I felt so empty.
It took two shows after our meeting in Milwaukee for me to realize what I had to do. Five days had passed. Reagan went out of her way to make sure our paths didn’t cross. Miles only spoke to me when we had to get ready for our performance, but I’m sure he would have joined Reagan if we weren’t in the same band. Corbin spoke to me cordially, even though I knew that was the last thing he wanted to do. It was hard to exist in close quarters when everyone around me refused to acknowledge my existence. I couldn’t finish the rest of the tour like this. I hated the person I had become just as much as everyone else disliked me at the moment. I hated that I lost my best friend and my girlfriend. Touring with everyone ignoring me and looking at me as if I was a disgusting person ruining the fun vibes was something I needed to remove myself from. Ten shows and three weeks left might not seem like a lot, but to someone who was the elephant in the room, it was a lifetime.
On our way to Minneapolis, the humming of the tires speeding down the highway was the only sound in the bus. Miles and Corbin had their bunks draped shut. I had my curtain shut because I didn’t want to look at the wall those two put up. The truth of what was best for me churned nerves and anxiety in my stomach. The hardest part was finalizing what I knew was the right thing. I knew I couldn’t do another show on this tour. I needed time to pull away, to view myself and my life from an outside perspective. I needed to properly mourn the loss of my grandfather instead of finding distractions to rid myself of the feelings. The thing with grief is that I had to go through it, and if I tried avoiding it, it would follow me around with a vengeance.
I pushed my bunk curtain aside and stared at Miles’s and Corbin’s. “Guys?” They didn’t respond. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the silent treatment, or because they both had headphones in. “Guys, answer me.”
Both of them pulled back their curtains and took out their headphones. “What?” Corbin said. Miles just glared at me with one headphone remaining in his ear.
“So, I’ve been doing some thinking,” I said, looking somewhere else than their eyes because the frowns hurt me too much to look at. “We should drop out of the tour.”
“What?” Miles’s voice rose and finally, the last headphone fell out.
“I’m clearly not doing okay.”
“Yeah? No shit.”
“I’ve thought about it a lot…since Milwaukee. I think I really need a break. I need to take time for myself. I need to fix me, and there’s a lot of fixing to do. I never meant to hurt you both. I swear. I wanna get better. I really do. But I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my promise if I finish the rest of the tour. It’s just way too easy for me to use in this environment.”
Miles played with his headphone cords before he looked back up. “I can’t believe we’re dropping out,” he said and shook his head. His comment hit me square in the chest, hearing how disappointed and heartbroken he sounded. “But I forgive you. It takes a lot to admit your mistakes.”
“I second that,” Corbin said.
“It does, but I’m in the wrong,” I continued. “And I hate feeling this way. I’m tired of it. I want my life back. I want you guys back. I don’t want to be a disappointment to everybody.”
“We support you in whatever you feel is the right decision,” Corbin said and leaned over to catch Miles’s reaction. He nodded. “You’re not you, and as much as it’s disappointing to drop out, you have to think about yourself first and the future of the band. If your gut tells you this is the right decision, maybe it is.”
“The thing is: I don’t think I can get better by myself,” I admitted. “I have all these urges, and I’m so angry and depressed.”
“What are you saying?” Miles said.
Here came the thing I needed to admit but didn’t want to. It hung heavy in my chest, and it would hang there until I said it out loud. I closed my eyes for a moment as I inhaled a deep breath and then looked back at them. “I want to be on the right track before Meraki. I already messed up this tour. I don’t wanna mess up another important milestone in our career. I think…I think I need to get actual help. I can’t do this on my own.”
Miles’s eyes softened on me as his eyebrows puckered. “Like rehab?”
A deep exhale poured out of me. There it was, and honestly, having that word said and floating in between all of us wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. A feeling landed in the pit of my stomach that this was the right move. I had to deal with my issues head-on for the first time in my life. I needed to learn how to avoid the problems that would keep being problems. My depression and anxiety were always going to be a part of me, but the alcohol and drugs didn’t have to be. I didn’t want them to be.
I also just needed something to believe in again. If I didn’t believe in myself at the very least, then what else was there?
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s where I need to go.”
“Whoa, okay, this is really big,” Corbin said, probably thinking about all the media work about to come his way.
“I’ll be here for you when you get out,” Miles said with the thinnest, sympathetic smile. “I promise.”
My heart swelled. I never disappointed Miles as much as I did on this tour, but he still stood by my side. This was why I was determined to shake off my demons. If things didn’t work out with Reagan, as heartbroken as I would be, at least I had Miles continuing to be my rock.
* * *
The thing about being a nuisance as a teenager: I wasn’t that remorseful. I couldn’t explain why I wasn’t. Maybe I thought getting in trouble and disobeying my mom and grandparents was what I needed to do to fulfill my adolescent years. But now, I did feel remorseful. My actions hurt two of the people I cared the most about. Miles had been my best friend since we were fourteen. He was my first friend in California when I moved. I stood by his side during the years he was bullied, and he stood by mine when my grandparents died. We’d been through hell and back with each other, and this was how I repaid him? My stomach had been sinking since he found out about the coke, and I wondered when the hell it was ever going to finally hit the ground.
I knew the morning of our Minneapolis show that this was going to be our last. Corbin, Miles, and I fully discussed it with Finn right as we got to the hotel. He was disappointed just as much as we were, but he agreed with me that it was probably the right thing to do. I apologized for my behavior at our Milwaukee meeting and apologized again for putting Reagan in jeopardy.
Stepping out on the stage that night wasn’t thrilling and exciting like it used to be. I was so sad and empty. I looked into the crowd giving me ecstatic grins as far as I could see, and I played upbeat music to get them excited for the star of the show, who currently couldn’t look me in the eye or speak to me. Usually, when I performed a song, I felt so powerful with whatever instrument was in hand, melodies I created flowing through the speakers, so loud and heavy, it felt as if they swept me off my feet. I felt so powerful that I had the ability to control the mood of the show. We opened up with one of our head bangers, and then a few songs later, we slowed it down to get everyone in touch with their sensitive sides, and then we ended on another upbeat rock song with guitar riffs and Miles going crazy on the drums.
But when I performed in Minneapolis, it felt as if the crowd wasn’t mine anymore. The stage wasn’t ours. My life backstage wasn’t something I wanted to leave the exciting stage for. Nothing around me was mine anymore because I ruined all of it.
When it came time for the spot in our set list where we’d been performing covers—the ones that I started doing to seduce Reagan—I decided my last cover would be my good-bye song. It was “And So It Goes” by Billy Joel. I knew that the vast majority of fans wouldn’t know the song, but being heartbroken and remorseful were two feelings everyone knew. You could hear the pain in every piano chord, every lyric, and I wanted the song to offer a window into what my heart felt like at that moment. My heart was broken in so many different ways.
I wanted
Reagan to know that too. And there was only one way for her to find out.
The audience hushed, and I almost forgot there were twenty thousand people in the arena by how quiet they became, as quiet as the song was. I played that song as if I’d carefully crafted each lyric to Reagan about how she was going to break my heart and leave me, which was already done and in the past. Billy Joel wrote the song about his doomed relationship with Elle Macpherson, yet I hated to think my relationship with Reagan was doomed the whole time.
After the set, I debated whether or not to say good-bye to her. After all we went through, leaving her without saying anything didn’t feel right in my heart, but it felt right in my gut. Hovering right in front of her closed green room door, I could smell the sage seeping through the crack. I held my knuckles an inch from her door, wondering if I should tell her good-bye, but one last tug in my stomach pulled me away.
So, I left.
* * *
It wasn’t until the next morning when we finally landed in LA that Miles showed me on his phone the video going around the internet. Reagan responded to my song—like she did in the early days of the tour when we chased each other. She, too, opted for playing on her piano with Charles sitting next to her on his acoustic guitar. She sang “Million Reasons” by Lady Gaga, a song about how there were all these reasons for Lady Gaga to leave her partner if only he’d given a reason for her to stay. I watched Reagan’s face closely as she played the piano, and I could see her getting wrapped up into Lady Gaga’s words just like how I felt with Billy Joel. And each word was as painful to hear as if she wrote them herself. I could see the heartbreak I felt shimmering in her eyes.
But out of all the songs she could have picked, she chose that one. Did that mean I still had a chance to win her back? My one reason for her to stay would be that I was sober, and that would overpower all the other shit I did. Maybe. But then I kept thinking back to my awful prison comment, and I would understand if she never wanted to speak to me again. But even with that doubt, the slim hope of that Lady Gaga song would be something I clung to during my recovery. I needed something to believe in—something that would give me hope during my withdrawals and my cravings and the hellish days I was about to go through.
I told Mom everything that happened. Details and all. As much as it pained me to see her reaction, I had to. I thought when I was younger that Mom’s reaction to a cop bringing me home from pool hopping was a look of extreme disappointment. Or her reaction when Gramps had to explain to her why he was getting a security system and why he wasn’t sharing the code with anyone. And her locking herself in her room for two days straight when the school called her to inform her I was suspended for three days for bringing weed onto school property. Those were all teasers to my explanation for dropping out of the tour and checking myself into rehab.
“I just can’t…I can’t believe this, Blair,” Mom kept saying over and over again as she paced around her condo. “How did this even happen?”
She sobbed, blamed herself for it, then blamed Jason Hines and even Gramps, who apparently was a functioning alcoholic, Mom declared, and I had no idea until she said it through thick tears. I guess I was too young and naïve to put all his whiskey drinking and the liver cancer together. And then when I told her that Jason Hines had showed up, she cried even harder and started yelling at him as if he were there to hear it.
“I’m so disappointed in you. So incredibly disappointed in you. And your grandparents would be too. God, I can’t believe this.”
And then I started sobbing just as hard as she was.
Mom reacted the way I imagined she would react, far worse than when I was suspended. She sternly asked me to leave her house so she could process the info. I kept my drug use pretty hidden from her—from everyone—so I really didn’t blame her for needing space. I just really wanted her to hold my broken body in the comforting way like she did the night I broke up with Alanna.
Through thick tears, after I drove back home, I collapsed on my bed, replaying the look of utter disappointment and betrayal from my mom, and that hurt the most. My wonderful mother who’d already gone through so much in her life. And I had the audacity to hand her another huge weight for her to carry.
And then, when I checked my phone to try to get my mind off my mom, I discovered the brand-new celebrity news circling around the internet.
A burning pain erupted in my stomach and crawled up to my chest when I found the answer to my question of who Reagan was going to find to open her last ten shows. If she wanted to have the last jab in our feud, well, up went my white flag. I guess we were both even on the amount of hurt and betrayal we gave one another.
Midnight Konfusion Drops Out of Reagan Moore Tour Due to Personal Issues.
Bristol Perri Was Concerned about Reagan Moore During Benmoore Romance.
Ex-Girlfriend Jessie Byrd to Open for Reagan Moore for Remaining Shows.
Have Benmoore Called It Quits? Blair Bennett Drops Out of Tour, Jessie Byrd Joins.
Move Over Benmoore. Is Jeagan Back On?
Stab to the heart.
All those nights we spent together on her bus? Boom. Replaced with her fucking electric ex-girlfriend for rebound sex. All those songs we sang together? Boom. Replaced with Jessie Byrd, who took a seat on a barstool at the Winnipeg show, fingerpicking her acoustic guitar as Reagan gave her the familiar gaze she gave me when we performed together—steady wide eyes and a flirtatious smirk.
Because who cared about the hacking and the whole world knowing that they dated? Apparently, she didn’t care about that anymore.
It was always Jessie. You’ll never be anything compared to stupid Jessie Byrd and her combat boots and her leather jacket and all her rings and her indescribable swag that you’ll never have.
Fuck Jessie Byrd. And fuck Bristol Perri for being “concerned” about Reagan. Where the hell did that even come from?
I fought the urge to toss back shots, but it was so hard to do when my mind wouldn’t stop spinning with so much ire. I caved. I found a bottle of vodka in my room, about a third of it remaining. I tossed the liquid back straight from the bottle until it was empty, and then I beat myself up for caving when the whole point of dropping out of the tour was to stop drinking and doing drugs. I locked myself in my room and sulked like the drunken mess I was. About drinking. About Jessie Byrd. About Reagan. About Miles. About Gramps. About Grandma. About my fucking father. About my poor mother.
I needed to forget about Reagan until I was emotionally able to handle her moving on. Apparently, she was already on her way there.
So, after that last night of binge drinking, I checked myself into rehab.
Chapter Fourteen
After spending twenty-eight days in Rancho Mirage for rehab, I came back to LA and craved something totally different. Recording.
I’d had a lot of time with my thoughts and my journal. So much writing that my journal filled up, and I treated myself to a brand-new journal for being one month sober. The second month sober, Miles popped open a bottle of sparkling cider to celebrate being back in the recording studio, and even Corbin was blown away with what we came up with.
“This is a real album,” Corbin said three songs into the second full-length album. “I think this is the best way to answer all the questions everyone has.”
The first album was a thirteen-song collection we wrote from the ages of eighteen to twenty-three. Songs that dealt with growing up, partying, lust, and one song about death. But we’d grown so much since then, especially within the last year. The second album only had three songs recorded, but we had the list finalized. Songs about falling in love, heartbreak, addiction, and life and death. That gnawing feeling I had when I needed a drink now became a need to record. To get my voice back out there. To tell my side of the all the stories the internet told.
To continue celebrating two months sober, Miles and I went over to Mom’s house for dinner with her and Greg. She made my favorite: cheesy chicken casserole with a lay
er of shredded cheddar cheese underneath a thick layer of cornflakes. It wasn’t nutritious in the slightest, but it made my stomach and heart happy. I played her and Greg the three songs we recorded, and the song I wrote during my alcohol withdrawals made Mom cry and even Miles teared up a bit.
“Blair, you know how proud I am of you?” Mom said as she walked up behind me and hung her arms around my neck and shoulders, kissing me on the cheek.
It was a vast difference from when I told her two months prior about the drinking and the drugs. Her reaction was still engrained forever in my memory, and while I shivered, ached, and sobbed during my withdrawals, doubting my ability to make it through, I pictured Mom sobbing while yelling at me when I told her about the coke. Then I wondered what the hell Gramps would have done if he were still alive. That was what kept me going. As hard as it was. All those nights I lost sleep from the desire, from the pain igniting my bones, from the sweat sticking to my sheets. I wanted to get my life back because I really wasn’t living if I couldn’t even remember what were supposed to be the best days of my life.
Miles and I sat on the balcony, full of cheesy chicken casserole and homemade mashed potatoes—Grandma’s delicious recipe with sour cream, chives, and bacon. I had my new journal on my lap, on a page with freshly written lyrics. The words hadn’t stopped pouring out of my pen since I entered rehab and began reconstructing my whole life.
And the more I changed myself, the more I thought about her.
“Is it good?” Miles asked, pointing to my journal and opening a can of Coke.
I shrugged. “Just something that popped into my head.”
“I wonder who it’s about,” he said facetiously.
As he sat in the chair next to me, he swept his hair to the side and then looked at a sparkling Los Feliz with a little glimmer of downtown LA in the faint distance. I had to ask him the question that had been stuck in my head.
Hammers, Strings, and Beautiful Things Page 23