Chapter Fifty-Eight
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
BONNIE
I keep dragging my thumb over the raised number on my five-year chip, hype music blasting in my headphones. I’m tapping one stick on the counter to the beat, counting each segment and letting the music consume my thoughts. My head is entirely clear. I’m satiated, void of any needs or desires other than how damn excited I am to get on the stage soon.
Two sixty…
How the fuck did I actually reach five years sober?
My phone vibrates with the scheduled notifications for my social media, and I smile at the thousands of reactions to the photo I posted the day after the band helped me celebrate the milestone. The post was a picture of the chip in my open palm, and on the second slide was a selfie of the entire band together. What I didn’t include were pictures of the cupcakes Andi made or all the hugs they met me with when Gemma and I made our way to the studio that afternoon.
The celebration was simple, and Darcy came by to finally give me my chip too.
The last few weeks have tested me thoroughly. The nightmares… the unfamiliarity of the new apartment… And yet, throughout every obstacle, I’ve had more support than ever.
Moving closer to my friends was the best decision. Asking Gemma to live with me is one of my favorite memories. And being able to create endlessly with my family has made me happier than I ever thought I would deserve.
I’m still not sure I deserve it, but I want to prove to myself that I’ve fucking earned it.
My ass still aches from the spanking Gemma gave me. She came by with Kade and Liam before we began rituals to give us the security rundown, and essentially, it boiled down to this: don’t be stupid, but don’t hold back.
We’re free to be our entire selves again.
It was what we all needed to hear. I don’t think any of us haven’t thought about the last show at least once today. The energy here, though? Fucking hell.
The energy is a one-eighty.
I can’t wait to get on that stage. I’m restless, thirty seconds from getting out of this chair and jumping up and down. Each time I tap the drumstick on the countertop, I see the drums in front of me. I hear the strikes, see the crowd bouncing along…
All to the heartbeat we’re creating.
Concerts aren’t just a sanctuary. They’re also an emergency room. We all arrive on the verge of the flatline, in need of care that only the music can give us. This band? We’re just the doctors. Our fans are the blood. And the music? Fuck .
The goddamn music…
The music is the scalpel, the stitches, and the aftercare all at once. For two hours, we get to heal the broken, and when they leave, they take a piece of us with them.
The dressing room door opens then. My eyes lift in the mirror, immediately finding Mads’ gaze over his mask as he enters. He points to the gap between the door and frame with a smile in his eyes, and I pull my headphones off just in time to hear the last syllable of our name being chanted from the crowd.
“Glorious,” I say, spinning in the chair to face him. “Chills. Every time.” I hold up my arm so he can see the hair standing on them.
Mads crosses the room toward the space where he left his things. “You remember how loud it was at DeathFest?”
I blow out a breath and grin his way. “Hell yeah. Insane.”
“Times that by five,” he tells me.
My head tilts back as I swivel back and forth. “Fuck me,” I say as I hit my sticks together. “That’s wild. Seriously?”
“Fuck yeah.” He changes clothes from his hoodie into his regular checkered button-down over a Young Decay metal font tee.
Stella sticks her head in the door then, smiling brightly when she looks between all of us—Reed meditating on the floor, Zeb crashed out on the couch with his headphones in, towel over his face as he air guitars. When I asked him which podcast he was listening to today, he replied with the name of a cold case show about hikers disappearing in national parks.
I realized later that it was the first podcast I ever heard him mention, the same one he and his mom once discussed before the shows. Peering his way, I wonder if he’s reached out to her this year like he said he was going to, or if the wounds are too fresh still.
Young Decay.
Young Decay.
“What’s up, Stels?” Mads asks her.
“Fifteen,” she answers. “You going out on one more round?”
“Yeah one more for good luck, right?” he replies, flipping his collar out.
She smiles at him before peering my way. “How are you feeling, Bon?”
Young Decay.
Young Decay.
The chant pricks the back of my neck with anticipation.
Headlining show—a fucking new headlining show.
And we’re playing my song.
“Psyched and a little terrified,” I admit.
“Yeah, fuck that, Bed.” Mads smirks at me. “They’ll go crazy for your shit.”
“I’ll be back soon,” Stella tells us before closing the door again.
Mads takes a draw from his vape before pulling up his mask once again. He signs me the horns, pivots on his heel, and as he reaches for the knob, I restlessly launch out of my chair.
“Hey, Mads?”
“What’s up?” he asks, pausing.
I grab my slouchy jacket and wrap it over my arms, letting it hang loosely off one shoulder. “Mind if I walk?”
I can see Mads beaming at me over the mask when I turn around.
“You never walk,” he says.
I shrug. “Making new traditions, right?”
He chuckles. “Hell fucking yeah, you can walk.” He holds the door open wider, and I sprint out of the dressing room.
The buzzing energy hits me the moment I’m on the other side. It’s infectious. I feel it in my bones. The chant… the shouting… My head drops back as I take it in.
“This is crazy,” I say once he’s closed the door.
He jerks his head in the direction of the stage. “Just wait.”
The entire walk, I’m skipping, jumping sideways, punching my arms in the air nearly every time they say our name—entirely unable to stay as cool and collected as Mads is. We pass by a few of our roadies who I eagerly high-five because those fuckers work their asses off for us, and we wouldn’t be shit on any tour without them.
Each time the crowd chants our name, my stomach twists a little tighter.
“What are you listening to?” Mads asks about the headphones around my neck.
“You know I grunge-out before this shit.” I take my phone out and increase the volume so that he can hear it.
“Fuck yeah. I need this playlist to add some new shit to mine,” he says.
“Yeah, you do.”
Young Decay.
Young Decay.
“Though, this shit might be hype enough,” I say about the sound of our fans.
I hear him snicker. “Brings you back to why we do this, right? Makes all the sleepless nights and sore bones worth it.”
“Yeah, it does,” I agree.
When we reach the edge of the stage, I swallow the lump in my throat at the sight of all the posters our fans have hanging on the railing. The sea of people goes back further than I can perceive. There’s something about seeing it from the side of the stage here, the calm before the storm, that causes emotion to swell within me.
Some of these people camped out all day just to have a spot in the front.
“Holy shit.”
Mads pushes his hands into his pockets and rocks on his toes. “Wild, right?”
I’m still taking it all in when I hear someone yelling, “ BEDLAM! ” from the front. I whip my head toward it, finding a group of fans all pointing and shouting both mine and Mads’ nicknames. I stick out my tongue and give them the horns hand gesture, making them sign it back, and Mads—much more calmly—does the same.
“This is gorgeous. No wonder you always walk,” I say.
“Walking grounds me,” he says. “Do you remember the first time you sat behind that kit?”
I smile fondly at the memory and wave to another fan. “You thought I was crazy.”
Mads scoffs. “Not crazy. Confident? Hell yeah. I wasn’t sure what to expect, yet you exceeded every fucking expectation I had about who might eventually make this band complete.”
I smirk sideways at him. “Don’t make me cry, Mads,” I tease him.
He turns toward me and pulls down his mask. “I don’t always make the best choices… But going along with you jumping on that stage was one of the best fucking ones any of us made. We were lost before you. Our music… It was just lyrics and guitar lines. We had the brain, the muscles, the bones. Still, there was no heart at the center. It was a stone, and then you jumped up there and brought us to life. We wouldn’t be Young Decay without you.”
My lips press together tightly to keep my emotions in check. “I should punch you for these tears,” I say as they begin to swell.
He chuckles. “You’re our heart, Bed. I hope you know how much you mean to all of us, especially to me. I know we’ve never been close, though, seeing you these past months hit all-time highs and the worst kind of lows… I’m so fucking proud of you. Seriously, I’m so fucking proud to call you my sister.”
“You shithead,” I say, swiping a tear.
He leans down and hugs me then. I squeeze him tightly, kicking my feet when he pulls me off the ground. I hear screaming nearby, then see a camera flash, and when Mads puts me back onto the ground, we pivot to find Andi in the walk looking at the photo she just took of us.
“Hey, twelve minutes,” Stella says behind us. “Reed is stretching.”
Young Decay.
Young Decay.
“Oh hell yeah, let’s go!” I slap my hands on Mads’ chest and hold up the horns one more time to the audience who can see us. Andi snaps another photo. Mads signs “I love you” to his wife.
And I jump onto his back as we make our way to the dressing room again.
My arms are in the air. Shouts leave me the entire ride. We pass Avie on the way back, and when I yell at him, he blows me a kiss and flips Mads off before resuming his phone conversation.
The chant follows us back.
Music hits our ears the moment we open the dressing room door. Zeb has one of our hype songs blasting already as he changes out of his hoodie to the shirt he’s wearing onstage. Reed is off the floor, jumping up and down like he’s psyching himself up and singing along to the lyrics—excessively banging his head.
I hop down from Mads’ back and join him, skipping and hopping all over the room, entirely matching his energy for the duration of the song. By the time the breakdown comes on, all four of us are in a circle. Zeb and Mads with the air guitars. Sticks in my hands. Reed screaming into an invisible mic.
The song wraps with our hysterical laughter. We’re still falling over one another as the next song comes on, and Stella sticks her head in the door.
Young Decay.
Young Decay.
“Yes! Leave that open,” Reed tells her.
She snickers. “Out in eight,” she reminds us.
My stomach knots and twists even more so than it does for any usual show. The sound of their chanting amps me. I grab Reed and I’s energy drinks out of the mini fridge. I shake them up, and we link arms to pop the tops and gulp them back as quickly as we can without getting totally drenched.
“Alright, circle up, let’s go,” Zeb says, clapping his hands together.
He’s tossing the small bean bag we always game with from hand to hand. We get in game positions, circled together in a huddle. I immediately push Reed as Zeb tosses the bean bag up. Mads catches it with his foot first, and thus begins my favorite part of our rituals.
Stella is telling us we have three minutes by the time one of us lets the bag hit the ground. I high-five Zeb on our victory, adrenaline beginning to swarm so madly within me that my ears are ringing. I check my makeup and outfit one more time in the mirror, then head out of the room first—Zeb gesturing and bending his head toward the door as if to say, “ Ladies first. ”
“We’re walking,” Stella says over her radio.
I’m so fucking pumped and anxious that I can’t stop clacking my sticks together. Every breath I take feels short. Zeb grasps my shoulder as if he can see my anxiety, and the squeeze of his hand on my collar helps me fully exhale this shit out.
Young Decay.
Young Decay.
I’m more nervous about this show than I was the first time I jumped onstage with them.
We’re playing my fucking song tonight.
We pause behind the stage the moment the lights cut out for our new intro. We huddle together, and I blow out a breath that comes out as maniacal laughter. A thunder track sounds, strobe light flickering onto the stage.
Breathe.
In. Out.
I can’t stop moving.
“Fuck me,” I laugh, bouncing on my toes. “I still can’t believe they let us change this shit up.”
“Next tour will be even more epic,” Mads declares. “Horror movie set. Running from the killer. The hero hides and starts praying, but then they remember their god never saved them. The song starts up with the screeching violins—”
“Fucking revenge time,” Reed says.
“Hell yeah,” I grin.
Young Decay.
Young Decay.
“You think they’ll feel the love tonight?” I ask about what is essentially a love letter to our fans.
“ Can you feel— ”
I laugh as Reed sings under his breath.
“If they can’t, they need to get the fuck out of the pit,” Zeb replies.
“I’ll kick them out myself,” Reed chimes in. “Just get the hell out of my church.”
We chuckle as the thunder track cracks behind us again. It makes me flinch, and yet when I hear the nurses and doctors chatting frantically on the recorded video, goosebumps erupt on my arms.
“Circle in. Let’s do this,” Mads says.
The four of us take hands as the new intro begins. I bounce and hang my head, letting the noise of the flatline move through me. There’s a commotion, doctors scrambling, nurses shouting. Strobe lights flicker with more thunder.
I can feel my heart growing heavier, emotion pressing behind my eyes. Reed squeezes my hand, and I blow out a heavy breath as the intro voices blend together, each one louder, more frantic.
“—take my hand… She isn’t going to make it—”
“The only one who can rescue her soul now is god—”
“What? No. Fight for her ,” someone argues. “Fight for her. Why did you stop? Help her! ”
“Nothing can help her now—”
A chair cracks. An object breaks on a wall. “You’re wrong!” they shout. “I know what can save her.”
Everything goes dark.
The crowd erupts.
A heartbeat thumps like two consecutive taps against a bass.
One. Two.
One. Two.
One. Two.
“I always thought when I died, there wouldn’t be anything waiting for me. And I think about dying… a lot.”
Screams sound from the audience as the recording of my face fills the screen.
“If I was lucky, I’d see that parade… Maybe even the darkness that I called home too many times before.” I chuckle at myself. “Some fucking daydream, right? I know now, my drum kit will be waiting for me. I’ll greet the damned who arrive after, and when they tell me how they made it so long, we’ll all have the same answer. It was the—”
“—music that gave me the strength to carry on, ” Zeb says, his face on the screen now. “It was the thing that helped life make sense. It connected me to people I had never met. A global community listening to and connecting with the same lyrics and beats. Music goes beyond language. It—”
“—helps us remember that we’re not alone,” Reed says, the crowd going wild.
I nudge him in the side, and he bounces on his toes, smirking sideways at me.
“It’s… it’s what we’ve all turned to when nothing else made sense… Those beats, the lyrics… all of it has saved too many of us. It was always there when we thought life might not be worth the pain.”
“Music has a way of transcending reality,” Mads says.
The horde loses their minds.
Two of our backstage crew—Drew and Porter—approach us carrying Mads’ and Zeb’s instruments.
“When the real world got to be too much, it anchored me. It brought me a future I never thought I’d have. It’s surreal that we get to create the thing we all once bled to. It’s always been my safe place, my prayer. Music—”
Each of our faces flash across the screen.
“Music—”
“Music—”
“Music—”
“—granted me the serenity to fight for my next breath,” Mads says.
“—gave me the courage to accept all the bullshit from my past,” I add.
“—encouraged me to change the things they said we couldn’t,” Zeb says.
“—gave me a voice to challenge the difference,” Reed says.
I glance down at my wrist, at the number two hundred and sixty now tattooed onto my flesh, and I run my thumb over the black ink.
“I fucking love you guys,” I say, grinning through my tears.
“We love you, Bed—”
“Love you—”
“You’re going to kill it—”
I can still hear them as I head up the steps to my platform.
“Almost every person in this room was once flatlining,” Mads goes on. “This is what we reached out to when we didn’t have anything else. This is what fought for us when nothing else did. We all gave in to the madness—”
“—the havoc.”
“—the bedlam.”
“—the chaos.” Reed chuckles. “Let’s get this blood flowing again.”
The screen goes dark, the stage pitch black.
The crowd erupts once again. I’ve made this climb enough times to know exactly where my seat is. I sit on my throne and wrap my hands around my sticks. A heavy breath leaves me as I settle my feet, entirely giving myself over to the animal that’s about to inhabit every inch of me.
And when I hit the bass, mimicking a heartbeat, smoke plumes onto the stage.
I see Mads’ and Zeb’s silhouettes as they join me seconds later. Slowly, they begin playing—Mads first, Zeb a few bars later. I crack my neck and close my eyes when the rhythm picks up, each cymbal strike prompting a strobe light.
The song rises along with my heart rate.
One-two.
Three-four.
Over and over.
And when Reed eventually makes his way onto my platform beside me, I grin his way.
He leans over and plants a smacking kiss on the top of my head, ruffles my hair, and launches off the platform with the beat drop.
Let’s. Fucking. Go .