Chapter Nineteen
My paranoia was warranted.
I drag the red button back to watch it again, to torture myself.
Mike Song sits in front of his snobby wall of perfectly curated vinyls, giving his weekly vlog update.
“To everyone who caught AP’s Halloween fest two nights ago, I hope you stayed until the end for Final Revelations.
Two weeks ago, I hinted there may be a new album from the band, but I’ve since learned this isn’t the first time they’ve been in the studio since their fifth album, Purgatorium.
I don’t know what happened with the sixth album they recorded, but we all know about the long-standing feud between frontmen Nakamura and Bailey, so it’s not really a stretch to assume what the issue was.
A source close to the band confirms this seventh album will be their last—if it doesn’t go the same way as their sixth, that is.
So, if you caught Final Revelations’ AP set, count your blessings.
It may have been one of their last performances.
We are in the end times of Final Revelations. ”
Slamming my laptop shut, I roll over in bed and scream into my pillow, a few frustrated tears leaking out. I count backward from five and then from ten before forcing myself to get out of bed.
My apartment is still half-destroyed from my friends’ visit, and I wish they’d stayed one more day so I had someone to hold me together right now.
How does this keep happening?
I’d opened my laptop to check on my video with Marcus and Dax that went live today, only to find Mike Song’s vlog trending much higher.
How does he know? How is he still one step ahead of me, privy to information I’ve barely managed to wrangle out of them?
I pause in the middle of brushing my teeth. Unless—
I push the thought aside. No. This is my exclusive. There’s no way a member of Final is leaking info to Mike Song of all people. Which only makes it worse. If it were anyone other than Mike, it wouldn’t feel so damn personal.
Outside of the band, there’s John, Robb, and me, but we’re all NDA’d up to our eyeballs.
Expanding my mental scope of suspects, I feel slimy adding Final’s family and friends and, begrudgingly, my own—I told Brooklyn everything.
I don’t actually suspect her, but the point is people do know.
There’s Isaac, who has sold images to The Offbeat before, but I don’t think getting paid makes him a villain.
Then there’s Hudson, but why would he turn on his mentors?
There are lots of sources “close to the band.” I can’t fathom who would sell us out, who would have something to gain from it.
None of this is my fault or my responsibility to resolve, but it still feels like it is.
I have to go into a meeting with Robb and John in an hour, a meeting about the article I can’t seem to get right, even when rewriting it based on their feedback.
The foundation for the life I’ve spent years building is crumbling under my feet—again.
Will the article go the same way as Final’s sixth album—nixed?
Has my big opportunity slipped from my grasp?
If I’d been more focused, less caught up in Dax, would I have cracked the article already?
Would I know who the leak is if I’d been paying attention to my career and not my feelings?
I rub the scar on my ring finger the entire drive into the office.
I know, I tell it. I want Dax with a surety I’ve only ever felt for him, but if I fumble my career now, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
I have multiple missed calls from him, but I can’t talk to him yet, not until I know what’s going on with the article.
I’m fairly certain I leave my stomach in my Jeep, the crunch of the gravel beneath my Docs sounding in my ears as I approach the office like I’m walking to the gallows.
I barely make it one step in the door before Robb corners me.
“Get out of here,” she says under her breath. She glances over her shoulder to Dolores, who pretends not to see us.
“What?” I ask.
“Go home. Write. Write like your life depends on it—because it kinda does.”
I glance around wildly, tears springing to my eyes. “But our meeting—”
“I got it,” she says urgently, gripping my shoulders. “John is livid Song scooped us, but him making you feel like shit for something that’s not even your fault isn’t going to help. So go before he sees you.”
“Who is doing this?” My voice cracks, my bravado cracking with it.
“Would knowing help you write the article?” she asks with a tilt of her head.
She’s right. I decide here and now to drop it, to bury my journalistic instincts and not dig into it. I don’t have time to go down that rabbit hole. All I can control is the article.
I stare at her for a long moment before nodding resolutely.
I’ve never hugged her before, but I don’t hesitate, wrapping my arms around her like a kid.
I’ve waited years for someone to have my back like this, to take me under their wing and push me out of the nest at the same time. “Thank you,” I breathe.
“Make this worth it,” she says with a pointed raise of her brows. She gives me one last squeeze before spinning me around toward the door.
I drive back to my apartment in a daze, silencing my phone as I toe off my boots in the foyer.
I have no idea where to start, how to write this article right.
I’ve tried dozens of times, dozens of angles, every single draft coming back from Robb like it had gone through a wood chipper.
I drop my phone onto the mail pile, pausing when it clunks loudly.
Shifting the top envelopes to the side, I spy the clear case Dax dropped off a few days ago.
I only have the energy to lightly flagellate myself for not listening to it yet. I can’t even muster the energy to be nervous about what’s on here about me.
I settle onto the floor in front of my record player.
The long wooden table it sits on is one of my most prized possessions, my dad building it for me when it became clear my obsession with music was not a phase.
The middle is the perfect height for slotting in vinyls, the two cabinets on the side concealing my piles of CDs and the wires connecting my equipment.
The speakers on top of the table were a graduation gift from my friends, and much nicer than the ones I had when this table was built.
Today, however, I plug my headphones into the stereo.
Some albums are car albums. Some are shower-concert albums. I have a feeling this is a lie-on-the-floor album, a need-the-music-as-deep-inside-my-ears-as-possible album.
Taking a bracing breath, I slide the CD into the stereo and nock my headphones into place.
As the first notes fill my ears, I go still. I don’t know what I expected: heavy riffs, haunting melodies, guttural growls. Instead, the slow strumming of an acoustic guitar introduces the first track. When Dax comes in, he sets the record for how quickly an album has ever made me cry.
“Hi, my name is Dax and I’m an addict. I’ve been sober for six years.”
The first verse is aggressively upbeat, a sleight of hand.
Heavy lyrics with bubblegum pop vocals. It’s simultaneously not Final Revelations and very Final Revelations.
Dax sings about his struggles with sobriety, and I’m not ready for the chorus.
He switches from clean vocals to gutturals, and I recognize the lines for what they are: every article ever written about him questioning his sobriety.
I blink, and tears track down my face because I know without a doubt that the choice to sing these lines this way…
This is Dax’s inner monologue, repeating the worst things ever said about him as he’s holding on to his sobriety with a white-knuckled grip.
The song ends with a primal yell, and I hit Pause. The need to relisten is immediate, but I take a shaky breath before hitting Play on the second track.
The rest of the album is in the same vein.
Dax versus his demons, wanting to throw in the towel because what’s the point when everyone already thinks the worst of him, while simultaneously wanting to prove everyone wrong, the crushing weight of being told his music saves lives when he’s barely treading water himself.
Just when I thought the album was taking a happier turn in the middle, it jumps abruptly back to dark, the flow of the record disrupted, robbing me of catharsis.
It fits the theme of the album. Dax has been fighting invisible battles no one else can see, every victory overshadowed by a legacy he doesn’t see himself in.
His view of himself is so low it breaks my heart.
As it loops back to the first track, I realize how short the album is. While there are no songs about me, I understand why he was nervous for me to hear it.
Dax and Marcus’s arguments over the album make so much more sense now.
I get why Dax wouldn’t want to put it out there.
It’s incredibly personal. I could write articles about each song, about the glimpses into not only his psyche but the issues each track tackles: sobriety, mental health, parasocial relationships, industry expectations, imposter syndrome.
I know Nixed is a reflection of Dax’s experiences, but I can see myself in each song, the catharsis it could bring others, and I understand Marcus’s point of view, too.
These songs are much more literal than their previous albums, and there’s a vulnerability in Dax finally letting the literary veil drop.
Wiping my cheeks, I realize my tears haven’t stopped flowing since that first note.
Their decision to do this article has been years in the making. Even still, it’s no wonder Dax struggled during our interview. He doesn’t feel in half measures, bite-sized for public consumption. He feels in ways that are uncomfortable to bear witness to.