4. Something in bloom #2
Preston stepped out of the booth, clocked the scene, and stopped short. “Fuck,” he muttered, stretching the word like it might buy him time.
He moved down the hallway with his head lowered, shoulders tight, trying to slip past. He turned to the white guy who’s name he couldn’t recall.
Mark? Matthew? hell, screw it.
“Hey, uh, Mark?” he said, glancing at the guy on the stool. “Why are there people outside?”
The guy nearly fell off the stool. “Oh, wow, uh, hey, Mr. Cole,” he said quickly, standing too fast. “Huge fan. Like, massive. This is crazy.” He laughed, then caught himself.
“I think they’re here for you. I mean, some people thought Cameron Ellison might be pulling up with you, but mostly it’s – yeah. You.”
Preston exhaled through his nose. “Right.”
“They’re saying you’re dropping the next Glances ,” the guy added, lowering his voice like he was delivering classified intel. “The press is kind of on one right now.”
Preston felt the irritation rise. Always that song. “Cool,” he said flatly. “Thanks, Mark.”
The guy blinked. “Oh – it’s actually not Mark.”
Preston paused. “It’s not?”
“No, but it’s cool,” he rushed. “People call me Mark all the time. Or Mike. I used to go by Mark in college ‘cause I have, like, a Mark face,” he laughed, eager. “You can call me whatever.”
Preston stared at him for a moment, recognizing the lie. People did that to him, never wanting him to be wrong, and he hated it. He turned to Mark and said, “What’s your name?”
“Hayden,” he said proudly. “But yeah, Mark’s fine. Totally fine.”
Preston nodded once, already done. Even in his own camp, there were people he didn’t know. Fans disguised as assistants. Proximity cosplaying as importance.
He turned toward the exit, scanning for an escape that didn’t involve cameras. There wasn’t one.
Preston flinched.
Glances .
The song had fed too many people and cost him too much.
He hadn’t performed it live in over a year.
A fan had taken their own life after not getting an autograph.
Cameron Ellison – his best friend – hadn’t been credited for the hook, a slight that ended in a physical fight and left something between them permanently broken.
He’d hoped seeing Cameron today might be the spark he needed. A reason to continue. But Cameron wasn’t there.
Truth was, Preston hadn’t listened to Glances all the way through since the award show, when they handed him the trophy and pretended not to see who really wrote the song. “Let them think what they want,” Preston muttered.
As he reached for his hoodie, one of the press kids shouted through the glass: “Preston, man! You hear about Cameron?”
He paused. Against his better judgment, instinct answered first. “No, is he here?”
“No, um…actually. They found his body. This morning.”
Preston blinked.
The words landed behind his ribs – too loud, too sudden, too final. He didn’t move, he couldn't. “What the hell you talking about?” he asked the reporter.
“You didn’t hear?” he said, blinking. “It’s everywhere. TMZ, Shade Room, local radio. They said he overdosed. They found his body this morning.”
The studio hummed around him – machines, lights, life continuing without permission. But Preston stood there, arms at his sides, the sound pressing in.
Cameron. His best friend. Also known as Batman. The same man he hadn’t spoken to in nearly a year. The same man he built a movement with. Broke bread with. Broke off from. They’d fallen out over production credits. It sounded stupid just thinking it, they both knew it.
And still, Cameron was supposed to come today.
He hadn’t spoken to Cameron in over a year, but Cam was still his boy. That didn’t disappear just because lawyers got involved.
They’d opened for Tank together. Sweated through tour buses with broken A/C. Shared microphones in dive bars where the crowd didn’t know their names yet.
Cam had demons, sure. Everybody did. But death?
Talia appeared at his side without warning. She slid her arm into his, firm, maternal, immovable.
“Not here,” she whispered. “They don’t get to see this part of you.”
He nodded, jaw locked, breath tight.
Back inside, the silence was heavy. Preston sat on the edge of the leather studio couch, his hands limp between his knees, fighting tears, but it was beginning to be a losing battle.
After a spell, he said, “I didn’t know, Mama,” he said.
“He was coming today. I thought—how could this… I don’t know what I thought. ”
Talia stood across from him, back straight, arms crossed. “You thought you had time.”
“I did. I thought we had more time. Hell a lifetime. He was my brother and I… I said some things to him I can’t take back.”
“And I bet he did too. That’s what happens when two brilliant boys play grown man chess without reading the rulebook.”
He looked up at her. “Did you know he was using?”
“I suspected. But Cameron started hanging with a crowd whose demons didn’t start in the studio.
They started long before y’all met them.
” Talia walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a black Moleskine journal.
It was worn, the corners bent like a prayer book used too often.
He gave me this before y’all fell out,” she said.
“Said it was a notebook for ‘just in case’.” She handed it to him.
Preston held it like a relic. When he opened to the first page, he saw Cameron’s writing.
Big. Slanted. Messy like his laugh. If I die, I want you to remember I was right about Glances . And I forgive you anyway.
Preston blinked. Sighed hard. Then laughed. “Knowing him, he probably wrote this the night we fell out.”
“The boy was always several steps ahead.”
“Batman is dead… I don’t even know what to do right now,” he whispered.
Talia finally sat. “Sing.”
He laughed drily. He knew his mother meant well – always did – but the timing was brutal, efficient. The kind of efficiency that didn’t leave room for grief.
“Preston,” his mother said gently, like this was an offering, like she was helping. “This is how you move through it.”
He felt it, then – not just the grief, but the shape of what she was asking. The room waiting. The industry leaning in. Everyone ready to turn loss into output. Even love came with a schedule.
He pressed his lips into a thin line, jaw tightening. They weren’t asking him to sing for Cameron. They were asking him to sing through him. And he knew right then that if he opened his mouth, something would be taken that he wasn’t sure he’d ever get back.
He looked for the intern. “Hey Mark – I mean, Hayden – did they say what the cause of death was?”
The intern was on his phone, searching. “I’m on TMZ right now, Mr. Cole. They’re saying it’s an OD, probably fentanyl.”
“Cameron …is dead.” Preston said, falling to the edge of the couch.
Talia didn’t flinch. “Preston, I know that’s your friend baby but… people die every day. What you gonna do with the ones still listening?”
He glared at her, disgusted by her reasoning. “I ain’t ready.”
“You weren’t ready when the two of you wrote Glances , but you showed up.”
“Yeah, and look at the Goddamn price ma. Cameron is dead. I wish we never wrote that damn song.”
“Don’t you say that, Pressy. Look I know this sounds harsh but you gotta use this pain baby.
” She kneeled in front of him, hands on his knees.
For a moment, she wasn’t his manager, just his mother.
“You think I pushed you because I wanted to hear my baby sing? No, Preston. I pushed you because I knew if you stayed quiet too long, this world would forget what your voice sounds like. And I’ll be damned if I outlive your sound. ”
He nodded in acknowledgment and stood up. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but today… I needed my mama. Not my manager.”
He grabbed his jacket, back door already in sight.
“I’m out.”