Hollow Stars

by Lauryn Dyan

  What about the others? I immediately default to blaming drugs and alcohol yet, while that may have been true at first, I’m not so sure now. One Vicodin taken eight hours before an incident. Two leisurely beers. One wimpy shot. None of those sound extreme enough to have caused the end result. A few other factors could be contributing, namely stress. Unfortunately, the worse this gets, the more stressed I become. It’s a vicious circle. Still, I don’t believe its stress, my shitty bed, aging, and a minimal amount of substances making this happen. It doesn’t add up.

  Every search result ends almost the same.

  “In rare cases, other causes may include a more severe condition including tuberculosis or syphilis. See a doctor to determine the cause and treatment for your form of amnesia.” Fuck. They tell you not to self-diagnose via the Internet and now I see why.

  I skip the tuberculosis and STD since I’m not coughing up blood and, though I may partake in sins of the flesh, I always use protection, and stick with researching amnesia. I tap the first link in a new search which leads to information on dissociative amnesia. Straight from WebMD, it’s a “mental illness that involves disruptions or breakdowns of memory, consciousness, awareness, identity, and/or perception.” I never considered until now I may be mentally ill. It sounds like something out of the movies; the psycho rock star. My hands sweat in their death grip as I consider the possibility. Damn, I wish I could take a Xanax or three right now.

  That can’t be it. I am not crazy. And if I’m not, the only explanation is someone is screwing with me. I can’t afford to ignore or gloss over my growing suspicions of Rickly anymore. He’s there every time something goes wrong. A knot settles in the pit of my stomach as I realize I need to start keeping my distance from him, at least to test if that corrects the problem. Then, hopefully, I can rule him out.

  I wipe away a single tear that runs down my face and into my hair. I can ditch the alcohol and drugs completely if I have to, but I’m not sure I’m strong enough to give up my addiction to him.

  ***

  My ceiling is littered with a slew of mental images. After finishing that damning article, I tossed the magazine on my nightstand and began filling my checkerboard for the first time in a while with puzzle pieces. This time, Davey’s face lies on the middle tile, and I’m assembling every questionable incident on the eight rectangles around him as evidence of his part in this.

  On the bottom, I have the mysterious incidents here at the institution. I don’t have to envision that horrible K as it’s literally there in the corner, carved in the ceiling to haunt me daily. Davey is tall, but he still would have needed a boost to do that. Perhaps he brought a stool to help with his mission? Doesn’t seem very discreet.

  My creepy night visitors live in the box next to the K. First, the tattooed arm reaching across the nurses’ station. Davey has a full sleeve tattoo ending with the ring of hollow stars that matches mine. I wish I’d gotten a better look that night to verify the mark instead of screaming like a banshee. Then there was the ghost eerily whispering my name. That could have been a guy’s voice—it was just too soft to tell.

  In the other corner, there’s my vandalized song. The disfigured star and ominous words obliterate your mind etched across the paper. If only I could remember what Davey’s handwriting looks like. It doesn’t stand out in my mind even though I saw him write a thousand times. I should hire a handwriting analyst. Too bad doing that would increase the perception I’m paranoid and crazy.

  As I travel up from the bottom, I relive the things that happened on the tour. On either side of Davey’s face are the blackouts I suspect I can connect to him. First, when he told me nothing lasts forever on the boardwalk. While he and Rickly were tangled together in that dream/memory, I’m leaning towards it having been Davey who said those toxic words. Then there’s the night someone wrote they might hate me in my bunk. Again, Rickly is the obvious suspect, but there was someone else walking around the darkened bus before the words appeared. It could have been Davey. The song was on his iPhone, so he knew the lyrics. I can’t believe he’d do that but, in truth, I can’t believe he’d do any of this. It’s strange suddenly seeing someone you trusted, and loved, like a brother in a sinister light.

  Then, on top, taking up three full rectangles is the most incriminating evidence of all. His quote from the magazine. Couple that with his willing, and eagerness, to write whenever Samantha asked and his motive becomes abundantly clear. He wanted me out of the way so he could take over. To snatch what I built and make it his. He must have known my friends would never go for it. So the only way to take it was to make it look like I lost it on my own. Piece of shit bastard.

  ***

  I wake facing away from my tan curtain the next morning phone still in hand, having fallen asleep mid-Google search. I could have researched my issues all night, but the boring, medical jargon wasn’t enough to fight my exhaustion. The buzz of an incoming text message makes me open my bleary eyes. It’s from Rickly.

  “Babe, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get pissed last night. I’m protective of you. When you said you’d had a drink and blacked out, I was upset. Not with you, but I took it out on you. Does that make sense? And you’re right, I’m no better. I don’t drink or take stuff only because of you. I just do it more when I’m with you.”

  Well, that’s a convoluted apology if I’ve ever heard one. I stuff my phone under my pillow determined not to reply when it buzzes again. I reluctantly pull it back out unable to resist.

  “Can we talk sometime today? I missed you last night.”

  Seeing the feeling I can’t deny echoed in his words softens me. I missed him too, but I have to stick with my plan of creating space between us. A big sigh escapes my lips as I hit the screen to type. I begin with an, “I missed you too” but quickly delete it. I need to be a frigid bitch if this is going to work. I try once more.

  “Can’t. Got to be at a meeting with the band and then soundcheck.” I hit send and my heart sinks. I just need one hit. One hit of Rickly.

  “Okay. Later?” he sends back.

  “Maybe,” I reply, not knowing if I mean it. I bury my head deep into my covers to stifle a scream of despair.

  ***

  “You seem different today,” Craig remarks, taking in my relaxed posture and steady gaze as I sit in my usual chair for our session. Perhaps I am. Despite the burning rage that grips me when I picture Davey-the-Betrayer, the seesaw I’ve been riding between thinking I’m bat-shit crazy versus a victim is finally tipping to one side. It envelops me in a sense of calm. I’m not on high-alert, ready to spar with some unknown, crippling mental illness. If my memory loss, or most of it, is the result of sabotage then my brain isn’t completely broken. I’m just a once-repressed wild child with daddy issues who dove off the deep end while on a rock tour.

  My defensiveness has also melted away. Even though I’m unsure how I’ll ever explain my theory about Davey so Craig believes me and doesn’t think I’m regressing, I’m not ready to shout “neener-neener I was right the first time!” and blow off therapy altogether. I guess I’ve matured the past few months and now realize, no matter the circumstances that brought me here, I needed help in one way or another. To reconnect with my father. To deal with emotions and memories I didn’t know I was repressing. To discover I have an addictive personality so I can keep it in check. And most of all, to gain the tools to piece together what happened on the tour, no matter what shattered the picture. Maybe I don’t have the whole truth yet, but I’m so damn close.

  “I feel different,” I offer. “I haven’t had a blackout in several days, that I know of.” The last one was with Lita after she recounted my tattoo debacle at least a week ago. It’s probably the longest I’ve gone without an incident here.

  “That’s great,” Craig affirms. “You've been making excellent progress. If you continue down this path, we can discuss your discharge. With continued out-patient treatment after, of course.”

  I beam. “Of course.”
I’m coming for you fuck-face.

  Chapter Thirty

  I float through our next few tour stops in a fog, disconnected from what’s going on around me. I don’t remember the names of the cities let alone states we pass through, nor do I care. We could have played the same venue every night and I probably wouldn’t have noticed. It doesn’t matter where I am; it’s all the same world crumbling around me.

  Despite being a skittish mess, I still try to give my best performance once I hit the stage, but I’m failing. I haven’t blacked out since Nashville, but the paranoia that haunts me as I take the mic is devastating. It’s hard to be wild and uninhibited when you’re waiting for the darkness to take over. It’s like I’m going through the motions. I won’t let myself be vulnerable up there anymore.

  The rest of the band has of course noticed. They’ve tried talking to me about it several times, but no one can shake my worries. Oli came close. He stayed up one night on a long bus drive watching me sleep to make sure I never got up and did anything crazy, but all he saw was me restlessly flopping around. It gave me a momentary sense of relief but, since past experience tells me an episode could strike day or night, it was short-lived.

  I haven’t drank, or done a single drug either, and I miss it. I’m now tormented by this brutal awareness of everything going on around me without my faithful numbing agents. I fixate on behaviors I never would have given a rat’s ass about before. Sonny’s worried glances and reassuring grasps; Jack’s uncomfortable jokes to lift my mood; Oli’s growing, big brotherly concern; Davey’s denial anything is wrong; and Samantha’s new apprehension shoving that stick further up her ass. It consumes me and I’m powerless to change it.

  Most of all, I’m aware of Rickly. Every move he makes. Every stare he casts my way when he thinks I’m not looking. He hasn’t seemed himself either though I’m judging that from a distance. We haven’t had any time alone, or physical contact, since Nashville. Our conversations are short and curt, if it all. Our text messages have dwindled to one a day at best. It crushes my heart like concrete in my veins. He’s even gone dark on his personal social media so I can’t creep on him.

  Right now, the band and I are quietly huddled on the bus watching TV as we head to Philadelphia. I only know this because Jack cried, “Cream cheese, fuck yeah,” at breakfast when we passed the welcome sign. That means only two stops before we head to Canada and Sheltered goes their own way. Do I try to clear things up with Rickly before then? I’m not sure. The fact the blackouts stopped as soon as I distanced myself from him is not a good sign. Yet I can’t deny I miss him. My ache for him radiates down to my soul. When he walks past me to hang out with Ace and RBYW, or talks with Davey and Aaron instead of calling to me, I want to curl in on myself and sob until the pain is gone.

  Does he miss me like that? Or was this his plan all along?

  ***

  Lita and I stroll leisurely, side-by-side, around the yard. She’s leaving tomorrow. Her stay seems short but she says she never planned to be here this long. The last few times she was in an institution it was just for a couple days.

  “I realize we don’t know each other very well but I wanted to extend my time here, partially because of you,” she admits, as we pass the main building and start our second rotation.

  “So it wasn’t the super fun group therapy sessions?” I joke.

  “No.” She chuckles. Lita had to go to therapy too but she’s in a group specific to depression, hence not seeing her there.

  “So was my power in making you stay a good or bad thing?” I ask.

  “Good,” she assures me. “I saw you working so hard to figure out what was wrong with you. Your willingness to fight a more elusive enemy than mine made me want to face my demons head-on. I got a taste of what my life could be without depression before my last episode and I want that again. This time though, I’m going to make sure I keep getting help even while I’m better so it doesn’t slip through my fingers.”

  A smile tugs at my mouth.

  “I’m glad I could be inspiring. Especially when that’s the last thing I expected to be here.”

  She stops walking to look me in the eyes.

  “I think it’s who you are. You need to get back out there and show the world you’re still a badass; that ending up here doesn’t have to be an ending.”

  My smile is unleashed full force.

  “I plan to do just that.”

  ***

  Buzz.

  Text from Rickly: “I’ve been trying to give you space, but it’s killing me. Can we please talk tonight before the show?”

  God, I want to so badly. Am I weak to give in? No, I need to do this. Like any good cause and effect experiment, you need to reintroduce things to find out if what you eliminated is a trigger. At least, that’s how I’ll justify it.

  “Sure. Let’s talk.” I reply.

  His word bubble pops up, then down, up then down, longer than it should. He must not have expected me to say yes.

  Finally, he finds the words: “Thanks, babe. I know we can work it out. Meet me at my van after the equipment is unloaded.”

  “Ok” is all my shaking fingers can muster. The tremors originate in my racing heart where a potent mix of anticipation and nerves have taken hold.

  ***

  I practically skip down the sterile asylum halls back to my room. It’s amazing knowing I inspired someone, even if I really didn’t do anything but be me. It’s like the circle is complete. Pete and Jade helped me indirectly with their stories, and so I helped Lita. I understand why Craig wanted me to interact with other patients, damn effective bastard.

  Opening the door to my room, I catch the first glimpses of the light fading outside. The news was on in the rec room for once and the weatherman predicted rain this week but, so far, it’s only been sunshine. I like a good storm. For some reason though, I feel a jolt in my brain like the iron curtain has been electrified when I imagine a stormy night. Perhaps there’s something there, and I find myself praying for rain. I need every memory, no matter how minute, to finish solving my mystery.

  Switching on my lights, I spot the magazine I was reading last night on my bed.

  “That’s weird,” I mumble. I thought I’d put it on my nightstand. The cleaning crew could have moved it, but I doubt they’d have flopped it open in such a haphazard way. I might have moved it if I blacked out but I don’t believe I’m missing any pockets of time today...

  I walk over to the bed, tentatively, like the rag is an unmoving animal I fear may be dead and find it’s turned to the first two pages of our article. Something is off. The glossy photo of us in the park reflects the light on my wall, but that’s not it. It’s that I’m missing. My portion of the image, the right side where I was already separated from the band, has been torn out, a jagged edge left in its place. I stare with wide eyes, stifling a cry. I carefully pick up the magazine and shake it, hoping the missing piece will tumble out. When it doesn’t, I search my room. Fuck. It’s nowhere to be found.

  ***

  Awkward silence. Rickly and I perch in the back of his van with the doors flung open, our matching black-clad legs dangling over the bumper above the asphalt. All his band’s gear has been unloaded and the sight of the empty vehicle reminds me of happier, carefree times where we used to fool around back here when we thought no one was paying attention.

  Right now, neither of us knows where to begin. How to crack the frigid ice that’s spread and solidified between us the last few days. I could be on a glacier in Antarctica that’s how cold and lonely I feel despite his warm proximity.

  A part of me wants to demolish this barrier. To grab him and hold on for dear life as the ice melts around us, but another part is also afraid. Of what he may have done and still could do to me. I don’t want to be one of those girls that stays in a toxic relationship because she can’t bring herself to walk away, but I understand now why that’s so hard. Especially when you’re in love.

  Rickly clears his throat and
I meet his eyes for the first time since we sat down. They’re the same beautiful blue I’ve stared into a hundred times, but they look harder, sadder than I remember.

  “I...” he begins, then stops. He scratches his hair nervously before he tries again. “I hate this. We should be together, facing whatever it is you’re going through united, not divided.”

  He sounds so sincere, I want to believe him.

  “I’m not sure what I’m facing, or who for that matter.” I give him a weighted look, hoping it conveys what I mean without having to say it. He understands immediately.

  “It’s not me. I have nothing to do with this. I don’t know what to do to make you believe that,” he pleads.

  I shake my head.

  “I don’t know either. Aside from figuring out what’s happening to me on your own to prove your innocence, I can’t come up with a solution.” I bite my lip. “I haven’t had an incident since the last time we spent any real time together.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything!” he shouts, making my legs kick-out startled. He exhales flustered and dials back his tone. “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. We’ve been nearly inseparable the last few months. It’s like saying you give me heartburn because you’re there when it hits me.”

  “That’s not the same and you know it,” I say, as gently as I can.

  “Maybe not, but the principle is the same. Your entire band is always around when it happens, too.”

  He has a point there. I just don’t see a motive. Hurting me only makes them suffer too. Then again, I’m not sure Rickly’s motive either.

  “They are,” I concede. “But I don’t get the impression it’s one of them.”

  “But you get that impression from me.” He hangs his head and there’s such despair in his voice I want to console him and tell him I still have doubts, but I don’t. It’s crazy how quickly my emotions can change when he’s near.