Chapter Nine
Ava had left, and the condo started to feel like a tomb. So Jay retreated to the one place that felt worse: Ari’s bedside.
Nothing had changed. Ari’s skin was still too pale. Dark circles bruised the hollows beneath his eyes. His head rested at an awkward angle against pillows stacked too high to be comfortable.
Jay had tried to fix them when he arrived, but the way Ari’s head lolled when he touched him made his stomach turn. He’d dropped into the chair after that, heart thudding.
He watched him for a long time, waiting for something. A twitch. A sound.
But when nothing came, he reached for his phone. He’d called Mira four times already. She sent him straight to voicemail every time.
So he sat there, gripping his phone and listening to the radio, which was Mira’s doing. She’d decided it would keep Ari “connected earthside,” whatever that meant. Jay didn’t see how a steady stream of grunge rock was supposed to help, but he didn’t have anything better to offer.
A nurse had told him to talk to Ari, tell stories from their past to fire up some neurons. Jay had nodded like he would, but how do you tell stories to the person who was in every single one of them?
His phone buzzed.
Samira: Staying with Maya. Just need some time.
The breath he’d been holding since she’d walked out the door finally left him.
He wanted to fill the screen with apologies. Instead, he kept it simple:
Jay: I’m here when you want me to be.
A few moments passed of beeps and Eddie Vedder groaning from the radio before his phone vibrated again.
Samira: I know.
Jay’s shoulders dropped. He hadn’t pushed her into the abyss, at least.
Leaning back, he tried to work the tension out of his neck. His sister was safe with her best friend. Ari was as safe as he could be. There was nothing else he could do. He needed to relax.
But then he thought about the journal. He’d given it to Ava. What if she was reading it right now? She would probably hate him after, realizing how weak he was…if last night hadn’t already shown her that.
He shouldn’t have told her he still loved her. What did he expect, her to just fall in his arms? He should’ve left it alone, but there was this small spark of hope deep down. Seeing Ava again only made him even more aware of the happiness he’d denied himself.
But why did he deserve a modicum of happiness anyway?
“Modicum of Happiness” would be a good song title. He needed to write that down.
Before he could open the Notes app on his phone, though, a call lit up his screen: Lionel.
The name felt like a leash tightening around his neck. He’d forgotten the meeting. Somewhere between last night and this morning, the decision had made itself.
The band was done.
Jay looked at his brother before answering and was unable to get a proper greeting in.
“Where the hell are you?” Lionel snapped.
Jay didn’t sugarcoat it. “I’m not coming.”
“Yeah, I see you think that’s an option.”
Lionel was normally good at hiding his irritation with a smooth, authoritative tone. Jay had grown accustomed to being politely scolded, but that’s not what this was.
“Throw whatever legal fees at me you’ve got. I’m out.”
“Look. I know you can afford it.” Lionel shot back. “Might even win in court. Eventually. But the label would freeze your royalties and drag this on for years. And after that? No one signs someone who walks mid-contract.”
Jay’s nails dug into his palm.
It wasn’t about the money. Or the blacklist. He could survive all of that.
What he couldn’t survive was going back to the life he’d leaned on, knowing that every song and every show had made the people he loved pay the price of his escape.
“Have you even seen the shit online? Someone leaked Ari’s coma to Rolling Stone. The press is ravenous, and you’re gonna let it all burn because you’re in your feelings?”
Jay kept his words steady, pushing down the irritation about the press leak. “I mean it. I’m done. I can’t do the rest of the tour.”
“And that’s your final decision?” Lionel’s tone dripped with malice. “You’re really doing this?”
“I’ll sign whatever you need me to sign. I’m not sorry.”
For years, he’d chosen Wicked Smile over everything. The band kept him from getting help when he needed it most. It blinded him to the fact that Mira was being abused. He missed the early signs of Ari’s addiction. He thought shutting Ava out was the right call.
Every blind spot was the cost of staying at the front of the band.
“You know this is a huge mistake, right?” Lionel pushed. “What are you even going to do without this band?”
It was a valid question. Ten years with Wicked Smile was a lifetime. He didn’t become an adult so much as he became Jay Wyler: lead singer, songwriter, and face of Wicked Smile.
Somewhere along the way, that became all he was.
“Guess we’re going to find out.”
The line went dead, Lionel ending the call before Jay could ask him to tell Riley to go fuck himself. The drone of the radio and the machines filled the air again, curdling Jay’s relief into nervous energy. Standing his ground felt right, but the uncertainty of change was terrifying.
“I wish I could fucking talk to you,” he found himself saying to Ari. “Shit’s really hit the fan since you fell asleep on me. Then again, you kind of stopped talking to me before this, so maybe you wouldn’t want to hear me out. I don’t know.”
He watched the machines force his brother’s chest to rise and fall as he slowly approached the bed. Tubes ran everywhere, but the one coming from his mouth was the hardest to look at.
“I’m going to try to get my shit together. Promise me you’ll do the same and wake up, okay?”
Jay turned to leave and let out a startled yelp.
Heather, their tour manager, was standing in the doorway. She wasn’t in her usual “backstage black”; she was in a blue dress, looking almost soft.
His outburst made her jump and clutch her chest. “Jesus, Jay!”
“Shit. Sorry.” He steadied himself, then frowned. “Shouldn’t you be at the meeting?”
“Shouldn’t you?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Touché.”
Heather laughed and walked over to pull him into a hug. The jangle of her bracelets was a sound he associated with bus calls and soundchecks. When she pulled back, she checked his face. “You look better. Not great, but better.”
“I’ve been worse.”
“Yeah.” She looked at the bed, her expression falling for a split second. “I remember you hooked up to these things. Do you and Ari have a punch-card for the ICU? Five visits and the sixth one’s free?”
“Complimentary MRI,” Jay joked.
Heather huffed a laugh, shuffling her tote bag to her opposite shoulder. “I’d rather you didn’t.” She scrutinized him for a moment. “Did you drive out here?”
“Nah. I’ve been walking. It’s just a half hour from our place.”
“That’s what I thought. Does Benny know you’re out here walking the streets by yourself?”
Jay avoided having a security detail as much as he could.
“I’ve got David if I need him.” He shrugged. “I’m a grown-up. I’m fine.”
“You’re a very recognizable grown-up,” she chided. “Your blue-ass hair is sticking out of that cap like a neon sign.”
“How is my ass hair sticking out of my cap?”
Heather groaned at his quip, taking the seat he’d just left. She dug into her bag and pulled out a ball of yarn and crochet hook.
Jay pursed his lips. “What’s that for?”
“I’ve decided that I’m going to crochet parts of a blanket every time I visit. That way, when he wakes up, I can smother him with it for scaring me like this.”
Jay had noticed Heather and Ari’s closeness over the last two tours. Ari denied anything more, but the three feet of blanket in her bag told a different story.
“Then I’ll leave you to it.” Jay adjusted his hat to tuck in the stray hair. “Try not to smother him until I can get onto him too.”
“Oh, we’ll all take a swing. I’ll finish the job with this blanket.”
Jay smiled. “Thanks for spending time with him.”
Heather started on a loop but looked up. “He might be your twin, Jay, but you’re not the only one who claims him.”
Jay nodded. He looked at Ari one more time—the machines, the face that was his own face—then stepped out.
Outside, he veered away from the condo. He wasn’t ready to go home. Instead, he crossed the street and wandered toward the university, cutting through campus without any particular destination.
He figured this was as good a time as any to practice the grounding technique his therapist mentioned that morning. So he started counting.
What are five things you can see?
A squirrel raced down a thick tree trunk.
A group of students laid on a blanket in a stretch of grass leading to a dorm.
In their stack of books, he saw one with Shakespeare in the title.
A trash can overflowed with numerous coffee cups as he neared the edge of the campus.
And lastly, he spotted a red brick wall that forced him left.
What are four things you can touch?
He dragged his fingers lightly against the bricks. A branch hung low from a tree, so he took a leaf between two fingers. He ran his fingers down the zipper on his hoodie. At the road on the other side of the wall, he bent to pick up a plastic water bottle rolling down the sidewalk in the wind.
What are three things you can hear?
The clunk of the bottle when he tossed it into a trash can in front of a small ice cream shop. He could hear the sound of tires on the pavement as people drove toward Music Row. Across the road, a toddler giggled as her parents swung her between them.
What are two things you can smell?
He could smell car exhaust as he neared an intersection. There was a fragrance of mulch coming from one of the old houses-turned-law-firms as landscapers fixed up the front garden.
What is one thing you can taste?
He took out a cigarette and brought it to his lips to light. Maybe this wasn’t what his therapist meant when he said to keep something with him to taste, but it helped his nerves.
As he took a drag, he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. A sign caught his attention in front of a two-story house.
Wicked Smile had recorded their EP in one of the small studios nearby when they first started.
That studio was long gone now, and this was another business that couldn’t handle the stress or the rising rent.
It was for sale, and from the looks of the crooked shutters around the window, it needed some renovations.
In the last few weeks, nostalgia had become a constant companion. Between being back home, seeing Ava, and now remembering how excited he and Ari were to record on Music Row…things weren’t easier then, but he at least believed in something good.
His gaze shifted to a small hair salon next door. He thought about the hat he’d been pulling low all morning to cover the blue strands. He’d been hiding behind that color for years—it was Jay Wyler’s color, Wicked Smile’s frontman, the guy who couldn’t walk into a bar without being recognized.
He didn’t want to be that guy anymore.