Chapter 65
Chapter Sixty-Five
Roderick
It’s eight in the morning when Eddie’s driver picks me up.
I’ve barely had coffee, haven’t eaten anything, and my hands won’t stop fidgeting in my lap the entire ride.
The city looks too clean this early. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it before.
It’s almost as if the sidewalk wants to forget I ever crawled back here.
By nine, I’m in Eddie’s office, sitting across from him as he scarfs down the rest of a breakfast burrito that looks like it’s been reheated twice. There’s a second one in front of me. I’m halfway through pretending I’m not hungry when he slides a napkin toward me like it’s a peace offering.
“You need protein,” he says through a mouthful, gesturing at the untouched food like I’m the problem. “The shit they give you in rehab doesn’t count.”
I should remind him that it’s been thirty-six days since I left rehab, but instead, I pick up the burrito without arguing.
The silence stretches between us as I chew, the only sounds in the room the faint tick of a wall clock and the soft rustle of newsprint as Eddie scans the financial section, flipping the page with ink-smudged fingers.
His knee bounces under the table, twitching like there’s a storm brewing behind his eyes he hasn’t decided whether to release or hold back.
Finally, he folds the newspaper in half, sets it aside with a quiet thump, and looks at me. He meets my eyes like he’s about to hold a mirror up to my soul and dares me not to look away. Then he dives in.
“Roderick, I’m not here to coddle you,” he says. “You want a life that’s worth living, we start now.”
I nod, chewing slower, the tortilla suddenly dry in my mouth.
“You want your life back?” he asks, eyes locked on mine like he’s not afraid to look straight into the wreckage.
“Then you need to decide what that actually looks like. Because it can’t just be fame, noise, and a backstage pass to your own self-destruction.
You’re not that kid anymore. If you want to survive this, you’ve got to build something that fucking matters. ”
I lean back in the chair, fingers stained with salsa, wiping them on the napkin like that’ll get rid of the guilt sticking to me. “I don’t even know what a life worth living is supposed to look like anymore.”
“Then let’s figure it out.”
There’s no pity in his voice—just fire. A burn that licks down my spine and dares me to move.
There’s something else in it too. Recognition.
Like he knows the taste of rock bottom, knows what it’s like to wake up on the floor of your own fucking life and wonder how you got there.
He’s crawled through the same ash, barefoot and raw, and now he’s offering me a goddamn map.
“You’re a musician,” he says, voice low but as sharp as a guitar string tuned just shy of breaking. “At your core. We know it. You carry it in your veins. Your father made sure you had no choice but to bleed rhythm and write lyrics instead of speaking.”
“I guess.” I nod, slow and uncertain, like maybe agreeing too fast will crack something wide open. “Music’s the only thing that ever made sense.”
Even when nothing else did—when the pills numbed too much and the drinks blurred too fast—music still cut through.
The only clarity I had was on stage, under the glare of lights, my fingers on frets, sweat sliding down my spine, the audience screaming like they could save me if they were just loud enough.
Sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been easier to do something else. Maybe I should’ve followed Kit—gone to college, studied something with clear expectations and a path that didn’t involve screaming into microphones and drowning in backstage silence.
She went to Juilliard. Me? At the age of sixteen, I was dragged into dive bars with a guitar and a bleeding throat, chasing distortion and swallowing down every lie the industry fed me with a shot of tequila.
Yes, Connor Dempsey told us to drink before we performed. It helped with the ambiance, he said.
Fucking asshole, he should be in jail for everything he made us do.
I just followed him because my father said I should start early. “You don’t need school or a degree when you’ve already got a destiny.” I believed him. “You’ve been performing from a young age.”
Which was partially true. Matinees with the Seattle Philharmonic since I was six is not the same, is it? That was just a dress rehearsal.
I was born to be a rockstar. At least, that’s what they told me. But no one tells you what to do when the lights go out. They just throw you more drugs to keep you happy—or sedated long enough that you don’t realize your life is a fucking dumpster and there’s no way out.
“Then music is your foundation,” Eddie continues.
“But not the version of it that nearly killed you. Not the noise and lights and nights you don’t remember.
I mean the part of it that’s just you and the music.
That gut-level need to tell a fucking story.
That thing that used to pour out of you like blood. ”
Something in my chest pulls tight. The way he says it—it doesn’t feel like some motivational speech. It feels like a mirror. One I’ve been avoiding for years.
“But you don’t get to just pick up a guitar and pretend none of the other shit happened,” he continues. “You need structure. You need a plan. You need to do the work.”
I scrub a hand down my jaw, the stubble grating against my palm. “Okay. So, what does that look like?”
He sits back, folds his arms, studies me like he’s trying to decide how much truth I can handle before I break.
Then he says, “You need to create again. Not perform. Not sell. Create. We’ll find a studio.
You show up there three times a week. No audience.
No engineers. Just you and the instruments.
You write. You figure out what the fuck is still in there worth saving. ”
“And if there’s nothing left?” I ask, hating how small my voice sounds when I say it.
“Then we dig,” he says, eyes narrowing. “Until there is. Or until you bleed enough on the page that something takes root.”
I swallow hard, pulse thudding in my throat. “And if I fall off?”
“You won’t,” he says. “Because I’ll fucking drag you back myself if I have to. We’ll go together to meetings, and if you can’t find a sponsor who you can trust, I’m here for you.”
There’s something building inside me. It thrums low, insistent, like purpose waking up after too long underground. Not fully formed, but alive enough to make my pulse drag and my breath catch like my body remembers what it’s like to want something that doesn’t end in ruin.
Eddie stands, grabs a folder off his desk, and tosses it onto the table like it’s both a challenge and a fucking link to my salvation. The papers flutter. The tension doesn’t.
“Here’s a rough schedule. Therapy—twice a week. Studio time, if you want it—three. Daily meetings. And if you can manage six weeks of actually showing the fuck up, then we’ll talk about what comes next.”
“Six weeks,” I repeat, dragging my finger along the edge of the folder like it might bite me. Like maybe I want it to. “Of what, penance?”
“No,” he says. “Of proving you’re done circling the drain.”
My mouth opens, then closes. No comeback.
Just silence. The air hums with this low, mechanical wheeze—whatever ancient unit keeps this place from suffocating.
He doesn’t sit. Doesn’t ease the tension.
He just leans back against the desk, arms crossed, gaze locked on me.
Like he’s daring me to either bolt or fucking lean in.
Then, he adds, “I’ve got ideas. Schools need music, art programs . . . sports. You could help me with that—after studying for a degree, of course.”
“School?” I say it like a joke, but it lands flat.
He shrugs, casual, but there’s nothing casual in the way he watches me. “It’s a thought.”
“I dropped out of high school,” I remind him, voice quiet now. Defensive. Maybe ashamed.
He was there. He and Rita, his mother, told me I shouldn’t. I needed to study. Did I listen? Nope, because why would I think that the maid knows better than my parents? Confession time: she did.
“Then you get a GED and go to college . . . unless you don’t want to try.”
I bristle, but only for a second. “I do want to try,” I say, almost before I know I’m saying it. “But what about the music?”
“You’re not ready for a stage,” he says, and it doesn’t sting. It should, but it doesn’t. There’s no bite, just truth. Like he’s laying me bare and wrapping the raw pieces in something I’m afraid to call mercy.
“But maybe it’s time you learned how to build something off of it. You can help me create the Eddie Music Foundation. We’ll help public school programs, fund instruments, lessons, mentorship. You show up, and maybe you become the guy some scared kid actually needs.”
And, fuck, the way he says it. Like he sees that guy already—beneath the wreckage I’ve made of myself. His words should feel like pressure, like obligation, but they don’t. They feel like a pulse, a charge in the center of my chest.
There’s a part of me that wants to tell him to back off. He doesn’t know better, but maybe he does, and that’s what scares me. That he might have the key to what could be a new life.