Always

by Amanda Weaver

  “No, Dillon, stop.”

  “Really?”

  She reached up, her hands dying to curl into his shirt and pull him in, to close the distance left and never let him go. Instead, she flattened her palms on his chest and shoved. He let her go and stumbled back.

  “Really.”

  She couldn’t look at him anymore, so she closed her eyes and turned away, leaving him to do whatever he wanted. Her days of standing by to witness it were done. She felt him behind her, watching her walk away. She didn’t look back.

  The elevator dinged when the doors opened and Justine flinched at the noise and the light. She stepped out and stopped to stare at herself in the mirror on the lobby wall. Her skin was ghastly. Her hair was scraped back into a messy ponytail. She’d wrapped herself in her favorite ratty, oversized hoodie— the one she’d stolen from Dillon ten cities ago— and her whole body was lost in faded black cotton. She couldn’t see her eyes behind her dark glasses, but she knew for a fact they were blood-shot and puffy.

  It had been a long night. Too much whiskey and too many tears. She rarely indulged in so much of either one, but after that awful scene backstage with Dillon, she told herself she deserved to wallow in self-pity for one night. The problem was always the morning, when nothing was any different and all she felt was worse.

  Sighing, she pushed her glasses up on her head and swiped her fingers under her eyes. It didn’t help. The bus was leaving in an hour, which meant she was ridiculously early, so she turned into the hotel coffee shop. Caffeine couldn’t hurt. She’d need something to fortify herself before she had to face Dillon again.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was sipping her coffee, hands curled around the warmth of the cup, when she felt someone slide onto the stool next to her. Turning her head, she found Ash, head propped up on his fist as he smiled weakly at her. He was wearing his clothes from the show the night before and if it was possible, he looked worse than she felt.

  Out of patience, Justine snorted in disgust and turned back to the front.

  “Rough night?” he quipped, his ragged voice giving him away. He might be pretending to be his usual louche self, but he was a wreck.

  “Not as bad as yours, apparently,” she snarled, tired of pretending to be cool with his recklessness.

  “Mine was pretty awesome, actually.”

  “Yeah, I saw, remember? The chick laying on my dressing table while you snorted coke off her chest?”

  Ash shifted uncomfortably on his stool. “Yeah… uh, sorry about that.”

  She waved her hand to brush him off. “Save it. I’m tired, Ash. Of all of this.”

  “You’re mad.”

  She swiveled to give him a disbelieving look. “You think? I just don’t get the two of you. Why do you need to be partners in self-destruction like this?”

  She turned away, not really expecting him to answer. Ash sat quietly at her side, clearly thinking about something while she sipped her coffee and ignored him. When he finally spoke again, his voice was different, lower, with no laughter at the edges. The voice she thought of as “Real Ash.”

  “Did Dillon ever tell you how we met?”

  She shook her head. “He just said you guys knew each other as kids.”

  He nodded slowly. “Since we were twelve. My mom, she was a model. You’ve probably seen her picture on old ads for designer jeans from the eighties. And perfume. And cars. She was big for a while.”

  Justine set down her cup, but said nothing, waiting for Ash to spin out his story.

  “She quit when she met my dad. He’s a film maker.” Ash rolled his eyes when he said that part, passing judgment on his father with a single dismissive gesture. “Things were good when I was a kid. He made a lot of commercials, one or two small films. My mom didn’t work, she stayed home with me. We lived in the Hollywood Hills with a lot of other industry kids. We were all so full of ourselves. We were going to inherit the world, you know? Or at least California.”

  Ash paused, but didn’t look up at her. He was running his thumb back and forth along the edge of the counter. “So when I was eleven, my dad hooked up with this chick working on one of his movies. The next thing I know he’s moved out. Then he says he’s going back home to Stockholm. The fucker had lived in the states for fifteen years, but out of the blue, he decided he couldn’t work unless he was in Sweden, and screw his family. So off he goes, with the twenty-year-old intern from his movie. And there I am with my mom, who’s never done anything but be pretty for her entire adult life. In no time at all, she’s acquired some new boyfriend to take care of her. And when that one crashes and burns, there’s another one ready and waiting. One after the other.”

  “I’m sorry, Ash—”

  He waved her off. “It’s not all that tragic. Seriously. I was just setting the stage. So there I am, twelve years old, desperately avoiding my house and the endless stream of guys banging my mom.”

  Justine flinched at his off-handed statement, but Ash pushed on, oblivious. “All of my Hollywood royalty friends were done with me. My dad wasn’t going to be getting their dads work any time soon, so what did I matter to anyone? I met these guys down in Hollywood. They were a little older than me, and way tougher. Those guys seemed to know everything. They were totally hooked up and nobody messed with them. I felt strong with them, like I was okay again.”

  “One day we’re hanging out in someone’s garage, watching some high school rock band practice. This skinny, dark-haired kid is there. He was so quiet, just watching. Watching the band, watching us, watching everything. One of the guys in the band knew him and passed him a guitar. Then this kid starts playing and I swear to God, the world just stopped. There he was, the same age as me, running wild on the same streets, and he’s this fucking musical genius.”

  In spite of everything, her raw emotions and exhaustion, Justine found herself smiling at his picture of a young, lonely Dillon.

  “We talked a little bit after. I told him I played, too, but nowhere near as good as him. We talked music for a while, the usual. He knew everything about music, at least that’s how it seemed to me. I said some smart-ass shit about something and he laughed. He hadn’t so much as cracked a smile the whole time he was there and I made him laugh. It made me feel epic. He asked me how long I’d known the guys I was hanging out with. I told him just a few weeks. He told me to be careful. I’ll never forget that. Him, with those dark eyes. You can’t read anything in his face, but it’s like he’s seen everything in the whole world happen twice already. No twelve-year-old before or since has a face like that. So I tell him thanks for the tip but I can take care of myself. We leave and that’s that.”

  Justine had swiveled on her stool until she was facing Ash, her eyes locked on his profile as he spoke, hanging on every precious word about Dillon’s life before the band, all the parts he’d never told her.

  “A week later, we’re down in Hollywood, a seriously rough scene. We end up in this fucking alley with these guys my friends knew from before, but it’s bad. They’re saying my friends stole this car from them and they’re going to beat the shit out of us until they get it back. And these guys were the shit. Older, tatted up, tough, and ready to mess us up. I was freaking terrified. I was twelve, you know? So then out of nowhere, Dillon shows up in the alley, like he’s just passing through. He tells these bad ass guys—who he totally knows, by the way—that I’m with him and I don’t know anything about any stolen car. And the motherfuckers believed him! They waved me off and Dillon dragged me out of there and we walked away! And as we’re walking out, he says to me ‘I told you to be careful’. Those guys I was running with are all in prison now. One of them is dead.”

  “So that’s how you met,” Justine said, at length.

  Ash nodded slowly. “Did he ever tell you about his mom?”

  She shook her head. “Only that his dad wasn’t around.”

  “Yeah,” Ash continued. “He never was, not even when Dillon was little. His mom always had a guy, though, li
ke my mom. But unlike my mom, she wasn’t a former model. It wasn’t good. A bunch of boyfriends and a few step-dads. None of them gave a shit about Dillon. The one who was around when we met was especially bad. He didn’t like some half-grown boy hanging around getting in the way and he said so with his fists.”

  Justine gasped, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. She’d had no idea, none at all. Ash cast her a small rueful smile over his shoulder.

  “Don’t worry too much about our boy. He’s smart and crafty. He knew how to keep himself out of harm’s way. Of course, it mostly meant staying out of the house. My mom had a guy of the month, too, but she was hanging out at his place in Venice a lot, so Dillon crashed with me. Then his mom announced she was moving to Las Vegas with the latest thug loser. Dillon didn’t want to go. I told him to stay, we’d figure it out. So he stayed. He was fourteen. A year later, that thug killed his mom. He probably would have killed Dillon, too, if he’d gone with them.”

  Fourteen. Homeless at fourteen. She couldn’t imagine it. And his mother… good God. He’d mentioned his mother once or twice in passing, but he’d never said she was dead.

  “For a long time, he pretty much moved into our garage. When my mom would show back up, I’d tell her if she kicked Dillon out, she’d have to kick me out, too. So she let him stay. And that’s how we started, me and him. We looked out for each other. I knew, always, that Dillon had my back. And I have his, to the ends of the earth.”

  “I guess it’s good you guys had each other,” Justine muttered, swallowing around the lump in her throat.

  “Neither of us would have made it if we didn’t have each other, I’m sure of it. Then we started playing together. In the garage of my mom’s old house. Chicks liked guys who played in bands, so we called ourselves a band. We both played guitar but I could never touch his talent. He was just too good. So I started singing instead. And that’s what I was good at. Also, it turned out chicks really liked lead singers. So win-win.”

  “And now you’re here.”

  Ash chuckled. “Well, a whole lot of years and trouble in between, but here we are. And that’s why it’s always got to be him and me. He saved my life, I saved his. Rocky and JD are great guys, but they weren’t scared and twelve with me like Dillon was. So it’s always going to be us, from here on out. Whatever happens in this insanity happens to both of us. ”

  Ash was staring unseeing at the pie case behind the counter and Justine was staring at him. So much made sense now. The unbreakable bond between Ash and Dillon, why Dillon seemed willing to follow Ash wherever he led… it all went back to that childhood connection forged in blood.

  “What if Dillon can’t follow you? What if it hurts him?”

  Ash leveled her a chilling stare. “I will never let anything happen to him. His life matters more to me than my own.”

  Justine was completely convinced of Ash’s sincerity. He truly would die before he let anything happen to Dillon. The part Ash couldn’t see was that dying was a real possibility, and he couldn’t take care of Dillon if that happened. She didn’t tell him so, though. He’d never believe her anyway, so sure of his own invincibility.

  “I’m glad he’s got you,” she said quietly. Because he doesn’t want me and he needs someone. She didn’t say it out loud, but Ash seemed to hear it in her voice. He turned back to her and ducked his head, bringing his face closer to hers.

  “And you’ve got your sister and your beautiful parents back in Cali waiting for you.”

  Her spine stiffened and her eyes flashed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Ash smiled gently. “It means you’re lucky. Look at you.” His eyes moved over her like he’d never seen her before. “So beautiful and so talented angels weep when you sing. You’ve got friends and an amazing family.”

  “What are you saying, Ash?”

  “I’m saying save yourself, angel. We’re no good for you, him and me. We can only hang on to each other. I’m afraid we’ll drop you and then what?”

  “I’m not that fragile, Ash.”

  Again, the sad little smile, and this time he raised a hand, rubbing his knuckle under her chin. “Aren’t you? You look like you’re already full of cracks and about to come apart.”

  Abruptly, her eyes welled with tears. “Try me,” she muttered. The words were tough, but her soft, wavering voice gave her away.

  “I’d rather leave you as awesome as we found you.”

  His words cut straight through her. Leave you. Because she knew they would. In a matter of days, she’d be gone and they’d carry on down the same path. She was sure she’d stay friends with Dillon once she was gone but now she was also sure that’s all it would ever be. He and Ash were already set on a course she couldn’t follow, and didn’t want to.

  She had something to say to him, but she hesitated. In the end, though, she decided to just do it. Ash knew how she felt, maybe if not the full extent of it. So she reached out and curled a hand around the back of his neck, pulling his face down until his forehead rested on hers. She closed her eyes and whispered into the air between them like it was a prayer.

  “You had better make sure he’s safe. Always. I’ll hunt you down if anything happens to him.”

  She half-expected him to laugh and make a joke out of it, like Ash always did. Instead, he closed his eyes, too and sighed, a long, weary sound. “I will. Always,” he promised quietly.

  All she could do was trust him. In a week, she was gone.

  Failsafe flew back to LA on the same flight, but Justine didn’t join them, choosing to detour to Emily in San Francisco first. LA meant she’d have to face David and that awful problem when she was still shell-shocked from Dillon and the tour. She just wasn’t ready, not yet.

  Emily asked no questions. She knew without being told that her sister was limping home nursing her wounds and needed a place to heal. When the cab deposited Justine at the curb, Emily was waiting at the top of the steps of the ramshackle old Victorian house she shared with four other artists. Justine paused at the edge of the walk, taking in the familiar brightly-colored peeling paint, the sagging porch roof, the railing with its missing spindles, and best of all, her sister, in a peasant skirt and over-sized sweater, waiting to welcome her in.

  Justine trudged up the walk dragging her small suitcase behind her. Everything else had been shipped back to LA, waiting for her to pick up the threads of her life. But right now she was here, in this safe place, about to give herself a much needed break. At the top of the steps, Emily reached out for her face, holding it in her hands, staring into her little sister’s eyes.

  “That bad?” Emily murmured.

  Justine finally let herself fall apart. She’d put her life on pause just for a few days to allow herself this indulgence, and then it would have to be over and she’d have to move on. But right now, she cried in her sister’s arms like her heart would break, like it had broken, over and over in a thousand tiny ways over months and months.

  Much later, after Chinese had been ordered and eaten, and after a bottle and a half of wine had disappeared, Emily finally asked for details and Justine was finally ready to give them. She told her sister about writing songs together on the bus and listening to an unknown band through a shared set of headphones in a record store in Omaha. She told her about walking the streets of some small town together for hours in search of an open coffee shop and about watching TV in hotel rooms and talking until dawn. She told her about falling asleep on his shoulder countless times and arguing about the Beatles until they were throwing things at each other. She told her about laughing and teasing, singing and talking.

  Then she had to tell her the rest. About an endless stream of girls and guys who showed up with all kinds of drugs. About long hours while he disappeared with someone who was not her to do things she didn’t want to be a part of. She had to tell Emily about Ash, a best friend, the third of their happy gang— and a rival, the one always luring Dillon away, always with a greater, older hold on him than she
had. She loved and hated Ash in equal measures. Dillon wasn’t so complicated. She just loved him with her whole heart, in a way you only love when you’ve never really done it before and don’t know to keep some parts of yourself safe. She’d gone all in with no guarantee and now she was left in pieces.

  Emily listened as she recounted the bad and the euphoric, all without judgment. She wiped her eyes when she cried and refilled her glass as she drank. And when Justine came up for air, Emily reminded her of who she was, a girl who could not be crushed by one guy who refused to love her back.

  In the end, Justine was just as tough as she’d always claimed to be. She allowed herself this one week to wallow and then she got on with getting over Dillon.

  November, 2008

  “Where the hell is he, Dillon?”

  JD came back from making a phone call and was furious to find Ash still hadn’t shown up. Dillon raked his fingers through his hair and groaned.

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Well, did you call him?”

  “Three times. And I texted.”

  JD swore under his breath and kicked the couch. Rocky sighed and fell back in his chair.

  “Is there anything we can work on without him? Any tracks we can lay down without vocals?”

  Dillon shook his head. “We’ve done everything we can do without him already.”

  “Try calling again.”

  It was pointless, Dillon knew, but he pulled out his phone anyway, just to keep JD from blowing a gasket. He moved into a corner and pressed Ash’s name and waited for it to connect. Like before, it didn’t ring, it just went straight to voicemail.

  “Hey, you called me so you know who I am. Now tell me who you are. Or just take off your clothes. Whichever. Later.”

  “Ash, where the hell are you? It’s after two. We can’t get anything done here without you. Call me.”

  After he ended the call, he pressed his phone to his forehead and closed his eyes. What he didn’t say was that they’d been in the studio since ten and they were paying for every wasted hour of time. And this wasn’t the first time Ash had failed to show up. Not by a long shot. Dillon knew he’d eventually roll in. He wasn’t so far gone he’d forget completely. Dillon just hoped he’d be sober enough to actually work when he did. He wasn’t always.