"For Pick-Me-Ups and Fall-Aparts"

For Pick-Me-Ups and Fall-Aparts

To: Marianas Trench Stylist
3:37am Fri, Jan 18
cant sleep. AGAIN. so fucking tired. are u awake?
From: JoSh RaMsY

To: Josh
3:38pm Fri, Jan 18
barely. phone buzzed and it’s you, so i answered. anyone else would be shot. finally fell asleep for the first time in two days.

To: Marianas Trench Stylist
3:39am Fri, Jan 18
haha dude, sorry. I know how that fucking goes. forget it. it’s ok. go back to sleep.
From: JoSh RaMsY

To: Josh
3:41am Fri, Jan 18
nah, it’s ok.  i’m awake now. what’s up?

To: Marianas Trench Stylist
3:42am Fri, Jan 18
no, it’s fine. i’m ok. i’ll talk to you tomorrow.
From: JoSh RaMsY

To: Josh
3:43am Fri, Jan 18
nono, now i’m up. let’s talk.

To: Marianas Trench Stylist
3:43am Fri, Jan 18
no, don’t worry. sorry. g’night.
From: JoSh RaMsY

She watched as Josh got a bit more somber with each text message. She knew he wanted to talk or he never would have been sending messages to her cell phone at this time of night. As an insomniac, he was usually always still awake until any given late hour, or even awake for several days at a time when left on his own, but he always tried so hard not to “bother” people in case they were busy or sleeping, so he kept to himself by working on his music or spending some time hanging out on social media sites shooting quips back and forth with fans to keep himself occupied. But tonight it was obvious that something was different and the stylist needed to make sure that Josh was truly alright.
Josh had been out of the Greater Good Behavioural Health Center for two weeks now. The stylist, Mike and Ian were there to pick him up after his two month stay, during which he missed both Christmas and ringing in the new year with his family and friends. While there, he had been on a suicide watch due to the intense self-harm that put him there in the first place. He claimed that he didn’t want to actually kill himself, but no one, not even Josh was completely sure that he meant it due to the severity of the damage he did to his arm the day the band found him sprawled on the floor of the bus leaning up against the kitchen cabinets, covered in his own blood with a shard of glass at his side.
All of that had taken place when Josh had confessed to relapsing into bulimia after some cold-hearted “fans” decided to needlessly and negatively comment on Josh’s weight in a more recent music video during which he had to be shirtless. It caused a downward spiral and both the bulimia and cutting had cropped up in his life again after a decade of being mostly free from those haunts. But now he was healthier and stronger both mentally and physically and he was well enough to be back home on his own again.
The doctors had explained to the group before Josh left the Center that he would still need lots of support and, despite Josh being as stubborn as he was, he had finally agreed and realized that he couldn’t and shouldn’t try to face certain things on his own. It took so long for that to sink in, but at least it finally happened. He should have realized that the first time he ever self-harmed or turned to eating disorders and drugs as a teenager. He should have realized it again within the last year, before he ever chose to resort to self-harm after so long, but he decided to try to work through that without professional help. Josh only turned to his friends then when someone caught on to what he was doing and forced him to talk whether he wanted to or not. But at least now, these days he had to admit that he needed people to talk to sometimes before anything that he was trying to deal with became too much. He finally knew that everyone around him had been right all along about that.
Being that Josh was only two weeks out of the behavioural center, the stylist desperately wanted to make sure that he was stable. She was glad that he had made the decision to reach out to her, as she had told him over and over again that he could do that any time he needed, no matter what the clock said. She would always be there for him.
Slight worry settled in the pit of her stomach as she re-read his text messages. It was a familiar sensation that she had learned all too well over the last two years since she had gotten to know and started traveling with the band on tour. She loved Josh like he was family and she wanted to protect him, but she was starting to understand something Matt had told her just a couple of short months ago. He had said that he was tired of worrying about Josh every time something seemed the slightest bit ‘off’ and she felt like she was also becoming too used to the same feeling.
Sighing, the stylist scrolled down her screen and pressed the “call” button next to Josh’s name. After the forth ring, she thought for certain that he wouldn’t pick up simply because he felt like he was being an inconvenience just by “disturbing” her in the first place, but she heard his voice on the other end halfway through the fifth ring.
“Hello?” His voice was unusually deep and husky as if he, himself, had just been woken up. She loved the way he sounded when he was exhausted, although she hated that he sounded that way so often.
“Hey,” the stylist said quietly.
“What’s with the phone call?” he asked, sounding as if this was unusual. It wasn’t at all. The two of them stayed in fairly close contact ever since that first year when she had proven her loyalty to both Josh and the band by being there for him and helping him through his relapse into cutting for the first time in a decade. But perhaps tonight he just thought the stylist would accept his text messages and go back to sleep. Of course she wouldn’t. Not when Josh or any of the other men in the band were concerned.
Josh was currently sitting at home in his apartment that overlooked the city of Vancouver. He pulled his feet up onto the couch and drew his knees against his chest as he watched the lights in the buildings across town flash off and on against the dark backdrop of night as people woke or finally staggered off to bed. He held the phone to his ear and leaned his head against the back of the couch while he waited for her answer. Josh yawned silently and ran a hand through his hair. God fucking damnit, he wished he could sleep.
“Well,” the stylist started, turning to roll over onto her back to get more comfortable in bed, “when you texted me, it sounded like you wanted to talk. And I’m not about to ignore you for something as trivial as sleep.”
“Oh, fuck that,” Josh said, leaving his statement short. He narrowed his eyes as he squinted out through the windows. Was that snow starting to fall? It was. He shivered at the thought and pulled the worn, folded blue blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around his legs. Realizing he needed to explain himself, he continued. “I just couldn’t sleep, that’s all. I’m okay. I thought there was an off chance that you might still be awake. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone else. You know…”
“I’m glad you got in touch.” That much was true, for certain. It had been a couple of days since she’d heard from the man and she was already starting to miss him, but she understood how busy his life was and she was fine with him dropping in and out of her own life at his convenience…most of the time. She knew he had a lot to catch up on now that he was back home and out of the Center, so she let him have his space, only checking in on him now and again unless he got in touch first.
The stylist rubbed her hand across her eyes, trying to will herself awake. She really wanted to talk to Josh, but fatigue had finally hit her after so many days of being wide awake and she actually wanted to take advantage of it for a change. Normally, she would blow off sleep to talk to Matt, Mike, Ian, and Josh if they needed her at any given time, but tonight, despite being concerned about Josh, sleep was the first thing on her mind. Instead of giving in and closing her eyes for the next eight hours or so, she mentally cursed and heard herself say, “Are you really doing okay? Do you want me to come over?”
Josh leaned forward and rested his chin on his knees while he thought about it. The only light in his apartment was from the dull streetlights stories below that lined the sidewalks. It filtered through the large floor to ceiling windows, barely reaching in and leaving large luminous shadows and empty spaces where he knew objects stood. It made his place seem so dark and lonely with just the two cats and the dog to keep him company. It would be nice to have her there, but he couldn’t ask that of his stylist, could he? Sure, she had just offered, but wouldn’t that be asking too much? “Umm…”
She heard the uncertainty in his voice and squeezed her eyes closed for a minute. I promised I’d be there for him last year. I promised him again this year. Just get the hell up, pack a bag and go. Josh’s apartment is only a half an hour drive from here. He obviously needs you, but he’s not gonna ask, so you have to make the move. Just do it. Get up. Get out of bed. You’d have gotten up in just a few hours anyway. She sighed inwardly after talking herself into making the drive over and flung the blankets away from her, shivering as the cold air hit her naked body. She gasped loudly and sat up.
“What?? What’s wrong?” Josh perked up and his eyes widened when he heard her.
“Nothing, nothing. It’s just cold, that’s all.” The stylist grabbed the clean clothing she had draped over the chair in the corner of her bedroom the night before, struggling to pull on her outfit one-handed while she held the phone in the other. Eventually she slipped on a pair of shoes and half-heartedly ran a brush through her hair to do her best to avoid looking like she had been woken up. “I’m gonna come over, Josh.”
“No, no, it’s really okay. Honest. It’s snowing now and you don’t have to…,” he let his words drop, because the more he thought about it, the more he realized he really did feel like he could use someone else around that night.
The stylist took a minute or two before responding while she packed a bag with an extra three days’ worth of clothing just in case. She tossed in everything she could think of that she might need, including four books she’d been meaning to read. She knew that Josh was an avid reader as well, but she didn’t know what he had on his bookshelves, so she wanted to make sure she had something to do in case she was trapped at his place due to the apparent current weather.
“I’ll be there in half an hour, give or take. Do…do I need to call the rest of the guys and have them come over, too?” The stylist thought back over the previous two years. Whenever Josh had needed someone, it was usually best to have the whole band around to support him. He was sounding a little lost tonight, but that was probably at least partially because he hadn’t been sleeping, and that was never great for anyone’s sanity, especially Josh’s. She just didn’t know how deep in trouble he might be.
“No, really. I fuckin’ mean that. I promise. If you think it’s really that necessary, you can call them in the morning, but I’m okay. Besides, Matt wouldn’t come anyway… It’s just…well…we’ll talk when you get here. I’ll see you soon. And…thanks.” Josh didn’t even wait for her to say goodbye, he just pressed the “end call” button and set his phone down on the table beside the couch. He stretched his six-foot-two-inch frame out on the sofa and settled in to wait.
The stylist stared at her phone for a moment before shutting it off. What had he said about Matt? What was going on there? Come to think of it, she hadn’t heard from Matt in quite a while either. That would be a needed discussion when she saw the singer.
For the moment, Josh really did sound like he meant what he said about being okay, but he’d always been so good at avoiding the truth in most any serious situation that she really wouldn’t know what was going on until she got there. She just hoped that he was telling the truth. Still, she rushed herself as fast as she could go to finish getting ready. Being so sleep-deprived, she barely remembered to grab her keys on the way out.
Easing the car into a visitor’s parking space, the stylist grabbed her overnight bag and her messenger bag, shut off the car, jammed her keys into her pocket and made her way through the apartment building to Josh’s front door nearly a half an hour to the minute from when she last spoke with him. She raised her hand and covered her mouth to yawn. Fuck, it was early…or late…whatever the hell anyone wanted to call it. Four-thirty in the morning was no time to be wandering around, no matter what anyone said. She knocked on the front door lightly and immediately heard toenails clicking against the floor and quiet barks, which she knew to belong to Josh’s black lab, Bennie.
A minute later, she heard the turn of a lock and the sliding of a chain, then the door pulled inward, revealing Josh. When the stylist saw him, it was all she could do not to frown at his appearance. He was wearing an old faded black AC/DC band concert tshirt that she’d seen him in at least a thousand times before, green and black plaid flannel plants and black socks, but the thing that struck her, even in the shadows of his front door, were the dark circles under his eyes and his more-pallid-than-normal appearance. He apparently wasn’t kidding when he told her via text message that he hadn’t been able to sleep. He looked like he hadn’t been to bed in weeks. The fact that Josh was even able to stand upright amazed her.
He took several steps backward to let her in and blinked sleepily at the stylist a couple of times. He smiled crookedly and gave her a small wave. At that moment, she realized how young he looked. Josh may have been nearly thirty years old, save for a couple of years, but the fact that he had recently strayed from his dyed bleach-blonde and blue streaked hair and let it fade back to his natural light brown colour while he was in the Center simply made him look more like a teenager who had gotten caught staying up too late rather than a man deep in the throes of insomnia.
She wanted to say so much to him all at the same time, but the only words she could force to the surface were, “What the hell, Josh?” She walked into his apartment, turned to close the door and locked it again, just the way he had it. The stylist tossed her things down onto the chair just to her right and stripped off her jacket. Kneeling down, she gave Bennie a hug, dropped a kiss onto the top of the dog’s head and stood again. “You look like shit,” the stylist said, speaking to the singer and making use of a running joke between them.
The man shrugged and padded his way through the unlit rooms back to the couch without speaking a word to her. She stood for a moment, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the dark before following him. She didn’t know the layout of his home very well, as she’d only been there a couple of times over the last two years since he’d moved out of the house and into the apartment. As a result, in the dark, she bumped into things. First, she nearly tripped over a cat who had apparently decided that now was the perfect time to wind itself around her ankles. Which cat it was, she couldn’t tell, but she cursed the furball under her breath, even though it wasn’t really the cat’s fault. Then she walked straight into the kitchen island, knocking the wind out of herself. After that, she somehow, very carefully, managed to find her way through the rest of the place and into the living room.
Despite the stylist having lived in Vancouver for her whole life, she’d never before stood in a high-rise building and looked out at the city at night. Briefly, she completely ignored the lump on the couch, which she presumed to be Josh, and stared out into the dark. The sky was a dull reddish colour due to the snow, which was now falling much more heavily than it had been when she had set out on her drive over. That, combined with the city lights was enough to make her wish that she had brought her camera. The scene would have made a great postcard.
Josh shifted around on the couch and that shook her out of her thoughts. She turned her attention back to him, as she should have done in the first place. The stylist sat on the floor cross-legged facing him. Immediately both of his cats, Tuxedo and Anemonie, were in her lap demanding attention. Bennie appeared at her side and nudged her arm before circling and lying down against her hip. Tux stood up and pressed his nose to her cheek before diving against her chest and nuzzling her neck. The stylist scratched under Anemonie’s chin at the same time. She seemed to have that effect on animals wherever she went and it made Josh smile from where he sat watching. He may have been obscured in darkness, but she was touched by the soft light that managed to reach through his windows.
Once the cats had tired of her and had settled down on her lap, she absent-mindedly stroked each of them, feeling slightly bad for not having a third hand to use to pet Bennie as well, but she was deep asleep against the stylist and didn’t seem to mind. “So, what’s up? Why am I here, sitting on your floor staring at you at five o’clock in the morning?” she asked Josh, her tone gentle and sincere.
Even in the dark, she could see him raise his shoulders in another shrug. “You said you were coming over. You came over. End of story, no?” Josh wasn’t trying to be evasive. Not really. He truly didn’t quite know why she was here. He was feeling well enough at the moment, or so he thought. It was nice to have the company, but when he messaged her, he had really only wanted someone to keep him occupied for a bit in hopes that it would settle his mind enough so that he could finally sleep. The price of being a little bit crazy, he thought.
“No. Beginning of story. Tell me what’s going on in your head.” The stylist knew from experience that Josh didn’t like to talk about himself if he was being watched, so she only glanced up at him temporarily when she spoke, then dropped her gaze back down to the warm animals curled up on her lap.
For the hundredth time in two years, Josh heard her say, “tell me what’s going on in your head.” He both loved and loathed those words. It irritated him to no end that his stylist was constantly able to recognize that something wasn’t right with him when all he wanted to do was hide it, even if the problem was miniscule and essentially meaningless. But in the same breath, he liked that he had someone in his life who could read him as well as she could and would actually call him out on things. He liked that she could see through his attempted jests, put-ons and vagueness. Josh was over being as afraid of that as he initially was. It had originally scared him because he had gone through his whole life being a phenomenal actor, always hiding behind a stupid joke or lying through his teeth so well that people were never sure if he was being real or not, especially if they didn’t know Josh very well. No one around him ever knew what was going on in his life until he was caught doing something that could potentially kill him.
Josh avoided answering her while thoughts from his past quickly rolled through his memory. His first problem as a teenager was depression, which eventually caused severe bulimic issues. He was caught by his family. Then it was the drugs. Caught by Matt, then his family. A year ago, he relapsed into self-harming for the first time since he was a teenager. Caught by his stylist. Then, just last year…fuck, last year…just two and a half long months ago… Josh didn’t want to think about it. That was the worst he’d ever been. He relapsed back into bulimia, then wound up nearly killing himself halfway through the first show during the second leg of their tour. He was caught by Matt then too, but it was his stylist who took the time to sit with him on the floor in the tiny bathroom of the tour bus while he had a complete melt down in front of her, accidentally injuring her in the process. He was so far gone then that he had to spend what seemed like an eternity in that behavioural health center while the doctors there tried to straighten his life out again. Luckily, he came away from there a better man than he had been when he went in and he had learned a lot about himself that he had never taken the time to realize before.
The singer never did repay the stylist for going through all of that with him, but here she was again, sitting with him in the dark at “balls a.m.” asking what was going on in his head. What could he tell her? The truth was that for the first time, he was actually…okay. Well, he was as okay as he ever had been and as okay as he felt he ever could be. He was stable. His life was good, mostly. Aside from minor inconveniences that everyone faced, he was doing well. He just couldn’t sleep and it was making him crazy. Crazier than usual, Josh thought to himself and smirked. Well, there was that and the problem he was having with Matt, but he didn’t even know what that problem was, so he didn’t know how to bring it up.
He watched as the stylist continued to stroke the top of Tux’s head and rub under Anemonie’s chin simultaneously. He genuinely smiled again, knowing that she wasn’t the world’s biggest fan of cats, but still knew just what to do to make his cats purr like crazy. His cats were particular, as felines are. They didn’t like just anyone. Bennie, well, she was a lab. She loved everyone, so he couldn’t judge anyone’s character based on how his dog reacted to them. But Josh knew that the stylist was someone special when the cats both ambushed her and wouldn’t leave her lap the very first time she showed up at his new apartment right after he had moved in and adopted them both. He thought he remembered saying something to her about it back then, but now it was such a distant memory that he just couldn’t be sure.
Josh reached over to the opposite end of the couch and grabbed the blanket he had dropped when he had gotten up to answer the door for the stylist. He draped it up over his head and wrapped it around his shoulders. He silently yelled at himself for being stupid enough not to go grab a sweatshirt when he was up. Now he was fucking freezing. He dragged his feet back up onto the couch and pulled his knees against his chest again.
“Really,” he said quietly, “for the first time, pretty much everything is okay. I’m…fine.” He hesitated to use that word out loud because he knew it sounded like a lie. He’d used it so many times over the years that it had lost all meaning for him and anyone that knew him. No one trusted when he said that, and he couldn’t blame them. “No, it’s true. I’m fine,” he reiterated when the stylist gave him a skeptical look. Fuck, Josh hated that he had caused so much trouble for himself that people didn’t believe him these days. He was working so hard to fix that now, though.
“Really, truly, honestly?” she asked, gently picking up a sleeping Tux and setting him down on the floor near Bennie. She did the same with Anemonie and then shoved herself up from the floor. Josh watched with curiosity, wondering where she was going. He sincerely hoped that he hadn’t fucked everything up so badly that she thought he was lying now and was going to walk out on him. It didn’t sound like something she would do, but in the back of his mind, he always, always knew it was a possibility regarding anyone in his life.
Instead of waiting for his answer, she felt her way through the darkened apartment and disappeared down the hallway that led to the bedrooms and bathroom. Minutes later, she returned with the warmest sweatshirt he owned. How the fuck did she continue to do that?! How did she always just…know things? He wanted to refuse it when she held it out to him just because he was apparently mentally about sixteen years old and never felt like he needed to be watched over, but he really was cold, so he dropped the blanket in order to slip the blue and grey striped shirt on and zip it up to his chin. He dragged the hood up over his head, and then tucked his hair inside the hood to keep it out of his eyes.
The stylist sat down on the opposite end of the couch facing him with one foot on the floor and the other leg bent at the knee, resting on the cushion in front of her. She leaned back against the arm and rested her hand on the back of the couch. “Your bedroom is a wreck, Ramsay.” She smiled at him and shook her head. She only called him by last name when she was joking with him or was completely serious and wanted his attention. Luckily, Josh knew it. “For someone who doesn’t sleep, you most definitely know how to destroy your sleeping space.”
He laughed quietly. “Yeah, well, I have to keep myself busy, so shit happens. Besides, if you hadn’t been ballsy enough to walk in there, you wouldn’t have seen it!”
It’s true, the stylist had to admit. She and Josh were close, but she had never gone through his things before without his permission and she probably shouldn’t have done that now, but she had a good enough reason. “Dude, I was sitting four feet away from you and I could hear you shivering. You were gonna be stubborn about it, so I solved the problem. You might be a “brilliant musician”,” she said using her fingers as air quotes, “but you’re stubborn as hell and this is why you keep me around.” She grinned and dramatically flipped her hair back over her shoulder in an all-important gesture.
He grinned back at her and threw the blanket at her. She took advantage of it and wrapped it around herself. “So, what’s your answer there, rockstar?”
Josh had forgotten the question already. He was just about to ask her to repeat it when he remembered. “Really, truly, I’m doing okay. I mean, I’m probably better than you’ve ever seen me before. The last time you saw me, you and…,” he paused, remembering how Matt hadn’t shown up, “…and some of the guys were picking me up from the behavioural center a couple weeks ago. I was kinda fuckin’ frazzled then, right? I stayed at Ian’s place for a few nights because no one trusted me to come back here alone. Because I didn’t trust me to come back here alone.”
The stylist nodded, then, realizing Josh couldn’t see the gesture, she spoke. “Yeah, that about sums it up. You seemed a little crazed that day, so it’s good that you were able to stay at Ian’s for the first few days, just to sorta readjust.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think I had much of a choice,” Josh said, moving to tuck his legs up under his body. “But I texted you and Mike…and I’m doing better.”
“I’m glad you are, Josh. And I’ll be honest,” she said, “I’m glad you keep in touch as much as you do. I miss you when you’re not around. Even if it’s just for a day or two.”
He twisted again so he was facing her and stretched his legs out, laying them across hers and crossing them at the ankles. “You know what? I fuckin’ am, too, dude. You might be kinda new to our lives, but you’re easily one of the best decisions we’ve ever made as a band.” Josh ended his compliment by yawning loudly.
“I’m so great that I bore you to death?” she joked again, patting his shin.
“Exactly!!” Josh laughed again and yawned a second time.
“Hey, why don’t we get you to bed?” The stylist dropped the blanket, slid out from under Josh’s legs and stood, holding her hands out to help him up. “How long has it been since you’ve slept, anyway?”
Josh reached out and took her hands, pulling himself up. He staggered a bit and rubbed his eyes, then draped his arm across her shoulders. “Oh, I don’t fuckin’ know. It’s been at least three days, I think. But I got so much shit written! You should see it. Let me get my notebook and I’ll show you!” He started to pull away from her to go find his work when she wrapped her arm around his back, grabbed a fistful of his shirt and yanked him back against her side.
He reached out to grab hold of her again to keep himself upright and laughed. “What the fuck, dude?”
“I guess the Center helped you with everything but the insomnia shit, eh? You’re going to bed! You’re gonna at least try to sleep or I’ll smother you with your fucking pillow. Now let’s go.” The stylist let go and stepped behind him. She put her hands against his lower back and gave him a light shove in the direction of his bedroom.
Josh resisted, pushing back against her hands. “Nooo…oookay. Fine.” Finally, he put one foot in front of the other until he was in his bedroom. He flicked on the light switch just inside the room and glanced around.
The stylist ducked under his arm and stepped into the room. “How the hell did you ever find my sweatshirt in here?” There were mounds of clothing everywhere- no telling which were dirty and which were clean. The bed was a rumpled mess with the blankets piled up in the center, the sheet twisted around the comforter and the pillows on the floor. Three empty DVD cases lay in the cats’ bed, but the discs themselves were missing. Josh’s last costume from the previous tour was draped over a standing full-length mirror, even though he hadn’t worn it in months.
“I…have no idea,” she admitted. “Seriously! Everything is a fucking disaster. How the hell did you make this much of a mess?”
“I don’t know! I know it’s a little messy, but…leave me alone. So tired,” the singer whined as he flopped down onto the bed face first, spread-eagle. “Mmkf tee bems frr mm?” he mumbled against the mattress.
“Try again,” the stylist said, picking up the pillows and tossing them at the head of the bed.
Josh turned his face just enough so that she could understand him. “Make the bed for me?”
She sighed and shook her head, but smiled at the ridiculous picture in front of her. A grown man, a musical genius, international rock star and brilliant thinker was begging her to make up his bed for him. She had to laugh. “I will, but you have to get up first. I don’t think that’s an option. You’re lying on all the blankets.”
He groaned and grabbed a fistful of covers. “No, I don’t wanna…”
The stylist stepped up behind Josh and grabbed the waistband of his pants and shorts. She pulled up slightly until she got his attention. “Now, you’ll either get up or you’ll be pulling your underwear out of your teeth if I have to yank these up any higher to get you to move.”
“Hey, hey! That’s not fuckin’ cool, man.” Josh slid off the bed backwards and wiggled his ass a little until his clothing fell back into place. “Not cool at all. You could have damaged the goods! And I already sing like a girl. Don’t make it worse!” He gestured to his crotch as he had done so often, every time she helped him into his flying harness for concerts.
She laughed again and waved him off. “I’ll apologize later.” The stylist had sorted out the blankets and worked at pulling them back into position.
Josh half-heartedly decided to help and yanked the sheet up to the corner, then the comforter, making a show of yawning loudly every thirty seconds. Once the bed was re-made, he flung the blankets back and dropped down onto the mattress. “Ugh…,” he groaned a second time, laying his arm across his face, the crook of his elbow obscuring the overhead light from his vision. He pulled the blankets over his body with his free hand.
The stylist flipped the switch off and stood in the doorway. “Now that you’re in bed and presumably comfortable, and now that I know you’re doing okay, I think I’ll take off. You know…go slip into something more comfortable like my bed and ditch out on society until my own sleep deprivation wears off.”
Josh bolted up, putting his hands on the mattress behind him. “What? No! It’s…it’s snowing. And cold out there. What about ice?” He had already gotten used to the idea that maybe he could convince her to stay. He might not have really needed someone there with him tonight at first, but now he wanted her there.
“It’ll be okay. Don’t worry! You’ll sleep and you’ll never know I’m gone.” The stylist knew that Josh was working up the nerve to get her to stay and she was just waiting for him to ask. Everything she said and did was so calculated and this was all part of her plan for getting him to come out of his shell a little. He might have been loud, bouncy and obnoxious with the rest of the world, but he always had trouble asking her for personal things and this was her way of making him ask without forcibly coming out and telling him to open his mouth.
In the dark, it was impossible for the stylist to tell what Josh was doing. He could see her silhouette in the door, so he knew that she was still there, but she couldn’t see him. He put a hand up to his mouth and chewed on his finger a bit. He was still trying to figure out how to ask her to stay. Fuck it all. “Stay? Will you stay? Please?”
“You really want me to?” she asked, leaning against the door frame and sticking her hands into her pockets.
“Please?” he asked again.
“Move over,” the stylist said quietly, shoving herself away from the wall and closing the bedroom door behind her. She had no idea how Josh slept, but at home, she couldn’t sleep without the door closed. He didn’t object. Once she was near the left side of the bed, she kicked off her shoes and crawled in next to Josh, lying on her side facing away from him.
She sighed and felt herself melt into the bed. This was so much more comfortable than her own bed was. Then again, you get what you pay for and he certainly had the funds to make his life cushy.
All of a sudden, she felt a warm body against hers and she realized that Josh had inched his way across the king sized bed and was curled up behind her with his forehead resting against the back of her shoulder and his knees pressing into the backs of her legs. The stylist smiled and laid her arm along her side. Josh reached out, caught her hand and held it.
“Can we talk for a minute?” He yawned again against the back of the stylist’s shoulder and she could feel his hot breath as he exhaled.
“Of course,” she said, turning over onto her back, moving their clasped hands onto her stomach. Josh kept his forehead against her shoulder. She had long ago lost her inhibitions with him and everything she did for Josh was purely platonic, nothing more, nothing less. It may have seemed intimate from the outside, but she felt that this was no different than it was when she was younger and let her little brother crawl into bed with her when there was a thunderstorm raging outside that scared him senseless. If she could do that for her brother then, she could certainly do that now for Josh.
He kept his head ducked and tried to focus on the slow rise and fall of their hands on her stomach as she steadily breathed in and out. He still had such a hard time talking about the things on his mind if he could see the person he was talking to, but there in the dark, it seemed easier. “Do…do you know why Matt isn’t talking to me? I’ve sent him so many fucking text messages and he hasn’t responded to a single one. I’ve called him, too. Dude, I even fucking called him from the Center after that first visit. The rest of you came back for other visits, but…Matt didn’t. I know you all kept telling me that he was busy, but it seems like more than that. I know I fucked up. I know what I did to myself. I know I needed to be there. But this time, I don’t feel like I deserve it.” Josh’s voice cracked a little on the last three words.
The stylist understood why and it was such a huge progressive step for him that she wanted to acknowledge it. She just had to tread lightly. She knew a little about what was going on with Matt, but not all. And even the things she did know, she felt it wasn’t her place to talk about. Gently, she squeezed Josh’s hand. “Before we get to Matt…I’m proud of you.”
“For what?” he asked, confused enough to raise his head so his voice wasn’t muffled against her body.
“You just told me that you know you don’t deserve to be treated badly. By yourself or by anyone else. And you said that after telling me so many times over the last two years how you’ve always felt like you deserved the bad stuff. I’m proud of you for realizing that you have worth, darlin’. It’s about time you knew that.”
She couldn’t tell in the dark, but that made Josh smile. He couldn’t take full credit for it, as it was something he learned in the Center this time around. He learned that he didn’t have to punish himself for his actions and that, while it was natural for others to pull away in someone else’s desperate times because they’re scared, angry, hurt…whatever…it didn’t mean that Josh had to feel like he deserved negativity for needing help. Once he figured that out, so many more things became clear to him, but that was the thing that hit the closest to home for him.
“Thanks,” he said still smiling. “But really, it was just…you know…something they taught us…there…at the Center. I didn’t do it on my own.”
“But you did! We’ve all been telling you the same thing for ages. Anyone can talk, but they can’t make you listen, understand or accept anything, you know? You did that yourself. Own it.” The stylist slipped her left hand out of Josh’s and replaced it with her right one, then reached out to pat his shoulder with her newly freed hand. It made Josh feel good. He moved even closer against the stylist and leaned his forehead back against her shoulder.
“Matt?” he asked again quietly once the proud feeling he had accepted slowly started to fade.
Josh felt the stylist take a deep breath and heard her sigh quietly. She knew something that she wasn’t saying and he had to find out what that was. “I…,” he heard the reluctance in her voice and his heart immediately sunk to his stomach. Fuck, this was going to be really, really bad. He didn’t know for sure that he wanted to hear it anymore.
“Is it bad?” he asked quietly.
“No…not…really,” the stylist answered, halting her words a bit. “Josh…” She thought quickly, wondering if she should say anything. It didn’t really concern her. This was between Matt and Josh. Making her decision quickly, she caved because it wasn’t really fair to leave Josh hanging, waiting for some kind of answer. He didn’t deserve that either.
“Just fucking tell me. Please.” Josh pulled away from the stylist and sat up against the headboard of the bed.
“Okay, I’ll tell you, but here’s the thing. You can’t be angry at Matt. Not for this. Promise?”
“No.” Josh shook his head. “I can’t promise. I don’t even know what’s going on.”
“Just…don’t be mad at him. You can be pissed off that he hasn’t spoken to you, but don’t be mad at the reason why, okay?” The stylist really wanted to protect Matt, even though she knew that dodging Josh was really the wrong thing to do. She actually wasn’t aware that Matt hadn’t spoken to Josh since that first visit until now, but she understood why Matt was avoidant.
“Fine, whatever. I won’t be mad at him. I just…this is killing me.” That tore at the stylist’s heart. The last time Josh said that was when he had a breakdown at the hospital as he was telling her how everyone always expected him to be something he couldn’t be. He sunk to his knees and told her how his world was killing him. So many emotions came back to her because of that one sentence, but she shoved them aside and pushed herself to sit up as well.
“The thing is…Matt’s kind of going through a hard time, himself,” she started.
“Is he okay?” Josh sounded concerned. Of course he was worried. Matt was one of his best friends.
“I think so. But the reason behind it is…well…you.” The stylist bit her bottom lip before going on.
“Me? Because of the stay at the Center? But he’s been through that with me before,” Josh said sounding confused.
“That’s kinda why, darlin’. Matt understands that you needed help. We all understand. But his problem goes further than that. He…he told me about that night he had to rescue you from the house party the first time you ever tried heroin.” She closed her eyes and mentally crossed her fingers that Josh would keep his word and not get angry.
“The fuck?! Why would he do that??” Josh shoved the blankets away from his body and swung his legs off the bed. He balled his fits up at his sides and stood.
The stylist reached over and switched on the small lamp that sat on the night table beside the bed as she watched as Josh paced back and forth across the room in front of her, somehow avoiding tripping over the piles of crap he had strewn around the room. “Hey, calm down and let me explain.”
He turned and glared at her. “Calm down? He had no right to tell you that.”
“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe you’re right. But he did it for a reason, now will you hear me the fuck out? Come on, come sit and I’ll explain. You’ll understand.” She motioned to Josh’s side of the bed.
He shook his head and took a deep breath. Standing in the middle of the room, he raised his hands and shoved them through his hair. Josh huffed and rolled his eyes, but walked back over to the bad and sat. “Okay. Explain.”
“Do you remember how Matt walked away when we visited you at the Center that first time?” The stylist pushed the blankets away from herself and moved to sit cross-legged at the foot of the bed facing Josh.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“And do you remember that I walked away to go talk to him?” Josh nodded a second time. “Basically…I shouldn’t be telling you this because it doesn’t have a thing to do with me, but here goes. Matt is…was…hurt. Angry. Upset. Everything you were going through, you kept to yourself. I don’t know how to tell you any of this without adding insult to injury, Josh.”
“Just fucking come out with it. Fast words make it easier on me. Just say it,” he said in a louder tone of voice than he would usually use to speak with her. Before she had ever brought anything up, the stylist prepared herself to potentially get yelled at. She would once again allow Josh to take everything out on her if he needed to, whether she really wanted to deal with that or not.
“Okay, okay…this might sting a bit,” she warned him. “You have an obligation to your band. You owed them enough to stay healthy so you could tour and play shows. Rather than talking to someone about how you were feeling, you took it out on yourself and you fucked up. Again. You let everything get the better of you and it backfired. You caused damage to yourself and we almost lost you all because you were too fucking egotistical to talk to anyone about how you were doing and what was going on. Matt only told me about that night because since then, you worry him. He’s been there for you through everything and you don’t…can’t…won’t…whatever…even try talking to him after all this time. You keep this shit so bottled up in your own head that you wind up fucking yourself over. It’s happening too often these days and it’s worrying everyone, but it especially bothers Matt because he’s been there with you, for you, the longest. He truly feels a little abandoned because you’d rather nearly kill yourself than talk to him. Can you understand that? How would you feel if the tables were turned?” The stylist took a deep breath and immediately wondered if she’d said too much. She looked up at Josh to gauge his reaction.
He leaned back against the headboard heavily and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he looked up at her. “He really fuckin’ said all of that?”
“More or less,” she said nodding at him.
“Fuck. Just fuck me.” Josh crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes. “I just keep fucking up, don’t I?”
“I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. Yeah, you do. But you know what? You can change that. You don’t have to keep letting this happen. You know that, don’t you?” The stylist leaned forward and crawled closer to Josh. She sat back on her knees once she was only inches away.
“This habit is always so hard to break,” he said quietly. “I can try, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough. Not for anyone.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong.” She reached out and lightly put a hand on Josh’s knee. “All anyone ever wanted you to do was try. What you don’t seem to understand, or, at least what you previously didn’t understand is that we all want you to come to us. We don’t want you to hide or keep all of those negative thoughts to yourself. This is what friends are for, you know? What’s the use in having us around if you can’t depend on us? In my case, I’m damn proud of you because you have been coming to me. You texted me tonight because you were feeling a little out of sorts, even if you just wanted to talk because you couldn’t sleep. That’s huge progress. That’s what Matt wants. He wants to be included.”
Josh didn’t know why, but his talks with his stylist always made him fucking emotional. It happened nearly every time. Maybe it was because she was so honest with him. Maybe it was because she was so sincere. Maybe it was because she was one of the few people that cared about him for who he was and not what he could do for them. Whatever the reason, he always found himself wiping at his eyes with his hands and trying to keep himself together. “Things had been so good for me for so long. You got here just in time to see everything fall apart. Just wish you could have seen me when it used to come so easy. I used to be so much better. I’m sorry.”
“No, this isn’t about me and there’s nothing to apologize for.” The stylist moved closer to Josh until their knees were touching. She put a hand under his chin and lifted his head up so she could look into his eyes. “You’re doing fine. You hear me? This whole situation with Matt, it’s all just about tying up loose ends from your past. That’s all it is.”
Josh sighed and reached up to rub his eyes with the heels of his hands again. The stylist’s hand dropped away and she rubbed his shoulder for a few seconds. He took a shaky breath and moved his hands to wipe them against his thighs. “I have to talk to Matt.”
The stylist smiled compassionately and nodded. “Yeah, you do. You need to make this right with him. But not at five-thirty in the morning. Sleep first, then you can deal with that.”
“I can’t fucking sleep now,” he said groaning. “How the hell would that be possible after this shit?”
“Come on, lie back.” She twisted her body and stood to allow Josh to stretch out again. He slid down onto his back and frowned as she pulled the blankets back over him.
Josh caught her wrist before she walked away. “You’re still gonna stay aren’t you?”
“After this?” she questioned him.
He didn’t know whether she meant that she was angry at him and certainly wouldn’t be staying or that she felt sorry for him and that he was crazy for even questioning her. “Uh…”
“Yes, I’m staying,” the stylist clarified.
Josh looked up at her and slowly released his grip on her wrist. He watched without blinking as she rounded the bed, climbed in on the other side and switched off the light. Once she was comfortable, Josh squeezed in as close to her as he could and flung both his arm and his leg over her body to keep her as close to him as he could. “Little close there, aren’t you, Ramsay?” She smiled and didn’t actually mind, even if it was a bit odd.
“Don’t leave,” was all he said.
“I’m not going anywhere, darlin’. I promise you. I’ll be here when you wake up.” It seemed like that was all it took for him. She soon felt him relax against her and go limp. Finally, after days, he was asleep. It looked as if she still provided the same level of comfort she had two years prior when he asked if she would sleep in his bunk with him on the tour bus. She was willing to do anything it took to help out the guys she had come to think of as “her boys”.
Despite being completely exhausted as well, the stylist stayed up a little longer thinking about Josh and Matt and even the rest of the band. The thought also crossed her mind that maybe she’d been neglecting Mike and Ian. She hadn’t had many heart-to-heart talks with them or spend time with them individually, and that was something she wanted to change. She never, ever wanted anyone to think she was playing favourites. It’s just that Josh and Matt happened to have problems that they needed to get off their chests. She’d do the same for Ian and Mike if they needed her. Just the same, the stylist decided she would definitely do something to fix that when she woke up. She made it a priority to either visit or call Mike and Ian that day. She would talk to Matt as well, if he would speak to her. Once she had made up her mind to get in touch with the rest of the band, it put the stylist’s mind at ease and she, too, was able to slip into a very restful sleep.
Josh rolled over and squeezed his eyes closed even tighter, fighting against the dark, but somehow still too-bright light that permeated through the shades over his bedroom windows. It still seemed way too early and being awake was the last thing he wanted. He felt like he could have slept for another forty-eight hours, at least. He groaned and pulled the blankets up over his head, blocking both fresh air and daylight. It made him feel claustrophobic, so he quickly uncovered his face, all without opening his eyes. If he did that, it would be admitting that he was officially awake and he wasn’t ready for that yet.
Rather than agreeing to defeat and crawling out of bed, he rolled over in the opposite direction and reached out for the stylist. What the fuck?? Josh forced his eyes open and stared at the empty space where she had been lying earlier that morning. Where did she go? Why wasn’t she there? She promised she’d be there when he woke up! She fucking promised! Josh sat up and focused on his alarm clock. Two-thirty in the afternoon. That wasn’t so unusual for him. Still a gross time to be awake, though. It was still fucking daytime.
He turned his attention back to the stylist and wondered where the hell she could be. He really hoped she was still hanging around. After last night, he wasn’t at all in the mood to face today by himself. Josh mentally congratulated himself for admitting that before he crawled across the bed and set his feet on the floor. He glanced around the room once just to make sure she wasn’t sitting there among his piles of shit watching him make a fool out of himself. Once he was sure that she wasn’t there, he pulled the bedroom door open and ventured out into the hallway.
He heard no noises except for Bennie, who must have heard Josh finally awaken. Josh was sure she was fairly desperate to be walked by this time, but he really didn’t feel like it. He would, eventually, of course, but he would inwardly bitch and moan about having to do it. He reached down and stroked the top of her head while she wiggled trying to twist around him to make sure every surface of her body was touched by his hand. He smiled at her sleepily. This was why he loved dogs.
When Bennie felt she had gotten sufficient attention, she found her way into Josh’s bedroom, jumped up on the bed and laid down until he was ready to take her for a walk. He was grateful that she was so laid back because it bought him some time.
Josh, himself, made his way to the bathroom and got ready for the morning. He stared in the mirror debating whether or not he wanted to shave today. “Fuck it,” he murmured to his reflection after he raked a brush through his hair. He was going to put as little effort into his looks today as he could manage because no one would see him…except his stylist…if she was still there. And she’d seen him at his very worst, so even with bed hair and wrinkled pajamas, he still wasn’t looking nearly as bad as he had in the past.
He finally found his stylist sitting at one of the bar chairs up against the island in the kitchen. She was hunched over the counter top with a book in front of her, twisting her hair around her finger as she read. She never heard him walk up behind her and nearly fell off the stool when Josh reached around her and covered her eyes with his hands. “Oh my ever loving fucking God, Ramsay! Don’t fucking do that!” He caught her and kept her from crashing to the floor as she swiveled around on the stool to glare at him.
He grinned that boyish grin of his and laughed. “Can I help it if you weren’t paying attention?”
“I wasn’t expecting you to scare the hell out of me! I didn’t know when you’d be up. You were sleeping, dude! What was I gonna do? Wake you up to tell you that I was coming out here to read so I didn’t disturb you?” She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but then she smiled because it was obvious that he was in a fairly decent mood, and that was a good thing. Especially after their discussion before falling asleep.
“No…but…nevermind…it’s nothing.” Josh walked around the island and opened the refrigerator. He stuck his head inside and she could see him rummaging around for something.
“No, what?” The stylist dog-eared the page of her book and closed it, shoving it aside. She folded her hands in front of her and waited for his response.
“It’s nothing,” he repeated again. He stood and jammed an apple between his teeth while he twisted the top off the plastic water bottle in his hands. Apparently his good mood wasn’t going to last long.
“Come on, don’t pull that shit. If you have something to say, say it.” Her tone was gentle, but firm. She didn’t want Josh to start reverting back to that “never mind” crap just to save face. There was nothing he couldn’t tell her and he knew it. He just had to not only believe it, but follow through with it.
He took the apple out of his mouth after taking a bite and set it on the counter, bracing it with his water bottle so it wouldn’t roll. He put his hands against the counter and drummed his fingers a bit. “Okay, I guess…I guess I just got scared when I woke up and you weren’t there. You said you would be and you weren’t.” Josh picked up his water bottle and drank from it twice before setting it back down just for something to do.
“Josh,” the stylist said gently, “why did you think I would leave? I promised that I would be here.”
“Yeah, you did promise. And you’re here, but you weren’t there,” he said, motioning to his bedroom. “I really hoped…needed…never mind.”
“No, no, come on, darlin’. Talk to me.” The stylist lightly touched his hand to get his attention.
Josh shook his head and took another bite of his apple before setting it back down on the counter. The stylist tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes at him, just slightly.
“I thought…maybe…I dunno…” He stopped short when he saw the look on her face. She was calling him out for not saying what was on his mind without even using words. “I thought maybe you started thinking about everything you had talked to Matt about and that you decided he was right. Maybe I’m not someone worth knowing after all, after hearing that story he told you. I mean, he’s known me for so many years and he isn’t speaking to me. What’s fucking stopping you from doing the same thing? Ya know?”
“What’s stopping me? What’s stopping me…” The stylist stared up at Josh and nodded. “Huh. What is stopping me? I guess you’re right. Maybe you’re not worth knowing after hearing a story that happened ten years ago. After all, it has everything to do with who you are now and you haven’t changed a bit. In fact, you’re probably waiting for me to leave so you can get high as a kite, drunk off your fucking ass, cut your body to shreds and then puke up everything you’re eating.” She gestured to the apple and water on the counter before she slid off the chair and picked up her book.
The stylist cut her eyes to Josh quickly and saw the hurt look on his face. She had never, ever in her entire life caused that look on anyone and it upset her just as much as it did Josh, but she was desperate to make a point. Just explaining things obviously hadn’t worked after all these years and it seemed like he responded best to dramatics, so she gave it her best try.
“The fuck…?” he managed to choke out before walking around the kitchen island and grabbing her upper arms in his hands. He had never really put his hands on her before, not like this, and the stylist had to admit that his towering over her while he was in this mood made her a bit nervous. She trusted Josh ninety-nine percent, but there was always that one percent that told her that anything was possible where any living being was concerned. “What the absolute fuck?” he asked again. He didn’t sound angry, he didn’t sound hurt or confused. At this moment, Josh sounded…almost primal. He shook her a little and repeated himself for the third time.
She dropped her book to the floor beside her feet and reached up enough to put her hands on Josh’s forearms. They stood locked together like that while he stared her down. “Josh, listen to me. I was trying to get it through to you that you worry about that stuff, especially where I’m concerned, for fucking nothing. I’m not going to disappear from your life over something that happened ten years ago. I’m not going to leave over something that happened two years ago. I didn’t leave over what happened two months ago. Nothing you can ever say or do would cause me to walk out on you. I needed to get that through your fucking head, because it seems like every time we talk about this kind of thing, you go straight to tormenting yourself about that and then it gets into your head and it doesn’t help anyone, especially not you. So please…believe me when I tell you that your past is just that. It’s part of who you are, but it’s not all of who you are now. And I’m sure as hell not going to judge you for that. Do you understand me?” She squeezed his forearms until he winced and let go of her. Only then did she let go of him as well.
Josh backed up a step or two and took a ragged breath. “That fucking hurt, you know…” He wasn’t referring to the grip she had on him, and the stylist knew it.
“I know and I’m sorry. I really am. I just…I couldn’t think of any other way to tell you to stop worrying and that I’m not going to leave. I will always, always be here for you. I don’t care what’s happened in the past unless it’s affecting you now. I don’t care what you did or didn’t do. I don’t care who holds grudges or who’s still angry. I’m not them and I don’t let someone else’s opinions form my own. Not now, not ever. I showed up in your life with my own thoughts of you guys as a band and individually. Some of those opinions have been true. Others, well, you’ve proven me very wrong, and that’s okay. I’ll readily admit that some of the things I had in my head based on what the public has said aren’t true. But Josh, trust me. Trust in me. Matt,” she said, watching as his face fell a little at the sound of his friend’s name, “told me that despite logic, he still worries about you and is concerned for you whenever you act a little ‘off’ or things just don’t add up the way they should. He says that’s been going on since he met you. I worry now, too, you know. But you just can’t keep thinking that someday I’ll walk out on you just because I’m tired of feeling that way. It’s the exact fucking opposite. The more I worry, the more I want to be around you to protect you and to make sure you’re doing okay. I will never just disappear because I’m tired of worrying. I promise.”
Josh stared at a spot on the floor between them without speaking. Finally, the stylist got worried enough to put her hand against his arm and he flinched, pulling back. “Matt did,” he whispered, looking up at her. Josh swallowed hard and walked back toward his bedroom, leaving his apple and water bottle abandoned on the counter.
The stylist didn’t know whether to follow him or not, but not a minute later, Bennie came wandering into the kitchen and whined at her. She should have taken Bennie for a walk when she first got up several hours ago, but not knowing Josh’s routine, she didn’t want to screw anything up. This time, she picked up her book and put it back on the counter before rummaging around to find a leash.
She found the dog’s leash draped over the chair on which she had thrown her jacket when she first arrived. The day was still dark and dismal and it looked like it was insanely cold out there, so she slipped her arms into her black pea coat and buttoned it up to her chin before attaching the hook to Bennie’s collar. She didn’t know where Josh walked her, but if it was as cold as it looked, they wouldn’t go any further than the snowed-over patch of grass in front of the building, that was for damn sure.
The stylist didn’t realize it until she and Bennie got outside, but the snow was still falling and her car was covered. The parking lot hadn’t been plowed and the streets were a sloppy, slushy mess. There was no way she would be leaving today, not that she had even planned on it. She glanced around at her surroundings, noticing how pretty everything looked. She and Bennie seemed to be the only living beings out and about in this weather, and if she could hurry the dog up, even they wouldn’t be out there for long. She could see her breath and her fingers had turned numb already. “Come on, Bennie. Hurry up. Be a good girl. Go potty! Let’s get back inside and get warm.” The black lab seemed to understand her and quickly hurried to finish what she was brought outside in the sub-freezing temperatures to do. She seemed just as eager as the stylist was to go back into the warm building.
Once back inside Josh’s apartment, the stylist made sure the cats had full bowls of food and water, then fed Bennie, who seemed to swallow her food whole in minutes. The black lab shook her entire body, then jumped up on the sofa, circled once and stretched out along the length of it for a mid-afternoon, post-lunch nap.
The stylist envied the dog and could do with one of those, herself. She had slept too little after being awake for way too long. And she still had that promise to herself to keep. She didn’t know where Josh had gone when he disappeared, and she didn’t know how much more time to herself she had, but she still very much wanted to get in touch with Mike, Ian and especially Matt. The stylist eyed her messenger bag, which contained her cell phone. Deciding against it for the moment and possibly blowing her only chance at checking in with the guys in private, she instead chose to go check on Josh. He was currently her first priority.
She slowly walked down the hallway towards Josh’s bedroom and stopped at the closed door. Fuck it all. She was just going to have to treat this like any other time. Forget letting him have his space. The stylist knocked lightly on his door and waited for a response. Not hearing one, she turned the doorknob and found that it was unlocked. Slightly surprising, but she wasn’t too shocked, considering that their discussion had just been about how much he worried that she would someday leave. He couldn’t lock her out of his life if he wanted her to stay. She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.
Josh was back in bed, curled up under the covers again. “Josh?” she asked again quietly.
“What…?” he questioned, his voice thick. He sniffed once, twice. Oh…well, fuck.
“I’m sorry. I truly am. I never meant to hurt you. That wasn’t my intent at all. I just…I had to find a way to get through to you. Maybe that wasn’t the best course of action. I should have known better. I’m sorry,” the stylist said again. She crossed the room and crawled back onto the bed with him, sliding under the blankets. This time she was the one who inched herself across the bed until she was pressed up against his back. She slid her arm over him and leaned her head against the back of his shoulder, imitating the way he seemed to ‘claim’ her earlier that morning.
Josh took her hand and laced his fingers through hers, completely covering her smaller hand with his larger one. He pulled her hand further up his chest and held it there. “It’s not you,” he said quietly. “At least…not entirely.”
“Then talk to me. You just walked out before. I can’t make things any better when you do that.” She moved a bit and pressed her legs against the back of his thighs so she was tight against him. The gesture was more to let him know that she wasn’t going anywhere than anything else.
“It’s everything. If you wanna know the fucking truth, I’m having kind of a hard time adjusting to being back here on my own. There’s the Matt thing. The fact that we haven’t toured lately and it’s my fucking fault… I thought I was okay when I texted you last night, but…fuck me, my world just sort of crashed down around me last night.” The stylist felt as though she had been hit in the gut. If she hadn’t invited herself over to Josh’s apartment, if she hadn’t talked to him about Matt, if she hadn’t told him off in the kitchen that morning… so many things she could have done differently. But she couldn’t blame herself too much. What’s done was done and now she needed to do what she could to keep Josh calm.
“It’s okay, darlin’. We’ll figure this out. We’ll talk to Matt soon. You’ll be touring again as soon as everyone can figure out a new schedule. That’s out of your hands for now, so try not to worry about that. As for being alone, you’re not alone. I’m here. Do…do you want me to stay?” She lifted her head a bit and rested her chin on his shoulder. Josh dragged her hand up to the center of his chest so she could feel his heart beating. It was pounding against his ribcage and the stylist actually wondered if he was having a panic attack. “You’re okay. Everything is fine,” she continued, just in case.
She felt Josh take a deep breath, but he was way too worked up to relax. He took another shuddering breath and exhaled. “Fucking pathetic,” he mumbled to himself.
“No…you’re doing fine. Everything, all of this, it’s a lot to deal with and you’re doing well. You really are. I’m proud of you. If this was just a few months ago, you would have tried to handle this all on your own, with disastrous results. You can’t deny that, right? You know that. But look at what you’re doing now. You’re talking to me about what you’re thinking and what’s bothering you. That’s such a major step. Do you realize that?”
He nodded slightly and rolled over onto his back. He looked over at the stylist. They were so close that their noses nearly touched. She could see how his dark eyelashes framed his perfect blue eyes. “Yes,” he said answering two of her questions at once. “And yes. Will you stay? I don’t wanna be alone tonight.”
She smiled slightly and nodded. “I’ll stay, Ramsay. I’m glad you asked.”
“Wanna show you that I’ll run to you ‘til I can’t stand on my own anymore. I’m trying.” Josh squeezed her hand a bit. He really was trying and she gave him all the credit in the world for that.
“How about we sleep for a bit longer? I took Bennie for a walk and fed her, so she’s fine until later. The cats are fine, too. I know you didn’t sleep long enough and neither did I. We’ll have a do-over. This time, I promise I’ll be here when you wake up. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Josh nodded and closed his eyes. The stylist moved to get comfortable as best she could with her hand still encased in Josh’s. Eventually she settled in and closed her eyes as well. She was exhausted, but her mind raced. What would have happened if she hadn’t gotten out of bed to show up at Josh’s place less than twelve hours prior? What would he have done? Would he have been okay or would he have been facing the same situation as he had two months ago? Was she the one who caused him to feel the way he did? The thoughts that ran through her head were almost too much to think about and she squeezed her eyes closed even more tightly in a vain effort to stop them from coming.
No, it’s okay. You didn’t cause this and Josh is fine. You were here and he trusted you enough to text you to talk. He trusted you enough to come over because he needed someone, even if he didn’t come right out and say it. Everything is alright. It is. But what about next time? And the time after that? What about next week or next month? Fuck, Matt was right. I can’t be thinking about this. One fucking day at a time. He’s fine for now.
After those thoughts circled over and over in her mind for an hour, the stylist realized that she’d never be able to sleep. She was torn between wanting to keep her promise to Josh that she would be there when he woke up and risking breaking that promise to go call Matt. She needed to talk to him and tell him that she finally understood, without a doubt, how he felt about worrying about Josh.
Making a quick decision, she slowly pulled her hand from Josh’s and slid out of the bed, trying not to jostle him too much and wake him up. The guy needed so much more sleep than he had gotten lately. She walked around to his side of the bed and knelt in front of the night table. Noiselessly pulling the drawer open, she rummaged around inside for a pen. Condoms, an old cell phone, a camera, a picture of the band from when they first got together, some handwritten notes in his own writing that only Josh could decipher and finally, a pen! The stylist drew on the tip of her finger to make sure it worked and then leaned over Josh. On the back of his hand, she wrote three letters, “B.R.B.” Being part of the ‘Internet generation’, he would understand that it meant she would be right back and hadn’t left him for good if he woke up before she was able to crawl back into the bed. Dropping the pen back into the drawer and closing it, she then snuck out of the room and shut the door silently behind her.
The stylist found her messenger bag right by the door where she had left it earlier that morning. She stuck her hand inside and pulled out her cell phone. Ten missed messages and one voicemail. Who the hell would be trying to get in touch with her this desperately and why had she waited until now to check the thing? Why didn’t she do it earlier? God only knew. Sighing and slightly worried, she made her way into the living room and sat down in one of the chairs opposite the couch where Bennie was still sleeping.

To: Marianas Trench Stylist
11:14am Fri, Jan 18
hey! Haven’t talked to you in a while. Hows everything?
From: Mike Ayley

To: Marianas Trench Stylist
11:16am Fri, Jan 18
have you heard from josh?
From: Mike Ayley

To: Marianas Trench Stylist
11:17am Fri, Jan 18
if/when you do, let me know. He’s not answering his texts.
From: Mike Ayley
To: Marianas Trench Stylist
11:18am Fri, Jan 18
and…neither are you. Everything ok?
From: Mike Ayley

To: Marianas Trench Stylist
11:34am Fri, Jan 18
mike just texted me. You doing ok? now we haven’t heard from you, josh or matt in a while. You guys all run away together?
From: Ian Casselman
To: Marianas Trench Stylist
11:37am Fri, Jan 18
ok, well now we’re really worried. Hopefully you’re just sleeping or something. Please let me know the minute you get this.
From: Mike Ayley
To: Marianas Trench Stylist
11:39am Fri, Jan 18
if we don’t hear from either you or josh today, mike and I are gonna be driving out to your houses to check on you.
From: Ian Casselman
To: Marianas Trench Stylist
12:01pm Fri, Jan 18
ok, this is getting scary now. you usually get back to us quickly. What’s up?
From: Ian Casselman
To: Marianas Trench Stylist
12:32pm Fri, Jan 18
just tried to drive out to your place. Snowed in for now. really worried!!
From: Mike Ayley
Damnit, she should have checked her phone much earlier. The stylist never meant to worry either Mike or Ian, but she never suspected that they’d be trying to get in touch with her so frantically.
One more new text message caught her eye.

To: Marianas Trench Stylist
2:17pm Fri, Jan 18
Hey.
From: Matt Webb

Fuck, yes! Matt. It seemed that the stylist was the only one who had heard from him recently, unless he had texted Josh. His phone was right where he had left it nearly ten hours ago. She could go look through it…no, no she couldn’t. That would be taking things way too far. She would just get back to the guys and let them know that everything was as okay as it could be.
Before turning to her key pad to start replying to the boys’ panicky text messages, the stylist typed in her password and listened to her voicemail. “You have one unheard message,” the robotic voice told her. “Hey, it’s me, Matt. I’m…um…just calling to talk to you. Uh…get back to me whenever you can, I guess. Yeah, that’s fine. Thanks.” She was thrilled that he had called her, not only because she hadn’t heard from him since…well…after he tagged along on the first visit to the Center, but because now Josh, Mike and Ian had all said that they hadn’t heard from Matt either, and that was causing her to worry quite a bit. The voicemail was very recent, as of about an hour ago, it seemed. Thank God he was finally getting in contact.
The stylist shifted in her seat and crossed her legs. She pulled up her “create a message” screen and sent the same text to both Mike and Ian. “Hey, guys. Sorry. Spent the night at Josh’s place…” Fuck, no, that didn’t sound good. She erased the last sentence and started it over. “Heard from Josh around 3:45 this morning. Hasn’t been sleeping and felt like talking so I’ve been at his place since 4:30am. Had a bit of a hard time earlier, doing ok now. Sleeping. I heard from Matt but haven’t gotten back in touch yet. Sorry I worried you guys. Will talk to you both soon. Gotta talk to Matt first.” She pressed ‘send’ and hoped the boys understood.
Finding Matt’s name in her contact list, she pressed the ‘call’ button next to his name and raised the phone to hear ear. She listened to three rings before it went to his voicemail. “Hey, you’ve reached Matt Webb. Picking up the phone isn’t an option now, so tell me who you are and what your current favourite vegetable is and I’ll get back to you if I think we can be friends.” He had such a good sense of humour and the stylist missed that.
“Hey, Matt,” the stylist started her message to him. “It’s me. I just got your text and your voicemail. I just wanted to let you know that I…,” she paused, wondering if she should let him know that she was at Josh’s place or not. Deciding against it, she went a different way. “…I really miss you and I want to talk to you as soon as possible. Please call me back. Thanks.” With that, she ended the call and set her phone on her lap. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back for just a moment.
Minutes later, the words, “Pretty little thing, you’re pullin’ on my strings, we’re breaking all the rules tonight…” poured from her cell phone. She sat up quickly and grabbed her phone. The stylist had set one of Matt’s songs from his solo album as his ringtone and it never failed to make her smile when she heard it.
“Matt! Hey!” she said, trying not to sound overly excited, but still happy to hear from him.
“Hey, hey,” he said back.
“How are you? I haven’t heard from you in two and a half months.” The stylist stood and paced the length of the room, as she was apt to do when talking on the phone.
“I’m okay. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. You know, just…dealing with stuff.” Matt sounded a little uncomfortable, but she was hoping he’d eventually open up a little the longer she kept him on the phone.
“Yeah? What’s been going on?” she asked, stopping at the kitchen island to put Josh’s water bottle back into the fridge and throw away the now-brown apple he had only taken a couple bites out of.
“I…may or may not have taken a flight out to Toronto just to get away for a while over the last couple of weeks.” The stylist could hear Matt doing something in the background, but she couldn’t tell what it was.
“Toronto, hm? Did you have a good time?” She was trying her best to keep him talking, even though she really wanted to ask him why the hell he’d been avoiding everyone. Toronto...that couldn’t have been a coincidence. Not after knowing that Josh had escaped there just before he was put into a behavioural health clinic and rehab center for the first time so many years ago.
“Yeah, it was fine. I visited with some friends and family. I just needed to get out of here for a while.”
“I can understand how that goes. Sometimes I wish I could do the same…” The stylist sat down in the same bar chair she had been sitting in the first time Josh woke. “Can I ask you something?” She needed to be careful about what she was about to ask.
“You wanna know why I disappeared, why I haven’t gotten in touch with anyone, why I haven’t spoken to Josh and why I chose to go to Toronto,” Matt stated matter-of-factly, then sighed.
“Yeah…all of the above. What happened, Matt? Your disappearing really fucked with Josh. I didn’t tell him that you left to go back home after that first visit, just so you know. He thinks you just…got too busy with stuff to visit anymore. I didn’t feel like it was up to me to tell him. Neither did Mike or Ian.” The stylist swiveled her chair so she was facing away from the island and then leaned back against it.
Matt was silent long enough that she almost asked if he was still on the line. “Now he knows how I fucking felt,” he said quietly and without emotion.
“So, all of that was payback?”
“Not…intentionally. At least…not at first. I just needed to get away. I needed some time. I was too angry, I was too upset and I was so tired of everything. That’s why I packed up my gear after that first visit to the Center to see Josh and flew back home. I couldn’t face that shit anymore. I’m sorry I left you, Mike and Ian to deal with it, but I was done. I couldn’t think anymore. Talking to you that last time on the bus…that’s what made my mind up for me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I was thinking about completely ditching out when Josh was released, though. I should have, but I knew you’d try to stop me from leaving Vancouver and I just needed to get the hell out. I know you and the rest of the guys already weren’t happy that I ditched Josh at the Center and believe me, I don’t like myself much for that, either. But I had to.” Matt sighed. “I just got back from Toronto this morning and I’m unpacking right now. I just…I needed you to know that I got in touch as soon as I walked in the front door. I should have told you guys what I was doing, but I just…I’m sorry.” He ended his speech there to give the stylist time to process everything he had said.
“Fuck, Matt.” The stylist was exasperated. She understood, but damn, why now of all times?
“I know, I know,” he said. “Rather than continuing this on the phone, can we talk in person?”
“I…,” she started. Shit, she hadn’t let him know that she was at Josh’s place. The stylist wondered if Matt would still be willing to meet up, knowing that. “Yeah, I think that would be good. But, I have to tell you, I’m at Josh’s apartment and have been since early this morning. He called me to talk and he hadn’t slept in days, so I drove over and now I’m snowed in. The parking lot hasn’t been plowed out. If you can make it through the snow safely enough to get here, that would be great. I know Josh really wants to see you and talk to you, too.” The stylist put the heel of her hand up to her forehead and closed her eyes, hoping that he would be able to make the drive over.
“Uhh…I don’t know,” Matt hesitated. “I guess…I dunno…maybe…” He spoke haltingly, unsure of what he wanted his answer to be. He hadn’t left on such great terms and meeting face-to-face after all of that really made his stomach twist into knots.
The stylist crossed her fingers and held them in front of her face, making a wish on the gesture, as she had done so often since she had been a child. “Please, Matt? Please. For me. For Josh. For the band.”
Her pleading worked and Matt agreed, even though he seemed less than thrilled to do it. “Thank you. Really, thank you. This means so much.”
“If I can get there, when would be a good time?”
“Give me time to wake up Josh. Maybe in an hour or so?” The stylist was mentally already planning how to break the news to Josh that Matt would be stopping by. He could take the news in any number of ways and she only hoped it would be for the better.
He had agreed and would be arriving somewhere around four forty-five in the afternoon. “Matt, before you leave, get in touch with Mike and Ian, too. They’ve been worried about you. You really haven’t been in touch with anyone, have you?”
“No,” he said quietly. “I should. I will. I’ll talk to them. And I’ll see you guys soon.”
The two ended their phone call and the stylist set her cell on the counter after reading two more text messages from Ian and Mike.

To: Marianas Trench Stylist
3:32pm Fri, Jan 18
glad you’re ok. hope josh is too. You heard from matt?? How’s he doing?
From: Mike Ayley
To: Marianas Trench Stylist
3:21pm Fri, Jan 18
oh, hey, you’re alive! Good to know. What’s matt up to?
From: Ian Casselman
The stylist shot another quick text to both men letting them know that Matt should be getting in touch with them and that both she and Josh were fine, just snowed in. She wondered if she should invite both of them over as well, but decided against it because she felt like Matt and Josh had things they needed to talk about without anyone else around. Maybe tomorrow would be a better time to do that, if Josh was okay with it. Besides, it really wasn’t up to her to be inviting people over to Josh’s apartment. Inviting Matt was bad enough.
The stylist quietly wandered back to Josh’s bedroom. He was lying diagonally across the bed, spread-eagle on his stomach and sound asleep. She crawled up on the bed and lay staring up at the ceiling with her head on Josh’s lower back. This time, it was she who focused on his breathing, steady, deep and slow. Her head rose and fell every time he took a breath and it was soothing. She was worried about what would happen when Matt showed up. What would Josh say? Would he even let Matt talk? Would there be another fight? Would Josh kick Matt out of the building?
She turned on her side and reached up to lightly touch Josh’s shoulder. The stylist squeezed it gently and quietly said, “Hey, Josh. Get up, darlin’. We have to talk.”
“Ung…,” he mumbled, shifting a little and sliding his hand under his cheek. Now that he was sleeping, he wasn’t willingly going to be woken up. He was always bad at “mornings”, whatever time of day it might be.
“No, come on…get up.” She patted the back of his shoulder and spoke a bit more loudly. “I have to tell you something.”
“Fuck.” Muttering and groaning, Josh rolled over onto his back and the stylist sat up and crossed her legs to sit ‘Indian-style’ facing him. He pulled the front of his shirt down and opened his eyes.
“What? Why the fuck did you wake me up? I was finally sleeping.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. “So fucking tired…”
“I know you are and I’m sorry. I didn’t wanna wake you up, but I had to. Are you awake enough to understand what I’m saying?” The stylist yawned too, after watching him and thought again of how comfortable the bed was and how easily she could have drifted back to sleep.
“Yeah, I’m awake. What?” Josh rested his hands flat against his ribs and sleepily looked up at her.
“Matt called me,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Matt?” Josh pushed himself into a sitting position and stared at the stylist. “He...you talked to him?”
“I did. He called me a little while ago and we talked for a bit. I talked him into coming over so he could talk to you, too. I know I probably shouldn’t have just invited him over to your place without checking with you,” she said after seeing Josh frown a bit. “I just…you two need to talk and he was willing, as long as he can drive here through the snow. He’ll be here in less than an hour.”
“Well…fuck,” Josh said falling backward against the bed again. He draped his arm across his eyes. “What am I gonna fucking say to him?”
“I don’t know, but it’ll be okay. Let him talk. Let him explain. I’m sure he’ll do the same. He knows you have things you wanna say to him, too, so just…be nice. It’ll be fine.” She crawled off the bed and stood. “Get dressed. I’ll be in the living room.”
Josh groaned and sat up again. “Wait!”
The stylist turned back to face him once she reached the door. “Hm?”
Josh pushed himself up off the bed and slowly walked over to her, once again looking like an extremely tall child with his messy bed-hair and concerned look. “Are you sure this is a good idea? Are you really fucking sure?”
“Josh, this was more or less Matt’s idea, not mine. He wanted to talk. I just suggested meeting here.” That was mostly true, the stylist rationalized. It was almost all true, yes. He didn’t need to know that Matt had wanted to talk before he knew where she was. Either way, in the end, he had agreed to it, so everything was fine.
“You know what? You aren’t gonna believe this.” Josh said, sitting back down on the foot of the bed and staring at the small space of floor that he could see between the piles of stuff all over the room. “I’m actually fuckin’ scared. Look.” He held up a hand that was visibly shaking.
The stylist crossed the room back over to where he was, knelt down in front of him and put her hands on his knees just as she had done right before she and the band had left Josh after visiting him in the Center for the first time. “You’re fine, Josh. You’ll be okay. I promise you. It’s just Matt. You don’t even get this jittery when you’re on stage in front of thousands of people. This is someone you’ve known for half your life. You can do this. Why does this make you so nervous?”
Josh slid off the bed and sat on a pile of clothing, facing the stylist. “Because it’s Matt,” he said as if it should be obvious.
“I know it is, darlin’. I know it is. But what about that scares you this much?” She tucked her hair back behind her ears and shifted to sit on the floor.
“I just…it…Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t know if I can do this. What if he tells me he’s had it with me and my shit and he wants out of the band? The band is over for us, then. What if he wants to stay in the band but fucking hates me forever because of all this? That wouldn’t be too awkward,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his words.
“The only way you’re gonna know anything is by talking to him,” she said logically.
“Fuck that. Don’t you think I know that?” Josh sighed heavily and glanced around his room as if he was thinking about crawling out a window. “I can’t get out of this, can I…?” He spoke, already knowing the answer.
The stylist shook her head and stood up. “No, and I don’t think you should try, either. The longer you drag this out, the worse it’s gonna be, you know? You really need to hear him out.”
Josh leaned forward and rested his forehead against her hip. “You’re gonna stay, aren’t you? You won’t leave? You promised you wouldn’t.”
She reached down and gently ran her fingers through his hair. “No, I’m not going anywhere, but if Matt wants to speak to you alone, I’ll find somewhere to go so you can talk privately. Fair warning, okay?”
The singer nodded without moving away from her. “Good, now that we have that settled, why don’t you get dressed? He should be here really shortly. I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter how you’re dressed since you’ve traveled in such close quarters before that he’s probably seen you in most anything…or nothing at all.”
Josh laughed a little, remembering dressing in crazy Halloween costumes and other random outfits over the years that would have made more ‘normal’ people shake their heads and question his sanity and even sexuality even further, but Matt never did. “Yeah, that’s the truth. Just the same, I’ve been wearing this for the last three days and I should probably do something about that anyway.”
The stylist smiled down at Josh as he pulled away from her and stood. “If he shows up, occupy him? I need a shower. I’ll be quick.” He wandered around his room, stepping over objects in his path and pulled open the closet door. He reached in and dragged out a pair of black jeans and a white long sleeve “Face the Music” shirt from the band’s first tour. The stylist caught that just as she walked out into the hallway to give him privacy. She was sure that was intentional. It had to be his way of saying that no matter what happened, he still wanted the band to “stay the fuck together”.
Back in the living room, the stylist ignored her phone as it buzzed from the counter where she left it after getting off the phone with Matt earlier. She was tired of playing the go-between with the boys. Josh was just going to have to deal with shit for himself and talk to them. Ugh, but what if it was Matt? What if he was stuck in the snow or something? Now she was going to have to check.
Striding back over to the island, she picked up her phone and flipped through her messages. Four from other friends and two from Mike. As strong as her urge to ignore them was, the feeling that she should check them was even stronger. Quickly, she scrolled through the messages, skimming each one for anything important. Mike was just telling her that he had finally heard from Matt. Everything was okay between them, but he wanted the stylist to call him so he could tell her what they had talked about. She leaned over and rested her forehead against the counter. No, no, no. She was already tired of this. She’d been listening to everyone’s specific stories for over two months now, but they hadn’t gotten together as a group and discussed their issues. This individual discussion stuff just wasn’t cutting it. The stylist made a mental note to bring that up with Mike when she finally got back to him.
The stylist set the phone back on the counter and walked over to the window. Josh really had the perfect view. She placed her hands gently against the window frame and stared out into the snow, watching as lights in the buildings all across town flicked on as the sun started to go down. She didn’t know how much time went by, but eventually she felt someone staring at her.
Taking her hands from the window, she turned and saw Josh standing behind her. He took a step back and dramatically gestured as his body, indicating that he might have been a bit of a wreck before, but he certainly cleaned up well. She smiled at him and nodded. “Much better. You’re gorgeous, dah-ling.”
He laughed and took an elaborate stage bow, holding his arm against his stomach and bending as low as he could at the waist. “Thank you, thank you. Showering and shaving helps a bit.”
The stylist stuck her hands into her pockets and leaned back against the window. “Feeling a little better now, are you?”
“Not particularly, but nobody said that this was gonna be easy. I’ll get through it. I don’t really have a fuckin’ choice.” He held his hands palms-up and shrugged his shoulders.
“No, I’m sure it won’t be easy, but it’ll be okay. Somehow. Just ride it out and you’ll see.” She reached out and put her hand lightly against Josh’s arm for a second or two, then stuck it back into her pocket.
Josh and the stylist stood around making small talk for another fifteen minutes until a knock on the door interrupted them. Josh’s eyes dilated and his heart immediately started to pound in his chest. So far, he had talked himself into being okay with Matt’s visit, but now that the time had arrived, he was thrown into pure panic. “I can’t do this. I can’t fucking do this. Not now. Please don’t make me. I don’t wanna do this.”
Josh turned to his stylist and pleaded with her. His whole body was now shaking, though his hands gave him away the most. He was trembling too much to even grab Bennie’s collar when she headed for the door. “Please. Fuck. Please. Tell him I’m sick. Tell him I died. Tell him I have something horribly contagious. Just…fuck…please. Tell Matt anything. I just can’t do this. Not now.”
“Josh, breathe,” she said softly. She put her arm around him, led him over to the couch and eased him down onto the cushion. He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands. The stylist knelt down in front of him and gently moved his hands away from his face so he was looking at her. “It’s okay. You’re gonna be fine. I’ll be right here. Just calm down before you have a heart attack. You’re alright. I’ll even let Matt know that you’re having a hard time with this before he walks through the door. Just try to calm down a little, okay? Breathe.”
Josh nodded, took several deep breaths and let them out slowly. The stylist stayed with him until he looked a bit less pale and a little more stable. “Can I go let him in now?” she asked just as her cell phone buzzed, presumably with a text message from Matt asking if anyone was going to let him in.
Josh nodded again and closed his eyes, trying to stay focused on his breathing. The stylist stood, ran a hand lightly over the back of his hair and walked over to the door, flipping a light switch on along the way so the place wasn’t so dark.
Unlocking the door, she shooed Bennie away so she could open it. Once the door was unlocked and opened, she found Matt standing on the other side, staring down at his boots, cell phone in his hand. He looked up at her briefly and, after realizing that he wouldn’t have to face Josh right away, he shoved his phone into his pocket, gave her a lopsided smile and stepped in close to hug her. It felt good to have him around again. She always missed ‘her boys’ when they were out of touch, but she never realized exactly how much until they were back in her life.
Matt hugged her as if he would never let her go and she returned the gesture. “I missed you,” she said, almost whispering.
“I’m sorry. I missed you too. And the rest of the guys.”
The stylist pulled out of Matt’s grasp slowly and looked him in the eyes. “What about Josh?”
“Josh too,” he said nodding.
“I know he missed you. But Matt…” The stylist paused, reaching out to close the door, then to hold Matt’s hand just because she could. “Josh is having a really hard time with all of this. Your disappearing really fucked with his head and he was already having a hard time adjusting to just being out of the Center and on his own again. But he’s really freaking the fuck out over you dropping by to talk. He’s pretty terrified that you’re going to say something devastating. So, whatever you have to tell him, please…do it gently. I told him that I’d give you guys space to talk alone if you wanted it, otherwise I promised I’d stick around. It’s all completely up to you two. I’ll do whatever you want, you just have to say the word. And since that’s out of the way now, it’s so fucking good to have you back.” She hugged him again tightly.
“I’m really sorry,” he said mumbling against her shoulder. “I should have fucking told you.”
“I know, it’s okay. You did what you had to do, but it’s good that you’re around again.” The stylist slowly let go of Matt and stepped back. “You ready?” she asked, indicating that it was probably time to go talk to Josh.
“Whether I am or not, it doesn’t really matter.” He tilted his head and nodded once as his eyes focused on something behind her.
Josh stood just inside the room, feet away, but he was there nonetheless. He had his hands on his hips and he was watching the two of them greet each other. “Well, that’s…cozy.”
“Josh, man…hey.” Matt dropped his gaze from the singer down to his shoes and shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably.
“Yeah, hey,” Josh repeated, stuffing his hands into his hip pockets and taking a step further into the room. He stared at Matt, unsure of where to go from there.
The stylist let go of Matt’s hand. It suddenly seemed strange to be doing that after spending the night comforting Josh.
Matt leaned back against the door, also unsure of what he could say to move the conversation along.
“Uh…have any trouble getting here?” Josh took another step closer to the stylist, but kept behind her, almost as if he was trying to hide.
“Nah…I didn’t crash and there were no asteroids…,” Matt said with a slight smile, making reference to another snowy, miserable drive in a shitty van that the boys had to make in order to get to one of their first shows.
Josh laughed, understanding right away. “Good, dude, I’m glad. Getting hit by an asteroid twice in one lifetime would really suck. You know someone’s fuckin’ got it out for you then.”
Matt smiled a little wider and took a step closer to Josh. The stylist was still between the two of them, so she slowly, gradually moved off to the side in hopes that the singer and the guitarist would finally be able to talk without a buffer. Josh noticed and reached out to grab hold of her sleeve. “Where…where are you going?”
“I’m right here, Josh. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.” She looked up at him, then over to Matt and shook her head slightly. Josh was so fucking paranoid about being left alone with Matt that he wouldn’t even let her out of his direct line of vision. “It’s okay. Hey, why don’t we all go sit down? Sound good?”
The younger man nodded his head and took off his jacket, laying it over the stylist’s on the chair. Josh let go of the stylist, turned and led the way into the living room where he sat on the end of the couch next to Bennie, who was once again sprawled out across the rest, leaving Matt and the stylist to take the two chairs across from him. She was surprised that Josh let her sit that far away, but she figured that he felt safe and it was good enough as long as he could still see her.
Matt sat and almost immediately Josh’s cats were walking circles around his chair, rubbing against his legs. He ignored them for the time being. If things went well, he’d have plenty of time to pay attention to them. If things didn’t go so well…he didn’t want to think about it. Just then, Matt was distracted from his thoughts by the vibrating of Josh’s cell phone, which was still sitting on the table near the couch where he had left it approximately twelve hours prior. He hadn’t touched it or looked at it since.
Josh crossed his legs and stared down at the hole ripped in the knee of his pants. He traced a finger across the frayed edges and waited quietly in the silence, completely ignoring his phone.
“Aren’t you gonna get that?” Matt finally asked, glancing over at the stylist, who simply shrugged her shoulders, then looking over to Josh.
“Nope.” He left his answer at that and fingered the rip in his jeans. He twisted a loose string around his finger several times.
“Why not?” Matt narrowed his eyes at Josh, trying to figure out what was going on with the singer. The last time he avoided people like this was years ago and it gave Matt yet another reason to worry. This shit was everything he had just run from, and now here he was facing it all over again. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Truth?” Josh asked, finally looking up at Matt.
That was new. Usually he just made up some stupid answer and passed it off as a joke. Maybe he really had changed, grown up, learned something…all of the above? “Yeah. Truth.”
“The only person I wanna talk to right now is you.” He dropped his gaze back down to his lap and raised a hand to pull his bangs down in front of his eyes so he could hide a little.
Well, hell… “Oh…,” the guitarist started. He was somewhat flattered, but mostly he just felt like an ass for the whole situation.
“Where were you, Matt?” Josh asked, cutting him off without looking up. “Where were you? I fucking needed you.”
Matt looked over at the stylist again, who had been paying close attention to their discussion, but hadn’t said a word. She didn’t want to interfere. Shaking her head, she let him know that she wasn’t going to get involved. Matt needed to be honest with Josh.
Sighing quietly, more in frustration at himself than anything else, he tried to apologize. “I’m sorry.”
“Dude, that’s not what I fuckin’ asked. Where the hell were you? You left me in that hell-hole and you fucking ditched me. What was your deal? How could you? Why didn’t you ever come back to visit after that first time? Why didn’t you answer my texts or my calls?” Josh had raised his voice loudly enough to cause Bennie to slink off the couch and head down the hallway toward Josh’s bedroom. The cats had long since disappeared as well, leaving just the three humans in the room.
Matt sat forward in his chair and rested his elbows on his knees. “Josh, I’m sorry. I really am. You just…you don’t understand. I don’t know if I can ever make you get it. I keep trying, but you keep missing the point. I guess I kinda gave up this time. You weren’t the only one dealing with shit, you know?” He was frustrated, but tried to keep his tone as neutral as possible. The last thing Matt wanted to do was place blame on Josh for his inability to keep shit together, even though he wouldn’t have had that issue in the first place if Josh hadn’t put him through so much over the years.
“Meaning what, Webb?” Josh uncrossed his legs and sat forward on the couch, mimicking Matt’s move.
“Meaning…nothing. Never mind. It’s nothing. Forget it.” He sat back, suddenly feeling defeated and scared to say anything. It seemed easier to keep his mouth shut once again than to say what was truly on his mind and risk sending Josh back down another dark path. He was too soon out of the Center to be talking about this shit.
“No, you fucking vanished on me. Tell me what the fuck was going on in your head.” Josh immediately looked over at the stylist with wide eyes. He heard her words come out of his mouth and it surprised him. He never expected that.
Even though Josh was getting more and more pissed off each time he spoke, Matt let a small smile tug at the corners of his mouth when he heard those words and he knew right then what a positive impact the stylist was having on Josh. She must have been getting him to talk about what his own thoughts were if he was turning that around on others without even thinking about it. He owed Josh an explanation and once he heard those words come out of Josh’s mouth, Matt felt safe enough to explain. “Okay, okay.” Matt held his hand up in a gesture that told Josh to back off a little. “Here’s the deal, Josh. This is the blunt, honest-to-fucking-God truth. You fucked up.”
Josh felt his stomach drop, but nodded anyway. That hurt, even though it was the truth and something he had been telling himself every single day since he was a teenager. “Yeah, I did. What about it?”
“You fucked up when I was fourteen and needed you. You were still fucked up when I was sixteen and needed you. You fucked up again two years ago, and you fucked up royally for the last time just a couple months ago when the whole band needed you. And you know what? You never, ever fucking let me in on anything. I’m so tired of being used. I’m tired of being called only when you need somebody to be there for you after everything is said and done. I wanna know about this shit before it happens. I wanna be able to try to help you prevent it. I’m sick of watching you do this to yourself.” Matt stood and paced across the room, knowing that both the stylist and Josh had their eyes on him the whole time. He turned back to face Josh when he reached the windows overlooking the city. “You fucked up so badly that you almost fucking died. Again. Do you understand how bad that is?”
“I do,” the singer said, nodding. Why was Matt telling him all of this all over again? Wasn’t all of this something they had all already talked about?
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Matt narrowed his eyes at Josh again and took several steps closer to the older man.
“What the fuck do you want me to say, Matt? I mean, if the point’s to never disappoint you, somebody’s gotta tell me what to do. Apparently I’m just doing a great job of fucking everything up because that’s all anyone ever tells me I do these days.” Josh stood so he could face Matt eye-to-eye.
“That’s bullshit and you know it. We’re only calling you out on this shit because it’s gonna kill you. It’s gonna fucking kill you, Josh. Dead. Do you really wanna be one of those celebrities who dies before they turn thirty because you were too stubborn to change? Because you were too stubborn to admit you needed help? Why do you always end up right back here? Why do we always have this same fucking argument?” Matt ran his hands through his hair and turned away from Josh for just a moment before turning back.
“I get it, I get it. The softer side of unbearable.” Josh moved a bit closer to where the stylist still sat, listening to every word, wondering if she should jump in or not. “I fucked up, but you can’t leave my ass because you need me. You need me because without me, you’re nothing,” he hissed, throwing an insult at Matt that made the stylist cringe.
“Hey! Fuck you, asshole. I’m trying to tell you that you fucking hurt me. You would rather kill yourself than talk to me. Do you have any idea how much that fucking hurts? Don’t you think I deserve better after all that we’ve been through?” Matt balled his fists up at his side, actively trying to avoid hitting Josh for that last remark.
“I…what? What the hell?” Once Josh realized what Matt had said, his features softened and the anger he had been holding onto so tightly subsided slightly.
“You fucking hurt me. You keep this shit bottled up. Every time something like this happens, I kick and scream, but it never changes anything. You just keep doing whatever the hell it is that you’re doing, making shit worse and worse on yourself until you wind up causing some damage to yourself that you can’t take back. Look at your arms, Ramsay. Look at your hips, your stomach. You’ve cut yourself to shreds over the years. You’ve starved yourself. Jesus Christ, look how fucked up the inside of your head is. You really, actually believe you deserve all the shit you to do yourself because you won’t talk to anyone and let them tell you otherwise. Do you realize how fucked up that really is? Do you?” Matt was suddenly exhausted. Everything he had been keeping to himself for so many years finally came pouring out of him and it drained him in one fell swoop. He was a little light-headed and dizzy and he needed to sit. He made his way back over to the chair and dropped down into it.
Josh was left standing in the middle of the room, unsure of whether he should be horribly angry, apologetic or both. He knew that keeping Matt and the rest of his band and friends out of his problems had never helped him in the past, yet he continued to do it. Why? “I’m sorry,” he finally mumbled. He backed up and sat down on the couch again.
“You’re such a fucking hypocrite, Josh.” Matt shook his head, not willing to accept Josh’s apology.
“What? I said I was sorry.”
“I fucking know that. And you know that I already told you to stop saying it. It doesn’t make anything better. Your “sorry” is worthless when it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t solve a single thing. It doesn’t take away all the days, the months and the years you spent wrecking your body, making me worry, making us all worry about you. Man, this is just like that time you gave drunken speeches on sobriety. You go on and on about how you know that whatever shit-of-the-week you happen to be pulling is bad while you’re drunk or high as hell or hiding bloody wounds under long sleeve shirts. How fucked up is that, Josh? Tell me. Do I have your attention??” Matt slammed his hands on the arms of the chairs as his own voice rose.
Josh kept silent, waiting for the right words to come to him, but that only angered Matt further.
“Did I stutter?? Tell me!”
“I guess I just lost myself somewhere in it. Somewhere in all of it. It’s so easy to slip back into old ways.” The singer leaned back against the couch and stared at a point on the wall well above Matt’s head.
“Yeah, good,” Matt said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Sure. Here we go again. Shut your fucking mouth. What’s one more excuse, hey, Ramsay? That’s all it ever is. You keep talking about this as if you had no choice. You’ve always had a choice. You better get your story straight because I’m tired of hearing this shit.”
“You know, when the mirrors and the lights and the smoke clear, I’m not really such a bad guy. You know that.” Josh spoke quietly and calmly for the first time since the two of them sat down. “ I just…got the start wrong. I fucked up once and old habits are always so hard to break. All the bad dreams, all the nightmares…sometimes it’s just easier to give in to the slow descent. You don’t get it, Matt. You’ve never been there. You don’t know how easy it really is. Maybe there’s some things I never showed you, but that’s only because, for worse or better, I didn’t wanna hurt you. Or any of the guys. I thought I could just keep this shit to myself. I thought I could pull myself out of it at any time. And by the time I realized that’s what I wanted, I felt so low. I know it sounds like I only use that to justify everything I’m saying, but that’s how it is. Sometimes, my silence is my self-defense. Sometimes it’s all I have to keep my fucking sanity when my whole world is falling around me. Sometimes the idea of talking about it…just…it’s easier to quit and harder to admit that I need help because I’m afraid it won’t ever change. I hope you can understand…” Josh ducked his head low and pulled his bangs down in front of his eyes again. Neither Matt nor the stylist missed the quick swipe he made across his eyes with the back of his hand.
Matt chewed on the inside of his bottom lip while he thought about everything Josh had just told him. He looked over at the stylist for help, but she was busy trying to hold herself together. Her eyes were teary and she was afraid to say anything at all.
Finally, the younger man opened his mouth. “Okay, I kinda get it. Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this before?”
Josh shrugged. “Just seemed easier to keep it for myself. Never wanted to get into this discussion…argument…whatever…with anyone. I had enough of this when I was younger with the people who forced me to talk. I didn’t wanna get into it with you, too.”
“But I would have been on your side, Josh. Don’t you get that?” Matt folded his hands in his lap and watched Josh for any sign of acknowledgement.
He shrugged again. “I never know. I’ve never exactly had a positive reaction to this shit, not that I should expect one. But fuck, dude…getting into this shit every time gets old. I just…it gets to a point where I can’t do it anymore. I’m trying, though. I’ve been working on the things that I was learning all wrong. I fucking swear. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here.” Josh kept his head down and spoke without ever looking up at Matt, hoping that his explanation was enough.
“I get it…and dude, that’s why I stopped visiting. It got to a point where I couldn’t do it anymore either. I couldn’t sit back and watch you nearly kill yourself for…I dunno how many times since I’ve known you. I’ve known you for so fucking long and after a while, it just got to be too hard. It got to be too hard to tell you that it bothered me because it never seemed to matter. You’ve had people telling you to let them in for your whole life and you never do.” Matt shook his head and leaned back in his chair. He crossed his ankle over the opposite knee and seemed to relax slightly now that almost everything he wanted to say was off his chest.
“Wait,” Josh interrupted. “I do. I let her into my head,” he said looking up and pointing at the stylist. “She won’t let me get away with shit.”
The stylist smiled slightly, pulled her sleeve down over her hand and used it to wipe her eyes. “It’s true. He’s trying. I give him credit for that.”
“Okay, but that’s only for the last couple of years. Prior to that?”
Josh shrugged yet again. “Before that…I guess you’re right. But dude…what if here and now I tell you that I’m all figured out? I dunno…maybe I just like how that sounds. I just know that I’m trying. You have to fuckin’ believe me.”
“Why? Why should I believe that? You’ve been saying “coulda”, “woulda”, “shoulda” for so fucking long.” Matt stared at Josh, knowing that he was making the older man uncomfortable, but he wanted to see Josh squirm under the pressure.
“I need you to believe it because…in a way, I guess we’re even now.” Josh looked up at Matt, meeting his eyes. “I know how it feels. I spent so many years shutting you out and then you walked out on me when I needed you most. Now I get it. It hurts. It really fuckin’ hurts, dude. I’m sorry.” He shoved his bangs back out of his eyes and did his best to keep eye contact, even though it was increasingly more difficult to do feeling the way he was.
Matt studied Josh, running everything the man had said over in his mind multiple times until he could come to some kind of conclusion. He still had more he had to say, but this was a good start. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’m gonna choose to believe what you’re telling me, but don’t…don’t fail me now. You promised, remember.”
Josh nodded and a very slight smile just barely reached his eyes. He was so drained. All of this, it all made him feel like shit every time he talked about it with anyone, but he had to keep trying or he was really going to lose the few people in his life who really gave a damn about him. He couldn’t afford that.
The guitarist sighed, catching Josh’s attention. “I have one more thing to tell you…”
Josh groaned quietly, fearing the worst. Life just had not gone his way in a more personal sense, and he felt like he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, no matter how lucky he might have gotten in some way. He caught himself reaching his hand out to his stylist, who still sat feet away from him across the room next to Matt. He quickly realized how desperate that made him look and he dropped his hand down onto his knee. “Okay…tell me.”
Matt clenched his teeth and took a deep breath. He mentally yelled at himself for ever, ever ditching Josh in the first place, even though he knew that he needed to leave for his own well-being. He never would have had to have this discussion otherwise. “The reason…,” he started, then closed his mouth. He cleared his throat and tried again. “The reason I stopped visiting and stopped taking your calls when you were at the Center…”
Josh gave him a hand gesture that urged him to go on with his story. Matt looked over at the stylist who nodded at him. “It’s okay,” she mouthed to him. “Just tell him.”
“The reason is that…I flew back home. I packed up my shit, I bought a plane ticket, took all my gear and I came back here to Vancouver. I talked to her,” Matt said gesturing to the stylist, “and then I talked to Mike and Ian. I told them that I just couldn’t fucking do that shit anymore. I explained why and they understood. They weren’t happy, but they got it. It was easy to avoid your calls and your texts because you couldn’t get in touch very often from there. And they all promised they wouldn’t tell you what I did just because…well…shit…they figured it wasn’t up to them to tell you and I agreed. I wanted to tell you myself, but in my own time. I guess in my own way, I just wanted you to focus on getting better and not the fact that I wasn’t around anymore at the time. But then when Mike finally called me to tell me that you were getting released, I still…I dunno…I couldn’t face you. I couldn’t face up to the fact that I completely ditched you and I knew it was a fucking sucky thing to do. So I took off to Toronto and spent the last two weeks there. I only just got back this morning.” This time it was Matt’s turn to hang his head and cover his face with his hands.
“You…fucking did what? Let me get this straight. Not only did you just…not wanna visit, but you flew the fuck home? You took off just like Brett did? I still haven’t heard from him, by the way. I can’t believe this.” Josh stood and put a hand against his chest, indicating that he was talking about himself. “I needed you so fucking much and this is what you do to me?”
“Don’t look so shocked. It’s not the way I planned it, man. Besides, even when I made the decision to go, I knew it wouldn’t be forever,” Matt said, sitting up and starting to apologize.
“And you,” Josh said cutting Matt off and turning to the stylist. “You knew about this shit and didn’t tell me? What the fuck happened to “I don’t keep shit from you guys”?” he asked, quoting something she had said to him a year ago.
“Josh, I’m sorry. Matt asked me to promise not to tell you that he was flying home. I’ve kept plenty of things that you and I have said just between us because you’ve asked me to. I do the same for the rest of the guys, too. You’re not the only one,” she said, glancing over to Matt and seeing the relieved look on his face when he saw that she was standing up for him. “Just remember that you weren’t exactly alone. The three of us still came to visit you, and you made a couple of friends while you were in there. Matt’s here now and we’re all adults. Let’s just deal with this and call it a clean slate. Please.” She stood and walked over to him while Matt watched her plead for both of their cases.
“Fuck you both.” He turned on his heel and started to walk back toward his bedroom.
“Josh,” the stylist said to get his attention.
He turned and looked back at her. “No, fuck you.”
Josh continued down the hallway. Seconds later, both cats and Bennie came running out into the living room, obviously sensing that their owner was in a horrible mood.
The stylist turned to Matt. “I’m sorry…stay here. I’m gonna go talk to him. I have less to lose than you do.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, bending down to pick up Tux and setting the black and white cat on his lap.
“I’m sure. As much as I care about you guys, I only have my job to lose. We can still stay in touch if Josh decides he’s done with me and wants to hire a new stylist. You? You have everything else to lose,” she said with a sigh as she turned to walk down the hallway to the singer’s bedroom.
Stopping at the door, she knocked lightly and something heavy hit the other side. Apparently there was more than one way to say “fuck you” to a person. She knocked again and something else slammed against the wood.
“Okay, Josh, that’s enough. Cut it the fuck out. We’re adults, remember?” she reminded him. “Let’s talk. Quit throwing shit.” Two more loud thumps shook the door and something shattered inside the room but she had no idea what it was. Her first thought was that Josh had smashed a window and was going to use it to tear into his body again. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and he’d been down that road before. “That’s it, I’m opening the door!” …if it was unlocked.
Luckily, he was so used to living alone that the door was unlocked and she was able to shove it open, sliding the books he had thrown at it across the floor. “Fuck you,” Josh growled yet again, glaring at her.
“Yeah, you’re right. Fuck me. Fuck me for everything. Fuck me for keeping your secrets, fuck me for spending nights with you, making everything awkward for everyone else in the band. Fuck me for being there for you as often as I have. Fuck me for letting you lie to Brett about sleeping with me when you didn’t wanna get caught cutting a couple years ago. Fuck me for doing everything in my power to help you in any way that I can. Yeah, fuck the hell out of me.” The stylist slammed the bedroom door shut behind her once she was inside. She had wanted Matt to hear her words and know that she wasn’t betraying him. “Get it? Fuck the shit outta me. This was Matt’s deal and he wanted to be the one to explain things to you. Now he’s here, confessing everything. I get that you’re mad. I do. You have every single right in the world to be pissed off, and that’s fine. Just don’t cut me out when I’ve done everything for you and then some over the last couple of years. And I’ve done it willingly. So don’t you dare tell me I’m not doing the best that I can for you. If you wanna be angry at me, fine. Be angry. I can take it if you need to take this out on someone. I won’t say anything at all. Just don’t be mad at Matt. He’s trying just like you are. You did this to him back in the day because it’s what you felt you had to do. You’re not the only one who’s allowed to fuck up a little.”
The stylist finished her speech and glanced around the room, looking for whatever it was that had shattered before she was able to open the door. Not seeing anything, she stepped closer to where Josh stood and waited for him to say something.
“I knocked a drinking glass over. Watch where you step,” was the only thing he said as he knelt down to pick up the shards and toss them into the garbage can near the door. He pressed his finger against the tiny slivers and dropped them one by one into the trash until everything was cleaned up.
The stylist watched with fascination, wondering if he was thinking of relapsing again, wondering if he already had before she had walked in, afraid that he’d hidden one of the larger pieces of glass somewhere that he would try to use to cut himself up later on when he was alone. Fuck these thoughts. She had to learn to trust Josh sometime. Now just…didn’t feel right, though. No matter how hard she tried, his attitude and his mood at the moment were just so bleak that it scared her to think what plans he might be forming in his mind.
“Josh?” she questioned him as gently as she could.
He stood and rolled his eyes at her. “Don’t worry. I might be pissed off, but everything that broke is in that trash can, which I plan to take out to the dumpster soon.” He was so tired of being treated like a little kid, even though he deserved it. He hadn’t proven to anyone, not even himself, that he could be trusted yet. That worried him a little and he might have been thinking about it, but this time, he was sure he wasn’t going to act on it.
The stylist nodded and stepped in close to him. She slid her arms around him and could feel how tense and unsure he was. He eventually put his arms around her, too, resting his chin on the top of her head. “You know, I hate myself…,” he barely whispered.
“Josh, no…why?” she asked, mumbling against his chest.
“If I wasn’t such a fuck-up, none of us would be in this fucking mess. If I wasn’t such a wreck…if I was more normal…” He tightened his hold on the stylist just a little.
“Darlin’, no…please don’t think that way. Like I said earlier, this whole thing, it’s just tying up loose ends with Matt and the rest of the band. It’s okay. You’re okay. You threw away that glass with no problem and that shows how much better you’re trying to be. I’m damn proud of you, you know? You’re really trying hard. Fuck anyone who can’t see that. As far as Matt goes, he told you why he needed to leave. Forgive him. He needs you and you need him, especially now more than ever. He’s trying to be here for you and make up for missing the last two and a half months. Let him. I know it hurts, but now you each have a taste of what the other has been through. Let it go.” She slowly rubbed his back while she spoke, hoping that it would calm him down and hoping that he was listening and taking everything she said to heart.
Josh took a deep breath and pulled away from the stylist, letting his arms fall to his sides. “Fine…that’s something they told us to work on at the Center, anyway. Letting go, moving on, accepting that people in our lives would have a problem with us and might not know how to handle things. Blah blah blah. I guess I have to accept that Matt either had to leave or something worse might have happened. I’m still really hurt, but…I dunno…I think I can move on.”
“You’re sure?” She looked up into his eyes and he nodded.
“I think so. I’ll try, anyway.” He sighed. “I’m sorry…you know…for all the “fuck yous”. I didn’t really mean it. Well, no…I did mean it then, but I don’t now. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, gently taking his hand and squeezing it. “Like I’ve said before, I can take it. I’d rather you take it out on me than on yourself and it’s exactly what you did. You did well. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I should probably go talk to Matt again, shouldn’t I?”
“Yeah, darlin’. You need to straighten all of this out for good. Don’t let this become a huge thing again because I know you don’t wanna go through this a second, third, fourth time with Matt, right?”
He shook his head and opened the bedroom door again after letting go of the stylist’s hand. “I’m going…”
Back in the living room, Matt was sitting on the floor playing tug-of-war with Bennie while the cats watched from their perches on the back of the couch. He barely looked up when Josh and the stylist walked in.
“Hey, Matt? Look…umm…I’m sorry. I get that you did what you had to do. You have your way to deal with sanity and so do I. You spent time by yourself because you had to get away from me and I was getting completely wasted to get away from myself. I sense a pretty strong pattern there that I don’t wanna fuckin’ repeat. It’s not okay, the way I’ve treated you. I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better by you from now on.” Josh stood over Matt while he spoke, until Matt intentionally lost the tug-of-war game with Bennie, who happily ran off, chewing and squeaking the plush duck toy. Matt pushed himself to stand and was then nearly nose-to-nose with the slightly taller man.
He took a step back to give Josh some space and smiled a little. “It’s…fine. Thanks. I’m sorry too. The whole thing just…sucked and I couldn’t get out of my own head long enough to deal with it the way I should, so I ran. I had to. Just remember…whatever happens, you’re more than just a fucking friend to me, Josh. You’re like a brother. If you were just a friend, I would have fuckin’ killed you years ago.” Matt’s smile widened and he looked up at Josh.
Josh grinned, which then turned into a laugh. It felt good to finally start working things out with Matt. All of this had been silently weighing on him for too long.
The stylist lightly put her hand against Josh’s back as if to tell him that she was proud of him for being able to let things go and work them out. Slowly, she backed out of the room, leaving the two men standing in the living room talking. She headed back to Josh’s bedroom, picked up one of the books he had thrown against the door and sat down on his bed and read, letting the boys continue their conversation alone.
Josh and Matt sat in the chairs facing each other. “I have one more confession,” Matt stated and immediately felt bad when Josh cringed.
“Again?? Might as well get it over with. Let’s hear it.” Josh crossed his legs and tucked his folded hands between his knees.
“I never really told you why I freaked out so much over all of this, did I?” Matt asked, sitting back in his seat and trying to relax just a little.
“No, not really. I figured I had finally just pulled enough shit that you’d had it with me and my fucking up,” the singer said, trying not to sound hurt all over again.
“Well…yes and no. Thing is,” Matt said, trying to word things as carefully as he could, “do you remember when we talked about the night you first tried heroin?”
“Yeahhhh,” said Josh, dragging the word out longer than necessary.
“I kind of told Mike and Ian…and our stylist…” Matt stared at Josh, hoping his reaction wouldn’t be too bad. After all, he had promised the singer that he wouldn’t ever say anything and he had broken that promise. It might have taken ten years, but he still did it and he felt like shit about it.
“I know,” Josh said quietly. “She told me she knew.”
“How mad are you?”
“I’m not. Not anymore. At first I was really fuckin’ pissed, dude. I mean, you had promised and then…whatever. What’s done is done. Now they know and it’s one less secret I have to keep, too.” Josh pulled his hands from between his knees and rubbed them against his thighs. He had been so nervous about what else Matt had to say that his hands had started to shake and get clammy again.
“Well…cool, and thanks for not being pissed. I just want you to know that the only reason I ever said anything is, well, because of that night, I worry about you, man. You know? Every time something seems a little wrong with you, it fuckin’ terrifies me.” Matt put his foot on the floor and crossed his legs in the opposite direction. “I’m scared to death that you’re gonna fake being all fine and great and someday I’m gonna walk up onto the tour bus or into the dressing room or even drop by here for a random visit and you’re gonna be dead on the fucking floor. I don’t think you get how much that scares me.” He dropped his eyes to the floor before continuing. “I wish you could have seen…I wish you knew what you looked like the day you cut yourself to pieces on the fucking bus, man. You had lost so much blood and you were so pale. We didn’t know if you were alive or dead. Mike was the only one who had sense enough to take action at first. If he hadn’t yelled about calling 9-11, I’m not sure I ever would have thought about it. I was seriously scared to death that you were…you know…”
“Matt…dude…,” Josh already felt bad about all of that, and he had worked through it, but he had never really thought about how it made anyone else feel. He was so wrapped up in how he felt and why he did so much harm to himself. He wanted to apologize again and he wanted to make everything better, but he didn’t know how. His only choice was to tell Matt that he was sorry…again. “Don’t…get pissed, but…I’m sorry. I am. Please believe that. I fucked up. I know it. I was just so stuck in my own head. I’m really fuckin’ sorry, dude. I knew this would happen. I knew I’d wind up screwing things up with the people I care most about.” He pulled one leg up to his chest and braced his heel against the seat.
“No…it’s not just that,” Matt said shaking his head. “It was everything, you know? I didn’t even tell you this, but that night ages ago, after that party when I had to pick you up, I stayed up all night to make sure you didn’t fucking die. I’ve spent so much of my life fighting to keep you alive. It just really gets to me that you’d throw all of that away rather than talking to me when this shit gets to you.”
“You did…what?” Josh dropped his foot to the floor and slid forward in his seat so he was even a little closer to Matt.
“Yeah. I dragged you out of that house party, brought you back to my parents’ house, dropped you onto my bed and I spent the rest of the night in a chair, checking to make sure you were breathing every ten minutes or so. I didn’t wanna lose you then and I don’t wanna lose you now. None of the guys do. And every time you do this crap, it’s like you’re telling us that you don’t give a shit about that, you know? It sucks, Josh. It sucks. I just got so sick of dealing with that and the fact that all of that is constantly in my head every single time you act a little differently than normal. It’s all the damn time, man. Every time I get a random late-night phone call from you, I feel like I’m sixteen again and you’re gonna be telling me that you’re too fucking wasted to drive and asking me to come get you. It’s hard to get beyond that. It was easier a few years ago when you were doing so well, but then…well…you know… And now it’s coming back again. I couldn’t handle it, so I took off. I went to Toronto. Sure, I have family and friends there, but, truth be told, I wanted to see what was so special about it there that made you take off and disappear way out there years ago.”
“Matt, I don’t even remember going out there, I was so fuckin’ out of it. I don’t remember going out there and I have no idea how I got back. There was nothing special out there for me. At least, not that I ever knew about. I still haven’t been able to piece it all together.” Josh shook his head and clenched his fist, digging his nails into the palm of his hand as he spoke. It was the only way he could distract himself from truly thinking about everything he was saying.
Matt ignored what the singer told him and continued on. “Gotta tell you, it’s not worth it. I should have stayed here. I couldn’t keep you out of my head, even though I was three-thousand kilometers away.” He huffed in a sigh and stretched his hands up over his head. He was feeling more tense now than he was when he first showed up.
“I don’t even know what to say to that,” Josh admitted a minute or two later, after a long silent pause. “I didn’t know. Maybe things would have been different if you’d told me.”
“Do you really, truly think anything would have changed? Seriously, Josh? If I had come to you and told you all of this back when you were like, twenty years old, do you really think anything would have been different? Would you seriously have taken that into consideration two years ago? Last year?” Matt leaned forward again and looked Josh in the eyes.
“Seriously? I don’t know…all I can tell you is that I think it’ll make a difference now. I feel fuckin’ awful that I put you and all the other guys through this shit and I want it to change. You don’t deserve that and neither do I. I’m trying, Matt. Honest, I really am. You’ll see. You just have to trust me. I have to trust me.” Josh held out his right hand to shake with Matt in a moment of promise-making and truce.
Matt hesitated for a fraction of a second, then placed his own hand into the singer’s. “I’ll try, too. But Josh, remember…don’t let us down, okay? Please.”
Josh squeezed Matt’s hand a bit before letting go. “I’m gonna do the best I can, dude. That’s all I can tell you. I’m trying,” he said yet again.
Buzzing from Josh’s cell phone across the room interrupted their conversation for the second time. It buzzed continually; message after message was being sent. “You should really check that, man,” Matt said, letting go of Josh’s hand and glancing over at the vibrating phone on the table.
“Are you sure? I mean, are we okay? I don’t wanna end this if we have more to say.” Josh was truly showing that he’d changed for the better, and for that, Matt was grateful.
“No, it’s fine. Someone obviously wants to get in touch with you and you’d better answer the thing before you freak them out too much.” He gestured at Josh’s phone.
Josh nodded crossed the room to pick up his phone, which continued to buzz in his hands. He rolled his eyes as his fingers skimmed across the surface. “What the ever loving hell, dude? Sixty-seven messages and fifteen voicemails. Just in the last day,” he mumbled to Matt.
Matt let out a breath of air in lieu of a laugh. “Yeah…this is what happens when you ignore people.” He held up his own phone with multiple messages from Josh over the last two and a half months.
Josh looked up and smirked. “Apparently so…” He turned his attention back to his phone and continued to scroll through the messages. “Mike, Ian, my sister, my sister again, some friends, Mike again, Ian, Ian, Ian…IAN…you?”
“Yeah, me. I…well…I wanted to let you know that I was around again and wanted to talk to you when my plane landed earlier today. But it’s okay. I mean, we talked. It’s fine.” Matt shoved his phone back into his pocket.
“I’m sorry, man. I wouldn’t have ignored your message if I had known.” Josh dropped down onto the couch and continued looking through his messages. “My parents…oops…Jesus Christ. Mike and Ian AGAIN, fucking hell. I really need to get in touch with them before they wind up calling the cops or something. My other sister, more friends…and Ian was the last one to message me. Good lord.” Quickly replying, Josh sent a text message back to Ian just to get him off his back.
To: Ian Casselman
6:48pm Fri, Jan 18
dude, got your messages. I’m fine. sorry. just been busy. Matt’s here. wanna come over?
From: JoSh RaMsY

Then Josh responded to Mike, knowing that he needed to keep his band close, because he worried that he would lose them if he didn’t. Deciding against personalizing the message, he just forwarded the same one he had sent to Ian.

To: Mike Ayley
6:49pm Fri, Jan 18
dude, got your messages. I’m fine. sorry. just been busy. Matt’s here. wanna come over?
From: JoSh RaMsY

He sat back and waited for responses from the men. Luckily, Josh didn’t have to wait long because his phone vibrated in his hands seconds after sending both messages. Both Ian and Mike had replied right away saying nearly identical things. They were glad Josh finally got in touch, they were glad he was okay and they’d be there if the roads were plowed well enough.
“Mike and Ian are coming over if they can get through the snow,” he said to Matt.
“Oh? Well…good,” Matt replied. “I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you. But, I should go.” He made a motion to stand.
Josh protested. “What? No, wait. Don’t go. Why?”
“I…really haven’t kept in touch with them either,” the guitarist said, dropping back down into the chair and looking embarrassed. “I feel like an ass and I’m not ready for this.”
“And you really think I wanted to have this discussion with you today?” Josh laughed sarcastically. “Suck it up, dude.”
Matt smirked. “Yeah, you’re right. I know you’re right. I either deal with this now or I deal with it later. Either way I’m gonna have to explain.”
“Yeah, and besides, it’s just Mike and Ian. If you could come here and talk to me, you can talk to those guys.” Josh nodded, setting his phone back down on the table beside the couch.
Josh may have spoken those reassuring words to Matt, but suddenly he was feeling a bit insecure and worried about what they might say to him too, because he had kind of been ignoring everyone since he got back into his own place as well. He may have stayed the first couple nights he was out of the Center with Ian, but after that, he had become reclusive, only talking with his stylist when she got in touch or if he needed some familiar words. Josh felt a little bad about that, especially considering he now knew how much it affected everyone else, thanks to Matt. He needed his stylist.
Looking around, the only person he saw in the room was Matt. Where did she go? She didn’t take off, did she? Josh never saw her leave the room. Fuck… Josh mumbled something to Matt about coming right back and shoved himself to his feet. He wandered back down the hallway after casting a glance to make sure the stylist’s coat and bags were still where she had dropped them when she first arrived.
Breathing a silent sigh of relief, Josh saw a light seeping out from under his bedroom door and realized that’s where she must be. He turned the knob and pushed the door open. A smile tugged at his lips when he saw that she was sitting up asleep in his bed with a book splayed open across her lap. He wondered what she was reading. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. What he really wanted was her company, not her book.
Josh climbed up onto the bed until he was close enough to her to remove the book and lie on his back with his head on her lap. He was becoming too dependent on her and he knew it. He had to start getting by on his own, but the idea that someday he’d have to face all of this shit again on his own scared him. He knew he could do it because he’d done it before…before everything came back to haunt him, but there was something about now, about the present that made him lack the confidence, even if it was just for the moment.
He took the stylist’s hand and laced his fingers through hers before placing their hands against the center of his chest. That had made him feel better earlier. Currently he was focusing on the weight of their hands against his body and it helped him now as well. He wondered why his movements hadn’t woken her up until he looked up into her face and saw that she was staring down at him with raised eyebrows.
“Hi,” she said quietly and smiled at him. The stylist lightly brushed his hair back with her free hand a few times, causing Josh to close his own eyes. He had always loved when anyone did that.
“Hi,” he said back, matching his tone to hers.
“Whatcha doin’?”
“I left Matt sitting out there. Mike and Ian are coming over. You left me. I got nervous…and here I am.” Josh kept his eyes shut and held onto her hand a little tighter. He could feel his heart beat a little faster, even though he knew he really didn’t have anything to be worried about, logically.
“I didn’t leave, Josh. I’ve been right here. You and Matt were doing pretty well together and I felt like you needed some time alone to talk. You didn’t need me there.” She continued to pet his hair, even when he opened his eyes and looked up at her again.
“You did leave me.” Josh pulled his legs up and braced his feet on the edge of the bed. “You weren’t there.”
“Did you need me? Did things go badly? Did you and Matt have another fight?” The stylist knew the answers to the questions she was asking because she had left the bedroom door open for a while to listen, just in case, before she decided that things were going well. She then closed it to give the boys their privacy.
“Well…no…,” Josh admitted. “Everything went okay. I just got scared.” He pulled his legs closer to his body.
“It’s okay, darlin’. Don’t worry. I told you I’d be here if you needed me and I didn’t lie, did I?” The stylist lightly gently cupped Josh’s chin momentarily.
“No, no lies.” He took a deep breath and released her hand, then moved to set his feet on the floor and sit up with his back to her. “Will you come back out there with me when Mike and Ian come?”
“I will if that’s what you want,” she said, nodding. “But I’m sure you’ll be fine whether I’m out there or not.” Of course she would. Not only would she be there for Josh, but this would give her an opportunity to check in with the other two men that she missed so much and had planned on getting in touch with.
“No, please…I’m sure it’ll be okay too, but I really want you out there. Please. I can’t face them alone just yet.” Josh turned to face her quickly, his eyes wide.
“I told you I would. Don’t worry. I’m here, I promise.” She held out her pinky, just as she had done with Matt a couple months prior. It was just a silly way to promise, but it was the best way she knew to show how much she meant what she said.
Josh hooked his pinky with hers and smiled a little. “Thanks. It’s just…weird. I don’t like when things are weird.”
The stylist laughed and stared at Josh. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re the master of “weird”.”
Josh laughed too and grinned. “Okay, okay, yeah…I’m weird, but I prefer stable life shit.”
The stylist released Josh’s finger and smiled. “Yeah, and you deserve “stable life shit.” So I’ll be there. Go back out there and talk to Matt. Don’t leave him just sitting there. You haven’t seen him in two and a half months. I’m sure you can find something to talk to him about. I’ll come find you when the guys get here.” She caught the look of momentary panic in Josh’s eyes. “I promise.”
He gave her a slight smile and paused for a moment with his hands at his sides on the bed. Josh was drained but knew that she was right. He couldn’t leave Matt out there by himself while he hid out in his bedroom. That was so…sulky and teenager-y of him, and he needed to be past that. He stood and pulled his shirt down. One glance back over his shoulder gave him the small boost of confidence he needed to walk back out into the living room to go sit with Matt while they waited for Mike and Ian to arrive.
Josh had just enough time to get back out to the living room when there was a knock on his door. He looked over at Matt, whose eyes were just as wide as Josh’s were. Neither man was ready to face the other two.
It wasn’t often that Matt felt this way. His calm exterior now gave way to a more skittish persona. He stood and watched as Josh made his way to the door, wiped his hands against his pants and grabbed the doorknob. Josh turned to face Matt. “Ready?” Matt nodded and Josh pulled the door open.
Ian stood on the other side. Neither Josh nor Matt recognized him at first. Ian was bundled up in a thick black coat, a toque, gloves and had the hood of his jacket up over his head and cinched so tightly that only his face was visible. Ian smiled up at the two of them when he saw them both at the door. “Hey!”
“Uhh…hey. I guess you made it,” Josh said, sort of unsure as to whether he was happy that Ian had gotten through the snowy roads or disappointed that he would have to have a difficult discussion all over again, although, as far as he knew, he didn’t really have a problem with Ian.
“Yeah, it was a little dicey here and there, being that it’s an hour’s drive on a good day, but it was fine. No asteroids,” he said making the same joke that Matt did.
Matt stood slightly behind Josh and off to the side. He wasn’t exactly trying to hide, so when his laughter at Ian’s joke gave him away, he wasn’t too surprised. “Hey, Casselman,” he said, stepping in a bit closer as Josh waved Ian into the apartment.
“Matt,” the drummer said with a slight smile. “I’m glad you decided to come back to the land of the living. It’s been weird not having you around.” Ian was a nice guy, but if he ever needed to call anyone out on anything, he would do it just to get it out of the way so it wasn’t awkward.
“Yeahthankssorry,” Matt mumbled quickly, running his words together. He shifted on his feet and stuck his hands down into his back pockets. “Umm…I’m gonna go let her know that Ian is here,” he said, speaking of the stylist and tilting his head in the direction of Josh’s bedroom.
“I’ll ge-,” Josh had started to say, but Matt was already halfway down the hallway. He turned to Ian and shrugged while he watched Ian take off his snow gear, then bend down to say hi to Bennie.
Matt knocked on the bedroom door and waited for the stylist to invite him in. “It’s your bedroom, come on in,” she said with laughter in her voice.
The guitar player slowly opened the door. “Why bother knocking? What did you think I was do-…oh! Matt. Hi.” She looked up and smiled at him as she put her book down on the side table.
“Hey,” he said pursing his lips as he surveyed the wreckage of Josh’s bedroom. “What the hell happened here?”
The stylist laughed and scooted herself to the foot of the bed. She put her feet on the floor in the only clear area and patted the spot next to her. Matt crossed the floor, stepping over and around piles of who-knows-what that Josh had dropped and left and sat next to her. “I have no idea what happened in here,” she admitted once he was seated. “I showed up and this is how everything looked. He said he hadn’t been sleeping, but you’d think he could clean instead of…well…this.” She gestured to the mess in front of them.
Matt nodded and leaned back on his hands. “Ian’s here,” he said quietly.
“Oh?” She turned to face him and smoothed out her hair. “Does Josh want me out there?”
The brunet shrugged and stared straight ahead of him. “I don’t know. Ian walked in and I said I’d come get you. I kinda want you out there.”
“Doin’ okay so far?” the stylist asked, wondering why Matt was suddenly so worried about everything when it was usually Josh that needed the confidence to deal with issues head-on.
“I guess. But, I ran out on them. All of them. I packed up and I fucking flew home. I can’t fix that. I can’t take that back. I feel like shit for it and I don’t know how to explain it to Ian and Mike, when he gets here. Josh barely got it, and he only understood because he’s been there.” Matt looked over at her, his brown eyes narrowed and worried.
“It’s okay. Really. You talked to them before you left to fly home. They understood then, they’ll understand better now that you’ve explained it to Josh too. You have to talk to them. You can’t hide here.” She reached out and squeezed his shoulder.
“I know, I know…believe me. I don’t have any real intention of hiding or running out again.”
Another knock at the door interrupted their conversation and Matt’s eyes widened. “Mike,” he said nearly whispering. The stylist nodded and slid her hand down Matt’s arm to his hand. He sat up straighter and held onto hers for all he was worth. “Come with me,” he said, staring out into the hallway through Josh’s open bedroom door.
“Let’s go.”
The two stood and the stylist let Matt lead the way back down the hall into the living room where the drummer, the bassist and the singer stood making small talk. Mike hadn’t seen or heard from Josh since the day he, Ian and the stylist showed up to pick Josh up from the Center two weeks prior. “You’re looking pretty good, Josh. The dark circles under your eyes are back to their normal colour,” joked Mike as Matt and the stylist walked up.
The stylist smiled at Ian and Mike as she dropped Matt’s hand to greet them. They each gave her a hug and the bassist kissed her on the cheek. “Did you guys get here okay?”
Ian and Mike both nodded at her. “I sorta slid into the parking lot when I got here, but since that was the worst of it, I’d say I did okay,” Ian replied, gesturing out the window at the parking lot for the apartment complex.
“Good! It looks pretty scary out there, which is one reason why I’m still…,” she paused briefly, feeling Josh step up next to her and slide his hand into hers, “here.” The stylist saw Ian’s eyes drop down momentarily and pick up on the hand holding.
Matt still hadn’t said a word, but he too caught Josh’s motion and decided to do the same, so he reached out and laced his fingers through the stylist’s free hand on the opposite side. She looked over at him and smiled. In that moment, she felt as if she was the mother of two shy boys who were greeting company that they had never met before. “Do you guys wanna go sit?” She tilted her head in the direction of the living room.
Mike and Ian brushed past the stylist and the boys attached to her hips and walked into the living room. When they were out of sight, she stepped closer to the door and out of audible range of the rest of the band and pulled Josh and Matt in closer to her. “You guys, I’m here for you, but come on.” She held up her hands, still encased in theirs. “It’s not that bad. It’s Mike and it’s Ian. You’ve gotta learn to handle this.”
“But-,” Matt said.
“I don’t-,” Josh spoke at the same time.
“Hush,” the stylist said, looking at each of them in turn. “It’ll be fine. Now let’s go. Just be honest with them.” She watched as the singer and the guitar player looked at each other and then nodded at her. “Good.” She dropped their hands and walked between them to get to the living room.
Josh caught the back of her shirt in his hand and stopped her mid-step. He pressed his body against her back and leaned down to speak quietly into her ear. “You’re staying, right?”
She smiled slightly and nodded wordlessly, then continued on her way when she felt the grip on her clothing release.
Mike and Ian were sitting on opposite ends of the couch, each with a cat on his lap and Bennie curled up in a furry black ball between them. Josh and Matt took the two chairs across from the couch and the stylist sat on the floor with her legs stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankles. She leaned back on her hands and watched as the boys found every excuse in the book not to speak.
Josh pulled his leg up to his chest, resting his heel on the seat and studied the ceiling as if it was the most fascinating thing he’d seen in his life. Mike and Ian focused their attention on the cats and Matt crossed his ankle over his knee and twisted his boot laces around his fingers just to keep busy. Matt knew that eventually the conversation would come around to him and he wasn’t ready.
“So, Matt, where have you been hiding yourself since you flew home?” Ian asked, staring at the youngest member of the group. Shit, the focus was on Matt sooner than he thought. It was no secret that the drummer didn’t beat around the bush, but fuck, Matt wished he would have done that just this one time.
“Uh…,” he started, but was unsure of what to say from there.
“Yeah, man, we haven’t heard from you in like, two and a half months. What’s up?” Mike turned his attention from the calico cat in his lap to Matt and waited for a response.
Not even the stylist knew what Matt had done during the two months he had been back in Vancouver by himself, so she was as interested as the rest of the men to hear his answer.
He took a deep breath, but kept his eyes on the floor. “Okay, the truth is…” Matt looked over at the stylist who had her eyes fixed on him while he spoke. He lowered his eyes to the floor again and started over. “The truth is…I was…I am having a really hard time with this shit with Josh.”
Josh sat up further in his seat at the mention of his name and dropped his foot to the floor. “But, we-…”
“I know,” Matt said waving a hand in his direction. “We talked about it. I thought I was okay with things, but I’m not. The more I think about this shit, the more I talk about it, the more it circles around inside my fucking head, the angrier I get all over again. I don’t know what to do about it. And if I was even more honest, I would tell you that…I’ve been thinking about something.”
Mike and Ian glanced at one another, unsure of where the conversation was going, and extremely worried about finding out. “What’s up?”
“I’ve…,” Matt paused, now completely scared to death of what he had to tell everyone. “I’ve been thinking about leaving the band.”
“What the fuck?” Ian asked, standing.
Mike’s eyes widened, but he kept quiet, unable to form coherent thoughts.
Josh gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. “All because of me…,” he said quietly.
The stylist sat up straighter and stared hard at Matt. No wonder he was so fucking worried about talking to everyone. Why the hell hadn’t he said anything?
“It was just a fleeting thought the night we took Josh to the hospital. I didn’t think anything would ever come of it. I just…it felt like a quick way for me to escape reality. At first I thought that if I left, it would all be okay. You guys could find another guitar player. I mean, even Josh told me a while back during the first fight we had that “guitar players were a dime a fucking dozen” and that “any kid with an amp would kill to take my place”,” he said moving his fingers in an air quotes motion. Matt looked over at Josh to see what the singer’s reaction was and Josh was quiet, but furious. The look on his face was evident. Matt went on, figuring that fast words made it easier. “The more I thought about it, the more logical it sounded. Josh wouldn’t have to answer to me, he wouldn’t have to fight me on this shit if it ever happens again, I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about everything… It just sounded better than anything else I could come up with.”
“Dude…,” was all Mike was able to say once Matt finished speaking. He slid forward in his seat and propped his elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers together in front of him.
Matt ignored the bassist and continued, keeping his eyes on everything but the men and the stylist. “So during the first month that I was back home, I put together my own solo album. I’ve written a lot on my own and I finally pieced it all together. I toured on my own over the second month. I had just gotten back from that a couple days before I heard from Ian that Josh was healthy enough to be released and I still wasn’t ready to face him, so I took off for Toronto to stay with some friends and family for a couple weeks. I played a couple of small shows just for fun while I was out there, and I just got back this morning. I spent a lot of time thinking…” He folded his shaking hands in his lap and ducked his head to stare down at them while he waited for his words to hit the others in the room.
Ian dropped back down onto his spot on the couch roughly and Bennie once again crept down off the seat and headed in the direction of Josh’s bedroom, followed closely by both cats. “I don’t fucking believe this, man. What the hell? How could you think of leaving? Especially now?” He shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. “Especially over everything that happened with Josh? I thought we all agreed to be there for each other. Isn’t that what this fucking band is all about?”
“I thought so at first,” Matt said quietly. “But apparently not, when someone leaves you out of everything important, nearly kills himself and almost breaks up the band anyway.” He snuck a glance over at Josh, who had yet to say anything.
Josh was playing with the metal stud through his tongue and staring wide-eyed at the floor in front of him, barely nodding along. He heard everything Matt was saying and he was fuming. The worst part about everything his friend had just said was that it was all true. He really had recently cost the band a lot and because of that, Matt was ready to walk away. This was the moment the singer had been dreading for his entire life. Someone had finally gotten sick enough of his shit to leave. Matt hadn’t gone anywhere yet, so there was still time to turn things around, but this was fucking scary. They had never even come remotely close to breaking up before. Not in the ten or eleven years that they had been together, and that was a long time in band years.
“Is this a final decision?” Josh finally asked, still not looking over at Matt.
“No…no. It’s not any kind of decision. It’s just…you know…,” the guitar player hesitated in finishing his thought because he felt like the more he talked, the worse things would be.
“No, I don’t fuckin’ know, Matt. What? What is it?” Josh finally raised his head and looked over at the man he’d known for so long.
“It’s just something I’m thinking about. Or…it was. I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck to do. I was fucking serious when I told you that the shit you pulled got to me, man. I wasn’t kidding. Now you really know how much. It didn’t bother me enough to just disappear on you for a few weeks. I don’t…nevermind…” Matt stood and paced across the room a couple of times, all eyes watching him to see what his move would be.
“Matt,” the stylist spoke from her spot on the floor.
“What?” he asked, his voice low and quiet. He stopped and stared out into the parking lot.
“Keep talking. I know you have more to say.” Josh turned and glared at her, knowing that he didn’t want to hear anymore. He felt attacked for the second time that day, even though everything that was said was as honest and real as Matt had ever been. He knew he had made everyone feel like shit because of what he did, but he could only apologize so many times before he was completely over it. And he had been as over it as he would ever get years ago.
“Fine. This is all of it. The whole truth.” Matt turned back to face everyone in the room and stuck his hands into his hip pockets. “Despite our talk earlier, after all of this most recent shit, I don’t know if I can trust you, Josh. Not anymore. I feel like we’ve been on shaky ground for a long time and this just…kinda…fucked everything up that much more. I don’t know that I wanna be involved in all of this anymore. I don’t think I can handle it. I don’t really see how or if I can get over this crap this time. You know? And if I can’t do that, how the hell can I live on a tour bus with you guys? How can I spend the majority of my life existing like that? Tell me, Ramsay. Tell me. If you have any answers, let me hear it because I’m done. I’ve got nothing left in me.” He leaned backwards against the wall behind him and closed his eyes for a minute, not quite able to believe he had finally let everyone in on his own big secrets. It killed him. Couldn’t everyone see how much he hated not only thinking all of this, but having to say it out loud? His stomach ached and his heart was pounding. Nothing he said was easy and he hated the situation. He hated himself for all of this. He should be able to get through it and move on. That’s what friends do. But it had been going on for way too long. When was it okay to say ‘enough’?
Josh nodded his head again, still staring at that same invisible spot on the floor in front of him. Mike and Ian watched him, waiting to see what he would do before they spoke. Ian wanted nothing more than to tear into Matt for all of this, but it wasn’t up to him. This was really all about Josh.
“Matt-,” Mike said, but Ian cut him off and gestured for him to stop talking. He pointed over at Josh to indicate that it was up to the singer to make the first move now.
“Oh…well…,” Josh said slowly, drawing the second word out. He pressed his lips together before speaking again. “I guess you were finally fuckin’ straightforward with me. After all the times you told me you wanted me to be honest with you, you’ve been thinking this shit. I get it. Don’t worry about it.” His tone was flat and unemotional. “Really, I get it. It’s not a problem.” Everyone in the room watched as he stood and walked down the hallway through his apartment. They heard a door shut and then…silence.
“Guys, I’m sorry,” Matt said turning to Mike and Ian, taking his hands out of his pockets and putting his hands against his chest. “You have to believe me. I’m sorry and I hate this. I hate all of this and I’m really, really fucking sorry. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I don’t wanna leave. I don’t. I just don’t know how to deal with this shit. I’m out of ideas. You know…”
Mike shook his head. “I don’t know, man…this is all pretty harsh and unexpected.” He turned his attention to the stylist. “Did you know about this?” he asked pointing at Matt.
She shook her head. “This is the first I’ve heard of Matt wanting to leave. I don’t love it any more than you guys do.” She pushed herself to her feet and walked over to Matt. “Whatever you do, please promise you’ll stay in touch.” She held up her pinky.
He smiled faintly and nodded. “Whatever happens, I will.” Matt hooked his pinky with hers and made the promise. He let go of her finger and wrapped his arms around her for a quick hug. She could feel him shaking slightly and she knew how scared he was to admit everything to everyone, even if they were just thoughts, not absolute conclusions. The stylist squeezed him gently before letting him go. He kept his arm across his shoulders as he still had to face Mike and Ian and his nerves were completely shot.
“I’m sorry, you guys…,” he repeated once again.
“Dude, this sucks,” Ian finally groaned, shaking his head. “I had no idea you were thinking about this. I wish you would have told us back when all of this shit came up. We could have talked about it.”
“Don’t you see, though? Talking about it doesn’t help. Look at Josh. We keep talking to him and what good has it really done so far? Tell me. It doesn’t change what he does to himself, and that doesn’t change how I feel about everything. I love him like a brother, but Goddamn…how much longer do we just sit back and let him lie to us about everything and pretend that everything is okay? Tell me. Mike?”
Mike leaned back against the couch and shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head.
“Ian? How about you?”
Ian stared down at his boots before responding. “I don’t know that there’s a really clear answer to that. I just know that we’re a family and we have to stick around. You just don’t give up on people you care that much about. So you can stay or you can leave, but it doesn’t mean it’s gonna change how I feel about the man. I’m gonna do whatever I have to make him realize that not everyone feels the way you do.”
And in one solitary sentence, Ian made Matt feel like an even bigger asshole than he already felt. “I’m sorry,” he said once again, quietly. He leaned more heavily on the stylist before letting go of her and sliding down the wall to sit.
“I don’t wanna take anything away from this conversation, but, um, do you all think someone should go check on Josh? He just…disappeared. Again. I don’t wanna assume the worst, but…,” Mike asked, trying to sound as casual as he possibly could.
Ian and Mike looked at the stylist, expecting her to jump in as she did the previous two times Josh was thought to be in trouble. “Oh no,” she said putting her hands up. “I love Josh like family, but I feel like I’m on thin ice with him as it is, most of the time in these situations. I don’t wanna push him too far. Besides, I think he needs to see again that you guys are here for him too, not just me.”
“She’s right,” Matt said from his position on the floor. “I think…I think I’ll go find him.”
“Matt, are you sure?” The stylist knelt down beside him and lightly put her hand on his arm.
“Yeah, this is all my fault. I have to fix it or he’s gonna freak the fuck out again. That’s everything I was trying to avoid. I can’t let anything happen to him because of me. Not this way.” Matt braced a hand against the wall and pushed himself to his feet.
“Come find us if…you know…,” Mike said, supportively.
Matt nodded and walked back down the hallway for the second time that evening. Stopping at Josh’s bedroom door, he knocked and waited for a response. When none came, he shoved the already slightly-ajar door open further and stuck his head in to look around. Not seeing anyone but the three pets curled up on the bed, he sighed. A panicked feeling hit Matt hard, causing his heart to pound once again and his stomach to drop. His vision faded, blurred by white splotches, even though there was no official reason to feel that way as of yet. He put his hands against the door frame to steady himself until he could calm down and breathe a bit more normally. No sense in being too fucking scared to function.
After a minute or two, Matt felt stable enough to continue his search for the singer. The only other closed door along the wall was the one to the bathroom. Please no, please no, please no, Matt silently pleaded. He slowly made his way to the door and knocked lightly. “Josh?” No answer. “Josh, dude…,” he tried again. Matt put his ear against the door but heard nothing. “Come on, man, I know you’re in there.” He tried a third time. “Josh. Talk to me. Let me explain.”
“The fucking door’s unlocked, Matt,” was the only reply that came from the opposite side. Even though Josh sounded annoyed, it seemed like a positive sign that he had not only spoken to Matt, but also hadn’t locked the door behind him. Maybe things really had changed. Perhaps.
The doorknob turned easily, allowing Matt to open it slowly and cautiously. His eyes widened when he saw Josh sitting on the edge of the tub hunched over with his elbows on his knees, staring at something in the palm of his hand. “Josh…”
“Is that all you know how to fuckin’ say?” The singer looked up at the younger man with his eyes narrowed.
“I…no…” Matt’s eyes were still fixed on Josh’s hands. He felt like he had played the same role in this same scene too many times before in the past and it never turned out well. The sight scared him, even though Josh was currently alive, awake, responsive and seemingly completely intact.
“Then what the hell do you want?” Josh carefully closed his hand around the object he was holding and winced slightly.
“I…we…you…walked away,” Matt stammered, hoping the right words would come to him.
“Yeah, well, we seem to do a lot of that, don’t we?” he asked sarcastically. The older man stared back down at his closed fist and bit at the inside of his cheek as a distraction while he waited for Matt to say whatever the hell he was apparently trying not to say.
“That fuckin’ sucked, Josh. That was a cheap shot and you know it.” Matt took a step into the bathroom and closed the door behind him, shutting the two in the small space together.
“So. What. What does it matter? You want me to apologize? Well…fine. I’m sorry. I know how much that means to you,” he retorted, still speaking to his shoes instead of Matt.
“Fuck it, Josh. Just fuck it. Quit this passive-aggressive shit. If you have something you wanna say to me, then say it. I finally came clean with you, now it’s your turn.” Matt didn’t want to push Josh too hard, but he wasn’t sure he had any other choice.
Having nowhere else to sit that wasn’t awkward, he put his hands against the counter and hoisted himself up, accidentally knocking something into the sink in the process. He looked over and saw an empty clear plastic package sitting over the drain where it had landed. “What’s this?” he asked, picking it up and staring at it. Despite having no markings and being such a generic rectangular shape, Matt immediately recognized what it was. He held it out to Josh, waiting for an answer.
“I’ve seen it,” Josh said looking up to see what Matt was questioning. “Just…just toss it into the trash.” He nodded in the direction of the garbage can near Matt’s feet.
“Tell me what it is first,” the guitar player said, turning the plastic over in his hands.
“It’s garbage, that’s what it is. Just an empty package I forgot about earlier. Now toss it,” Josh demanded, growing weary of the whole conversation.
“Would you just fucking talk to me? This, this is what I’ve been telling you is getting to me. Now we’re sitting here in your fucking bathroom of all places, both pissed off at each other. How is this helping anyone?” Matt flung the piece of plastic to the floor at Josh’s feet and watched as it rolled between his shoes.
The singer moved his eyes from Matt to his closed fist to the empty plastic package on the floor. He reached down and picked up the bit of plastic and tossed it across the room into the trash can. Josh slowly opened his hand, keeping the first few seconds of the new glimpse of steel for himself before holding his open palm out to the guitar player. “This. I have nothing to say about it. Just…this.”
Matt nodded. The confirmation that he was right actually settled his thoughts and he no longer felt as worried now that he knew for sure what the situation was all about. There was a bit of comfort in knowing his friend so well, no matter what the situation was. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before speaking. “Okay…what did you do with it?” He wanted to reach out and take the razor blade from Josh’s hand, but he didn’t. Suddenly, strangely, he felt in his gut that he should trust the singer in the moment.
“Nothing,” Josh said pulling his arm back in and closing his fingers around the metal again. He just needed to hold it. It felt…safe. It felt calming. “Honest. I didn’t do anything. I came in here, I opened it and I just fuckin’ sat here, dude. That’s all.” He took a risk and looked up at Matt, who was, understandably, looking more than slightly skeptical.
Matt swung his feet a little, then crossed his ankles while he decided whether he wanted to speak or not. “Prove it.”
“What?!” Josh’s eyes widened.
“You heard me. I want you to prove it.” Matt rested his hands on his knees.
“Don’t be a fucking perv.”
“It’s got nothing to do with that, you ass. I want you to prove to me that you’re telling the truth. You’ve pulled this “I’m okay” shit too many times in the past after being caught like this, only for the rest of us to realize later that you were lying through your fucking teeth. Now prove that you’re telling the truth.”
Josh clenched his jaw a little and quickly ran through everything in his head. He realized that Matt was right…again. He hated that. He fucking hated it so much, but if he looked at things objectively, he realized that all of this was done because of him. Because he’d fucked up too many times. Because he hadn’t been able to keep his promises in the past. “Fine.”
“What? Seriously?” Matt questioned, never quite believing that Josh would agree to that.
“Yeah, seriously. I feel like I owe it to you.” Josh stood and held his hand out to Matt, dropping the warm razor into the palm of the younger man’s hand. He watched as Matt took it between two fingers and stared at it as if looking for evidence that Josh had used it. Finding none, he palmed it again and held it carefully while he watched as Josh slowly stripped off his shirt, revealing nothing but pale white skin littered with faint pink scars from years past. Josh held his arms out to his sides and slowly turned in a circle, letting Matt get a three hundred and sixty degree view of his upper body. He held his hands out, palms up so the guitar player could see his clean wrists.
Next, Josh’s hands dropped to his belt, which he unfastened before popping the button on his jeans and sliding the zipper down. “Fuck, this is embarrassing,” he mumbled under his breath, but just loudly enough for Matt to hear. Despite the humiliation, he shoved his jeans down to his ankles and stood in front of his guitar player in nothing but a pair of blue boxer-briefs. He watched as Matt’s eyes quickly scanned his body for anything out of the norm.
“Hips? Stomach?” Matt finally asked, after what felt like an eternity.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, those were spots you cut the shit out of before, and I want proof.” Matt carefully set the blade he was holding down on the opposite side of the sink. The click of the metal hitting the stone counter sent shivers down his spine.
Josh reluctantly agreed, hooked his fingers under the waistband of his underwear and tugged the right side down so Matt could look. Letting go, he twisted his body to the left and did the same. Finally he stuck his thumbs between his stomach and underwear and pulled the cloth down in the front just low enough so the brunet could see that his lower abdomen, as well as the rest of his body, looked like faded etched porcelain. No new cuts, no bloody trails, no fresh scars.
Matt let out a sigh of relief and nodded at Josh. “Thanks.”
“This is fuckin’ weird, dude. It really is,” Josh said, bending down to yank his pants back up into place, then slipping his shirt back on over his head. Once his clothing was back on, he sat down on the edge of the bathtub again and stared at Matt.
“You didn’t think it was so weird before when you showed our stylist back on the bus last year. What’s so weird about showing me?”
“We’re dudes, man, DUDES.” Josh smiled dimly.
“It’s not like we haven’t dressed in front of each other before, out on the road. The only difference is that this time, it wasn’t because we had to. It’s because I wanna make sure you’re safe. Looking at your pasty pale body doesn’t exactly do it for me, Ramsay,” Matt joked to try to take the tension out of the situation.
Josh laughed. “Yeah, I guess that’s probably true and it’s good to know. So, now that you’ve seen everything you asked for, what now?”
“What were you planning to do with this, man?” Matt asked, picking up the blade again and lightly pressing the sharp point into the pad of his pointer finger just hard enough to make an mark, but not hard enough to draw blood. He stared at the indentation, suddenly fascinated by the idea rather than the feeling of the metal against his skin. A thought flashed through his mind, and, dangerous as it probably was, he felt like he was left with no other choice but to act on it.
“I don’t think I was planning to do anything. I sometimes…ok, it’s been two and a half months since I last cut. You know that. But sometimes, I just feel this really fucking overwhelming need to hold that stupid little blade. It doesn’t mean I’ll do anything with it. It doesn’t mean I have the need to do it,” Josh said, quickly drawing two fingers across his arm in a cutting motion. “It just means that it was a huge part of my life off and on for a long fucking time and I’m still figuring out how to deal without it. I’m getting there. I’m better. But now and then, especially when things get hard, I just need to feel it in my hands.”
Matt slid off the counter and sat on the floor, leaning back against the cabinets. He crossed his legs and leaned forward, still holding the blade. “And this used to make you feel better? This tiny little sharp metallic piece of crap?”
Josh nodded, but said nothing.
“How would you do it? I mean, how did it work? Show me.” Matt rolled up the sleeve of his red plaid shirt, exposing his forearm.
“What? Why the fuck are you me asking that?” Josh sounded alarmed and confused.
“I wanna know. I mean, you’ve done it so often, I wanna know why it made you feel so much better. I wanna know what made this so special and why it helped.” Matt’s voice was steady, but inside his heart was pounding once again. He originally had no intention of doing what he thought he was about to do when he first knocked on the door, but now that he was here, he felt like there was no turning back.
“I don’t think I wanna have this discussion. I really don’t.” Josh shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes. He brushed it back with one hand quickly.
“Well, I do. Here, show me.” Matt held out the razor to Josh in his right hand and offered his left forearm for the singer. “Do it. Show me.”
Josh shook his head. “No, Matt. This is fuckin’ stupid. Do you see how ridiculous this is?”
The brunet shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly and pulled his arms in closer to his body. “Okay, you won’t show me. That’s fine,” he said ignoring the singer’s words. “Then tell me, did it look something like this?” Matt pressed the tip of the razor into his left forearm and pulled it across his flawless skin, creating a thin stripe of red liquid.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Josh’s eyes were wide and his body was tense. “Seriously, Matt, what the fuck do you think you’re trying to pull here?!”
Josh made a grab for the razor, but Matt held onto it until Josh retracted his hand. He fingered the blade once more.
“Or maybe it was more like this?” Matt asked, continuing to disregard Josh’s questions. He quickly dragged the razor sideways across his wrist, letting the blood bead up and trickle down the edge of his hand. “Am I doing it right?” The guitarist crisscrossed several more lines along his arm before setting the blade down on his knee. “This really made you feel better about yourself? Because I’ve gotta tell you, it’s not doing a damn thing for me.” Matt hadn’t been able to look at Josh the entire time, but he felt the man’s eyes on him, watching every move he made without fail.
“What the fuck was that about?” the singer asked, wanting to take another shot at reaching for the razor, but pulling his hand back before Matt saw.
“I dunno, dude, I dunno. I’m just trying to see what’s so great about this shit. Hell, there must be something about it that I’m not getting, because right now the only thing I’m feeling is really fucking stupid. My arm is throbbing and I’m covered in my own blood. Tell me. How the hell did this make anything better?” Matt rested his arm palm-up against his leg while he watched the bleeding slow a bit.
Josh sat with his hand against his mouth and shivered. This was way more than he ever bargained for and he never, ever thought that Matt would do something like this. Not someone that sensible. Not someone that had been had been saving his ass for years. But, there they were. Once again, the tables were turned and Josh didn’t know how to handle it. “D-don’t…please don’t…,” the singer stuttered. “I can’t…please…no more…” Josh dropped his head down into his hands and took several deep breaths to steady his head before looking up again.
“Welcome to my life, man.” Matt waited until he knew Josh was watching before he used the razor to lightly scrape away some of the blood oozing through his skin. He pressing it into his arm and dragged it across one last time.
Josh shuddered and closed his eyes, trying to stop the shaking in his hands and the pounding in his chest. “Fuck you, Matt. Fuck you. I can’t believe you did this. You know what this feels like? This feels like a fucking slap in the face. Are you doing this to make fun of me? What the hell?”
Suddenly, Matt was on his knees and the razor dropped to the floor, sliding across the tiles and coming to rest against the far wall near the door. He was in Josh’s face with his arm held straight out, gripping the front of the singer’s shirt and staining it with crimson fingerprints before Josh knew what was going on. He stood and hauled Josh to his feet so the two were toe-to-toe once again. “Do you really, honestly think I’m making fun of you? Do you truly think that I would do that?” Matt swallowed hard.
Josh opened his eyes and stared into Matt’s only long enough to know that he had slipped up again. He had misread the signs. He had jumped to some incredibly wrong conclusions and it may now very well cost him everything. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Seriously, Josh, is that what you think?”
“That’s…it’s what it felt like.” Josh wanted to take a step back, but he would have fallen straight into the tub, so he stood his ground and hoped that Matt would back off. He felt claustrophobic with his personal space being invaded so strongly.
Matt had known Josh for so long that he could read the other man’s thoughts. He dropped his hand to his side, shook his head and took two steps backward. “I’m not making fun of you. This?” he asked, pointing at his blood-stained arm. “No. This was only about showing you how it feels when you do it. Nothing more. Admittedly it might have been a stupid way to go about it, but for once, I wanted you to be the one to worry, to panic, to get pissed off. I needed you to see what you do to me. This isn’t the answer to anything, Josh.” He clenched his fist and held his arm out to the singer as a visual again. “Do you understand?”
In that moment, in that fraction of a second after Matt had finished speaking, Josh broke. Everything he had been keeping to himself, all the frustration, all the humiliation, all the anger, all the fear…everything he felt like he couldn’t show to anyone but the stylist shattered and he dropped to his knees causing Matt to take another step backward in order to give Josh space. The singer put his hands on his thighs while his stomach lurched, making him wonder if he was going to be sick. He breathed heavily, gasping for air, ducked his head and closed his eyes, hoping the feeling wouldn’t last much longer. Please, please let this pass, Josh mentally screamed to himself. Don’t let this kill me. I fought too hard to leave this shit behind. This was so much more than his typical panic attacks. This was everything he had ever felt hitting him all at once. Every bloody situation he had ever been in raced through his memories, one after another.
Josh’s stomach continued to churn, coiling around itself and he shoved his way past Matt, reaching over to the toilet and lifting the lid as quickly as he could before emptying his stomach. He hadn’t eaten much lately, but the all-too-familiar burn in his throat was enough to make him remember everything he had put in his mouth over the last day or so. His eyes teared and his nose stung as he continued to heave until he choked. He felt a hand, warm against his back while he was still bent over the toilet. Now his ribs ached, his heart pounded inside his chest and his head throbbed, all things working together to make him dizzy.
Matt knelt beside Josh, keeping his hand lightly against the older man’s lower back for support. Quietly he murmured to Josh that everything was okay. Josh shrugged Matt’s hand away as he leaned over the toilet one last time before pushing the silver handle and closing the lid once again.
He shifted his position slightly to place his hands against the cold tile floor, reminding Matt very much of the night Josh had first tried heroin and Matt had to pick him up at some house party hours away because he was too wasted to drive. Matt had stood back on the sidewalk while Josh threw up on a strip of grass no more than a foot away from where he watched, helpless and unsure of what was happening. This time around, Matt knew that it was nerves that had gotten the better of his friend and that he was the one responsible. But maybe, just maybe this would be enough to make Josh realize the importance of being able to lean on people and to stop hiding.
Matt stood and moved away to give Josh some room. He took the singer’s spot on the edge of the tub while he waited for Josh to relax. Watching as Josh took several slow, shallow breaths and put a hand against his stomach, Matt wondered if any of this was worth it and, if it was, why Josh’s reaction to everything was so adverse. Still on his knees, the older man bent over, nearly resting his forehead against the tile and groaned quietly. An agonizing minute went by while the guitarist waited for his friend try to calm down. “Josh…,” Matt finally said quietly.
Josh held up his pointer finger to signal that he needed more time before he could speak and Matt respected that. He sat with his head bowed and tried to be patient. Finally, Josh reached a hand up to the edge of the counter and pulled himself to stand. He turned on the sink tap and waited for the water to heat up. He stood for so long that it started to fog the glass above and Josh looked up only long enough to catch Matt’s eyes in the mirror. He dipped his head down and cupped some of the water in his hands, splashing it over his face several times. After several minutes, he turned off the water, reached into the medicine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of mouthwash. Fuck, he hated the taste of that shit. It reminded him all too much of his younger days when he would use it to hide the smell of the heroin he smoked or the fact that he was purposely making himself sick as some kind of great weight-loss plan. He tipped the bottle up until he had enough to swirl around in his mouth. That alone almost made him gag again, but he spit into the sink and took another slow breath while he waited for the feeling to pass.
The singer cleared his throat once and turned around to face Matt. His eyes were red-rimmed, his nose was running and for the first time in a long time, he looked almost…fragile. “I’m sorry,” Matt said quietly.
“I know,” rasped Josh, his throat feeling raw and gritty. “Wash that shit off,” he said, using more energy than he felt like he had left to point at Matt’s still-bloody and wounded arm.
Matt had nearly forgotten all about the mess until he looked down and realized that dried blood still coated his entire forearm, his palm, between his fingers and the knee of his pants where he had rested his arm before it had stopped bleeding.
Josh wiped at his nose and eyes and brushed his hands against his pants as he stepped out of the way to let Matt get at the sink. He stood, leaning back against the counter and watched as the younger man turned the tap on, just as Josh had done, letting the water heat up to near boiling, then used his right hand to cup the water and spill it over the cuts. Matt hissed and gasped as the hot water met the fresh wounds, but Josh stared without blinking. The muted red water rinsed easily from Matt’s arm and flowed down through the drain. Red liquid droplets splashed against the counter and edges of the sink as the guitar player continued to wash the evidence of the point he tried to make from his body.
Josh only broke his gaze when Matt reached his arm out to turn the water off and crossed through Josh’s line of vision. The singer handed him a clean towel and continued to stare as Matt dried himself off, then wiped up the counter. He set the towel beside the sink and gazed at his reflection in the mirror. Fucking stupid move, Webb. Not your finest hour, he thought to himself, shaking his head slightly.
“Don’t you ever fucking do that to yourself again,” Josh growled as he pointed a finger at Matt. “Not ever. Do you fucking hear me?”
Matt turned to face him, leaning with his hip against the counter. “I won’t if you won’t.”
Josh blinked once…twice. “We’ll hash that out later. Right now, there’s something else we have to do,” he said, avoiding any kind of response. He had done pretty well over the last couple of months, but he didn’t trust himself to promise something like that.
Matt rolled his eyes at Josh’s evasion. “What?”
“You’re bleeding again,” he said pointing at the brunet’s arm. It was true. Matt wasn’t bleeding horribly, but blood was definitely still seeping through the wounds enough that it would stain his clothing even more. He must have irritated it again when he cleaned himself up.
“Fuck,” Matt said, reaching past Josh to grab for a long length of toilet paper to ball up and hold against his arm.
“No, there’s a better way,” Josh said, leaning down to open the cabinet blow the sink. He pulled out some non-stick gauze pads, antiseptic ointment and a gauze bandage to wrap around Matt’s arm as well as some surgical tape to hold everything together. Josh avoided Matt’s eyes as he worked steadily to open the packages and set out everything he needed before beginning what he started out to do.
“Give me your arm,” he said, once everything was in place.
Matt obediently held his arm out to the singer, who immediately tucked Matt’s hand between his arm and ribs to keep it steady. He reached for the antiseptic and applied the cream to the wounds, his fingers light and gentle as they traced over the incisions. Josh layered the gauze pads on before taking the bandage and wrapping it around the guitar player’s arm. Once he was finished doctoring the cuts, he taped everything together, then released Matt. He turned to throw all of the garbage into the trash can. “You can take that off tomorrow. You should be okay.”
Matt nodded and slowly lowered his arm back down to his side. “How did you know how to do this?”
Josh turned to look at the younger man with an incredulous look. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I guess…not…”
“I’ve done this shit often enough to know how to take care of it, Matt. I might be a little reckless, but I’m not stupid.” He bent over the open cabinet to put away what he didn’t use and closed the door before righting himself again.
“Fair enough. Next question. Why do you still have all of this stuff? Why do you have exactly what you need to fix my arm if you weren’t planning to do this to yourself again?” Matt slowly rolled the sleeve of his shirt back down over his arm and buttoned it at the wrist.
Josh didn’t have a good answer for that. At least, nothing that sounded as truthful as it was. All of his medical supplies, plus any blades he might have had were left over from a previous life. Back when he needed that constant release. But how could he explain that without sounding as fake as even he thought it did? Josh sighed quietly and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “You wouldn’t believe me,” he said quietly.
“Try me,” said Matt, mimicking the pose.
“I swear to you, all of this shit, it’s all from…from before. You know, when I needed it. It’s not new. I showed you. You saw. I haven’t cut in so long, Matt. So long. I proved that to you. You’re just gonna have to trust me that I don’t own this medical shit because I have any intention of doing it again. But if I didn’t have it, you would have been screwed, so it all worked out, right?” Josh spoke fast, as if quick words would convince Matt faster than speaking at a normal pace might.
“I believe you,” the younger man said.
“You do? Seriously?” Josh sounded as shocked as he felt. He felt like it had been so long since anyone had believed what he said right away, without a lot of convincing.
Matt nodded. “Yeah. You’ve proven a lot to me today, man. You really have. I believe you this time. I have no reason not to.” While he spoke, his eyes scanned the ground for the razor that had slid off his knee when he reached out to grab Josh earlier. He finally saw it and bent down to grab it. Matt cringed when he saw that it was still covered in his blood. He nearly dropped it when he thought about what he had just done. Instead, he shoved it into his pocket when Josh wasn’t looking.
“So…,” Josh started uncertainly.
“Hmm?”
“Are…are we good again? Are we okay?”
Matt stared down at the floor, intently studying the floor, noticing the faint streaks and drops of red that still discoloured the cream-coloured tile where he had chosen to make the extreme effort in order to show Josh how he felt. “I don’t know. I’m still not convinced you really get it, Josh.” He looked up at the older man.
Josh reached up to shove his bangs out of his eyes, then pulled them back down, as if undecided whether he wanted to try to hide behind them or not. Everyone else forgave him. Everyone else was there for him. Why was Matt being so motherfucking difficult? “Okay,” he said quietly. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know,” Matt said again, not offering any more information or solutions.
The singer pressed his lips together and crossed his arms even more tightly across his chest. “Matt, I’m over this shit. I really am. I can’t keep apologizing. I can’t keep telling you that I’m sorry. I can’t just wait for you to, you know, see if you eventually come around. I don’t know what to do.” He hunched his body slightly.
“That makes two of us. I just can’t get it out of my fucking head that you’re gonna wind up in this same situation all over again somewhere down the line. Maybe not today, maybe not next week, maybe not next year, but eventually. And who knows what might trigger that? It could be anything. You’ve relapsed twice in two years, both times over shit no one expected you to fall apart over, but you did. And you never said a word to anyone. I can’t keep having this argument, either. I’m so tired of this, Ramsay. I’m sick of it. I can’t keep doing this.” Matt turned to face Josh after saying what he needed to say yet again.
“I get it,” Josh said, his voice oddly timid and shaky. “Don’t…don’t think I don’t understand. But I can’t change things. I can’t erase the shit I’ve done. And if you want the God’s honest truth, I don’t fucking trust myself enough to promise anyone anything. I’ve let everyone in my life down up to this point. Do you realize that there isn’t a single person I know who hasn’t seen me nearly kill myself? The fans know. People I’ve never even met know my history. Do you know what it’s like to live with that?” He reached up and wiped his eyes with his hands, but it didn’t help.
“No,” Matt admitted quietly. “I don’t.”
“Well…I don’t know what you want. I don’t know how it got this way. I just know that I’ve been here for so long… This stupidity, this shit…it’s what I know. I don’t want it, I don’t get it, but it’s almost…I dunno…comfortable. Better the devil you know, right? I just can’t promise anything to anyone anymore. I don’t trust myself. And worst of all…,” Josh let his words drop, suddenly deciding he’d said too much. He scuffed at the floor with the toe of his sneaker.
“What?” Matt asked, hoping that Josh would keep talking if he was prompted.
“Dude, worst of all is breaking promises to you guys especially. I can’t keep doing that. It kills me. It breaks my fucking heart.” Josh put his hands on the counter against his hips.
“What about promises to yourself?” the guitar player asked.
“Ha,” the singer said rolling his eyes. “I gave up on that so long ago. Promises to myself mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’ve broken them left and right for as long as I can remember.” He shook his head. “This’ll be the last time,” Josh said in a slightly higher pitched voice, mimicking words he’d said to himself over and over as the years had gone on. “Yeah, right. Every time’s the last time.” Josh sniffed and wiped at his nose and eyes again.
“I know, man. I was there to see it all,” Matt said, shoving himself up to sit on the counter again.
“Then why don’t you fucking understand, Matt? Why don’t you get how hard this shit is for me? I can’t fix this. I can’t change what happened. I don’t know that I can keep it from happening in the future. Is that what you wanna hear? That I’m a complete fuck-up and that I don’t think I can keep it together long enough to even promise you that I’d try?” Josh was audibly breathing a bit heavier, trying to keep from completely falling apart.
“Yes,” was all Matt had to say in response.
“Yes?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. That’s what I’ve been waiting for you to tell me all along, man. It really is. I just wanted you to be fucking honest with me. Tell me that you don’t feel like you can do this. Tell me that you think shit sucks or that you don’t know if you’ll be able to handle it. I don’t want you to tell me a bunch of bullshit just because you think it’s what I wanna hear. I’ve never wanted you to give me a bunch of lines if you didn’t feel it. And I never wanted you to try to explain it all away. Stop using that fucking handgun loaded with excuses that you seem to carry around with you and tell me that shit gets to you. What do you think is gonna happen if you do that?” Matt shifted his body so that he was facing Josh a bit better.
By now, Josh’s shoulders were shaking as he hunched over even further. “I don’t know,” he choked out.
“Yes you do. Tell me. What do you think is gonna happen?” Matt pushed him as he’d seen the stylist do so often over the last couple of years. “Tell me, Josh.”
“I don’t fucking know!” he yelled, his voice cracking on the last word. “Everything. Nothing. I don’t wanna lose you guys. I can’t lose you guys…I need you… I fucking need you…” Josh slid down the counter to sit with his back against the cabinet doors and pulled his knees up to his chest. He folded his arms across his knees and rested his forehead on them while he tried his best to hide the quiet sobs that he had been holding back from everyone but the stylist for so many years.
Fuck, Matt hadn’t seen Josh like that in so long and he didn’t know what to do. His first instinct was to hug his friend, but what if the singer didn’t want that? What if he wasn’t comfortable with it? Shitfuckshit. Matt waited a few moments before slipping down off the counter and sitting, keeping several inches away from Josh to avoid crowding him, but close enough that he knew Matt was there. “You okay?”
“No,” Josh mumbled down into his folded arms.
“Will you be?”
“I don’t know,” was Josh’s reply.
The brunet reached his non-bandaged hand over and lightly rested it on Josh’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck you,” the older man mumbled, but made no motion to pull away. Matt squeezed his shoulder gently.
“Yeah,” Matt said quietly, more to himself than to Josh, “fuck me.”
Josh’s body trembled as he tried hard to put himself back together without much luck. “Do you want me to go get…-,” Matt started to ask.
Josh reached his hand over without lifting his head and put it over Matt’s, still on his shoulder. “Don’t leave. Just stay,” he said between sobs.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m here,” Matt said quietly, crossing his legs and settling back against the cabinet. “I’m…always here.”
He thought those words would be more of a comfort, but it only served to make Josh cry harder. Matt was uncomfortable, but he stayed because he was needed. He stayed because he was wanted. He stayed because he needed to do it for himself as well as for Josh. Finally, after all this time, he felt like the singer had dropped the act, had let down his guard and was truly honest with him. He owed it to both of them to stick it out as long as Josh needed him.
After several minutes, Josh moved his hand and re-folded his arms, barely lifting his head. He seemed to feel most comfortable tucked in a ball. His tears had subsided enough that he was now mostly sniffling and taking quiet gasping breaths every few seconds, but that was much better than it had been. Matt started to move his hand from Josh’s shoulder and Josh made a noise somewhere between a whine and a defeated sigh in protest, so Matt changed tactics and shifted his body closer to the singer’s. He draped his arm across Josh’s upper back and rested his hand on the opposite shoulder. Josh was still so tense, but Matt didn’t know if that was because he couldn’t calm down or because he thought that the guitar player was about to leave.
“Don’t go,” whispered Josh faintly. That was Matt’s answer.
“I’m not. I won’t. But are you sure you don’t want me to get Mike and Ian? The stylist?” Matt wanted to do everything he could to be there for Josh in the moment, but he didn’t really know how to deal with this situation. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to try, it was that he just wasn’t well equipped for it. His general awkwardness never really afforded him the ability to do well in circumstances like this. He really felt like the stylist or even Mike would be better at making Josh feel more comfortable, especially considering that Matt had caused Josh to feel like this in the first place.
“Don’t want them. Don’t want her. Need you,” he mumbled again, still speaking to the floor.
“Okay, man, okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” Matt mentally resigned himself to sitting with Josh for as long as he needed, however long that might take.
Back in the living room, the stylist, Mike and Ian had found a deck of cards sitting on Josh’s bookshelf and had settled themselves around the table to play three-handed poker. “Straight flush,” Ian said laying his run of hearts out in front of him.
Mike groaned and folded his cards, setting them face-down on the table. “Not even close.
“I came close,” the stylist said, picking one card out of her hand at a time and setting it down in front of her. “King of spades, two of clubs, seven of diamonds, six of diamonds and the ace of hearts.” She grinned at her joke and folded her cards, tossing them into the reshuffle pile.
“Casselman wins again. He always wins!” Mike laughed and tossed his cards into the pile too. “What the hell is your secret?”
“Ah, it’s skill and luck and that second deck I have in my pants,” he said gesturing to his crotch. “Just wait until I pull out ‘the King’.” He made himself laugh with his own innuendo and picked up the deck to shuffle.
“Hey, guys, I wanna talk to you about something,” the stylist said, looking at Mike and Ian in turn.
“Uh-oh, you’re not gonna tell us that you’re leaving too, are you?” Ian’s eyes widened a little.
“No, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to apologize. I feel like I’ve spent way more time with Matt and Josh than I have with you guys. I don’t want you to think I’m favouring them over you two.” She fiddled with the label on her water bottle while she spoke.
“Hey, we get it,” Mike said, giving her a smile. “Josh has…issues. And you help him with that.”
“Yeah, it’s true. We’re okay with it. We know you’re here for us too,” Ian piped up. “We’ll make it a point to hang out more, though, because I like having you around.”
“Me too,” Mike agreed. “We’ll get together more often. Any time you want.”
“Except at three in the morning. Apparently that’s Josh’s designated time,” Ian joked. A yawn interrupted his laughter and he checked his watch. “Do you guys realize that Josh and Matt have been missing for the last three hours?”
Mike looked up from the cards he had taken from Ian and had started to deal out. “Are you serious?” A glance at his own watch showed that it was now a little after ten p.m. “I don’t know that I was planning to stay this late. Not with the roads as bad as they are. We might be stuck here all night.”
The stylist shrugged. “I was staying anyway,” she said raising the water bottle she had just opened to her mouth.
“Hey, speaking of that, what’s with you two?” Ian asked, ignoring the full hand of cards Mike had finished dealing.
“What’s…what?” she asked, sounding confused.
“It seems like you’ve been spending a lot of time with that man lately. You two…you know…hooking up?” Ian smiled at her and raised his eyebrows as if he already knew the answer.
She nearly choked on her water and covered her mouth. “What? No! We’re friends, Ian. Friends. He calls me when he gets freaked out about being alone. He knows you have a girlfriend and don’t live that close. He knows Mike has a kid. He knows Matt is seeing someone off and on. I’m the only one that can really drop everything for a phone call or a visit without having to answer to anyone. That’s all it is.” The stylist glared at Ian. She knew from the beginning when Josh had started to depend on her so heavily that those rumours would eventually start to fly and the questions would get asked. She was actually surprised it took as long as it did.
“You’re sure? I mean, you’ve been spending the night at his place…” Mike chimed in, but he was so good natured that from him, it just seemed like teasing. With Ian, she wasn’t sure. He sounded a bit more serious in his curiosity.
“I’m sure. Dude, he spent the night at Ian’s place and no one asked if they were suddenly dating!”
Ian laughed. “Well, that’s because he’s not my type. Now, if it was Mike here… “Gayley for Ayley”,” he said, laughing all over again after quoting some fan question from years past that asked if he would ever “go gayley for Mike Ayley.”
Mike laughed and a slight pink tinge seeped into his cheeks. “Aren’t you the charmer?”
Once the laughter died down and the only noise in the room was the rhythmic ticking of the clock above their heads that had never been set to the right time due to pure laziness when it was put up, Ian spoke again. “So…does anyone think we should go check to make sure Matt and Josh haven’t killed each other?”
“I think we’d have heard that,” Mike answered, leaning back in his chair.
“Maybe,” Ian agreed. “But it’s still been a really long time. I know they had a lot to talk about, but it’s actually got me kinda worried.”
“I’m sure they’re fine,” the stylist said, putting her elbows on the table and leaning forward to cover her mouth as she yawned.
“How do you know?” Mike questioned.
“Because it always is. Josh will start talking once he’s pushed, then he needs time to work it out, then he has a minor fit and eventually he’ll reappear when he’s ready. That’s…you know, providing he does the same thing with Matt that he does with me. I’m not that worried, but if you guys think something might be wrong, by all means, go check on them. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt.” She rested her forehead on the table for a few seconds before sitting up again. It may have only been ten o’clock at night, but she’d only gotten several hours of sleep after being awake for two days, and she was exhausted now that the drama was over and the adrenaline had left her body.
“Mike, you go,” Ian said pointing at the bassist.
“Me? Why me?” he asked with wide eyes.
“Because you’re the walking fucking Hallmark card, man. You’re good with all that mushy sappy stuff. You’d be better at it than I would.” Ian ran a hand through his hair and pushed his seat back from the table so he could cross his legs.
“I won’t deny that, I guess,” he said, shoving his own seat back and standing. “I’ll go, but if they’ve killed each other, I’m not cleaning up the mess.”
Ian and the stylist watched as he walked out of the room and disappeared around the corner.
Mike wandered down the darkened hallway. He’d been to Josh’s place quite often and knew the layout, but what he didn’t know is where he’d find his lead singer or guitarist. The further down the hallway he walked, the harder he listened for noise of any kind. As he got closer to the bathroom, he could hear muffled voices and knew that he’d found the two men.
The bassist stepped up to the door and gently knocked. “Matt? Josh? You guys doing okay?” He heard one of the men clear his throat and sniff loudly.
Matt was the one who answered. “Uhh…Mike? You wanna come in?” He sounded uncertain about asking and that worried Mike.
Turning the doorknob, he pushed the door open. He stepped in and shut it behind him. Taking everything in, he saw Josh sitting, huddled in a ball with his knees drawn up to his chest and his head down. Matt’s arm was around the singer’s shoulders, which were shaking every time he took a breath. Mike knelt down on one knee in front of the two. “Hey,” he said as gently as he could. “Josh, what’s up? What’s wrong?”
Josh shook his head without looking up at the bassist. “C’mon, dude. Talk to me. Everything alright?” Josh shook his head again and pulled his legs in even closer to his body. Neither Mike nor Matt thought he could make himself any smaller, but he somehow succeeded.
Mike looked to Matt, who immediately dropped his gaze to the floor and quickly eyed the blood smears near Mike’s knee, praying to the universe that he didn’t notice.
“Alright, you guys…what’s going on? Are you two okay?” Mike looked from Matt to Josh and back again.
Finally, the guitar player looked back up at Mike. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah? Then do you wanna explain this?” Mike asked, pointing at the red smudges that covered the floor in front of him.
“Shit,” Matt said quietly.
“Yeah, “shit” is right. Now what’s up?”
“It’s nothing, man. Really.” He pleaded with his eyes for Mike to just let things drop. Matt hoped the man would be able to read his mind. He would explain later, away from Josh. But Matt had no such luck.
“No,” Mike said dropping his other knee to the floor and sitting back. “I’m not buying that. Did Josh do this?”
At the mention of his name, Josh looked up. He raised his sleeve to his face and used it to wipe his eyes. “I didn’t do anything,” he said meekly.
“Then what’s with the blood?” Mike was trying hard to be patient, but the scene in front of him was disturbing, to say the least. The entire day had been kind of a mess for Josh, and he knew it, based on what the stylist had told both he and Ian after Matt had walked off to find Josh to make sure he was okay. But walking in to see this actually scared Mike and he wanted answers.
Matt looked over at Josh. What happened had been between the two of them and he wanted Josh’s approval before telling anyone else. Josh shrugged his shoulders and dropped his head back down onto his arms.
“I’m really trying here, guys. Talk to me.” Mike patted Josh on the arm, which caused him to sit up again. His feet slid forward a bit, and that was just enough for Mike to get a glimpse of the blood stains across the front of his clothing.
Josh looked down and quickly threw his arms across his chest as if he could hide the mess that covered him from the bottom hem to the collar of the shirt. It was purely by instinct. He had made that kind of hurried cover-up maneuver many times before in his past. Usually it was a quick shove of a sleeve. This time, though, he had no reason to hide anything. He hadn’t been the one to damage his body and he immediately felt stupid for trying to hide what wasn’t there.
“What the fuck, Josh? I thought you said you didn’t do anything?” Mike reached between Josh’s crossed arms and pulled the stained fabric of his shirt through them. “This isn’t red paint you’re wearing.”
“I didn’t! I didn’t fucking do anything!” Josh yelled and clutched at his shirt, trying to pry it out of Mike’s hands. “Matt,” he groaned helplessly, “say something. Do something. Help me…”
Matt was so used to Josh being the one in trouble that he had legitimately nearly forgotten that he was the one who had caused the problems this time. It wasn’t until he saw Josh struggling with Mike that it snapped him back into reality and he reached a hand out to grab Mike’s wrist. “Mike, let him go. No, let him go. Now.”
The bass player resisted at first, but Matt tightened his grip until it was slightly uncomfortable and almost painful. It forced Mike to let go and rub his wrist once Matt let go and pulled his own hand back. Josh pulled his shirt back into place, curled in on himself again and dropped his head back down onto his arms, shaking all over again. Matt leaned over and spoke quietly and gently to Josh. “I’ll be right back, okay? I just need to go talk to Mike.” He waited for a response, but none came, so he tried again. “Josh, let me know that you can hear me. I’ll be back in a minute.” Finally Josh nodded slightly and Matt stood, motioning to Mike that they should meet out in the hallway.
Matt pulled the door open and walked out, waving Mike through. He cast one last backward glance at Josh, still huddled up on the floor and shook his head before closing the door behind him, hoping to God that Josh didn’t decide to get up and lock himself in. “Come on,” he said turning to Mike and leading him out to the kitchen. They passed the stylist and Ian along the way. Seconds later, Matt was standing at the kitchen island facing what felt like a firing squad, everyone wanting answers.
“Is Josh okay?” Ian asked first.
“He’s “fine”,” Matt said bringing his fingers up and making an air quotes gesture. “What I mean is that I think he’ll be okay. He just needs a little time. It’s my fault and I’ll show you why.” He looked at each of their faces and it hit him hard that this must be what Josh feels like every time he has to explain that he’s not doing well. Suddenly Matt understood why Josh kept so much shit to himself. It was easier to avoid it than admit it. Way, way easier.
Sighing, Matt reached down into his pocket and pulled out the razor blade. He dropped it onto the counter and shivered once again at the click of the metal as it hit the marble counter top and bounced once. All eyes immediately shifted from Matt to the steel and back again. “Ok, what the hell, man? What is this?” Mike’s patience had worn extremely thin and he was done playing games.
Matt sighed a second time and everyone watched as his hand went to his sleeve. He unbuttoned the cuff and rolled it up to reveal the bandage that Josh had expertly wrapped around his arm. “It was me. I did it.”
“You? Why? What happened? Are you okay? What’s going on that you haven’t told us? What’s going on in your head?”
He didn’t even need to look up or hear that it was the only female voice in the room that spoke. The words alone gave the stylist away. He bit the inside of his bottom lip and squeezed his eyes closed momentarily before resting his arm on the counter. Suddenly his whole body felt heavy. He was completely drained. This had been a hell of a day and he wasn’t sure how much more he could take before he said something that he’d regret.
“I…well…there was a point I wanted to make to Josh. I wanted to show him how stupid this whole thing was. I wanted to make him realize that when he cuts the shit out of his body, it worries us. I needed him to see that hiding those thoughts, those feelings, those actions…it’s just not okay. It wasn’t my first effort to make him realize that, but it was, however, my last ditch. I don’t know what else to do to get through to him. I think…I think this really rattled him, though.” Matt had grown tired of everyone staring at his bandaged arm, so he quickly shoved his sleeve back down into place and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“What do you mean “rattled”?” Ian asked. “How is he?”
“He didn’t look good, man. Not at all. He’s curled up on the bathroom floor and he’s not acting right,” Mike answered for Matt. He sat down on one of the bar chairs and rested his cheek on his hand. “I think Matt really freaked him out pretty badly. I’ve never seen him like that before. At least, not without already having some major stuff going on.”
Matt nodded. “It’s my fault. I think I really fucked up.”
Ian and Mike agreed, but the stylist spoke up. “Maybe not. I mean, maybe this really was what he needed to realize that he can’t keep hiding from us. It may have been kind of a drastic move, but it sounds like it really hit home and sank in, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. We just need to make sure Josh is okay.”
“How did he get the blood all over him, though?” Mike asked, sitting up and folding his hands on the counter in front of him.
“He…what?” Ian asked, turning to face Mike.
“Yeah, he had blood smeared all over the front of his shirt and there was blood on the floor, too.” Mike raised his eyebrows at Matt.
“Still me,” the guitar player admitted. “I bled like a bitch. I didn’t do that much damage to myself, but I still bled like hell and then I kind of got into a bit of an argument with Josh and I grabbed the front of his shirt. So that’s truly all me. Josh, for once, didn’t have anything to do with that.” He looked around and saw skeptical looks on everyone’s faces. “Honest.”
“Okay, man, we believe you,” Ian said, finally sitting in the seat next to Mike.
“What do we do about Josh? We can’t leave him sitting in the bathroom like that,” the stylist said. She walked around the counter and stood next to Matt, sliding her arm around his lower back and pulling him tight against her. It was a touch he needed and he immediately hoped she wouldn’t let go any time soon.
“I can’t go back in there,” Matt said leaning against her and draping his uninjured arm across her shoulders to keep her near him for just a little while longer.
“Are you sure?” Ian asked, sounding slightly irritated.
“I am. I can’t do it. Mike, you saw him. I caused that. I can’t go back in there.” Matt gestured toward the bathroom, thoughts of Josh with his head buried in his arms, crying, begging him to stay flashing through his mind. “I can’t…”
“Okay, okay…it’s fine. We’ll work it out.” The stylist patted his side lightly when she spoke.
“He didn’t actually respond well to me either,” Mike stated quietly. “I sort of accused him when I asked about the blood all over his clothes and the floor.”
“Well, fuck.” Ian shook his head. “I can’t do it. Blood…,” he said reminding them that he didn’t deal well with it.
The stylist rested her head very briefly against Matt’s shoulder before letting go of him. “I guess it’s back to me again. Okay. I’ve gotten through it before, I can do it again. The sooner, the better…right?” she asked, looking for approval.
“Yeah, that’s probably best. I’m actually worried he’s locked himself in the bathroom. I’m more worried that he had more razor blades that I didn’t know about. It was probably a really stupid decision to leave him in there.” Matt braced his hands against the counter and stared down at them.
“It’s okay, darlin’. It’ll be fine. I’m gonna go talk to him.” The stylist jogged down the short hallway to the bathroom door and knocked gently.
“Josh? I’m coming in,” she said without waiting for an answer. She pushed the door open and mentally prepared herself for a worst case scenario. Luckily what she saw wasn’t nearly as bad as what could have been. She saw the blood on the floor near Josh’s feet, but aside from that, everything else looked relatively normal. Josh seemingly hadn’t moved from his spot against the cabinets. He didn’t even look up when the door opened and she walked in.
“Josh?” she said again, kneeling down next to him. He was trembling, but his posture was exactly the same as it had been when Mike and Matt had left him approximately fifteen minutes prior. She reached out and very gently placed her hand on his upper arm. He flinched and buried his head further into his arms.
“No…,” he whined in a barely audible voice.
“Josh, it’s me. I’m not gonna hurt you. I promise.” The stylist spoke softly as she slid her hand up to his shoulder. He was shaking so badly that she was afraid he would fall apart. “It’s okay…it’s okay,” she repeated, hoping to keep him calm.
Instead of relaxing, he continue to recoil like a scared cat and that made her wonder what the hell happened between Josh and Matt over the last three hours. She had never seen Josh so afraid of being touched before. “You’re okay, Josh. I promise. I’m not gonna hurt you.” Slowly but surely, the stylist slid her arm across the singer’s back, waiting for him to pull away, but he never did. She rested her free hand on his closer arm. He didn’t feel at all cold, so the trembling and shaking had to be nerves or fear.
“Josh, darlin’, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.” The stylist lightly rubbed his back, wanting to keep her hands on him to let him know that she was only there to help. “It’s okay to talk to me. Please don’t shut yourself down. I know this isn’t like all the other times. This is different, isn’t it…” She spoke as if she knew, not even questioning.
If she hadn’t been watching, the stylist never would have seen Josh nod his head ever so slightly. “What’s different about it?” She reached up and smoothed the back of his hair several times.
“Everything,” he whispered. At least the singer was listening to her. That was a good sign.
“Can you be more specific?” The stylist held him a little tighter and watched as he shifted his position slightly, just enough to turn his toes inward in an attempt to try to take up even less space.
Josh nodded slightly, but didn’t speak. She waited for several minutes before trying to ask again. “Would you feel better if we went to go sit somewhere else?”
Under her hands, she could feel his breathing speed up. He gasped a couple of times and lifted his head so he could breathe a little easier. “Okay, we won’t move. We won’t go anywhere. You’re fine, you’re okay. Just breathe.” The stylist brushed Josh’s hair out of his eyes and once again, he shied away from her touch. “Josh, what happened? This isn’t like you…not even at your worst.”
For the first time since she walked in, he looked over at her. There didn’t seem to be any recognition. His eyes were red and glassy and there was a smudge of blood up his cheek. “Aw, Josh,” she whispered, blinking against tears that she could feel welling up in her own eyes. She leaned her head down against the hand she had on his shoulder and took a deep breath. It was no wonder Matt couldn’t come back in here.
The stylist felt Josh take a ragged breath and exhale slowly. It was obvious that the stylist wasn’t going to let go of him and even feeling like he was, her touch seemed comforting. Josh slowly stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankle, suddenly feeling like he no longer had to keep himself curled up. He still sat leaning over his lap, but it was a start. When the stylist sat up, Josh took the opportunity to lie down on his side, putting his head on her lap and drawing his legs up to his chest again. He had done this once before, the very first time he ever relapsed on the tour bus. Instinctively, the stylist put a hand against his ribs and softly stroked his hair with the other. He was tense, but he accepted her touch now. He reached up and caught the hand she had against his side, pulling her arm over him until she was leaning over his body with her hair hanging in his face. He had a tight grip on her hand and didn’t seem like he would let go any time soon.
“Are you comfortable?” she asked quietly, still running her hand over his hair.
“I’m fine,” he whispered. His voice sounded as if he’d spent the last few hours screaming, hoarse and gravelly. He couldn’t have been comfortable. He just didn’t want to move, but that was okay with the stylist. She was more concerned with why Josh was acting so timid and intimidated.
“Ready to talk?” She felt his grip on her hand tighten when she asked.
“There was so much blood…”
“Matt?”
“Yeah…” He shuddered.
“And you were worried about…what?” The stylist wanted to ask as many pointed questions as she could to get him to talk to her.
“Wasn’t…not worried. Just…so much…too much.” He only spoke in fragmented sentences when there was a lot swirling around in his head that he didn’t know how to explain. Eventually he would piece everything together, but for now, it left the stylist a bit confused.
“Breathe, darlin’…just breathe. Talk to me in full sentences.” She flipped her head back so her hair was out of her eyes and Josh’s face. With her hand against his chest, she could feel his heart pounding, but he complied and took a deep breath, then another.
“Something happened…at the Center…you don’t know. No one knows. So similar. Not Matt’s fault.” Josh squeezed his eyes closed, hoping it would help to block out the memory.
“I think this is something you need to tell everyone, Josh,” she said as gently as she could, expecting a fight.
“I know,” he whispered. “Need time...can’t do it now…”
“I won’t force you. When you’re ready, you’re ready. Just let me know. We don’t have to talk.” The stylist sat quietly, feeling the rise and fall of Josh’s chest until he was ready to speak to the others.
As the minutes ticked by, the slight trembling in Josh’s body started to subside and his breathing steadied. Though he still felt tense, he was no longer sniffling, no longer making quiet gasping sounds as he tried to calm himself. The stylist ran her fingers through Josh’s hair, brushing it back from his face. His eyes were closed, but she couldn’t tell if he had fallen asleep or not. “Josh?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Hmm?” he hummed back.
“How’re you doin’?”
He took a slow, shaky breath and let it out before answering. “Alive.”
“Can you do any better than that?”
“Not dead.”
The stylist saw a smirk tug at his lips and she knew he must be feeling even the slightest bit better if he was screwing with her like that. She gently pulled her hand from his and sat up, twisting a bit to stretch out the muscles that felt a little sore from sitting so strangely to appease Josh. She rested her hand against his ribs again. “Feeling well enough to go talk to the guys now? We can’t hide in here forever, darlin’. Eventually someone’s gonna need to pee.”
“Dude, they’re guys. They can use the kitchen sink.” Nonetheless, Josh put a hand on the floor and pushed himself into a sitting position.
“Okay, well…here’s the thing, I have to pee,” she said, watching as Josh rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Dude, use the kitchen sink!” he repeated the joke, and lowered his hands while grinning at her.
“Yeah, that would work really well,” she grinned back.
“You could always go use the same patch of grass that Bennie does. I wouldn’t stop you.”
The stylist lightly shoved him and laughed. “It’s fuckin’ freezing out there!
“So that’s stopping you then?” Josh asked, grinning wider.
She laughed again and stood. “Yes! No! You know what I mean! Just get out of here!”
Josh dipped his head briefly, letting his hair fall into his face as the smile left his lips. “Do I have to?”
“Dude…I’d really prefer that you did,” the stylist replied, gesturing to the toilet.
“Oh…yeah…can I wait outside?” He looked back up at her with a hopeful expression behind the still-glassy eyes.
“Yes, yes, that’s fine. Whatever you wanna do. Now just go before this gets embarrassing.” She held her hands out and yanked Josh to his feet before ushering him out into the hallway and closing the door behind him.
Once she was finished with what she had to do, the stylist washed and dried her hands using the same towel that Matt had used to clean up the mess around the sink as well as his arm. She held it out in front of her, sighing softly when she saw the faint blood stains covering the white material. “It’s not Josh this time, it’s not Josh,” she repeated to herself a couple of times before folding the towel and setting it back down on the counter.
Rethinking her decision, the stylist turned the tap back on and dampened the towel. She turned and knelt on floor over the blood-streaked tiles and worked to wipe them clean. No need for anyone to come back into the room to see that again. Not when she could easily take care of it here and now.
Once that was done, she stood and tossed the towel into the hamper she finally noticed near the door.
Opening the door, she walked straight into Josh who had been pacing back and forth in front of the door for the full three minutes she had been inside the room by herself. “Jesus Christ, Josh! Can’t you stay still for just a minute? You weren’t alone for more than five minutes.”
“I know, but I didn’t have anything else to do.” He shrugged.
“You could have gone out to sit with the guys, you know. They won’t hurt you.”
“Would rather have waited for you,” he admitted quietly.
“Are you ready to go talk to them?” she asked, slipping her hand into his.
“Am I fuckin’ ever?” he asked, glancing over at her.
“Well, let’s do this. Let’s get it over with.” The stylist led Josh by the hand back down his hallway and to the kitchen, where Matt, Mike and Ian still waited, looking more tired than before, but still awake enough for more discussion.
Mike looked up and gave Josh one of his infamous smiles that seemed to light up a room. “You’re looking better, man.”
Josh raised his eyes to the bassist and gave him a small smile. “Yeah…”
He glanced around the room until he found Matt, standing back against the cabinets in the corner of the room, with a water bottle in one hand. “How’s…how’s the arm?” Josh asked.
“Throbs, stings, still hurts, but it’s fine,” Matt answered tentatively. He raised the bottle to his mouth and took a drink to avoid talking more than he had to. Josh stared at him until he finally spoke again. “Everything better with you?”
Josh nodded. “Better…but not great.” The stylist nudged him with her shoulder. “I have more shit I need to tell you.”
“Good stuff or bad stuff?” Ian questioned as he spun around on the bar stool to face Josh properly.
“Umm…you’ll see.” Josh took his hand from the stylist’s and stuffed both of his hands into his pockets. “But first, can…um…can we get rid of this blade on the counter? Please?” He nodded to the razor that Matt had dropped onto the kitchen island nearly an hour prior.
Matt took several steps forward, grabbed it and tossed it into the trash can under the counter. “Okay, it’s gone. Now what’s up?” He set his water bottle on the counter and stood with his hands at his sides, watching as Josh shifted on his feet before speaking.
Josh stepped up closer to the counter and placed his hands on it, almost as if to keep himself stable. “Here’s the deal. Something happened at the Center that I didn’t tell you guys. No one knows except the people who were there and saw it.” Josh stared down at his hands as he spoke slowly, bringing them all back through his memories.
Josh could picture everything as if it was playing out in front of him all over again. He tried to describe the scene in as much detail as he could so his friends would understand what he was going through.
“It had been about two weeks since you guys were able to visit. I had a few setbacks…I know. It was my fault. I admit that. The bulimia…whatever. The past is the fucking past. But, I wasn’t feeling so great. I had sorta isolated myself in my room. Only came out when I had to, wasn’t writing anything, you know… I was just feeling generally really fuckin’ depressed. I couldn’t snap out of it. I missed you guys, I missed music, I couldn’t make myself write, I couldn’t bend my hand enough to play…” Josh absent-mindedly clenched his right hand into a fist as if to make sure his hand was now fully functional again. “I just wanted out of that place so fucking badly. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was about a month in and I just didn’t see any kind of end, you know? I was seventeen again and pissed as hell and just being there brought it all back.”
The rest of the band and the stylist stood around Josh, watching and listening as he told them all about the situation. Josh had slipped up a little while he was at the Center and wound up forcing himself to vomit after several meals, because he felt like he was unnecessarily gaining weight, not getting healthier, which was half the reason he was there. The nurses and doctors had put a stop to that as soon as they had found out what he was doing. Once again, he was back to being watched closely after meals and continued to have regular appointments with the doctors on staff. But he withdrew in a major way, despite everyone being on his side and trying to help him.
The two friends he had made at the Center, Portia and Dawson, had tried to get through to him, but made no headway, as he would close himself in his room and refused to answer the door. Josh spent his spare time lying on the bed, waiting to be deemed healthy enough to be released from that prison. He avoided anyone and everyone as much as he could, always choosing to sit by himself during group meetings and at meal times.
During a particularly bad day, the one person who had given him a hard time since first showing up at the Center decided to throw even more shit his way. Carrie was, at best, a disgruntled fan. She seemed to have it stuck in her head that Josh really was the world’s biggest asshole and continued to claim that he snubbed her after a concert, when in reality, he had simply been too ill to hang around the merchandise booth to sign things for her, even though the rest of the band did. He had to be carried back to the bus so he could lie down to stop his world from spinning in circles due to being as sick as he was from a sudden onset of vertigo.
Somehow, through a horrible twist of fate, Carrie had wound up at the Center at the same time Josh did and verbally attacked him within his first hour there, not giving him much confidence that things would go very well for him there. She made several sexual advances towards Matt, Mike and Ian when they came to visit Josh, and once that was found out, she was banned from having anything to do with him or his friends, which was just fine with all of them.
That arrangement had been going well enough until several days into the funk that Josh had gotten into. He had been forced to show up for dinner, and yet again, chose to sit by himself. He stared down at his food without really seeing it while he pushed a pile of vegetables around on his tray. He had no intention of interacting with anyone and only wanted to eat as much as he had to in order to be allowed to go back to his room for the remainder of the night.
Carrie, it seemed, had other plans. Walking by Josh’s table, she purposely bumped the edge with her hip, causing his soda cup to tip and the contents to flow over the table and down onto his lap before he was able to react. He rolled his eyes and spent the next five minutes wiping the mess up, then excused himself to go back to his room under the pretext of changing his clothes. In reality, he sat on the floor in the corner of the room in the dark until his ass had gone numb and he had to stand up to stretch. Through it all, he remained silent, speaking no words, except a nearly inaudible “fuck me” when he lifted his hands to run his fingers through his hair in frustration after sitting alone in his room for several hours as the night enveloped the objects around him while slowly uncovering things best left unspoken in his mind.
It was then that Josh knew he was melting down again, only this time, he truly was on his own. He had to keep it together. Things could be better, but they could be a lot worse. He’d been in both places and given the extent in which he was capable of spiraling downward, he much preferred the upswing. Unfortunately, with Carrie on his case as well as his own inability to remain stable for the moment, everything was getting to be too much all over again. The negative thoughts that he wasn’t good enough, that he wasn’t smart enough, that he was incapable of being the person that everyone wanted him to be were all coming to the surface yet again.
Flipping on the small light beside his bed, the singer paced back and forth across the floor. The time was well after midnight, but the last thing Josh wanted to do was sleep. No, that wasn’t true. He wanted to sleep, but he forcibly kept himself awake by wearing out the rug from window to door and back again just to avoid nightmares that would drag him back down to the hell he had gotten to know so well.
Stopping his pacing only temporarily, he leaned over the table near the window and put pen to paper for the first time in a week, spilling the words that had been floating around in his head since he had come back from dinner. “Even at best, I’m still less/Let it fall, let it break/I’m more than even I can take/The damage is done now, I’m the only one around…” He dropped his pen onto his notebook and continued walking the floor until the sun came up.
Only when the first hints of pink and orange seeped through the blinds did it occur to Josh that everything he wore was still sticky from the spilled soda the night before. His hair felt greasy and he realized that he couldn’t even remember the last time he had showered. Fuck it, who did he have to look good for? He didn’t even care enough to look presentable for himself. But still, he rummaged through his things until he came up with a clean outfit for the day and headed into the small, but adequate bathroom.
Josh set his clean clothes on the counter and slowly stripped out of his clothing, letting it drop to the floor. Stepping out of his pants and underwear, he twisted his body and looked down as he ran a hand lightly over the scars that littered his right hip. The sutures in his hand and forearm had been taken out days before and the feeling of skin on skin felt different than what he had become familiar with now that the sharp, pointy edges of the nylon knots no longer grazed his body. He reached around and skimmed his fingertips lightly over his lower abdomen - another place that he had used to score lines into his flesh. The singer sighed and bent his head down to look at the past damage he had caused. He’d seen it before, numerous times. He saw it every time he looked in a mirror, whether it showed or not. He saw it every time someone else looked at him. He saw it in their eyes, an awareness that he was sure they had about him before ever meeting him. That may have been in his imagination, but he swore to fucking God that he could see the pity in every single expression as he encountered new faces.
Trailing his fingers along his left arm, he tried to count the faint pink and white lines that he had grown so accustomed and almost immune to seeing, but there were too many. One bled into the next at one time or another and it was too hard to tell them apart, but even so, Josh could still remember where he was each and every time he took a razor blade to his skin. Numerous bathrooms, his bedroom, the tour bus, the occasional venue after a particularly hard show, the van the band toured in before they were well-known enough to be allowed on a tour bus. There was a reason he always chose the furthest seat back in the van. All those stories were written on his body, carved in tissue never to be erased. Wordless history for everyone to see and judge.
Josh slowly dropped his hands and stepped over to the shower. He turned the spray on at full blast, as hot as he could get it and stepped under the water. He knew, logically, that he couldn’t melt his past away, but damn if he wasn’t going to try each time he scrubbed his body.
Feeling clean, but not much better, he stepped back out of the shower and pulled on the fresh clothes that he had brought in with him. Another day in the hole, another day to work on getting better, another day wasted, he thought as he brushed out his hair in the mirror, fluffing it with his fingers and hoping that when it dried, he didn’t look too stupid. Josh plastered a smile across his face, but it looked fake, even to him. Fuck it, he would just nod and shrug his way through the day. If anyone would understand that he didn’t feel like being social, it should be these people.
As he stepped out of the bathroom carrying his dirty clothes in a ball to stuff inside his laundry bag, there was a knock at the door. A nurse he had never met before was summoning him to breakfast. Great…
Ten minutes later, Josh found himself alone and seated in the same spot he was the evening before, with a bowl of cereal, his can of soda and an apple on his tray. Portia and Dawson had both tried to sit with him, but as the dining area was still relatively empty at the time, he got up and moved twice without saying anything before they took the hint.
All through breakfast, Carrie stared at him, making him itch to crawl out of his own skin. She spent her time idly making knife-like gestures across her wrist with her spoon, making sure to do it only when Josh was watching. He mistakenly looked up once as he flipped his hair up and out of his eyes and he caught the redhead mouthing the words “you deserve it, whore” to him.
The way Josh’s mind worked, everything in life was layered and nothing was straight-forward. He thought in song lyrics and in melodies as well as metaphors and similes and rarely took things at face value. Her insult of “whore” could only have been a reference to one of his songs. He did so much damage to his body and he deserved everything, just like a “whore”. He deserved it…deserved it…deserved…
Josh reached out to grab his soda can and swallowed several mouthfuls to try to distract himself from the thoughts he had come to terms with years ago that still swirled in his head. Logically, he knew he should consider the source this time, but not-so-logically, he felt that anyone who was able to read those thoughts and recite them back to him had to be correct. They had to be seeing something that everyone else who denied those words just couldn’t.
The singer spent the next five days drifting in and out of group meetings and individual meetings with doctors and nurses, eating only what he had to, showering if he remembered and never coming close enough to touch his notebook of song lyrics and melodies. He slept as he could, which averaged about two hours a day, and it became obvious when the dark circles under his eyes started to look nearly as bad as they did when he first arrived after his fistfight with Matt. But still, he said nothing to anyone and continued to keep to himself.
On the sixth day after his most recent run-in with Carrie, she dropped down into a chair next to him during lunch. Josh stood up to move, but she reached out and pinned his wrist to the table. He didn’t have the energy to fight it and was so sleep-deprived that it didn’t register that he even needed to at first. Leaning over their arms, she was inches from his face as she growled, “I fucking hate you, you know.”
Josh shrugged and twisted his hand a bit in her grip, trying to free himself without causing a scene.
“Don’t you wanna know why?” Carrie’s fingers tightened around Josh’s wrist.
He shook his head, torn between wanting to know her reason and not wanting to even waste the effort it took to sit and listen, because no matter what she said, it wouldn’t make a difference. He definitely didn’t care enough to try to fix the problem.
“Come on, Ramsay. Somewhere in that drug-addled brain of yours, you must care what people think of you. You have to or you wouldn’t be here.” She narrowed her eyes, knowing that what she was saying was getting to him, as she could feel his pulse quicken under her grasp.
“I don’t care. At least, not about what you have to fucking say,” he said quietly. “Fuck you. Let me go.” In a more rested state, Josh would have found something better to say, some way to get out of the situation, but he had nothing left in him. He was exhausted and he was barely functioning, so he sat there and took her insults and her taunting.
“You do care. I know you do. And I’m gonna tell you… I despise you. I think you’re an awful human being and you deserve to burn in hell. I’ve seen those scars you keep hidden. You don’t think anyone knows, but I know. I know and I think you deserve every bloody fucking line you dig into yourself. You deserve it because it gives you just as much pain as you give to others. You fucking ruined my life. I went to that fucking concert of yours to tell you how great you are, that I admired you, that your band helped to save my fucking life and then you pulled that “I’m too sick to meet you” shit. Seriously? What a fucking ego you must have to think you’re too good to meet the fans who got you to where you are. Go to hell, Ramsay, go to hell. You’re the reason I’m in here.” Carrie picked up the plastic fork on her tray with her free hand and held it between two fingers. “Do you wanna know why, Josh?”
She surprised him by using his first name instead of his last. It seemed like some kind of weird psychological game, but he wasn’t buying into it. Josh shook his head again, wordlessly, and tugged his hand still trying to get free.
“Oh yes, I think you do. After that concert, I tried to kill myself. I had a suicide note all written out to be sent to you at your record label. I was going to blame you for the death of an innocent listener and used-to-be-fan. I had listened to every slow fucking song you’ve ever sung. I was there. I could feel it. Everything you were singing, you were singing to me, you asshole. I was ready. I tried so hard.” Carrie tightened her grip even further until her fingertips were white and Josh’s hand began to go numb.
“Let me fucking go,” he said keeping his voice low, still not quite having the sense to know that he could have gotten loose if he was able to put more strength and effort into his actions.
“I took pills,” Carrie said, continuing with her story as if she hadn’t heard a word he had said. “I took a lot of fucking pills and I waited. You ruined my life, you and those other fuckers. I gave everything to you and you treated me that way. I waited to die while your CD played on repeat, but you know what?” She traced the tines of her fork along the top of Josh’s arm, sending shivers through his body.
“What?” he asked, finally feeling nervous about the situation.
“I didn’t die. I woke up in a fucking hospital, strapped down to the bed. I’ve been here for months. They keep watching me, but they’re not here now,” she said lowering her voice. “No one’s here except you and me.”
“No, there are other people. Look around!” He gestured to several others in the room with his free hand, none of whom were watching the two.
“I don’t see anyone else. So now would be the perfect time to do what I was planning on. This worked out better than I thought. I don’t need to give you some anonymous, faceless note. You get to watch me die and live with it for the rest of your miserable fucking life.”
Before the words could connect coherently for Josh, Carrie let go of his wrist, turned her hand palm-up and jammed the plastic fork into her forearm, screaming and gasping. The pain became too much and she ripped it back out seconds later, causing four red rivers to ooze from the puncture wounds.
Josh shoved his chair back in a panic, not quite believing what he was seeing in front of him. Carrie dove forward and grabbed at the front of his shirt, staining Freddie Mercury’s face with red. She fell against him, fainting from the adrenaline rush, loss of blood, pain…Josh didn’t know. He caught her before she hit the floor, and by that time, four nurses and two of the staff doctors surrounded her, pushing Josh backwards and out of the way.
It was morbid curiosity that made him want to stay, but it was the sheer amount of people crowding around the scene that made him want to leave. In the end, Josh retreated back to his room, stripped off his shirt for the second time that day and put on a clean one. He shoved Freddie down to the bottom of his laundry bag and sat on the edge of his bed with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands for several minutes until he was able to come to terms with everything that had happened. “Shitfuckshit,” he mumbled to himself several times, gripping his hair, then releasing it.
Throughout the rest of his stay at the Center, multiple doctors questioned him about that day, what had happened, if he was okay, if he thought he could move beyond it, if he needed more help than he was being given and if he thought he could deal with everything once he was out of the Center. Josh simply explained what he could, agreed that he would be fine even though he had no idea if that was at all true, and said that he had friends that would watch out for him.
He spoke nothing to Mike, Ian and the stylist when they came to visit him in the following weeks. In fact, he was so intent on keeping quiet about the situation that he barely noticed that Matt wasn’t around. If he did, it didn’t quite register. It only meant that there was one less person he had to keep his secret from.
Portia kept her distance because Josh continued to push her away and she didn’t know how to handle that. She was busy working on her own recoveries and couldn’t spend her time making sure that Josh was okay too. Dawson had become so distraught by that whole scene that he was transferred to another behavioural health center the day after, without a word to Josh.
When the time came for Josh to be released back into the world, his friends showed up, once again without Matt, to get him and haul him and all of his gear back to the bus. Josh again said nothing when he walked back up the steps of the bus for the first time in two months and saw that Matt wasn’t there either. He dragged his carry-on bags and guitar to the extra bunk the group had dubbed the “junk bunk”, tossed them in and crawled into his own sleep space, sliding the curtain closed behind him.
When Josh had gone into the behavioural health center, the band had agreed to fly the bus driver back to Vancouver via return ticket with the understanding that the driver would fly back and drive them back home when Josh was released. The band and the stylist proceeded to live on the bus for the duration of Josh’s stay, allowing them to visit without having to run up a huge hotel bill. The day before Mike, Ian and the stylist picked up Josh at the Center, the bus driver had been flown back, so they were on their way back home only minutes after returning the rental car and climbing back up onto the bus.
Josh never once questioned where Matt was during the seven days it took to get back to Vancouver. Ian and Mike wanted to spill Matt’s secret about flying home, but when they tried to talk to Josh, he would only respond in one or two word answers before disappearing to the back lounge or to his bunk, making it impossible for anyone to explain what was going on. In the end, it was better off that Matt clarified anyway because no one could have explained how Matt was feeling or what he was thinking except the man himself.
“So,” Josh said, finally finishing the story as best he could, then looking up at Matt through the hair hanging down and covering his eyes, “that’s why I didn’t know you were gone. Or rather, why I didn’t know what really happened. I was just too absorbed in my own fucking problems. I was obviously aware that you weren’t on the bus and I knew you stopped coming to visit me, but I just didn’t have the fucking energy to really care why you weren’t on the bus at the time. I just knew that I felt…abandoned after you stopped visiting. I couldn’t make sense of anything after the shit with that lunatic. I knew that these guys,” he said looking around at the stylist, Mike and Ian, “were there for me, but, no lie, I was really fucking pissed at you for ditching me. I needed you just like I needed them. In the same breath, though, I felt like I had to figure shit out for myself before I could even entertain the idea that you didn’t just ditch out on me for something better to do, which is really how it fuckin’ felt, dude. I mean, I already felt like a waste of space and I fucked up enough to ruin the tour for everyone, which meant that you guys were just gonna hang around in a town you’d never been to just to visit me for a few hours now and again over an indefinite period of time. That shit…those thoughts…that’s what I couldn’t get away from. Even though you didn’t know it, that’s really kind of the reason I stayed with Ian for my first few nights out. I just had to get that shit out of my head and get myself together.”
“Josh, man…,” Matt started to say as he walked around the counter. The stylist took a step back to give him room.
Josh held his hand up to Matt to stop him in mid-sentence. “I know, I know. You did what you had to do. I get that. Now. I didn’t at first because I just didn’t see that you were dealing with shit too, and didn’t have it in me to question it. I was so fucking stuck in my own head.”
The guitar player nodded. “If it makes you feel any better, I felt like shit about leaving. It wasn’t fun and it wasn’t an easy decision, man. It was nothing I would have done if I felt like I had any other choice. It’s definitely not gonna win me any ‘best friend of the year’ awards. But man, if I even had the slightest clue about what you were trying to handle alone, I would have come back. I fuckin’ swear it, Josh. I would have gotten back on a plane the same day and come right back if I knew you needed me that much.” He stared down at the floor, toeing a small piece of dirt on the kitchen tile.
“I believe that. I mean, these guys just made up stories about how you were too busy to come, working on band stuff, writing, whatever… And I just fuckin’ accepted it because, well, you know where my mind was. But I should have told them about all that shit that I was trying to avoid. I know that too. But I guess I sorta…just…wanted to forget about it. I didn’t wanna drag it out or dwell on it any longer than I had to. It wasn’t until you came at me back there in the bathroom that everything hit me all over again. I guess I sorta freaked the fuck out, eh?” He motioned to the front of his shirt and cringed a little, finally noticing the mess that Matt had made for the first time.
Mike stood and Josh turned to face him, leaning back against the counter. The bassist bear-hugged the singer, acting on impulse and driven by the desire to make his friend feel better. Josh’s eyes widened a bit. He knew that Mike was a soft-hearted, touchy-feely kind of person, but he was still a bit jumpy about being touched after today. He forced himself to wrap an arm around the slightly shorter man and return the gesture.
The second Mike broke the hug and stepped back, the stylist, Matt and Ian had circled Josh and had their arms wrapped around him tightly. Josh laughed quietly and returned their hugs as well. “What the hell, dude? I give you a sob story and suddenly you guys are all over me?”
Matt dropped his arms to his sides and took a step back, giving Josh a small smile. “Man, we just didn’t know,” Matt repeated. “That was all bullshit you didn’t need. Not after everything else, you know? I get wanting to put it all behind you, forget it happened, all that crap. But Jesus, Josh…this was something important. I never, ever would have done what I did in there if I had known.” Matt pointed down the hall toward the bathroom.
“You know something?” Josh let a smile faintly tug at the corner of his mouth.
“What’s that?” Matt asked with a tone of curiosity.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever really shown me what it’s like to be…well…me. It’s fuckin’ terrifying, dude. You guys, you’ve all talked to me, you’ve done your best to help this douchebag get over himself, but I kept fucking up anyway. I think I get it now.” He looked over to Matt and pointed at the guitar player’s arm. “Because of that shit and leaving me to fend for myself…I dunno, man, I just…I think things finally clicked. I never did any of that shit to hurt you guys. It was always to hurt me. But now I realize how fucking scary it is to be on your end, watching me pull that. All of that back there in the bathroom may have reminded me of what happened at the Center, but all I kept thinking was…what if you wound up like me? What if you came as close to killing yourself as I have in the past? I can’t…I don’t…it just fuckin’ scares me, dude. Point made. Please don’t do that again.” Josh huffed and reached up to brush his hair out of his eyes.
Matt stuck his hands into his hip pockets and rocked back on his heels a bit, knowing that the stylist, Mike and Ian were watching him as intently as Josh was. “I told you when it happened, man…I wouldn’t do it again if you promise you won’t. Is it a deal? No more blades, no more hurting yourself. I mean, these are the lengths we go to for you just to show you that we care. You’ve now gotten blood, sweat and tears out of us in an effort to prove that to you.” He grinned at Josh.
Josh’s smile widened, showing off his ever-so-slightly crooked front teeth. “Yeah…Jesus, that’s true.” He turned his attention to the rest of the group. “Look, guys…I’m fuckin’ sorry. About everything. About this year, about last year…all of it.”
“We know. We can move on from here. Fresh start, clean slate, same old idiots.” Ian said, giving Josh a smile, which made him grin again in return.
“I wanna tell you,” Matt said, taking his hands out of his pockets. “I made up my mind. We stay the fuck together. We’ve gotten through this much together, so I don’t wanna go. I’m not leaving the band. I’m not going anywhere.”
Josh smiled and threw his arm around the guitar player’s shoulders. “I know I have to start depending on you all more and believing in myself more. It’ll happen. I just…need some time. I’ll get there.”
“We know, man, we know you will,” Mike said patting Josh on the shoulder. “Just trust us. We’re here for all of your pick-me-ups and fall-aparts. No matter what.”