Allegro #2
“Bodhi.”
I looked up, not realising I’d dropped my gaze to my lap, and found Iggy watching me.
His arm was outstretched, fingers half curled like he was reaching for me.
The space between us felt vast, a canyon I couldn’t cross, but still I swore I could feel his grip around my arm.
A phantom warmth bleeding through the sleeve of my hoodie, reminding my lungs how to work.
“In the end,” I whispered. “I had everything I’d ever wanted. But at what cost?”
My jaw clenched, muscles twitching with the pressure.
“We became another cog in the machine. A cash cow for men in suits who owned us, who reshaped us into whatever sold best.”
The words kept coming, heavy but unstoppable.
“The music we wrote in our bedrooms disappeared. Professional songwriters took over, making sure everything appealed to the masses. Tours were planned for us. Setlists chosen. Our image decided by people who only saw dollar signs floating above our heads.”
My voice carried through the room, but I only saw Iggy.
I was burning out fast, running on fumes, but I couldn’t stop now.
Not when it had taken me three weeks to get here.
Not when it was only because of the man across from me, pink hair too bright, green eyes too honest, that I felt safe enough to tear myself open.
“I fell out of love with music,” I said quietly. “With performing. Everything felt flat. The applause stopped meaning anything. I couldn’t tell if people liked our music because of how it sounded, or just because of the name attached to it.”
I swallowed.
“I lost all control. So I started taking drugs. Because I didn’t feel anything, and I needed to feel something. I had the money, the access, the means to get whatever I wanted, so I thought . . . fuck it. Why not?”
My voice didn’t waver, even as the words darkened.
“Why not snort lines with strangers? Why not drown my privileged misery in expensive whiskey? Why not try heroin when the coke stopped working?”
A single laugh slipped out of me, hollow and sharp. Iggy’s brows had pulled together, his mouth turned down hard.
“I know how it sounds,” I said, holding up a hand in surrender. “Spoiled. Pathetic. Poor little rock star.” My shoulders sagged. “And instead of confronting the problem head on, instead of asking for change, I chose drugs.”
I dragged a hand down my face.
“I wasn’t running from pain. I was running from emptiness. I just needed stimulation.”
When my voice fell silent, the room didn’t rush in to fill the space. It just . . . sat there. Heavy. I glanced around the circle. A few nods. A few blank faces. Someone shifted in their seat.
My chest tightened.
Had I fucked up? Been too honest? I wished, suddenly, that I’d paid more attention to everyone else’s stories. At least then I’d know whether I’d crossed some invisible line.
Ricky leaned forward, hands steepled, nodding as he frowned. Processing. I was so wrapped up in the silence that I nearly jumped when he spoke.
“Thank you for sharing that, Bodhi,” he said. “What I’m hearing is that when things began to change, you stopped feeling—”
“Are you fucking serious?”
The interruption cut through the room like glass. Every head snapped towards the sound.
Iggy.
He was rigid in his chair, arms folded tight across his chest, shoulders drawn up around his ears. He was glaring—no, burning. If this were an anime, black flames would’ve been licking at his outline, his fury aimed squarely at me.
“Iggy,” Ricky warned.
“That’s not change,” Iggy snapped. “That’s convenience.”
I opened my mouth, but he ploughed straight on.
“Change is when you don’t get a choice. When your body or your life decides something for you.”
“I didn’t get a choice,” I said, keeping my voice even. “The label—”
“You could’ve stood up to them,” he shot back. “Any time. Your life didn’t change. You just stopped liking the current version.”
Ricky raised a calming hand. “Let’s all take a breath—”
Iggy stood, slow and deliberate, like moving too fast might shatter him. He took a step towards me, his body trembling.
“You still got to do what you loved,” he said, jaw clenched. “You just decided it didn’t feel special enough anymore.”
Another step.
“You didn’t want to change your life, so you changed the feeling instead. Chemically.” His voice cracked, disbelief bleeding through. “That’s not losing yourself. That’s opting out.”
One last step.
“Some of us don’t get to opt out.”
Ricky rose and crossed the circle cautiously, like approaching a cornered animal. “Iggy, I hear what you’re saying. But we need to slow this down.”
“No,” Iggy spat. “Because this matters.”
He surged forward. I jerked back in my chair, certain I was about to get punched. Instead, his finger stopped inches from my face.
“Change doesn’t mean you get bored and destroy your life just because you can afford to.”
Ricky caught his shoulder and gently pulled him back. Iggy’s arm fell to his side. Tears streaked down his cheeks, and the sight punched the air from my lungs.
“This sounds like a lot of frustration around control,” Ricky said carefully. “And that’s valid. But this needs to stay a safe space.”
Iggy let out a wet, humourless laugh.
“Safe for people who still have choices.”
I tried to speak, but he shook off Ricky’s hand and stormed towards the door. Ricky called after him, but he didn’t stop. At the threshold, he gripped the frame, knuckles white, painted nails biting into the antique wood.
Without turning, he spoke quietly.
“I’d take boring any day if it meant I could still do what I loved.”
Then he was gone, and the circle collapsed back into silence, heavier than before.
I found Iggy on our usual bench in the garden.
I saw the clouds of sweet-scented vapour from his vape before I saw him, tucked away in the leafy alcove.
He was curled in on himself, shoulders hunched, head bowed, fuzzy socks smeared with leaves and dirt from the cobbled path.
He wore his usual uniform of tiny cotton shorts and an oversized hoodie, goosebumps stippling his bare legs in the cool evening air.
Not wanting to startle him, I made a point of scuffing my shoes against the stone as I approached. He didn’t look up, but the way his body went rigid told me he’d heard. I stopped in front of the bench, my shadow stretching over him.
I wanted to ask if he was okay. To ask how he was feeling. But that felt pointless. He’d already told me exactly how he felt when he stormed out of group. So I kept it simple.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
He didn’t answer, which I’d expected. I even wondered if he’d acknowledge me at all for the rest of our time at the Willow.
The thought twisted something dark and sharp in my chest. After Iggy had crashed into my life like a comet, all colour and noise, the idea of returning to a world of grey felt . . . unbearable.
“I brought a blanket.” I held up the fluffy throw I’d stolen from the lounge like an offering. “Thought you might be cold.”
Still nothing.
I considered turning around. Walking back to the house. Accepting that whatever fragile thing we’d built had collapsed before it ever had the chance to settle. That I’d be alone again.
Then he spoke.
“You don’t get it.”
It was barely more than a breath. If the wind had stirred the hedges, I might’ve missed it.
“It didn’t change for me,” he continued, fingers worrying at the rhinestones embedded in his vape. “It ended.”
I lowered myself onto the bench beside him, slow and careful. The stone was cold even through my sweats. I kept the blanket folded in my arms.
“I’m not adapting to a new version of my life. There isn’t one.” He made a small, sharp gesture at himself. “I’m just . . . this. Broken.”
I didn’t contradict him. Didn’t rush in with platitudes or corrections. It wasn’t my place. Even if I didn’t agree, his pain was real. We were both here for a reason.
“You still get to go back out there,” he muttered. “You still get the noise, the lights, people looking at you like you matter.”
His shoulders sagged as he exhaled, and he finally lifted his head. His eyes were dry now, but the green still caught the fading sunlight.
“I don’t.”
I let the words settle. Really listened.
This wasn’t anger, not really. Or not just that.
It was grief. Loss. Jealousy, sharp-edged and unfair but painfully human.
Whatever had happened to Iggy hadn’t reshaped his life.
It had taken something from him. Ballet.
The stage. That feeling of being seen for what he could do.
He envied that I could still touch the thing I loved, even if I’d grown distant from it.
I shifted and reached into my pocket, unfolding the crumpled page I’d torn from my sketchbook. When I laid it between us, his breath hitched.
“I drew this a few days ago,” I said quietly. “During music therapy. You wouldn’t sit still.”
“Figures,” he scoffed, but his mouth twitched like he was fighting a smile.
I traced the edge of the charcoal carefully.
The drawing showed him seated at the battered Yamaha keyboard, posture straight, slender fingers hovering over the keys.
But my favourite part was his face. Head thrown back in laughter, hair flying, eyes bright, mouth wide with joy, even as he butchered Chopsticks for the hundredth time.
It hadn’t mattered to him that he got it wrong. He’d kept trying anyway. And when he finally played it through without mistakes, it was clumsy and uneven, the way a child plays their first song.
It had been perfect.
“You don’t look broken here.”
He reached out, tracing the curve of his own elbow with a painted fingernail.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” he said softly.
“I know.” I didn’t push. “It just means you were alive in that moment.”
I thought back to everything I’d said inside.
About emptiness. About control. About feeling disconnected from the thing I loved.
I didn’t want to hurt him again. I just wanted him to understand that pain didn’t have to look the same to be real.
I wanted him to widen his world, just a little.
And maybe, selfishly, I wanted him close.
Wanted him to be my anchor while we were here, both of us battered and drifting, trying not to sink.
“This is what I’ve been chasing. Not the music. The feeling.” I leaned into Iggy’s shoulder, closing the small but stubborn distance between us. “You still have that.”
He stiffened at first, then slowly relaxed against me, sagging like the fight had finally drained out of him. Like he was tired of swinging at everything—other people, his addiction, himself. What was left felt like bone-deep exhaustion.
“You don’t get to tell me what I still have,” he muttered, and I had to bite back a smile. Even wrung out like this, Iggy still had a spark of defiance tucked away.
He wasn’t wrong, though. Not even a little.
“You’re right,” I said, nodding. “But I do get to tell you what I see.” I tapped the page between us. “And I don’t see someone who stopped existing.”
He rested his head against my shoulder, and I felt the small hitch in his breath as he swallowed.
“I used to be Iggy the ballet dancer,” he said quietly. “Then I was Iggy the party animal. Then Iggy the addict.” His voice thinned. “Now I’m just . . . I don’t know who I am anymore.”
A cool breeze cut through the garden, and he shivered, tugging the cuffs of his hoodie down over his hands. I passed him the drawing and shook out the blanket, draping it over both our laps.
“I feel hollow,” he went on, eyes fixed on the paper. “Like I’m waiting for someone to tell me which version I’m supposed to be now.”
I shrugged. “I guess that’s the exciting part.”
He lifted his head, green eyes wide, searching my face.
“You get to be a version of yourself you haven’t even met yet.”
I didn’t say anything else. Just let the words sit there between us, fragile and exposed. I had no idea how he’d take it. He might snap again. Might tear into me with that razor-sharp mouth of his. Might stand up and storm off in a way that was aggressively, unmistakably Iggy.
Instead, he snorted.
Then his mouth tipped into a smirk.
“You’re still a prick, you know.”
I laughed, the sound leaving me in a soft rush. “I’ve been told.”
Iggy giggled, light and bright, the sound catching on the breeze like wind chimes and carrying the last of the tension away with it.
And in that moment, I knew—okay, hoped—that we’d be alright in the end.