Chapter 29 - Lost
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Lost
Tristan let the door fall shut behind him and waited in the hallway outside Milo’s room. He still felt that emptiness, which shouldn’t be there.
Milo’s stuff is still here.
Why can’t he also be here?
The time with José had drained Tristan. On the drive here, Tristan had briefly considered stopping by Leaf’s place, but he needed a break from everything.
He was tired of dwelling on problems that sucked the life out of him like leeches.
Maybe José was right; focusing on what he could control might help him feel better.
But right now, he didn’t want to control anything.
Since his return from Vegas, Tristan had strived for normalcy, pretending he had checked off all the bad things—under control, left behind, and ahead.
He even tried to downplay them. He didn’t expect a bright future where everyone rejoiced and eagerly anticipated the upcoming tour.
Any future would do, not a glamorous one dusted with gold.
All he wanted was to avoid collapsing and falling apart.
But it seemed he wasn’t far from that right now.
His heart raced with memories lurking, tension gathering over him like a dark cloud, tearing him apart from within.
Like a ghost, he slipped into the kitchen, rummaged through the cabinets, and searched for relief.
“Stay away from it, Mingan,” he heard his brother’s voice in the back of his mind again. “I know you hardly drink anything, but once you start, you can’t stop. That’s not good.”
“I don’t want to drink,” he replied to Milo. “I want to write.”
For that, a glass was enough to ease the cramps and breathe.
Tristan pulled out the half-full bottle of Jameson and poured himself a drink. Thoughtfully, he leaned against the kitchen counter and stared at the chaos in the living room. Notes everywhere. His guitar lay on the couch.
Yes, he wanted to write.
Had to write.
He settled on the couch and immersed himself in the chaos. He didn’t need to wait. Not to search. The words came quickly; they crowded him. Dense fog limited his field of view, and his entire focus was only on one thing.
The pen in one hand, the glass in the other.
His gaze followed the black lines on the paper as he formed words and strung them together.
Thoughts. Fragments. Detached from his emotions, they couldn’t affect him anymore.
The barriers were open, and he was without doubt, without fear, and without questions.
Unshaken, he left reality behind. Captured it on white ground.
Created new worlds and immersed himself in eternal noise.
A solitary lamp illuminated behind the drum kit, casting José’s shadow across the room.
After dropping off Tristan, he had come here, but instead of playing, he had been sitting motionless on the stool for minutes, staring at the toms in front of him, trying to figure out what had even brought him here.
The conversation with Tristan? Which part of it? He hadn’t been upset or sad when he left Tristan’s place. Instead, it felt like Tristan’s emptiness had spilled over onto him—or at least, was lurking around him.
Were his efforts in vain? Was this the end of Nightstalker? What else could he do to prevent that? Wasn’t he already doing enough? Pacifying Andrej. Uplifting Tristan. Supporting Leaf.
José believed in this band. Even though everything pointed to them not making it, he wouldn’t stop fighting for them. Unwaveringly. Yes, that’s why he had come here. Because only drumming had the power to release the pressure and all the doubts that almost overwhelmed him at the end of the day.
He played lightly on the snare, gradually entering a trance-like state. Increasing the tempo and dynamics more and more. With a transitional fill on the toms, he shifted into a four-four time. José tilted his head and closed his eyes.
Leaf restlessly paced back and forth in the bedroom, his heart racing.
He then sat on the edge of the bed and clenched his fists.
Despite his repeated efforts, the tingling sensation persisted.
He questioned whether he had made the right decision, and the uncertainty gnawed at him.
What stunned him most was that he had sent Diego a message expressing condolences and casually informing him that he would be on the guest list for the Whisky on Saturday.
He hadn’t made that decision in a drug-induced haze but completely sober.
Now, as the cocaine hit and was supposed to be a substitute for heroin, it almost agonized him. His thoughts whirled around like a roller coaster, taking a life of their own. His pulse quickened, and he could feel his heart thudded thumping loudly in his chest.
What if Diego sees through my intentions?
What if something goes wrong?
What if I jeopardize the safety of the band members?
Tristan’s safety.
Could Leaf bear that responsibility?
Agitated, he jumped up and continued pacing back and forth. He struggled to tie it up again. Despite his attempts to take deep breaths, the tightness in his chest made it impossible.
No, I have to go through with this, he told himself. Even if everyone hates me afterward. It’s the only way to seek justice. It’s the only way Diego gets the punishment he deserves.
And yet, he felt like he might explode. In his desperate attempt to regain control, he teetered on the edge of falling back into old patterns. He still saw his heroin use as mere slip-ups, things he could correct with cocaine. But his body craved the euphoria of the gold he injected into his veins.
Fuck!
He knew all too well that he was about to lose everything, yet he was only dominated by this one thought. Heroin. It even seemed comforting because it pushed aside all the rest that haunted him. It gave him the feeling that it was okay to lose everything.
Tristan. The music. Himself.
No!
He stopped in the middle of the room and pressed his palms against his temples.
Pull yourself together! The effect of the cocaine will wear off soon. But what then?
He placed a cigarette in his mouth, tossed the pack onto the bed, and frantically searched for a lighter. After rummaging through a pile of clothes, he found a yellow one that Milo had left behind. It was empty.
Leaf gritted his teeth.
It grew dark. Very dark.
The drumbeats pierced through the darkness, expanding and flooding the room. José picked up the tempo, a fill, a break, and back into the rhythm.
Tristan took a big gulp of the caramel-colored liquid, promising false warmth.
With a new sheet of paper, new words began to flow onto it.
Too much unspoken churned inside him, rolling over him.
Frustrated, he crumpled the paper, discarding the unusable.
He continued writing. On and on. Obsessed and intoxicated by the ideas spilling forth.
He hung the paper on the wall with the others—a place for his thoughts.
A piece of space for each additional one.
Oscillating between table and wall, he introduced a new fragment.
A new spot. An empty space. He stepped back and took a sip from his glass, then reached for another paper.
He finished his drink and needed a refill.
With every new word, new line, and additional thought, he added more to his collection.
The rhythm breaks. Sixteenths on the closed hi-hat, stomping quarters on the bass drum. José whirled over the toms, doubling the beats underneath with crashing cymbals overlaying the fills at progressively shorter intervals.
“Why isn’t there a lighter in this house!” Leaf’s father shouted, grabbing him by the arm.
Leaf flinched, and his body trembled. His father dragged him through the hallway and out into the garage.
The light came on, illuminating the massive wall of tools in front of them.
Hammers, drills, screwdrivers, files. Everything hung neatly by size, ready to be grabbed.
Leaf swallowed hard, his knees buckling.
“Here!” His father shouted and tossed something toward him.
At the last moment, he caught the object. It was a blowtorch. Leaf gasped and stared at the thing in his hands.
“Fire!” the father yelled, holding an unlit cigarette.
Leaf’s hands shook like leaves as he tried to turn on the electric gas burner.
It was the first time he had held this thing.
From the looks of it, it was protected by a child lock.
Grunting with annoyance, his father snatched the device from him, disengaged the safety, and handed it back to him.
With a click, Leaf ignited the gas and held the flame up.
His father leaned down, held the cigarette to the flame, and took a drag.
Leaf turned off the burner, set it down, and took a step back.
He desperately wanted to go back into the house.
“Not so fast,” the father growled.
Leaf froze.
“You don’t think you’re getting away with this scot-free, do you?”
Leaf threw the empty lighter and the cigarette away.
Something inside him snapped. Out of control, he pushed the books off the shelf and ripped the boards from the wall.
Then he grabbed the wooden chair and smashed it to pieces.
He threw a chair leg at the lamp, and the light went out.
The clatter of glass echoed in his head.
With his foot on the pedal, Jose pounded his sticks across the toms in a mesmerizing blur. The walls trembled with every kick of the bass drum. Sweat clung to his brow as his sticks battered the kit with relentless speed.
A tornado of double bass and cymbals ended the solo.
Tristan taped a piece of paper to the wall and stepped back.
He felt dizzy. All the notes, thoughts, emotions, and feelings.
Where once they couldn’t reach him, the sight of the paper-covered wall now felt overwhelming.
A knot tightened in Tristan’s chest. The wall had become a minefield.
Every thought was a danger. Every word a risk.
He set down the empty glass. As he straightened up, his vision went black. Slowly, he turned his head to the side. Then he collapsed.
Exhausted, Leaf sank to his knees, folding in on himself. His breath came in shallow, ragged bursts, the floor cold beneath his palms. For a long moment he stayed like that—head bowed, trying to pull the scattered pieces of himself back together.
José set the drumsticks aside and let the silence settle. He hung his head and exhaled a deep sigh. As he lifted his gaze, he surveyed the dreary rehearsal room.