Chapter 17

Darryl Nelson

Our bus winds its way to our last leg of the tour—the West Coast, culminating in a homecoming gig in San Francisco.

“You know,” Smit says, plonking himself down next to me, “Stevie is still at her folks’ house.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Firstly, how do you know that, and secondly, why the fuck do I care?”

“Rhea told me,” he grins. “Yeah…she’s been hitting me up on Snapchat. It’s no big deal.”

I frown. “Why has she?”

“Checking up on you mostly,” he says offhandedly as he grabs the bag of chips I’m mindlessly stuffing into my mouth. “And letting me know what’s going on with Stevie, you know, just in case you asked or whatever.”

“If I wanted to know, I’d ask her myself.” I wouldn’t. We both know I’m lying, too. We sit in relative silence—Smit’s loud crunching stops it from being completely peaceful—with a question gnawing at my tongue. “So, how come she’s at her folks’?”

“I knew you’d crack!” Smit cackles, dusting the chip dust off his fingers. “She went back home that same day you accused her of cheating on you. Apparently, she’s now rethinking the whole college thing, and Rhea’s, like, totally pissed at her for bailing on her dreams.”

“Why would she do that?” I ask, frowning.

“I guess she was homesick or just didn’t think it was worth spending all that money on getting a degree, or maybe she’s running from that dude she was with.”

“So, she ~is~ with some other guy?” I growl.

“I dunno, man,” Smit shrugs. “Rhea reckons they’re all just friends, and I guess you know her better than any of us, right? I mean, you guys have known each other for fucking ever, right.” He gives me a knowing look, sliding off the seat. “Maybe you should call her and actually ~talk~ to her.”

He leaves me stewing in my own thoughts, and I don’t hear Dalia until she’s sitting next to me in his vacated seat. “Hi,” she says gently.

“Hey,” I mutter. We haven’t really hung out much since the night we kissed…since the night I fucked everything up. Partly because Mikey is watching me like a fucking hawk and partly because I feel a choking, suffocating amount of guilt whenever I look at her. I don’t really know exactly what Stevie has done, but I know exactly what ~I~ have done.

“So, I feel like you’re ignoring me,” she says, picking at the nail polish on her thumb.

I sigh. “I am, kinda…”

She snorts out a laugh. “Well, at least you’re honest.”

I allow myself a wry smile. “Well, it is the best policy.” I moan, dropping my head back against the window. “When did it all become so fucking difficult?”

“That’s growing up, I’m afraid,” Dalia shrugs.

“When will people stop making out like I’m a fucking kid?! All I fucking hear every fucking day of my life is ~when you grow up~ or ~you’ll understand when you’re an adult.~ It’s bullshit!” I scowl at her. “And anyway, you’re barely a fucking adult yourself.”

“Fuck you!” Dalia scowls back at me, leaving me on my own again. I drop my head back against the window and huff out a deep sigh.

I feel fucking terrible. It feels like I am that awkward kid again, on the precipice of teenagehood, losing the best friend he ever had for years over some stupid misunderstanding. This is the time I would normally fall headfirst into anything I could to dull the pain.

I pick up my new, new phone and scroll through my contacts. I press dial and press the phone to my ear.

“Yeah…uh, hi. It’s me.”

***

“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but why are you here?”

I almost crack a smile at Dr. Greene’s deadpan delivery. “I am in the neighborhood and figured you must have been missing me and my sunny disposition.”

As we get closer to home, the more I feel the weight of all the recent bullshit feels more and more like it is crushing me, and the only person I know who wouldn’t judge me is my therapist. How fucking pathetic is that?

He steeples his fingers in front of his own twitch of his lips. “How’s the tour going?”

I take a deep breath and turn my gaze toward the window. “It is going well, I guess. But I had a blip.”

“A blip, huh?” He reaches over and picks up his coffee cup, taking a loud sip. “What exactly do you mean by a blip?”

“I got fucked up on drugs and alcohol with the band we’re on tour with and cheated on my girlfriend.” My words come out rapidly, Dr. Greene’s eyebrows raising a little bit more with each one.

“Well. Okay. It probably was a good idea to call me. I thought one of the conditions for you going on tour was staying clean?”

“It was…I begged Mikey not to tell my folks.”

“Why do you think you cheated on Stevie?” He sits back in his chair, propping one ankle up on his opposite knee, flashing his choice of snazzy socks.

“Because I think she cheated on me,” I raise my shoulders in a slow shrug.

“You think, or you know?”

“What’s the fucking difference? She doesn’t trust me for shit, so why should I trust her?”

“Darryl, relationships are not tit for tat…at least not healthy ones. If you think she cheated on you, instead of running off and retaliating in kind, you should talk to her, find out what actually happened and why it happened.” He takes another sip of coffee. “That is, of course, if you actually want to be in a relationship with her.”

***

My bus back to the town we are supposed to be playing is a shit show—fucking thing breaks down in some backward fucking town—so I am forced to spend the night in the cheapest motel I can find. I just make it back in time for the end of soundcheck the next day.

When I walk into the venue, I can hear my band warming up. Rounding the huge stack of amps, I find Mikey sitting in my place, and a weird rush of jealousy runs over me. Seeing someone else sitting up there, in my place behind Smit and Evan, playing my carefully constructed drum parts, makes me feel…obsolete.

Mikey is the reason I wanted to play drums in the first place. Seeing him behind that battered kit of his, the driving heartbeat of the Ashes Within…I want that kind of quiet power. But now, I hate seeing him there, seeing how much more polished his technique is, how easily he plays the parts I’ve struggled with for days while I figured out what sounded good.

Evan looks up from his bass and spots me, tipping his chin toward me in greeting, alerting Smit to my presence.

“Oh, so you’ve finally decided that you’re a part of the band, have you?” Smit scowls, striking a loud off-key chord on his Explorer guitar—his pride and joy—making me wince as my ear is right next to the amp he is linked to.

“Yeah…sorry about that,” I awkwardly rub the back of my head.

“Fuck your sorrys,” Smit yanks the jack cable out of his guitar and storms past me, barging into my shoulder in the process. “You’re fucking around with ~our~ futures, y’know. It’s not always all about you.”

He strides off, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

“He’s just pissed because we got a warning from the tour manager.” Evan shrugs a little, disconnecting his bass. “The dude’s told us we won’t get paid for last night’s gig, and he heard about the reason Axl couldn’t play that one night, so if anything else happens, we’re kicked off the tour.”

I glance over at Mikey, who just raises his shoulders and purses his lips in a ~I told you so~ kind of way. Evan sets his bass down carefully and shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his baggy black jeans as he walks off in the direction Smit had disappeared in.

Mikey taps the metal rim of the snare drum with the sticks before twisting one round between his fingers—a move that I always thought looked so freaking cool when I was a kid. “Looks like you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do, kid…better make it good, too, or your band might not be a band for too much longer.”