Chapter Forty
landon
New York
July 23
To say I was heartbroken would be an understatement. I was heart shattered . Or maybe heart exploded. Every part of me hurt when I moved and breathed. My lungs didn’t want to expand fully. As much as I ached to even exist, I had not one regret from loving Janae Warner. I would always root for her and her success.
When she dropped me off at the Austin airport, we both fought back tears, knowing that it would be so much easier to just forget the conversation that had ended us. To forget the truth and be together until we couldn’t bear to live the lives we’d decided to live because we were afraid to be apart. I stuck a hibiscus flower in her hair, kissed her softly, and didn’t look back once I got out. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to leave my heart. My soul.
We resolved that if I decided to get back with The Hollow Bones, we could be cordial and friendly enough to do a couple of shows together. I told her that if that happened, Del would touch base with her. I also gave her permission to perform with them if I never returned. The Hollow Bones weren’t just me. My brothers were all talented in their own right.
In the airport, I hurried to my gate. My shoulders were hunched, and a cap and dark glasses covered my hair and eyes instead of my porkpie. I’d become too recognizable as our relationship had continued to blaze through the entertainment world, especially when we’d been spotted out and about in Austin. We’d also decided that we wouldn’t make any public statements and would allow the buzz to die down when we appeared separately in public.
When I landed in New York, the excitement I usually felt didn’t happen. The world would be gray for now.
The driver pulled up to my brownstone and I grabbed my bag and guitar. The last time I’d stood right here, I’d been in love with Janae and was showing her my home. I trudged up the stairs, missing her and dreading the inevitable drama of my parents.
My mother had been so excited that I was on my way home. She couldn’t wait to see me and talk. She’d asked about Janae, and I’d simply told her that Janae needed to handle some business in Los Angeles. My mother had begun to like Janae, and they would chat when she called for me.
I would ask my mother for a night of rest, and then tomorrow we could begin to pick up the pieces of her life and find a new way for them to fit together.
As soon as I opened the door, a broken vase and turned-over chairs greeted me. The refrigerator was open. My heart sank to the floor. I dropped my bag and clutched my guitar. What the hell? Had someone broken in? Did a crazed fan find out where I lived?
My eyes landed on the coffee table Janae picked out, flipped to its side. The LEGO Millenium Falcon that we had started building together sat in ruins, shattered across the floor. My chest clenched. We had never finished it. We said we had time, believing we could always come back to it. Now, it was destroyed before it was ever completed. Just like us.
A choked noise pushed past my lips. I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing the heels of my hands into them. Not now. Not here . Focus.
I forced my feet to move, my heartbeat erratic. Find her.
“Mama!” My voice ricocheted through the space, too loud, too raw. Silence.
I spun around, scanning the destruction. Her purse was missing. Her shoes were gone. She could still be at work.
Or… something else.
A muffled scream.
My blood turned to ice.
I ran. Bolted up the stairs. Two at a time.
Then I heard him.
“You think you can ignore me?”
A man’s voice. Slurred. Sharp with anger.
The walls shrank in around me. My body froze.
That voice. That tone.
The past crashed into me, full force.
Hiding in closets. My mother’s hand clamped over my mouth. The sound of glass breaking. Footsteps too heavy, too fast. The crash of furniture toppling over.
My father’s temper. His rage. The destruction that followed.
This was not a memory. It was happening again.
My chest seized.
But I was not that helpless kid anymore.
I barreled forward and slammed my shoulder into the door. It burst open.
And I saw red.
My mother stood backed into the corner, her lip split, her eye swollen. But not broken. Even now, even like this, she was still fighting.
My father loomed over her, his hand raised.
No.
Not this time.
Something inside me snapped.
Without thinking, I lifted my guitar and swung.
The impact shook my arms. My father staggered forward, roaring. He turned, bloodshot eyes wild with confusion.
Then he saw me.
Recognition flickered.
Then rage.
He lunged.
I met him halfway.
We hit the ground, fists flying.
I did not stop. Every punch was years of rage.
For my mother.
For me.
For every time he looked at me like I was nothing.
For every time he made her cry.
For all the years he left us alone.
I kept hitting him, my knuckles splitting, my chest heaving, my body shaking with something wild and primal.
“Landon, stop!”
My mother’s scream tore through the haze.
I froze, breath coming in jagged bursts. The world tilted.
My father groaned beneath me, his lip split, his eye swelling.
My hands trembled. Bloody.
I stumbled backward, stomach twisting. The room swayed.
“Mama,” I whispered, but my voice was wrong. Thin. Distant.
Her sobs sounded far away. Everything did.
The walls closed in.
The air thickened.
My throat sealed shut.
I gasped.
Nothing.
Clawed at my neck. My chest locked tight.
No air.
No air.
Black spots bloomed in my vision.
I tried to stand. My knees buckled.
“No, no, no,” I muttered, over and over, hands twitching, grasping for something solid.
But nothing was real. Everything was slipping.
I rocked slightly, fingers twitching, curling into my palms.
“Please, no, no, no,” I whispered frantically, breath shallow, uneven, desperate.
I needed help.
I needed Cedrick.
I needed Janae.
But they were not here.
I was alone.
Tears burned my eyes as I fumbled for my phone, my hands shaking too hard. The room blurred.
My body was not listening.
My head spun.
“Make it stop,” I murmured, barely audible. “Please, I don’t want to be here.”
My lips trembled. The pain was too much. It clawed inside me, sinking its teeth in deep, ripping me apart from the inside.
“I don’t want to feel this anymore,” I muttered again, my voice barely above a breath.
I collapsed onto my side, gasping.
Darkness crept in.
The last thing I felt was my phone slipping from my fingers.
Then…
Nothing.
July 24
The steady beeping of a monitor pulled me from sleep.
No dreams. Just emptiness.
I tried to move. Something held me down. Frowning, I blinked against the dim light, my body sluggish. A dull ache sat heavy behind my eyes, pressing at my skull. I tugged again. Still restrained.
Leather straps. Both wrists.
Unease crawled over me, slow and suffocating. I turned my head, scanning the room. Pale yellow walls. No windows. No clock.
A hospital. Maybe.
I flexed my fingers. The skin at the crease of my elbow stung. A red-dotted bandage covered my vein. Blood had been drawn, but there was no IV. No tubes.
My chest tightened.
Why was I tied down?
I shifted my wrists, testing the hold of the restraints. Tight, but not painful. Not handcuffs. If I had been arrested, wouldn’t they have cuffed me?
The thought made my stomach twist. My heart picked up speed, not racing but uneasy, like it knew something I had not figured out yet.
Had I killed him?
I swallowed hard and pressed my head back into the stiff pillow. The memories began to unfurl, hazy at first, then clearer. The house. The fight. My father’s face, bloody and contorted with rage. My mother screaming. My own fists, bloody. Shaking.
I forced my breath to stay even, but my body felt weighted, like I was sinking beneath something too heavy to fight.
How did I end up here?
Had my parents called the cops? Lied? Said I attacked him unprovoked?
I closed my eyes briefly, trying to pull the pieces together, but everything was just out of reach.
The restroom door creaked.
I turned my head.
My mother stepped out, wearing sunglasses.
Her face was unreadable.
“Mama?” I squeaked out.
Fresh tears rolled down her already-stained cheeks as she rushed to my bedside.
“Why am I like this? Where am I?”
She brushed my hair back like she used to when I was a boy. “It’s almost five in the afternoon. You’ve been in the hospital since yesterday. They sedated you because you wouldn’t calm down enough to breathe when the medics arrived.”
“Why am I tied up?”
Her lips curved slightly. “Shh… it’s okay. You’re under observation.”
I glanced around the room again. “Is this the psych ward?”
“Yes. I asked for a private suite.”
“Does anyone know I’m here?” My voice came out rough, like I had swallowed glass.
The last thing I needed was headlines screaming about Landon Hayes being locked in a psych ward, especially with our second album about to drop. Even though I had quit the band, I didn’t want anything to hurt them.
A dull pounding started in my temples. The media would twist this. They would somehow blame Janae. They always did.
“No one knows but hospital personnel,” my mother said. “Our lawyers put together an ironclad NDA. I am not even supposed to be in here for the first twenty-four to seventy-two hours, but I had to use my power and money for something.”
For once, her obsession with our family’s image had worked in my favor.
Still, I didn’t want anyone to ever know I had been confined to this bed. Except Janae. The need to hear her voice hit me like a fist. She had been my life jacket.
“I just passed out,” I muttered. “Why are they treating me like I’m a threat? Is it because I hit him?”
I could not even bring myself to say father.
My mother’s breath caught. She hesitated. “You blacked out in your mind, but in reality, you went into a rage. You started yelling over and over again that you wanted to die. That you had nothing to live for.” Her voice cracked. “You kept screaming until you were hoarse. I had to call an ambulance because you were curled up on the floor, barely breathing.”
She sniffed. Her fingers twisted together in her lap.
“Your eyes were… gone. My baby didn’t exist anymore, and I had to call for help. When they came, you were still muttering to yourself. And when we finally arrived here, you were like this.” She gestured at the restraints. “The doctor was afraid you would hurt yourself because you kept saying ‘death.’”
“What? I really couldn’t breathe, and it hurt so bad that I wanted to die. But I didn’t really want to die.”
She shook her head. “Baby, it was much more than that. I should’ve gotten you help when you were a boy. I should’ve realized you needed more than me. I thought you were dying. I couldn’t get you to come back to me. Maybe now you can get help, son.”
“Stop saying that. I’m fine.” The words came out sharp, too quick. I needed to believe them. “I just got upset because he was hurting you, and I couldn’t let him do that anymore. That’s all. I’m fine. I’m fine.”
I kept repeating it, but each time, it felt more like a lie.
“Where is he?”
My mother’s nostrils flared. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “I don’t know, and I no longer care.”
Her voice was ice.
“He could barely stand, but I threatened to kill him if he didn’t leave. The only reason I didn’t call the police, the only reason he’s still breathing, is because I didn’t want you to be accused of his death.” She exhaled sharply. “Your father no longer exists. He is dead to me. You are the only one who matters.”
Her hands trembled as she ripped off her sunglasses.
I sucked in a breath.
Both of her eyes were swollen, blackened with deep purple bruises.
“I’m the fool for believing in him,” she spat. “For thinking, over and over, that he’d stop drinking. That he’d finally be a better father. He fooled me for years. He cut down, made me believe we had gotten past the ugliest side of him. Until I chose you. Until I left.”
She shook her head, eyes burning with fury.
“Never. Fucking. Again.”
The hate that she’d just expelled struck me to my core. In that moment, I almost felt sorry for my father. He’d forever lost the woman who’d stood by him through thick and thin. He’d lost the woman he’d loved more than life itself because he couldn’t overcome his demons and had been the devil himself in how he treated my mother.
I opened my hand to hers and held tight when she gripped it. “I’m not going anywhere. My place is huge. Just move in permanently with me, okay? I’ll protect you. I won’t ever let him hurt you again.”
She smiled weakly. “I need to be there to care for you, as well as make sure you’re taking your meds and doing whatever the doctor recommends.”
“I am fine, Mama.” The words felt heavy, but I forced them out. “I’m not going to have another episode. I’ll take whatever they discharge me with, but I’m not refilling anything.”
She searched my face, her eyes wary, but I pressed on.
“I admit that I have to live with anxiety, and I know I have a need to control my environment. But it is up to me how I want to cope with it. Not anyone else.”
As soon as I said it, Janae’s voice echoed in my head.
Her promise. The way she swore she would never use again. The conviction in her voice. And how I had not believed her.
Now, standing in this moment, saying my own words out loud, I wondered if this was how she felt. Did she believe, deep down, that she could do everything in her power to keep that vow? That she could choose to fight it, just like I was choosing now?
Mama nodded, then suddenly collapsed against my chest, sobs wracking through her body. I wanted to hold her, but the restraints hindered me. I also had no more tears to shed.
I was done breaking. I was done being helpless. Not as a boy. Not as a man. Not ever again.
July 26
I stared blankly ahead as the social worker drilled me about my mental health. My mother and I had met with the doctor and requested that the restraints be removed, and that had happened shortly after I regained consciousness yesterday. The residual grogginess from the sedative had faded and I wanted to be discharged. Two days of this hospital was more than enough. The social worker asked for privacy, and my mother had gone to the cafeteria.
After spending the last hour asking me question after question about my physical and mental symptoms and family history again, she finally asked me, “When’s the last time you wanted to kill yourself?”
“I’ve never wanted to kill myself,” I replied. “I keep telling you all that, and I’m still in here. I got into a fight with my father, and it upset me. I just ended a relationship, and there was a lot going on. The anxiety hurt so bad that I begged to die. But I don’t and never have had plans to take myself out. Please discharge me.”
She rose. “It’s up to the doctor. He’s diagnosed you as being on the autism spectrum. You landed in the hospital because you had a severe panic attack with psychotic features, and he has a treatment plan he wants to review before he discharges you. I can do it with you if you prefer.”
“I told him already that I disagreed. I have anxiety sometimes, but that’s it. I am not psychotic or crazy.” I clasped my hands, refusing to allow anyone to label me.
“Mr. Hayes, anyone can break from reality when everything is happening at once. Psychosis is the result of that, where you aren’t sure anymore of who or where you are. You lost touch with the present because your mind wanted to protect itself. You said you were going through a breakup, and then the fight with your father might have been too much for your mind to handle. We just want to offer you ways to cope.”
“And I told you that I’m good. That doctor can’t keep me here because I disagree with the diagnosis. You tell the doctor that I’ll sue for mistreatment and discrimination, because I’m not supposed to even be in here. My mother didn’t know what to do when I was having an episode. I would’ve been fine without medicines or the hospital.” I slammed the bed with my fist. “Get me the fuck out of here.”
The social worker grew flustered and rushed out of the room.
“I always knew you had it in you.” My father’s chuckle outside the door iced my blood. I was still weak and had no way to protect myself.
Despite my vulnerability, anger and not fear ruled my emotions. “Get out, you horrible piece of shit. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”
He walked fully into the room, with a slight limp, also in shades and with a bandage across his nose. It was really laughable how we, as a family, even under the direst of circumstances, wanted to uphold the Hayes name and legacy.
“I wouldn’t want to talk to me either.” He shrugged and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Keeping them there so you know I won’t touch you.”
“Mama will be back soon, and I don’t want her to know you were here.”
My father exhaled and pulled off his glasses. His eyes were almost swollen shut, and his light skin was mottled red and blue around his cheeks and temples. His lip had a cut. “I’ve been staring in the mirror for hours at the damage I’ve done to this family. At what I’ve become. And I thought… for a long time, I thought the best thing I could do was disappear. But leaving this world wouldn’t fix anything. It would only bring more pain to you and your mother.”
“All you ever cared about was image. Now you’re saying you have to stay because it would make the Hayes name look bad,” I scoffed.
“No. No, this isn’t about me. This is about you and your name. The world is your oyster right now. The public wants you, and I can’t allow my actions to pull you down anymore. I won’t contest the divorce. She can take whatever she wants, and I’ll leave you and her alone. I’m not here for forgiveness because I know that won’t and shouldn’t come, though I am sorry for everything.”
“I’ve heard this before. You’ll change, and you’re sorry. All lies to me. The next time you want to send a message, send it through your lawyer.” I could feel my chest tightening, and I couldn’t allow my father to bring me to that lonely, awful place ever again.
“I know you hate me. You always did.” He spoke so softly that I had to strain to hear him. “Do you know how hard it was to have you as a son? From the beginning, you didn’t like me. You would scream at the top of your lungs whenever I touched you or tried to pick you up. I used to be so frustrated. Me and your mother had waited ten years to have you, and when we did, you couldn’t stand me. Then, when I noticed you loved to hum as an infant and moved your head to my music, hope came back that we could bond the way I’d always wanted.”
“So what? You can’t love me because I’m not the son you envisioned? You can’t see the man I’ve grown up to be and be proud?”
His head snapped back. “I am proud. Been proud.”
I shook my head. “No. You’re not. I don’t always recognize social cues, but I know when you’re being genuine with me. All I see is jealousy. And I don’t know why. What do I have that you haven’t already achieved?”
My father stared at me a long time before he finally replied, “Your freedom. Being different allowed you to float under the radar, to move how you wanted. You didn’t have to be social and weren’t expected to be anything but what you dreamed. You rose to the top even when I couldn’t push you because you would break—”
“Well, guess what? You did push me, and I did break. Why else would I run away from home at sixteen? Sixteen, and I’m on the street trying to figure it out. Can’t go to either grandparent because they live across the country, and I knew my dream was here in New York. But that was the best thing you could’ve ever done to me. It forced me to ignore my need to hide. I had to overcome being shut in a room, playing my music. I had to survive. I had to open my mouth. I had to figure out how to be normal, and sometimes I still fail. But I’ve come a long way with the help of Cedrick and the guys who loved me for who I was, I am, and will ever be.”
His jaw tightened, and he rolled his neck. “I recognized your struggles before your mother did, and maybe I was hard on you because I didn’t want you to be me. Ironically, now I can’t stand that you’re not like me. You learned how to exist without using a damn thing. You know why I drink myself into a stupor every other night?” He laughed loudly. “It’s to fight off my own panic attacks and depression. You are the me I was too afraid to be. All these years, and your mother never knew that every time I grabbed a bottle it was to fight off that gnawing and scared feeling that I was losing control… that I didn’t fit in, no matter how hard I tried.”
I gasped, though he didn’t appear to notice. His description of the constant nervousness and feeling like an outsider was the same as mine.
He studied his feet before he stared back at me. “This is the last piece of advice I will ever give you. You’re in here because you still need help. Don’t be a fool like me and lose everything and everybody you love. Get the help you need and see how much further you will fly. You didn’t name your band The Hollow Bones for nothing.”
Long after he left, I stared at the door he’d exited through.
July 29
Three days later, wearing my porkpie hat again, I pulled open the doors to the studio, knowing I would find Cedrick working alone in the wee hours of the morning. He loved the piano and keyboard as much as he loved sound engineering. When I walked in the room he looked up, barely nodded, and continued playing around with the bass in one of our songs. It’d been six weeks since we’d last spoken, and before that, we’d never gone more than a day without words in the fifteen years we’d known each other. My electric guitar was still in the booth. I entered, picked it up, strapped it around my neck, and started playing new music inspired by the last few weeks. Cedrick eased back in his chair and nodded with a pleased smile.
When I hit the last lingering note, making the guitar shrill, Cedrick whistled his approval through the intercom.
“I called that one ‘Landon’s Promise,’” I huskily said. My emotions were spent after the last few days, and I needed the sanctity of the booth to help me confront the first person who’d chosen to love me for me.
“For you or for The Hollow Bones?”
We locked eyes through the glass. When he’d posed the same question weeks earlier, I thought it impossible to go solo.
“Depends.” I shrugged.
Cedrick folded his arms. “Say whatever you need to say.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Brian was the one who gave Janae the drugs?”
“Because if I had some, I would’ve given them to her myself,” he answered.
I ducked my head, trying to make sense of what he was telling me. “You know me. You know I would never agree to giving her anything. I left that room thinking I could trust you to do what’s right.”
His nostrils flared. “ Your definition of right.”
“The fuck? She wears a sobriety coin around her neck. In what world was that okay? Enlighten me, Ced.”
“Our world. We don’t live a normal life.” He tapped the board with conviction. “When you love someone, you don’t want to see them hurting. Janae brought light into your life. Into all of ours. That day in Del’s studio, I’ll never forget it. The way she let us in, the way she let me in… her vulnerability cracked something inside of me that I am still trying to understand. Janae became my sister. And even now, if she calls and says she needs me, I am there. We all are.”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t need that kind of help.”
“That night, after you left, she begged me.” His voice softened, but the intensity in his eyes never wavered. “She was hurting, Landon. And she knew you couldn’t give her any drug to numb it, because you don’t understand that kind of need. The need to just not feel a motherfucking thing.”
He exhaled sharply, his expression tight with emotion. “Janae wasn’t fiending. That was not what I saw in her eyes. She was drowning. Wounded. Trying to claw her way out of something too deep and too dark. She did not have enough time to find the surface before the show. Before the biggest moment of her career. And why? Because her own mother, her own flesh and blood, decided to rip it away from her.”
Cedrick pushed back from the desk. “I have seen that look in your eyes when you are struggling, and I would do anything to help you. Anything to pull you out of that place. I know what it is like to need something, anything, to take the edge off. To find a way to push through when your mind and body are working against you. I have had my own crutches, my own ways of coping. I am not saying it is the right way, but I also cannot sit here and judge her. Or Brian. I cannot apologize for his decision, but I understand why he made it.”
His chest heaved up and down, mirroring mine.
He crossed one fist over his chest. “But I am sorry, man, for overstepping my bounds because she is your woman, and for doing anything that would make you believe that you don’t mean more to me than this band. I call you my brother because that’s who you are to me. Whether you want to be in Hollow Bones again or go solo, you are and will always be my brother.”
I regarded the man who’d truly been there for me. “In that case, ‘Landon’s Promise’ is for The Hollow Bones.”
Cedrick broke out into a grin as I walked out of the booth. We grasped hands and pulled each other in for a brotherly hug.