2. Ari
TWO
ARI
ONE YEAR LATER.
The first thing my brain registers is the sound of Francis yelling, then a rhythmic beeping that could probably lull me back to sleep if not for my manager’s nasally voice telling off his assistant. What a douche. I hate that guy.
My mouth opens before my eyes do. My dry lips peel open to try to alleviate the taste of bile and something metallic. My tongue feels thick and dry. There’s a dull, pulsing ache behind my eyes that makes the ceiling lights blur when I attempt to blink my eyes open and focus.
“I don’t give a fuck who leaked it,” Francis snaps. “We need damage control. Now. Shut it down!”
I wince at the sound of his loud voice and shift uncomfortably.
Something tugs at my chest, and I look down.
There are wires attached to stickers on my chest, and I’m vaguely aware of a monitor beeping to my left.
There’s a thin, off-white blanket pulled up to my waist, an IV tube taped to my arm, and bruises blooming along the inside of my forearm.
Recognition sparks, and the monitor betrays me, quickening beeps snitching that I’m awake by announcing my elevated heart rate.
I’m in the hospital.
I have a vague memory of the events that brought me here, and a flash of something that I thought was a dream. I look at the empty chair next to me where I must have imagined Will before.
Where is he? Is he still so upset that he wouldn’t be here with me?
It’s my fault that I landed myself here. It wasn’t even about me, it was…
Jesse.
Fuck.
“So, you spin it. That’s literally your job, isn’t it?” Francis snaps into his cell phone from the other side of the room.
Memories crash in out of order—broken glass, blood, Jesse’s unmoving body, Will’s worried face looking down at me. The way my chest squeezed so tight it felt like my heart and lungs would explode out of my ribcage. My bodyguard Eric holding me back while I screamed.
He wouldn’t wake up.
“Jesse,” I croak. The monitor at my side beeps faster, louder.
I push myself up on my elbows, and nausea rolls through me in a thick wave.
“Francis, where is—” He doesn’t hear me, or he pretends not to.
I feel dizzy, but I make myself sit up, hands pushing back my stringy hair.
I can’t get my thoughts in line to make sense of everything.
The door to my hospital room opens, and I look up hopefully, ready to grill whoever walks through that door about Jesse’s condition.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been out. I have a vague memory of waking up before and seeing Will in the chair next to me.
He spoke, told me I was okay, maybe something else, but I don’t remember.
I think I threw up. After that, nothing.
It could have been a dream, but I have an awful taste in my mouth.
My shoulders slump when the man who enters isn’t hospital staff.
He’s dressed in expensive clothes and has a visitor’s pass stuck to his open-collar light blue button-down shirt.
If the assessing way he looks around the room, first landing on me, then focusing a cold glare on Francis, is anything to go by, he’s probably a PR or legal rep from the label.
The way Francis’ face pales as he quickly ends his call confirms my suspicions.
“M-Mr. Holland,” Francis stammers. “What brings you here? I told management I have the situation perfectly under control.”
“Do you really?” Mr. Holland says, ignoring Francis’ attempt at a handshake and staring down at him with an intensity that makes me want to cower.
I don’t know how Francis, the sniveling, paunchy little prick that he is, manages to even stay on his feet.
“Because there is a mob of press outside this hospital, and the news and gossip sites are reporting that Jesse Moore died of an overdose earlier this evening.”
I nearly choke on the nausea that rises in my throat at those words, and almost miss Mr. Holland's next words.
“You’re fucking lucky that’s not the case. You’d better hope he walks out of here unscathed, because you will be held accountable.”
A tear falls down my cheek. So he’s alive, but do we know if he’s going to be okay?
Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?
I open my mouth to say something, but my manager makes a slashing motion with his hand.
“It’s being handled,” Francis says dismissively. “He just partied a little too hard. You know how these rockstars are. It’s like wrangling preschoolers. While you’re focused on cleaning up after one, another decides to eat all the glue sticks.”
The fucker laughs. Laughs. I can’t believe he’s trying to make light of the situation, as if what happened was a minor incident.
The heart monitor begins to beat frantically, finally turning the attention to me. My face heats with rage, and I try to jump out of bed to confront him.
“That’s bullshit!” I yell weakly, wanting nothing more than to get out of this bed and punch that smarmy liar in the face, but I get tangled in the sheets and wires. The adhesive stickers on my chest are so strong, I’m almost pulling off skin.
My outburst probably does little to disprove Francis’ opinion that I’m the immature, over-emotional child he treats me like.
Mr. Holland quickly rushes over and settles me before I can fall on my face. “Whoa there, Mr. Silvan. It’ll be alright.”
I almost balk at his formal tone and use of my last name, but I let him steady me.
My hands land on his arms as he helps me untangle the sheets, then guides me gently by the waist to sit down.
Damn, he’s tall. At least as tall as Jesse, if not a little taller.
But his chest and shoulders are broader, like Will.
As if conjured by my thoughts, my brother walks into the room, eyes immediately landing on Mr. Holland in my space.
“Who the fuck are you?!” Will demands, taking long strides to get to my side, putting down a drink carrier and paper bag to all but push Mr. Holland aside and take his rightful place by my side.
Mr. Holland steps aside easily, letting Will take over helping me back into bed like I’m some kind of invalid. His eyes roam over every inch of me, a deep crease forming between his brows as he checks me for injuries or fingerprints where the stranger might have touched me.
I almost roll my eyes. “I’m fine,” I assure him. The look he gives me says like hell you are before he turns an expectant scowl on Mr. Holland.
“Blake Holland,” the man says, holding his hand out. Will takes it begrudgingly, clearly not trusting the handsome stranger. “I’m here on behalf of the label. They sent me to check on Mr. Silvan and Mr. Moore’s welfare, as well as assess the damage of the situation.”
“I assure you, Mr. Holland?—”
Mr. Holland lifts a hand to Francis. “Now isn’t the time.”
Francis tries to open his stupid mouth again, but I cut him off before he can start on more of his bullshit. “This is your fault,” I seethe.
His beady eyes bulge. “How is it my fault that you and Jesse decided to go on a bender while I was cleaning up the mess you made getting photographed taking a blow-up doll dressed like the Vice President to a furniture store?!”
“No one was on a bender, and you know it.”
“Then explain to me how my frontman ended up having a seizure, face down in a pool of his own vomit and broken glass?”
“I don’t know, Francis. Why don’t you explain all the prescription bottles you pocketed before emergency services arrived?”
“I also wiped away the evidence of cocaine on the bar top. It’s called optics, Mr. Silvan,” he says, his tone condescending as ever.
“You care more about optics than you care about your frontman almost dying. Did you even tell the doctors all the medications he’s taking? Or were you too concerned about the optics of where Jesse got all those drugs?”
I’m so angry I want to scream, but I feel a wave of vertigo.
“Jesse could have died,” I choke out, refusing to lose my opportunity to tell Francis exactly what I think of him. “You… fucking… scumbag,” I wheeze, my breaths short.
The heart monitor starts beeping more frantically than before, and my vision blurs.
No no no, not again.
I’m trying to calm down, but I can’t seem to pull in a full breath. The familiar pressure assaults my chest, a fist squeezing tight. My organs don’t have enough room. It feels like my lungs are trying to escape through my esophagus.
It’s cold, but I’m sweating. My fingertips and lips feel numb.
Will is in my face in an instant, his big hands cupping my cheeks.
“Ari? Ari! You’re okay. I’m here. Just breathe.”
The faint rings of gold and green in his hazel eyes are familiar and comforting. I want to ask him to call for a defibrillator or just hold me and squeeze hard until I can breathe again.
Two people in scrubs enter the room and ask Will to step back while they attempt to bring me down from what one of them says is another panic attack.
The smaller woman studies the numbers and jumping lines on the machine and suggests another dose of whatever they gave me when I first got here, which makes me panic more.
I try to sit up, but I’m pressed into the bed by two sets of hands.
The remainder of the air in my body expels in a long string of nearly unintelligible words. “No. No. I need to stay awake for Jesse. Someone needs to help Jesse. He’s not going to help him. Please. Don’t!”
I’m shaking my head back and forth adamantly.
I can’t make out what they’re saying through the blood rushing in my ears and my own panicked rambling, but I hear Francis say something, then Will yelling at him.
There’s more commotion. Another person in scrubs arrives with a syringe that she attaches to the tube taped to the inside of my arm, even as I plead for her not to.
Warmth spreads through my veins. My limbs grow heavy, like the bed is holding me down instead of the hands that were pressed against me seconds ago. The blackness that was threatening the edges of my vision clears, but a fuzziness takes its place.
Someone is still yelling, but the sound contorts and slows down. I’m floating, swimming, in some kind of vortex. I’m dizzy.
Part of me is aware enough to know I need to keep my eyes on something stationary when I’m spinning so I don’t get sick, but then I can’t remember where I am or why I’m spinning. I just know that I’m heavy. How can I float when I feel so heavy?
I wish Will were here to hold me down so I can’t float away. Someone needs to be here for Jesse.
When I wake again, the room is dimly lit, and there’s a heavy warm body cradling me from behind. I let out a shaky, tearful breath and sink into the comfort.
“Will,” I say, his name a relieved breathy exhale.
“I’m here, baby.” He must be exhausted. He only ever calls me baby by accident, when he’s tired or fucked up. I’m not even sure he realizes he does it, and I’ll never point it out because he might not say it again.
My tongue is too big and sticking to the roof of my mouth, making my speech slur. “Where’d everyone go?”
“It’s just us,” he says, pressing a kiss to the back of my head. “That tiny scary nurse told us all off for upsetting you and cut your allowed visitors down to one. Mr. Holland escorted Francis out and said he’d check on Jesse.”
He must feel the way my heart lurches at the sound of Jesse’s name, because his arms tighten around me.
“He’s okay, Ari. Jesse is okay. He’s stable, and he’s awake, probably thanks to you.
Francis tried to make out like you were deranged or something, but Mr. Holland believed you.
He had Cory search Francis’ company car and Eric search his hotel room.
They found all the bottles he was hiding so they could make a list of anything he might have taken. ”
Like a demon needing to be exorcised, the tension and fear drain from my body in exaggerated sobs. It takes several minutes for me to stop crying but Will holds me through it, whispering that we’re all okay.
“What happened?” Will asks gently.
My eyelids clench at the onslaught of memories of finding Jesse passed out in the living room of our penthouse suite. Broken glass everywhere, and blood. I’m not sure what happened exactly. I just know I couldn’t wake him up, and he didn’t seem to be breathing.
I choke back a sob, still feeling the soreness in my throat from how hard I screamed for help. Cory ran in moments later, with Eric on his heels. Eric had to pull me away so Cory could give Jesse CPR. He had to hold me back with one arm around my waist while he used his free hand to dial 911.
I couldn’t breathe or see anything past my friend on the floor in front of me.
I thought he was dead, and I thought I was next because my chest was exploding.
It wasn’t like any panic attack I’d had before, where it felt like everything in me was being squeezed so tightly it might burst. Instead, there wasn’t enough room in my chest. I couldn’t take a breath because my lungs were already filled to capacity.
And all I could see through my blurry tears as the blackness started to take over was the shape of Jesse’s lifeless body jerking with each compression.
Through my tears, I tell Will everything I remember until the point they sedated me again.
“Everyone’s okay now,” he soothes, his breath warm on the side of my face. “It’s going to be okay. I have a feeling things are going to be a little different for a while, but it’s going to be okay.”
Because he always knows exactly what I need, Will repeats that everyone’s okay again and again until I’m able to relax enough to fall back asleep.