Chapter Three Static
Chapter Three:
Static
Bash
After another successful show, my hands shake with adrenaline until I take a hot shower.
It’s my routine after every performance, and usually no one bothers me until I’m ready to come out. They know better. So when someone knocks on my trailer door before I can fully dress, I immediately feel off-kilter. “What?”
“You’ve been in there over an hour. Sidney is about to have a heart attack because he’s convinced you died, but he doesn’t have the balls to come check.”
An hour? I glance at my phone and see Yasmin isn’t exaggerating at all.
Where the fuck was my mind at? I know I was kind of in a daze when I walked over here, and I thought it was because I needed to jack off, but I didn’t touch myself for even a second.
That girl in the crowd threw me off again, and if I’m not fixated on a fan because I’m horny, why else would I be?
Yes, she’s drop dead gorgeous, but I see beautiful people every day. Why is it her eyes seem to haunt me?
“And we all know you do,” I joke to keep my thoughts from spiraling anymore than they already are. Tugging on a hoodie, I wrench open the door to give her a wide, fake grin. “Where is he?”
“Right here.”
She steps aside so Sidney’s grumpy ass can take her place, but the relief on his face is worth it.
I might think he actually cared about me if keeping me alive wasn’t paying his bills.
“You’ve been off the last few days, Bash. What’s going on?”
“Where’s everyone at? Are we partying or what?” I’m well aware I’m avoiding his question, but I’d like a drink before I admit I’m lusting about a fan.
If that’s even what it is.
“Would you let me live to see the sunrise if we weren’t?” he mutters. “There’s a club about a block from here that I reserved. Are you ready?”
“Yeah, let’s go.” But Yasmin grabs my arm when I try to step past her, and glances pointedly at my feet. I didn’t even bother putting shoes on. “Fucking hell. Maybe I am dying.”
My joke doesn’t land. They both stare at me blank-faced as I slip on my Converse like they’re convinced I’m losing my mind. Maybe I am. Maybe I wasn’t ready to tour.
As we make our way to the club, I try to ask myself what’s really going on and come up blank.
I was excited to share this EP with the world after TikTok got ahold of it.
We gained a hell of a lot of new fans, and the team let us put a nice blend of our older albums in the setlist. I wanted this tour, so that isn’t it.
In all reality, I was perfectly fine until I locked eyes with that fan, and for some strange reason it doesn’t feel like she’s real. Almost as if she’s haunting me.
I saw her at the first show as it ended, and people follow us on tour all the time, so her being at both isn’t completely out of the ordinary — especially when the concerts are in neighboring towns.
The only weird part about any of this is me... so I’ll drink until it all feels normal again.
An hour later, I’m good and buzzed. The VIP room we’re in is filled with all the people that make touring possible, and when Sidney comes to sit next to me, I know he’s going to ask me what’s wrong again. So I beat him to it. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m fine, are you fine? You’re... frowny.”
“Jonah is... well, being Jonah. Yasmin roasted me within an inch of my life and when I asked what Levi was drinking, he pried my mouth open and spit it on my tongue. I’m fucking great.”
A laugh bubbles out of me before I can stop it.
“Oh, we’re pretending you didn’t like it?
Got it.” His gaze narrows, and I try to save it before he walks away.
I see the way he looks at Levi, but I also know he’d never act on how he feels or admit it, so it’s not my place to throw him under the bus.
“I’m joking. Do you want me to go hide his lucky drumstick? It can be our little secret.”
Sidney hesitates, then nods. “Actually yeah, but only after you tell me what’s going on.”
Sighing, I take another drink to stall and then roll my eyes when Levi plops his ass down next to me to join in the conversation. Whatever.
“Remember that girl I told you about? The really pretty one that almost made me forget a line?”
Levi snorts. “Yeah, why isn’t she here? Isn’t that your job, Sid? Find the pretty girls to keep the pretty boy’s dick wet? That’s what my handler does, though I guess it’s easier for him. He can bring me pretty girls or pretty boys.”
Sidney and I stare at each other for a second before I respond. Levi isn’t wrong, he just doesn’t have to be so... Levi about it. “That’d be great and all if she was real. I think she might be a ghost.”
“Are you talking about the blonde girl in front?” Levi asks. “She looked real to me.”
“No, I didn’t notice a blonde girl. She had long, dark, wavy hair, really plump lips, and really pale skin.”
It’s their turn to share a look, and I try to take another drink only to find my cup empty.
Well, that sucks.
“I only saw the blonde one, and she was next to a girl with more piercings on her face than you.”
I don’t have that many that people can see — just my tongue, eyebrow and septum, but I didn’t see the girl he’s talking about this time either.
Only one woman stood out to me the last two shows, and all the other faces are a blur.
They’re usually all a blur. It’s impossible to clock every face, my brain doesn’t have the capacity whether I wanted to or not.
“So neither of you saw her at either show?”
Levi pops the p on his, “Nope!” before he stands to leave, and Sidney shakes his head.
”Unless you ask me to pay attention to the crowd, my eyes are on you.”
“Oh yeah? Did I look hot?” I tease, but I don’t wait for him to answer. “I don’t want you to pay attention to the crowd, that’s insane. I guess I just wanted to know if she was real.”
For a moment, Sid doesn’t say anything. He stares at Levi’s ankles as he digs his thumb into his palm, but then he looks at me. “Do you think your mind is playing tricks on you since you started talking about Sad Girl again?”
Yes.
I didn’t want to go there, but ever since that interview, I can’t help wondering if I hallucinated her all together. But if I didn’t? If she was real... where is she? Is she even okay?
“Did you believe me the first time I told you that story?”
“I believed there was a girl in your treehouse who kept you sane, yes. Did I think she was a ghost? Not really. It’s more likely she was an imaginary friend or... I don’t know. Some neighborhood kid.”
“If she was a neighborhood kid, where did she go? Where did she live? The shit she said... it’s fucked because sometimes I hope she was a ghost, because at least then the suffering she was going through was over.
Her parents couldn’t hurt her anymore if she was dead.
But most of me hopes she’s out there happy and has forgotten all about me and her childhood.
Trauma does that, y’know? It makes you forget shit that can hurt you. ”
“But you didn’t forget her.”
I forgot her name, and somehow that feels worse than forgetting her altogether.
Shaking my head, I glance down at the empty glass in my hands and slide my thumb along the cold surface. “Nah. She came to me for an escape from whatever the fuck, and I looked forward to it. Maybe that’s what my mind is doing now, looking for an escape in her the way she did with me.”
“You love your life, Bash. What are you trying to escape from?”
If anyone else asked, I’d laugh it off.
But Sid is the one person that actually hears me when I speak.
It feels ridiculous when he says it like that, because I do love my life.
I’m living the dream I longed for back when I’d stare at the ceiling of my treehouse, sharing my soul with people who identify and feel alone.
I love my life, but it’s time I admit I’m searching for something.
I always have been. “I don’t know. I’m surrounded by more people than ever before, and every time our band gains popularity, I feel more and more invisible.
Less human and more like... one of those ballerinas in a music box.
” The worry on his face has me straightening in my seat and releasing a deep breath.
I need to salvage the night before he goes full handler mode and tries to cancel our spring tour.
“I probably just need to get laid. How long has it been again?”
I offer him a smile to show him I’m fine, but the question only seems to make it worse. “The last time I was involved in finding you someone was almost a year ago. I pay a lot of attention to you, but I wasn’t with you between tours. You tell me.”
I dodge that topic easily by flipping it back on him. “You first,” I tease. “You get some during our break?”
He shrugs, taking my empty glass from me. “Not the one I wanted, but yeah. Thankfully we live in a time when meaningless sex is just a swipe away, no matter where you are.”
“You think I can get on one of those apps?”
I think he’d actually kill me if I did, but he seems to contemplate it for a moment.
“There are apps specifically for people like you,” he hedges.
“For celebrities, I mean. I don’t know why you’d bother when there are quite a few people in this room alone that would sell their houses to be with you. ”
I glance around the room to see if anyone catches my eye, and find multiple girls watching me like they’re waiting for Sidney to walk away so they can pounce first. “Yeah, I think I’m going to call it a night. We need to hit the road early tomorrow anyway. You staying?”
His eyes wander to Levi, who has no idea what Sidney does for him.
Levi has his own handler, but it’s Sid who makes sure Levi stays clean in the press.
It’s Sid who makes sure the drugs Levi buys are as safe as they can be, and it’s Sid who has to sit back and watch everyone get credit but him.
“No, I think I‘ve had enough tonight too.”
I know he won’t sleep much tonight if Levi stays, so I decide to be the asshole and stand up to get everyone’s attention. “Alright, party’s over. If you work on the set in any capacity it’s time for you to go to call it a night or we’ll leave you behind. Bed time, kids.”
I clap my hands and smile at them all like I’m not a complete buzzkill, but surprisingly, it’s not Levi who fights me.
It’s Jonah.
Whatever, he can stay.
––––––––
Somehow I manage to get a good night’s rest before our next show, and as the opening band shuffles their way off the stage, I find it hard not to peek out into the crowd to see if my new specter got a good spot in the pit.
I don’t, though. I push her from my mind and get in the zone.
I won’t look for her tonight, because that’s a distraction I don’t need, and every single city deserves all of my attention so I can give them the best night of their lives.
This is my purpose. I was born to bare my soul to people who share the same sorrows, not chase ghosts, yet by the time I’m halfway through my set I spot her singing her heart out right alongside me.
Do ghosts sing? I probably will when I join the afterlife, but she seems more alive tonight than she ever has.
So I hop off stage, make my way over to stand on the barricade, and reach out.
Multiple people grab onto me and squeeze like one touch will help them feel a little less like shit, and every single one of them helps close the chasm inside that I was born with.
Her fingers brush with mine briefly as It Hurts Because You’re Alive ends, and I nearly reach back to grab them, but in that moment I realize two things: one, I never want to stop doing this, and two.
.. she’s not a ghost at all. She’s real.