Chapter 14
Somewhere in Utah
A,
I’ve always wondered what it’s like to have a normal brain.
What does it feel like to move through life without a heaviness that clings to everything? What’s it like to think clearly or process a situation without your emotions swallowing it whole?
The only time I feel a shred of peace on this tour is when I’m drinking. Numbness, ironically, feels like bliss.
Maybe I gave my old man too much flak. He was onto something there.
It’s two in the morning here, which means it’s three in Nashville. I want to call you. God, do I want to call you. But I can imagine how you’d feel if I unloaded all this dark shit on you after months of silence.
Sometimes, I wonder if I just keep going—keep drinking, try another line of coke, or ask Ari for whatever pills he’s stashed—maybe I won’t wake up. And maybe that would be easier.
But then there are the fucking fans.
Every show, there’s some kid screaming about how I saved their life. What happens when the person who saves your life takes their own? What does that do to them? I think about it all the time.
High school was when the thoughts first started—the what ifs.
Sophomore year, I realized there was always a way out, even when I felt trapped.
It was comforting, in a twisted way, to know that I could pull the plug at any time.
But I couldn’t do it. Not to Ari, not to Mira, and not to you.
So I let the feeling sit there and fester.
I remember one day—I can’t remember when exactly, but it was warm outside. Mira was staying with Maya, Ari was out with Luke, and I climbed onto the roof from that broken screen window in Mira’s room.
That day, I sat there, thinking about how it might feel to jump.
I didn’t because I knew I’d end up just breaking a leg or something stupid from that small height, but that brief moment suspended in the air probably would’ve felt like relief.
Maybe it’d feel like those summers we spent riding bikes down that massive hill with the rush in our chests, laughing like idiots.
I haven’t ridden a bike since I was twelve, come to think of it. I wonder where my old Huffy is now. Probably rusted out in the backyard somewhere.
I bet your sparkly purple bike is still in your parents’ garage, pom-poms intact. Your parents were always like that, you know? They cherished everything. They cherished you. And for a while, they cherished me, Ari, and Mira too.
Ma and Pop...I think about them a lot. I wonder what they’d say if they saw me now. I’m sure you’ve told them everything. They probably just shake their heads and think, “Poor Jay next door. He never really stood a chance.”
I’m sorry,
Jay