Page 150 of Down Beat

FIFTY-THREE

Rey

“Ordinary World” – Duran Duran

“First quarter payments went out yesterday,” Rick tells me as he follows me into my private room. “Ironic really.”

“What is?” I drop into the plush armchair by the window. Going to miss this comfy fucker.

“That she finds out the truth the day you’re discharged.”

I did the rehab. For kitty. And fuck me sideways if it wasn’t exactly the break I needed. I expected a daily regime of pills and twice-weekly Kumbaya sessions. But it wasn’t anything like that. Apart from the visits to the counselor every week, you’d be excused for thinking it was a compulsory stay at a resort.

“You ready to go if I duck out and do the paperwork?”

“Gagging, my good man. Get me the fuck out of here.”

I said it was the break I needed, not that I enjoyed it.

“I’ll go sign the gazillions of fucking forms then and meet you out front.” He pulls his phone out after it starts to ring, answering as he disappears down the hall.

I survived the last week of the tour high as a goddamn kite. I barely slept, living it up in my final free days with a mainly liquid diet before signing on to become sober.

I put the band through hell, most of all my brother. Thing is, I can safely say without a doubt that if it weren’t for Toby I would have found a way to try again. Jump off a balcony, walk in front of a train—with the mindset I was in, I wouldn’t have given a fuck if it weren’t quick and painless, as long as it worked.

But he stuck by me, going without sleep I’m told, all to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid. I love that stupid motherfucker, more than I’ve ever told him.

One of the many things I plan to rectify once I’m on the outside of this goddamn clinic.

I have a shitload of work to do to get my career back to where it was. I sabotaged what I had, and I did it in spectacular fucking fashion. Like the shooting star I was, I burned too bright and hit that bottom kitty talked about, and fuck did it hurt. But amidst the chaos, I also wrote what I think is my best song yet.

Her song.

I drove the guys crazy, keeping them up every fucking night while I sat in the hotel room with my guitar banging out the verses. I literally played until my fingers bled those first nights after she left, determined to not only get it right, but to get it perfect.

She’d cut me off, refused to answer my messages, and set her phone to send my calls direct to voice mail.

That song was my goddamn message in a bottle, and today, it washed ashore.

I pull my phone out and open Instagram to take a final shot from my room. I make it an artsy selfie, doing the whole looking-at-nothing trick as I gaze out the window. Set the filter to a black-and-white one, and fuck me if it doesn’t look semiprofessional. Got yourself a backup talent right there, you dumb fuck.

I post the picture with the caption “Home time” and then rise to grab my bag. I hesitate when my gaze settles on the bulge created by my notebook. I wrote a dozen new pieces, some of which need polishing, but that isn’t what has me undoing the zipper to pull the hardback out.

Nope. I flick through to her song and then park my ass on the edge of the chair one last time while I read it over. Only this time I don’t read it with my critical eye, picking holes in my choice of words, or places where I could have tightened up the flow. I read it with her eyes. I put myself in kitty’s shoes and try to imagine how she’ll feel when she hears these lines. Because she will hear them. Angry, sad, or happy: however she feels when she gets that royalty check, I know she won’t be able to help herself.

Back at the start again,

That’s where you and I stand.

Only this time is different.

Because you won’t hold my hand.

I stepped into the shadows,

Not afraid of what was to come.

You stepped out into the light,