Uninhibited

I take another ragged breath. “One day, he came to me—him and my sister Tegan. They’d been sneaking around, fuck knows how long, but they wanted to come clean. They were together, for real. Fuck, I smashed his face in.” I smile wryly, remembering the scene. “She was barely eighteen, but I don’t know…you could see they were crazy about each other. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t get a choice. And after a while, it just made us all closer, you know? Family.”

Alicia squeezes my hand. She doesn’t interrupt, but I can feel her warmth beside me, giving me strength, helping me force the next words from my lips.

The darkest ones.

“The label sent us on a world tour,” I continue. “A hundred dates in thirty cities, first class all the way. A schedule like that, it’s grueling. You barely get to sleep, always traveling. If you’re not on stage, you’re in the air, or doing sound-check in some city you don’t even remember the name. But we didn’t care.” I sigh. “That’s the real deal, why we even play at all. Thirty thousand fans screaming your name every night, singing along to every word. It’s a rush like nothing else.” I shake my head. Even the memory wakes me up, makes my blood sing in my veins. How long has it been since I felt that rush? Too long. Too fucking long.

“At least, it was everything to me. But Connor…” I stop.

How are there words for this part? How can a few syllables possibly describe everything, when it’s nothing but fear and shame and guilt? “Connor started fucking up during shows. Little things, dropping the beat, coming in too late. We thought it was just exhaustion, the pace on the road. Then Austin found him shooting up one night.”

I feel Alicia inhale beside me. “Drugs?” she whispers softly.

I nod. “I should have seen it.We all should have. Right away, we sat him down, told him he had to get his shit together. I wanted to shut the tour down right then and pack him off to rehab, but the label got wind and freaked the hell out. We were already sold out in every city, millions on the line. They threatened to sue us for everything we had if we pulled out.”

I swallow, bowing my head. “I should have fought them.” My voice cracks. “I knew then, I knew it wasn’t right, but Connor swore, he didn’t have a problem. That he was in control. He begged us not to replace him, said music was the only thing on earth that mattered to him. I wanted to believe him,” I tell her, holding her hand tight. “So, we kept playing.”

Was that my second mistake? My two hundredth? Looking back, it’s so clear, I had a million different chances to save him. All those moments I could have made it turn out differently, all those times I let him down.

“After that, we thought things were better,” I say, my voice thick with self-loathing. “Connor got his shit together on-stage, we didn’t let him out of our sight. Tegan flew out, she was good for him. He didn’t want to let her down. I figured he was getting better, but he was just getting better at hiding it. And then…”

I stop. My body is shaking just remembering it.

“It’s OK,” Alicia whispers again, soothing. “I’m right here.”

I take a breath, trying to absorb her strength, her sweetness. It’s the last of it I’ll ever taste, I know. There’s no going back after this.

“I found him in the bathroom,” I say quietly. “This fuck-off expensive hotel in London. White marble and roses everywhere, and he’s laying in a pool of his own vomit with a needle jammed in his arm.”

There’s silence, just the waves crashing on the shore in the fading dusk light. I can see it clear as the moment I walked in.

The end of a life. A stupid, pointless death.

“I called the paramedics,” I add quietly. “But I knew it was too late. He was too cold, too still.”

The anger rises in me, all my wasteful grief. “Such a fucking waste, that’s what I can’t get over,” I growl, fighting the sting of tears. “All that talent, all that heart, just erased from the world in a heartbeat. I know, there’s no good way to go out,” I add, my jaw clenched. “But that…it was cheap. And Connor, he deserved so much better. He deserved more from me,” I add, broken.

Alicia holds tight to my hand.“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I failed him,” I confess, the words breaking me open inside. “I let him down. His family…his mother. And I can’t…I can’t ever make it right.”

We were kids, thinking like we were invincible, that nothing could bring us down. No problem that couldn’t be solved by a hundred bucks slipped to the right person, no mess our record label wouldn’t clean up.

But there’s no taking back death. No apologies or good intentions that can drag a body from the ground. And everything that came after: Tegan, and the pills, and every bloody loose end, that’s all on me too. Connor was a part of this world, and now he’s nothing but memories. And I’m still here: still able to experience everything he’s lost, still able to hold the hand of a girl beside me and want her body; still able to feel, to laugh, to love.

It’s not right. It’ll never be right.

I pull my hand from Alicia’s. It twists inside, a dull ache, but I force myself to let her go. Soon she’ll be gone forever. Not right away, she’s too good for that, but after some kind words and platitudes, she’ll walk away.