The Brink of Destruction

Mike shifted uncomfortably on the couch. Something in him was wrestling with the decision to share all this, but he'd come this far and there was no point stopping now.

"We were beginning to play some gigs around here, just little stuff, but Billie was on fire with it. He takes the band so seriously, more than people realize, and even if it was just three or four people that showed up, he was gonna give them a hell of a show. So practice was never optional--me and Tre got our chops busted once when we were fifteen minutes late.

Jackie came to watch most times, and she'd work her ass off making flyers and posting them, helping us get the word out, but by the night of the show, he was so into it that she'd end up just sort of hanging out by herself. She didn't seem to resent it, but it made me sad for her.

"Maybe she'd have been willing to go on like that for a while, I don't know. I couldn't have. But like I said, she loved him a lot, and even if it doesn't sound like it, he loved her, too. He just had a fucked up way of showing it.

"The night everything started to fall apart was her birthday. Sucks, huh? See, Billie had been planning to take her out to dinner, someplace kind of nice where they could be alone. He told me a week or so before that he was thinking about asking her to marry him." He stopped, seeing the surprise on my face. "If you'd rather not hear all the details, just tell me and I'll shut up."

My mind was running a full Technicolor wide-screen movie of the two of them, staring into each other's eyes across a candlelit table, as Billie slid the delicate gold band, one tiny diamond sparkling in its center, onto her finger. As he leaned over to kiss her lips, my heart writhed in pain, and I shook my head to chase the image away.

"No, it's okay, really. It helps to understand. Besides, Billie's had to deal with a lot more than this with Dustin. I guess I just didn't realize quite how serious they were."

"Well," he mused, rubbing his chin, "I'm pretty sure she was, anyway."

"You don't think Billie was serious, if he was getting ready to propose?"

"I think he believed he was. She wanted so much to have a life with him, and not some white picket fence fantasy. She understood that the band was everything to him, maybe more than even she could ever be, but she was willing to live with that if that's what it took to make him happy. But there were some things she wanted, too. She wanted to live around here, to be near her family and friends. And she wanted kids, which she knew wasn't something Billie could see in his future."

So he'd gotten hold of this bright, vibrant girl the same way he'd captured me--hook, line and sinker. Charismatic bitch. What was it about him?

"If they both wanted it to work out, then what happened?"

"See, when Billie started talking about getting married, I had to make sure he wasn't just going into it blind and bullheaded, like he does everything else. He trips over his own dick sometimes 'cause he doesn't think about things enough. So we sat around that night and had a few beers, and I told him that if he was going to treat her right, be a good husband and all, then I'd be right there to celebrate it with them. But if he was going to be a selfish bastard to her, then I'd have to kick his ass, because she didn't deserve that. I told him he had to remember that there were two people in it, not just him."

"Wow, I bet he appreciated that," I said sarcastically. Taking criticism wasn't one of his strong points.

"Actually, he thanked me for being straight with him. I think he really wanted to do the right thing, and it was easier to hear something like that from me than it might have been from her."

"Less embarrassing for him, I'm sure."

"Yeah, I guess that's it. So anyway, as it got closer to her birthday, he'd been getting kind of quiet, and I thought maybe he was getting nervous--cold feet, something like that."

"Did he change his mind?"

"Not about getting married, no. But he came in from work one night and told me he'd realized he was going to have to decide between being married and being in the band. He couldn't do both and make a decent go of either one. So he was going to give up the band."

"Mike, I can't believe that!" I gasped. "He could never stop making music--he'd waste away and die!"

He nodded solemnly, his crystal blue eyes sad with the memory. It was hard to read all the emotions on his face as he remembered what must have been the darkest hour of their friendship. How hard must it have been, to feel that he was losing not only his best friend, but his dream at the same time?

"He knew that. But I think he was just so unhappy--not with her, but inside, for whatever reasons he had--that he thought if he could do this for her, even if it meant giving up the thing that he loved doing most, then maybe he could learn to like himself. And maybe he could deserve her."

It explained a lot. Anyone who met Billie would take him for a cocky, arrogant smartass who thought he was the center of the world. That's what he wanted them to think. But even I hadn't really understood how much pain he carried inside him, and how much of his anger came back to eat away at him. Only Mike, more like a brother to him than his own family, had been allowed to see that part of him, because only Mike had felt some of the same hurt and rejection that he had. They were bound by their scars, blood brothers that no enemy, no friend, no tragedy or ambition could divide.

"Do you think he really meant it?" I whispered.

"I know he did," he said, looking down at his hands. "He would have given it up, even if it meant he was miserable for the rest of his life. And I knew that's exactly what would happen--he'd regret it every fucking day, and pretty soon regret would turn into resentment, and he'd take it out on her. He wouldn't mean to, but he wouldn't be able to help it. Every time he looked at her he'd think what he'd given up."

"What did you say to him?" I wondered, knowing the answer.

He chuckled softly. "You know him as well as I do, Gen. What could I say? When he decides he's going to do something, you can't change his mind. He went right ahead and did what he thought was the right thing. But he made one mistake, and that was telling Jackie about leaving the band.

"She was smart, like I told you. No matter how much she wanted to be with him, she knew what it would mean if he didn't have that outlet. He'd be a ticking bomb. And she knew what it would do to them in the long run."

"How do you know all that?"

"Because she told me. The night he proposed, she told him no. He was hurt, and pissed, but she stuck to her guns because she couldn't stand to see him give up on what he'd worked so hard for. The next day, she called me and explained everything, told me I listened better than Billie. She said that she couldn't tie him down like that, she couldn't bear to see him suffocating because of her.

"A few days later, I heard she'd moved out of her apartment, and Billie got a letter from her. It said that she'd met a guy, someone who was looking for the same things she was, and that she hoped he'd understand. He didn't, but she didn't give him a phone number or an address, so he couldn't talk to her about it."

The impression I'd had of her until now shivered and cracked. How could she take up with someone else so quickly, and then tell him just to hurt him? No wonder he'd been so worried about Dustin--he was afraid the same thing would happen again.

"Mike, it just sounds so strange. If she felt about Billie the way it sounds like she did, why would she just forget about him all of a sudden and pick up with someone else? How could another guy walk in and take over Billie's place so soon?"

"That's the part I've had to keep from Billie all this time. There never was another guy. She knew that for him, it was easier to be mad than to be hurt. If he thought she was with someone else, then he'd get mad about it, and she was right. That way, he wouldn't blame himself and feel bad about staying with the band. She'd rather he hate her than hate himself and his music."

Her words made complete sense now. She'd sacrificed her love to give him wings when he'd forgotten how to fly. And because Mike understood what an agonizing decision she'd made, Billie would never know.

And now, without even realizing it, he was struggling with the same decision himself.