting you. Blake thinks it’s an apology email, and I guess it is, but I’m not going to stop at that. He and Jenna are going to kill me if they know, but you and I, we are bigger than them. Bigger than this.
Jenna is pregnant with Blake’s baby, btw. She said not to tell anyone, so I’m telling you. Because you’re my someone. I think I’m going to circle back and delete this paragraph later. Too cliché. Did you know the album I had produced by that boy-band fuckboy was my best-selling one?
Huh.
Maybe I’ll keep this line in after all.
Alfie is on a pussy bender. Says he’s worried about me and that it’s his outlet. Blake is sleeping with his mobile pressed to his ear. Lucas rarely even talks anymore, and I…I drink.
It started with a vodka bottle the other day. I miss you. I didn’t know about what Fallon did that night. I swear. She’s in rehab. I gave her an ultimatum about coming clean. Please answer my calls. Or…not.
Don’t tell Blake.
A.
To: [email protected]
Subject: How?
I can’t believe this shit’s for real, Stardust. How can you not answer me? How can you not need me the way I need you? How is it fair that I found you, and you found me, and we both know damn well how rare what we have is, and you still let me go?
How do I let you go?
Stupid question, I don’t.
Two more weeks. I’ll be coming to get you. You know I will.
Yours (even if you think you don’t need me),
A.
To: [email protected]
Subject: I wrote a song
It goes like this:
Answer me.
Answer me.
Answer me.
Answer me
.
Everyone and everything is falling apart. The Chicago gig was a shit show. I forgot most of the lyrics. Don’t ask why, Stardust. You know.
Hudson joined the tour to keep me from taking a shit on what’s left of my career, because Blake is back in L.A. playing baby daddy. I think Lucas and him are hooking up. Lucas and Hudson, that is. Not Blake. I hope they are. That’s good, right? That I’m wishing good things upon good people.
Oh. Side note. Lucas is gay.
I want you to know I thought about it, and even though I’m a sellout, I do love the rough material for the new album. It bleeds your personality. I can’t wait to share you with the world. Share your soul. You were right. It is your soul, but I told you I’d borrow it. You don’t mind, right?
I’m coming to L.A. in a week.
A.
To: [email protected]
Subject: Once upon a time there was a prince…
Remember, in The Little Prince, when the fox wants the boy to tame him so they’d always have each other? I think that’s what you did to me. You tamed me. I needed you. And you unleashed me back into the wild, domesticated and YOURS, and now I’m not sure wtf I need to do to survive. Which, I think you’d agree, is ironic. Everything considered and such.
I’m on the road from Chicago to Oklahoma on a tour bus. You would have liked it. We banned Alfie from Mexican food. I think about you a lot. I wank to our Polaroids a lot. I haven’t touched anyone since you left. Okay. Full disclosure: I cupped a tit while taking a photo with a fan. But she’d just had a boob job, and it was for her birthday. And I didn’t enjoy it. At all.
It’s so weird to be here, to do this, to not be chasing you like every bone in my body tells me to. Blake says to give you time, but what does he know about relationships? He and Jenna are a train wreck.
I saw a squirrel today. Its tail was cut. It was still furry, just…short. Ever seen a squirrel’s tail up close? It’s quite magnificent. I felt bad for the squirrel, but reminded myself it didn’t know that its tail was cut.
Then I realized I’m the fucking squirrel, Indie.
I’m the fucking squirrel who ran around with half a tail, and no one told me, so I lived in blissed ignorance. Then you came in, walked away, and guess what? Now I know. I know I’m incomplete and my soul, which I thought was dying, is actually in Los Angeles, riding a French bike in a ridiculous dress.
I know I’m making this about me, and I know you’re going through a load of crap right now, but I guess that’s what addicts do.
And I’m an addict. Again.
Four days, Indie. You. Me. Us. Always.
Blake came back from the OB-GYN appointment he had with Jenna the same week. When he found out what I’d been doing, he took away the laptop Indie had left behind and begged me to stop. Which, naturally, prompted me to call her some more and to order Jenna and Hudson—the latter had reluctantly dragged his arse back to L.A.—to check in on her every week. They said she was doing well. This, consequently, made me feel like shite. I wanted her to hurt like me, and I wasn’t even ashamed to think that. And that was a problem.
Oklahoma, then Texas, then straight back to L.A. By that time, I knew my cocaine and drinking habit was in full swing, but I had a bigger issue to tackle—win the girl.
Everything else—the drugs, the alcohol, the addiction, would be sorted out afterward. Love conquers all, and all that jazz.
The gigs were fine. The drugs pulled me through. But I no longer wrote songs, and I no longer gave the crowd the electric show they’d heard about when I’d toured Europe. “Letters from the Dead” officially featured a corpse—hah. I should write that down somewhere.
The flight to Los Angeles was wordless, and the first thing I did when I landed at LAX was give the driver Indie’s address. I didn’t even care that the others wanted to be dropped off at their flats. Fuck them. They’d sure fucked me over by introducing me to the blue-haired soul-thief.
I hadn’t come empty-handed. I’d thought about it long and hard, then gotten her the perfect present. I thought it symbolized what I wanted to say perfectly. Unfortunately, my gift had the potential of dying. I had no time to waste.
Indie lived in a shite neighborhood in an even shittier building. There was a strip club under her flat, so you had to go around through an alleyway to reach the rusty metal staircase leading up to her complex. I knocked on her door three times and rang the doorbell for good measure. I knew she was home. It was six o’clock. And she had nowhere to go. She didn’t have a job. I’d made Hudson check.
A blond, tall woman opened the door. Natasha. I recognized her from Indie’s laptop time. She arched one eyebrow and looked at me like I’d taken a shit on her welcome mat.
“Can I help you?” She acted like we hadn’t bantered on Skype before, and I wondered how much Stardust had told her.
She told her everything, you little twat. What do you think?
“I’m looking for Indie.”
“Indie doesn’t want to see you.”
“Indie will have to see me at some point, because I’m not going to stop until she does, and she’d probably need a restraining order against me if she really is serious about cutting me from her life. Side bonus”—I waved my full fist with her present, signaling Natasha that I hadn’t come empty-handed—“I made her something. She’ll understand what it means.”
Nat stared at my gift for a moment, looking torn and embarrassed for me. Even I was a little embarrassed for myself. I wasn’t entirely above begging at this point, and shit, if I didn’t look like an idiot holding my dripping, half-dead gift.
“Indie! It’s him,” she yelled into the small apartment.
Indie appeared at the door a few moments later. Was that all it took? I was confused. But then I saw the look on her face and the elation of seeing her after three full weeks evaporated completely. Her eyes—her expressive blues that shone when I played the guitar and wrinkled at the sides every time she came on my fingers and tongue and cock, were turned off. This woman in front of me was nowhere near as present and alive as the girl who’d left me in Europe.
I reached out and gave her the present before she could speak.
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes the rose important,” I quoted The Little Prince, word-for-word, because it seemed important, somehow. She stared at the roses clutched in my palm, not exactly scowling, but far from touched. “Roses don’t have a blue gene,” I explained. “You can’t get them in that color. Fact. I dyed you some blue ones. It took me hours.” I followed every twitch in her face with hungry eyes, trying to decode what she was feeling, but I got nothing. I continued at double-speed, stumbling over my words. “See, I spent the time. On the roses. Because I care. About you. And I guess what I’m trying to say is, I deserve a second chance.”
I was pretty proud of that little speech. Which, in retrospect, goes to show how bloody out of it I’d been. I couldn’t read the situation, let alone read what was clearly written on her face. This wasn’t a rom-com, where the problem would solve itself with the help of a few roses and a Godiva box. She watched as my arm remained stretched with my offering, and when I thought she was going to collect the roses, she withdrew her hand and let them fall between us with a thud.
“Huh?” I huh’ed her. True story. Because in my stupid, dysfunctional brain, she was still my secret girlfriend. And this was a lovers’ quarrel, solvable and pregnant with the potential of leading to now-or-never, I’ve-seen-the-light-now-let’s-get-shagging, intense sex.
“How much did you drink and snort today?” she asked, her voice even. She looked good. Dressed in a kimono-style emerald dress.
“Not much,” I hiccupped, not realizing she could smell the alcohol from across the threshold. “I need you.”
“Right.” She shook her head, releasing a chuckle. “Listen to me, Alex, and listen good, because you can threaten to come here every day for the rest of your life, but it won’t change the outcome. I don’t want to hear
from you. You’re the most self-absorbed, selfish man I’ve ever met. Don’t bother dropping by tomorrow, because I won’t be here. Wherever I’ll be, you will not be welcome there. Thanks for the flowers.” She kicked them out of the threshold.
Slammed the door in my face.
And locked the bolt from the inside.
Leaving me alone.
When I was a kid, maybe six or seven, my sister had forced me to watch Beauty and the Beast with her. I did it, for no other reason than she was older and knew how to make microwaved popcorn, and popcorn and a movie was some kind of Holy Grail in my books.
There was one part that really got me. The part I asked her about for days after. When Gaston finds the Beast’s castle, when shit hits the fan, when they’re engaged in a battle, there’s a part where the beast just…gives up. He allows Gaston to take him and win the fight.
“Why?” I asked for the four-thousandth time.
“Oh, my God, you little muppet. What’s not to understand? He lost the girl! His life is pointless! He’s better off dead than living like an old, lonely sod. Without her, he’ll stay a monster forever.”
No truer words have ever been spoken, even though these particular ones were uttered by someone who’d later on go and claim the questionable nickname TTB—The Town Bike, because everyone had a ride. Hardly an authority when it came to romance.
I don’t think I ever told Indie that story, and the thought I never would nearly suffocated me.
I was well into my second pack of smokes that day, wondering what was the point of all this. Of staring at nothing and watching time and air move—despite their invisibility—dragging like a dead, heavy body you had to carry with yourself everywhere. I was high on cocaine and drunk on whiskey.