2. Jonah
2
JONAH
I drop my head to the cinderblock wall and close my eyes.
I need a cigarette, a shower, and my bed, but my smokes are in the fucking dressing room, and I’m locked out so Torren can fuck his girlfriend. The door beside me jostles, and I groan. They can’t fuck on a couch like normal people? They gotta do it against the door so we all know what’s happening?
When Callie starts to moan, my dick hardens in response, so I kick off the wall and storm down the hall. I need distance from this bullshit, but no matter what I do, they’re in my fucking face.
When I spot Hammond, I stop in front of him and glare until he gets off the phone. As soon as he hangs up, I throw my demand at him.
“I need my own room from now on. I can’t share any more suites with them.”
Hammond’s eyebrow arches slightly as his eyes scan over my face. He drops his attention down to my tightly balled fists, then back up to my clenched jaw. I know what he’s thinking. It’s what they all think.
Can we trust him alone?
Can we leave him unsupervised?
Jonah the ticking time bomb.
Jonah the live wire.
I cut into his thoughts with the truth.
“You want to keep me sober, Ham? Get me out of their suite. If I have to listen to them fucking anymore, I’m going to lose it. ”
It’s a blunt, low blow, but it’s the truth. I’m not exactly on the wagon, and everyone knows it. My position is a precarious illusion at best. But I know when I’m teetering. I know how it feels when my strength is faltering.
It feels like this.
“I’m keeping a key to your room,” he says finally, and I jerk out a nod.
“Fine.”
“And I’m giving one to Sav.”
“She’s not my fucking mom, Ham.”
He doesn’t respond. He just continues. “Torren and Mabel will also get one, and your security will obviously have one, too.”
“So if I move out of the sex den, I’m losing my privacy?”
“No. No one will use it unless it’s an emergency.”
He doesn’t reference the last emergency . He doesn’t have to. I see the flash of concern in his eyes, and guilt lashes in my gut. The guilt is why I concede.
“Fine.”
“If you need anything, at any point, you come to one of us.”
Hammond’s tone is one of sincerity, and the switch from all-business manager to caring father figure renders me speechless for a moment. I’m almost thirty, and Hammond is only ten years older than me, but once in a while, he’ll say or do something that reminds me of what it might have felt like to have parents who gave a shit.
I clear my throat, shove back my mommy and daddy issues, then jerk out another nod.
“I won’t do anything to jeopardize the tour, Wade.”
“Fuck the tour, Jonah. We’ve talked about this. You’re a priority. Everyone agrees.”
That statement just makes the guilt churn more violently until it’s creeping into my rib cage and making my heart race. I resist the urge to rub at my chest. Finishing this tour is crucial. It’s our last obstacle to terminating our contract with our label. Knowing that everyone is willing to postpone that if I fuck up just increases my feelings of failure.
I breathe through my nose, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly before laying myself bare for Hammond’s scrutiny .
“We need to get through this tour. I need to get through this tour. The only time I really feel in control is when I’m on that stage. I just...”
I close my eyes and shake my head, chasing away the images creeping into my mind. The thoughts that plague me when I’m not playing music. The memories that always return, no matter how many toxins I pump into my bloodstream.
“Having my own room will help, and I will not do anything that will jeopardize this tour.”
I can see the conflict in Ham’s eyes. I know what he wants to say. I’ve heard it before. My life is more important. The tour can be rescheduled. Everyone agrees.
What they don’t seem to get is how desperately my life might depend on this tour. I’m not exaggerating. Without it, I worry I’ll spiral. I’ll circle the drain without a call time or an adoring crowd to fish me out.
It’s not healthy. I know that. I’m so aware of it that I haven’t even mentioned it in my Thursday therapy sessions. But, for better or worse, it’s what I’ve fucking got right now.
I don’t break eye contact with my manager, and when he finally relents with a single nod, I feel like a brick has been removed from the pile of debris that’s been holding space on my chest.
“Thank you.”
“You’ll have your own room by tonight.”
With that, Hammond turns away while raising his phone to his ear, no doubt calling the hotel. Just as he disappears around a corner, I hear the door to the dressing room swing open and Callie’s soft laughter filters into the hallway. My lips curl in disgust, and I point my feet in the direction of the exit doors. I can bum a smoke from a roadie. I don’t feel like going back into the dressing room to retrieve mine. Not when I know it probably smells like sex.
Tonight, though, in my own room, I’ll be able to sleep without her presence emanating through the walls and her scent permeating every surface in the suite.
My therapist says this road is best walked one step at a time. She says eventually, my steps won’t feel like I’m on a fucking tightrope hovering above a cavern of jagged rocks .
I can do that. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other. I just hope to fucking God nothing new comes out and throws me off-balance.
Again.
I’m picking my way through my room service lunch when my phone rings.
I do the quick math. It’s morning in New York, and while I’d much rather ignore the call, my curiosity overrides my better judgment. My father never calls. I don’t think twice before I hit accept and put the phone to my ear.
“Yeah.”
“Is that how celebrities are answering phones now?”
I roll my eyes. I didn’t go through my rebellious phase until college. Despite the years and distance, it seems I’m not quite out of it. How cliché of me.
“Good morning, Father. How have you been?”
He doesn’t acknowledge my question, which is fine. I don’t particularly care about the answer. The words that do leave his mouth, though...
They hit me like a freight train.
I have to shake my head a few times before I can ask for clarification. There’s no possible way I heard him correctly.
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that? I think I misheard.”
He sighs. “Your mother has died. There will be no funeral. I’ve handled everything and she will be moved to the cemetery this afternoon. You do not need to come home as there is no will to review. I wanted you to know before it hit the news.”
My mouth falls open twice, and I have to force a swallow before I can form words.
“When? How?”
He sighs again. This time there’s a hint of sorrow. It’s barely noticeable, but I hear it. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m still very attuned to his emotions.
“I learned about it yesterday. It was accidental. A misdiagnosis of medication...They believe she went in her sleep. ”
A wave of nausea rolls over me. I taste bile on my tongue as the lunch I just ate threatens to come back up. Accidental . I know what that means. It’s the word families like mine toss out when they don’t want to admit the truth. When they’re in fucking denial.
It means it was anything but an accident.
“Were you with her?”
I ask the question despite already knowing the answer.It fuels my rage and redistributes my shame.
“You know she’s been upstate.”
“So she was alone. She died alone.”
“Mari saw her three times a week. Your mother wasn’t alone.”
I scoff and shake my head. Mari. The housekeeper.
I bite my tongue at the urge to lash out at him. To tell him exactly what I think of him. To point a finger at him so I don’t have to point it at myself.
“Anyway. Now you know. I have to?—”
I hang up. Then I stand, shove my wallet and passport in my pocket, and head for the door. There’s a security guard in the hallway, and I give him a casual nod.
“Gonna smoke. Be back in five.”
He nods back, and the tension in my shoulders lessens when he makes no move to follow. Thank God we’re not under twenty-four surveillance anymore. Instead of going to the roof to smoke, I push the button for the lobby and then hail a cab.
I’ll text Ham from the airport and tell him to play the Paris shows without me. Rocky Halstrom, the guitarist from Caveat Lover, could do it easily. My band will be pissed that I left without talking to them first, but they’ll understand. I’ve got to do this. Even if it fucking sucks, I have to be there. I’ll deal with the fallout later.
I tip the cabbie, then buy my way onto the next flight to New York. It’s not hard. I offer to upgrade a traveling college kid’s seat to first class if he takes a later flight, and he jumps at it. I don’t even have to play the dead mom card. I just sign his backpack, then take his seat in economy.
I shoot Hammond one text before I fasten my seat belt.
Me
My mom died. Heading back. Will text when I land. Have Rocky finish Paris for me.
Then I turn off my phone and shove it into my pocket, determined not to look at it until my feet are on American soil.
For the next eight hours, I try to ignore the buzzing in my ears. The tingling in my hands. The way each sound, each sensation, grows more intense with every mile of distance the plane covers. The memories invade, intrusive and persistent as ever. The left side of my stomach throbs. My heart races, and my vision blurs, but no attempt to sleep is successful.
The first time the attendant offers beverages, I turn it down because I try not to mix pills and booze anymore. I spend the next hour cursing myself for not bringing a book, or headphones, or some fucking nicotine gum. The second time the attendant passes, I ask for vodka, and she brings me three airplane bottles. I down them immediately.
It’s fine, given the circumstances.
It’s fine.
The liquor mixes with the anti-anxiety meds already coursing in my veins. It succeeds in dulling the ache, in quieting my mind, but it fuels my cravings.
When my fingers itch for another of the small glass bottles, I don’t even bother fighting it. I play the rock star angle and flirt shamelessly with the attendant until she brings me four more. I drink these a little slower, spacing them out over the next two hours, attempting to force myself into a comfortable intoxication.
This isn’t how I’m supposed to be dealing with my emotions. I know this. Conflicting arguments battle inside my skull. This is another failure. Another intentional fall from the wagon.
But my mom is fucking dead.
She’s dead, and it’s my fucking fault.
I grit my teeth and breathe through the age-old anger. The haunting despair. The guilt. It always comes back to the guilt. Even from the fucking grave, she has power over me. My mother, the puppet master. She’s always played my emotions like a fucking marionette .
I almost wish I believed in hell just so I could imagine her burning in a pit of flames.
I drop my head into my hands and dig my palms into my eye sockets until I see white. I breathe deeply. I push my toes into the floor.
Nothing works.
I write a proposition on a napkin, and the next time the attendant walks by, I sneak it to her. Fifteen minutes later, we’re crammed into the small airplane bathroom while I fuck her from behind. She’s got her legs on either side of the toilet and her forearms on the wall in front of her face. Her flight attendant dress is pushed up on her hips, her pantyhose are shoved to her knees, and her thong is tugged to the side as I thrust as deep and fast into her as I can without making a racket. I reach around her body and rub on her clit until she comes, and then I spill into the condom.
We’re quiet as she hurriedly fixes her outfit, taking a brief moment to glance at her reflection in the small mirror above the sink. She looks the same. No makeup smudges. No hair out of place. She gives me a wink, and with one last kiss, we both slip quietly back to where we came from.
Thanks to the orgasm, I manage to get a couple hours of sleep, but it’s fitful and plagued with images I’d rather forget. None of it ever works for long. Sex, alcohol, drugs. The relief they provide never lasts. Temporary fixes are all I can rely on in a world like mine. One that lacks permanence in everything except pain.
I land at JFK airport around nine in the evening, but by the time I’m through customs and pulling out of the rental car garage, it’s closer to eleven. I have every intention of getting on the interstate and driving straight to the cemetery, but the closer I get, the whiter my knuckles become from how tightly I’m gripping the steering wheel. After only twenty minutes, my leg starts bouncing. Twenty more minutes, and I’m clenching and unclenching my jaw. By the time I’m approaching my exit, my head is pounding, and sweat is dotting my hairline.
My body makes the decision before I have a chance to even think about it. Instead of turning toward the cemetery, I get back on the expressway and find the nearest liquor store.
Vodka. I need vodka.
“Just a little bit more.” My words cut through the silence of the car, and I jump. I didn’t mean to say them out loud, but then I repeat them. “Just a little bit more. Just to get through tonight, and after this, I’ll dry out and stay sober.”
I’ll commit to the process this time. I will.
I just need to get through this.