Chapter 29
SPEAKING OF SECRETS
JESSE
Specter by Bad Omens
My hands aren’t steady. They haven’t been since yesterday, the familiar gray seeping in at the edges where everything was bright a week ago. I recognize it but I’m powerless against it.
I wipe the sweat from my palms flat against my thighs until the tremors stop.
If I tell Joey and she can’t handle it, I lose everything. If I tell the band, and it blows up, I lose this chance. Two different losses, but I need to survive saying the words before I say them to her. I need to know they don’t destroy me.
The band is the trial run. If it all goes to shit in that room, I’ll figure out what comes next. But I have to know I can get through it first.
I push through the door.
Three heads swivel in my direction. Tommy’s sticks freeze mid-spin.
“Well, well, well.” He leans back on the drum stool, arms spreading wide. “Look who decided to grace us with his presence. If I was late to rehearsal, I’d be getting my ass handed to me. But when our fearless leader does it…”
“Tommy,” Stella warns.
Luke nods once, arms crossed. “He’s not wrong.”
“I’m stating facts.” He shrugs, spinning the sticks again. “Double standards and all.”
I don’t have any fight left in me. My body won’t allow it. “You’re right,” I say, and Tommy goes quiet. “I owe you an explanation for a lot of things.”
Tommy arches his eyebrows. “Who are you, and what did you do with Jesse?”
Stella sets her bass aside. Luke shifts uncomfortably.
I drag a hand over my jaw. The stubble’s longer than it should be.
“You already know why I started this band, why I wanted the masks and the anonymity. I wanted the music to speak for itself, not get buried under whose son I am. I didn’t want to be compared to my father and…”
Tommy snorts. “Comparisons to your rock-legend father? Tragic.”
“Let him finish,” Stella says, and shoves him hard enough that he rocks on the stool.
I turn from the window to face them. “If I played as myself, the band would get more attention. Bigger venues, better deals, more press. But eventually, the press would dig up more about me than I’m willing to share with the world.”
“Jesse.” Stella says my name softly, and I meet her eyes. She knows what’s coming. She’s been a better friend than I deserve, carrying this for months without being asked to. Keeping it from her brother, from the band.
“I have bipolar disorder.”
I brace for outrage or confusion, but the room goes quiet.
Tommy tilts his head. “Are we talking cry-on-my-therapist’s-couch bipolar or Kurt Cobain smashing his guitar on stage bipolar?”
I shake my head. “The kind where I rely on medication for the rest of my life so I don’t have a mental breakdown on stage.”
Tommy nods slowly. “I can live with that.” He twirls a stick between his fingers. “But you know, smashing a guitar is very rock and roll.”
Stella smacks him across the back of the head.
Luke’s eyes drop to his phone, his thumbs moving across the screen.
“If my identity was ever exposed,” I continue, “the media would dig until they found it. They’d tell the world, and I’m not ready to handle public consumption of my mental health.”
Tommy’s gaze cuts to Stella and it sharpens. “You’re not surprised.”
“No.” She shakes her head, holding Tommy’s wounded gaze.
“You knew?” Luke’s head snaps up from his phone. He looks at Stella, and his jaw sets. “And you didn’t tell me? I’m your brother, Stella.”
Stella shrugs, her jaw tight. “It wasn’t my place.”
“Fuck.” Luke rises abruptly. “I need a minute.”
He’s through the door before anyone can respond, the metal slamming shut behind him.
I stare after him, unease coiling in my gut. I knew this would happen. “Is he okay?”
“I’m sure it’s not about you,” Stella sighs, pushing up from the couch arm.
“He’s been distracted for days. Mateo drama.
I’m pretty sure Luke caught feelings, and Mateo didn’t catch them in return.
He’ll work through it.” She wraps her arms around my shoulders, pulling me into a hug fierce enough to squeeze the remaining tension from my spine.
“Speaking of secrets,” Tommy says, reaching for his belt. “Did I ever show you my new…”
“Tommy,” Stella warns. “We’ve discussed this. You ask first. You don’t just… oh, god.”
Too late.
He pulls his jeans down just enough to display the fresh ink on his right cheek: a bass clef surrounded by flowers, and in the corner, Sugar Tits written in cursive script.
I look at Stella, who has gone an alarming shade of red.
“Put that away,” she shrieks.
“It’s my love for you, permanently etched on my body.” He wiggles his hips at Stella. “You’re welcome.”
Stella hauls his jeans back up, but there’s a smile playing at the corner of her mouth she can’t quite stifle. “Consent, Thomas. We ask before showing people our body parts.”
“Force of habit.” He blinks, genuinely bewildered. “Sorry.” He secures his belt.
A small laugh escapes me despite the unease settling in my chest. Nothing seems to bother Tommy, but Luke…
I don’t get to finish my thought because my phone’s been buzzing incessantly in my pocket for the last twenty minutes.
I pull it out and the screen lights up with a dozen notifications at once. Texts from Dylan, a voicemail from a number I don’t recognize, and then a notification that makes the blood in my veins turn to ice.