Chapter 1 #2
He opened his mouth to respond, but then we heard laughter behind the door, and a moment later, it opened.
Raleigh stuck his head into the hallway, stared at me, then at Tarik.
“I fucking knew that pussy wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Tannis”—in ten years, he’d never gotten Tarik’s name right—“get him some goddamn clothes for the show.”
The door slammed, and Tarik passed a tired hand down his face. “How hard is he going to make this for you?”
“I don’t care what he does,” I told him, pulling the sweater on. “But if you’re cool with quitting…”
“Zeinab’s pregnant. I don’t want to be on the road anymore.”
My heart leapt in my chest with sadness because he was my best friend, and losing him was going to suck, but also joy because he deserved to be there for his family. “Let’s go,” I told him. “You need to be home with your wife.”
He didn’t live in Ellis City anymore, but he lived close enough that he could drop me off and make it home by sunrise.
Tarik hesitated, then carefully pulled his walkie out of his back pocket and set it on a small, rickety card table with a stack of programs on it. I could hear the static and then a voice calling for him. He looked torn, but I reached out and took his wrist.
“I need to go home.”
He nodded, but before I could pull my hand away, he squeezed. “You deserve better than all of this. You know that, right?”
“I’m starting to figure that out.”
That probably wasn’t even close to what he wanted to hear, but in that moment—a moment that set fire to both of our feet—it was enough. We both took a breath, and then I glanced down the hallway to find no one waiting there.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Tarik pulled keys out of his pocket. “Lead the way.”
I had never been great at coping with inside pain. Outside pain—that was easy. Slap a Band-Aid on, take a shot of whiskey, pop a Xanax, and call it a day. I could do that. I was used to outside pain. I’d been inflicting unintentional outside pain on myself since I could remember.
My mother had always called me the reckless one. “He’s a wild child,” she would tell her friends who would watch me barrel through the park as though it was my job to concuss myself before the afternoon was out.
My brother was and always would be more cautious, the pulse in his neck almost visible with his frantic heartbeat as he watched me take my life into my own hands for no other reason than it sounded like fun.
That wasn’t me anymore, of course. That was a stranger—a memory—and that wasn’t the face that looked back at me in the mirror now. I had no idea how long it had taken before Raleigh destroyed those parts of me, but I wanted them back, damn it.
Christmas was officially over as of three days ago.
There was no evidence the relationship had existed at all.
All of Raleigh’s things were out of the apartment, and they’d only filled about four boxes and two suitcases.
There were no empty corners or bare walls after removing his things.
Just a couple of drawers, a rack in the closet, and half the main bathroom cabinet.
It was in that moment I had become painfully, profoundly aware of how little he’d existed in my life.
The boxes downstairs held loungewear, several pair of shoes that had never been worn, some mugs, some overpriced skincare he rarely used, and an old plate with John fucking Wayne that had been hanging above the kitchen cabinet—a relic his grandmother had left him.
The only reason he even put it up was because he genuinely loved her, and it was evidence there was some kind of human emotion in him somewhere. But he was not a whole person. He was shattered pieces put together to resemble a person who had empathy and kindness in him.
The band name we eventually took on, Tender Fracture, felt very apropos right now. It was almost like I could see the end, even right at the beginning. My only regret was waiting until I felt flayed raw and so tired I never wanted to get out of bed again.
I felt tender now—a sort of quiet ache in my bones that was impossible to get rid of.
And part of it was knowing he’d wanted to inflict this kind of pain.
When he walked his side piece into my dressing room three nights ago with that smile, knowing it was going to wreck what little stability we had.
But the joke was on him. It was too fucking late for anything to truly break.
If he’d wanted to fracture me, he should have done this years ago when I still had hope that whatever was fundamentally wrong inside of him could still be fixed. That the heart he claimed he possessed just needed some TLC. But I’d lost hope for that years ago.
All I had now was the echo of what was—or what I thought we were meant to be.
I’d seen what the band was doing now. How they filled in the last shows after my departure. They’d gotten a substitute lead singer who knew all my songs and sang into the mic like they were a parrot. A sad mimic of the person I was who cut himself and bled those words onto the starving crowd.
There were some complaints online, but in reality, most people didn’t care that I was gone.
To them, music was music. My songs didn’t have meaning to them the way they did for me, and that was something I had to accept.
To live with. To process because there was grief in that too.
It wasn’t just leaving Raleigh, or the band, or the road.
It was leaving a life I’d helped create because it was the sacrifice I had to make in order to get free.
It didn’t help that I was also fielding phone calls and emails from nameless cogs at our label, and my agent, who was busy freaking the fuck out because the only thing she knew was that I wasn’t on the road anymore.
But I would answer all their questions after the new year. After I had time to gather myself and decide what I wanted to happen next.
My phone buzzed again, and I looked down to see my brother’s name on the screen. I wasn’t used to Tollin calling me. He usually sent messages through my PA telling me about big life events—Mom’s birthday, Dad’s retirement dinner, the birth of a child, the death of a great-aunt.
I tried to be there for him as often as I could, but every time I seemed even remotely distracted from work, Raleigh would invent some crisis that demanded my attention, and all I’d be able to think about for days on end was him and managing his…mood.
God, I really had let my life spiral into a total shit pile, at the base of shit mountain, on the eve of a shit show.
A lot of it was Raleigh’s fault, but blame rested on my shoulders too. I could have done better, prioritized people who deserved it, opened my eyes a little wider to see who Raleigh was, and—
Shit.
I needed to fucking answer my phone. “Hey.”
Tollin sounded surprised. “Atlas. I caught you. Where are you right now?”
I knew he knew. I could hear it in his voice. Everyone knew that I was MIA, but Tollin had clearly caught on to why. “I’m at my loft.”
“It still kills me you call it a fucking loft, you pretentious prick.”
“What would I call it?”
“I don’t know? Home?”
Home had never sounded right because nothing about this life ever seemed to feel like it was where I belonged.
It was like a suit that was half a size too large—not impossible to wear, but never comfortable.
But I didn’t expect him to understand that.
He was a well-paid accountant with an amazing wife, two kids, stress like anyone else had, but the support around him to deal with whatever fell in his lap.
That sounded like home.
Not this nightmare.
God, the melancholy was going to consume me if I didn’t pull myself out of it. I couldn’t let Raleigh ruin everything, especially now that I’d gotten out. “Okay, well. I’m home. Happy?”
“Not really. Why are you home? I’ve been getting calls from dickheads named Ralph and Persimmon. How is that even a name? It’s a fucking fruit.”
Her name was actually Paisley, but I knew who he was talking about. They were from the label—walking robots in the shape of humans whose sole purpose was to make sure their artists didn’t create a major crisis.
Like I’d just done.
I pushed away from the cabinet I’d been digging through and started down the hall, freezing when I reached the mirror hanging at the very end of the corridor.
Fuck, I’d forgotten about that thing. Raleigh had seen it sitting on the side of the road one afternoon when we were in Boston.
It was remnants of an estate sale, and he couldn’t stop driving by it, so eventually, we stopped, and he shoved it in the trunk.
I swore it was haunted, but he insisted on hanging it up. “It gives the place character. And if there is a ghost, you’ll have someone to keep you company when I’m busy.”
Fucking, he meant. When we were not on the road and he was out at clubs getting laid by people who weren’t me.
I sighed at my reflection. I looked like the ghost in the mirror now. I was pasty, hair greasy, face unshaven for far too long. There were bags under my eyes that no cream could tackle, and my cheeks were hollow from not eating for days.
When was the last time I’d had an actual meal?
“Hello?”
I realized Tollin had still been talking. “Sorry. Um…”
“Are you okay?”
“No. Not really.” It was time to rip the Band-Aid off. “Raleigh and I are…it’s…over.”
He was quiet for long enough to tell me he was trying to think of the right words because he was happy, but he didn’t want to rub salt in my wounds.
I didn’t blame him for taking pleasure in the split.
Raleigh had made it his mission in life to keep space between me and my family.
He didn’t like the idea that they loved me unconditionally when he hadn’t been given the same, but he couldn’t offer it either.
“What are you going to do. Did you leave the band, or…?”