Down Beat

by Max Henry

  “I don’t think they’d do that. Would they?”

  I shrug. “Everyone’s tired of the drama. Fuck, I am the most. But how do you change who you are?”

  God, I hope she has the answer.

  “You don’t.” She tugs my hand, urging me to look at her. “Why would you want to?”

  “Because I hate everything about who I am.” A weight lifts after letting that one little thing go, finally admitting the depth of my problem. And yet, at the same time I’m fucking terrified of what she’ll think of me. I opened the door to my blackened heart, and now I wait with bated breath to see what she’ll do with that opportunity.

  Seconds pass without her uttering a single word. Fuck—she can’t even look at me anymore. I prepare to pull away, to get back up and walk out that door, certain that the one person I thought might finally see me, might help me, was nothing but another case of misplaced trust.

  I tug my hand from her, and pull in a deep breath. Maybe I could walk down to the river, see how high that bridge is? Maybe I could step out into the busy morning traffic and cut out the possibility of changing my mind?

  I changed it once already in the past twenty-four hours, and look where that’s led me—straight to another disappointment.

  I really can’t take any more.

  My hands shake as I rise to my feet. Those tears are so fucking close now. Is this what the end feels like? A metaphorical dead end? Where do I go from here? I’m out of options, out of reasons to—

  “Rey.”

  I stall as Tabby stands too, her frame short and fragile next to mine.

  “Just.…” She doesn’t say any more, simply steps forward and forces her left arm under mine to slide both of hers around my middle.

  Fucking tears. There’s a first time for everything, right?

  Tabby forces herself against me, wrapping me tight in her hold as she also forces me to let her in. I toss out all the pretenses about how real men don’t cry as the years of putting on a show, of pretending I’m somebody I’m not, take their toll and the tears silently fall.

  My arm feels right against her back, her hair soft under my chin as she rests her head against my chest. We stand like that for longer than anybody should need to, her giving me everything I crave with her silent solidarity.

  This is why I forced a fracture in our schedule. This is why three thousand people were notified the show would be canceled and their tickets transferred to tomorrow night’s.

  Because a thousand miles away was a woman completely unaware of the power she holds in being nothing but her true self.

  Unaware of what she can do to save this dying heart.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tabitha

  “Send the Pain Below” - Chevelle

  What the hell do I do now? I should pull away, but something in my gut tells me he needs this. You don’t just fuck up a tour and fly however far he’s come to have a chat and then leave again.

  He’s asking for help without saying as much. And who the hell am I to deny that?

  “I’m sorry,” I murmur against his chest. God, he smells good.

  Rey’s hand shifts on my back, slowly stroking down to the curve above my ass before he sets it back where he started. “Why are you sorry?”

  “Because I don’t know what to do to make you better.”

  His warmth leaves me as he steps away, hands lingering on my shoulders before he lets me go completely. “Yes you do.”

  I match his frown, unsure what the hell he means. “Really?”

  He nods, the late-morning light from our front windows catching his face and highlighting the evidence of his distress. “You’re doing it now.”

  Okay. Now I’m totally lost. I convey as much in the tilt of my head.

  “Forget it.” He spins and stalks to the window. “What would you normally be doing this afternoon, kitty?”

  “Don’t blow me off and shut me out, Rey.” I follow, wedging myself between him and the glass so he’s forced to look at me. “How long are you here?”

  “As long as I want, I guess.”

  I sigh, shoulders dropping. “How long can you be here before it causes more disruption?”

  The downward curl of his lips makes him look like a kid who’s been told they can’t have the last cookie. “Tomorrow. I have to be back by four.” His dark eyes shift to the people on the street below.

  “Tonight we brainstorm, then.” I elbow him so he looks back to me. “Pizza, and I would say beer, but I can maybe swing a bottle of soda before my budget is blown.”

  The resulting smirk leaves me giddy for more of this. “I can buy the pizza and beer, kitty.”

  I want that pure happiness from him always. I want people to see that guy, not the snarky jackass he thinks people love.

  There’s nothing wrong with the real Rey. Nothing at all.

  “But,” he adds, his face turning dour again, “we hang out. That’s all. I don’t want to talk about me anymore, okay?”

  “Fine.” He can think again if he assumes I’ll let this go, though. “We can talk about me. I need your help, actually.”

  “Yeah?” Rey shifts his weight between his feet, one hand going to the window frame to brace him. “How?”

  “I need to know how to get my music from here”—I point to my head—“to the market. Tell me how to sell when I don’t have any money. Tell me how you started recording.”

  My breath hitches as he lifts his free hand and gently sweeps the side of his index finger under my jaw. “I can introduce you to people who can help, Tabby.”

  “I don’t want your charity, Rey. I want a mentor. That’s all.”

  His jaw flexes as his fingertip trails down my throat before he pulls his hand away. “I want to help, okay? There’s nothing else I can give you, so let me give you this.”

  Wrong—he has everything to give me. He can’t see how, is all.

  “We’ll argue about it later.” I shift my focus to the street below to save from doing anything rash.

  We’re so close, his hip pressed against mine. My left foot rests on the floor between his, our legs entwined as he effectively boxes me against the window, no thanks to me shoving myself in here.

  Really didn’t think that one through.

  I could leave, slip out and walk away. But after that confession on the sofa I don’t have it in me to abandon him, in any capacity. He needs me around, it seems, and I’ve literally got nothing else better to do with my time.

  Not that I think I’d rather be anywhere else, anyway.

  I feel him before I see the movement in my periphery. His breath is hot against my neck as he leans in close; his forehead and nose rest against the side of my face. It’s an intimate gesture, yet strangely respectful. He could have gone for gold and kissed me, he could have been crass and copped a feel, but instead it says so much more that he chooses to be close to me in such a way.

  My eyelids close as he remains there, face pressed against the side of mine. I startle when his fingers brush my hand, yet again it feels so natural, so right to let him slip his hold into mine.

  “I like being with you, kitty.” His whispered confession leaves a thrill tickling my spine. “It makes me feel better.”

  “I like having you with me too, Rey.”

  He was a jackass at the start. A right spoiled brat. Yet with the gift of hindsight I can see now that that Rey was nothing more than a mirage, a carefully constructed illusion to protect the real man behind the marketable image.

  I don’t lie: I like having him here. Having the real him here.

  Suitable words won’t come, the right sentiment lost in my struggle to convey within the capacity of a few short sentences how much I’ve grown to like him. I lose the chance all the same as he gently places a kiss to my temple, and then untangles himself from me to walk away.

  “Take it the bathroom is down the end of the hall?” he calls as he steps out of the living room.

  “Yeah.” My lungs expand with the fi
rst full breath I’ve taken since he walked in the door, the air bringing with it clarity I lost the moment he stepped into my space.

  He might be the broken one, but I can guarantee by the time I’ve put Rey Thomas back together, it’ll be me who’s left in pieces. He’ll go back to his gifted life, never having to want for a thing, and I’ll return to mine, somewhat less whole than I was going in.

  So when do we start?

  TWENTY-NINE

  Rey

  “Suicidal Dream” - Silverchair

  Dusk dulls the sky outside as Tabby-cat and I sit on her living room floor, the flyer for the local pizza shop between us. I rocked up here a little after breakfast not entirely sure what sort of reception I’d get given the way I’ve treated her, but I was sure of one thing—this is the right decision.

  My phone’s been off all day, and I’ve resisted the urge to check Messenger or my emails. Still, the promise of the shit storm I’ll face when I return to the tour leaves me a little panicked every time the thoughts creep in.

  “I have one firm rule,” Tabby announces with a lift of her palm. “No anchovies.”

  “Deal.” I nod once, rereading the list.

  I can’t stand the fucking things either, but if she’d said they were her deal breaker I would have gladly held my breath with each bite just to please her.

  “Can’t go past one stacked with meat.” I point to the option that seems to cover all bases when it comes to being carnivorous.

  Tabby leans forward a little to read the list of toppings. I shamelessly steal the moment to commit her to memory. She’s fucking beautiful without trying. Fucking beautiful. I have no doubt that half of her appeal comes from what shines within. Where my soul is beaten and bruised, hers brings warmth with it that I don’t think I could manufacture if I tried.

  “Okay. We’ll get that one if you’ll humor me and buy the devil’s food cake for after.”

  “Deal.”

  She rises to her feet, flyer in hand. “Cash or card?”

  “Cash.”

  Tabby crosses to where she left her phone on the counter while I kick back, weight on the heels of my hands as I watch her. My gaze drops to the boots on my feet, the studs adorning the sides, and the strategic worn patches on my designer ripped jeans. For a moment there I forgot who I was while we hung out today. It’s not as though we did anything special. She found some old nineties movie on the TV, and aside from that we made small talk about daily life. The only thing that reminded me I’m Rey the recognizable face, and not Rey the guy with fucking needs and wants, was when she offered to head downstairs to the pastry shop to get something sweet for lunch on her own.

  She had a point: if I want to take time out, I need to stay incognito. And apparently I was recognized the last time I was here, even though I didn’t see it.

  “Shit.” She turns to face me, still looking down at the phone in her hand. “Toby’s been blowing up Kendall’s phone looking for you.”

  Dang it. My perfect day fizzles with a pop and a bang.

  “Suppose I should call him.”

  She frowns further, still reading. “Do they know where you are?”

  “Not entirely.” I roll to my side and then stretch out to pull my phone from my jeans.

  I look up to find Tabby watching me with a raised eyebrow.

  “I told them I needed today off and walked out of the hotel.”

  “And then?”

  “Then nothing. I switched my phone off and jumped in the cab out front.”

  She sighs, clearly frustrated. “You didn’t tell them where you were going at all?”

  I shake my head as my phone powers up. “Didn’t want them bugging me.”

  “Toby is apparently going nuts because he thinks you’ve gone somewhere to harm yourself.”

  Oops. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “You know what?” She drops down onto the floor in front of me. “I looked you up the day after we met so I could learn a little about this guy who made me a crazy offer to open for his concert.”

  For some reason knowing that makes me like her more.

  “But aside from that, I resisted doing the whole ‘learning who you are through the media’s eyes’ thing. I didn’t want other people’s opinions, the dirty laundry stories they love using to cut people down, to taint my own assessment of you. I like to learn about people for myself and give them the benefit of the doubt.”

  “But?” I ask, unsure where she’s headed with this.

  “But,” she says with a sigh, “I need you to tell me what the headlines about your suicide attempts referred to.”

  Fuck it. I really wanted to avoid this with her. Not always. Just now, and then however long I could drag it out after that.

  “If you want me to help lift you up, Rey, you have to show me where you’re coming from.”

  Christ. Why does this have to be so hard? Like she said, it’s all in the media if she wanted to look it up. But it’s not. What the media know and what I know are like the PG version versus the all access pass.

  “Why do they worry about you so much?” she asks carefully, brow pinched.

  My phone interrupts the moment with its barrage of notifications. I set it aside, figuring if they’ve waited twelve hours, they can wait a bit longer. Besides, Café Girl probably confirmed where I am.

  “The media only know about what I’ve done since I started recording.”

  Tabby’s gentle exhalation is as loaded a response as I expected.

  “I first tried to end things when I was fifteen. Toby stopped me.”

  She settles in, folding her legs before her.

  I reach out and trace my fingertip along the side of her hand, somehow disbelieving that this patient, beautiful creature is real. I don’t tell people about this stuff because it hurts to. Mostly because I’m ashamed. I read the statistics; I know how many mentally affected people there are. One in four, or something like that?

  Still. I don’t like being weak. I hate that the failures are all based around my lack of control. I know what’s wrong with me, and I understand how it works, so why can’t I stop it? Why do I feel like a spectator to my own carnage-filled train wreck some days?

  “You can trust me, Rey. I’m not here to judge.” Her words are a quiet comfort, encouraging. “I only want to understand.”

  Do it. If not her, then who? Worse comes to worst, I walk away and get the lawyers to pay her a fuckload to sign a NDA. Not as though that hasn’t happened already. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.

  “I had rounds of counseling after that first attempt.” I withdraw my hand. It feels filthy to touch something so pure when I’m so dirty. “They helped get me level enough that I wasn’t a risk, so to speak. After a while, my family stopped asking so many questions, stopped monitoring me so close. They thought I’d beaten my demons when I got a recording contract. I’d made it, you know? So everything should have been peachy.” I plaster on a fake smile, waving my hands beside my head to mimic how pleased everyone was. “Thing is, you never beat them—your demons. They play nice for a while, that’s all.”

  “What changed?” She tucks her legs to her chest, pizza flyer and phone still in her hand as she hugs them.

  “Pressure. Suddenly I wasn’t on my own timeline anymore. I had people to keep happy, things I had to do before I could take care of myself. I drank a lot. That’s how I tried the second time; the one you would have read about.”

  Tabby’s brow pinches further.

  “We’d come off putting together our first album. The lyrics are pretty deep in that one. I thought it was a good thing, getting all that pain out through my art, you know? But it backfired. It just held all that misery up in front of my face day after day until I couldn’t face singing the songs one more time, until I wanted to avoid any chance of hearing them ever again.”

  “What did you do?”

  I spin my phone on the carpet, ashamed to even admit it. “Got drunk and tried to base jump from our fucking hotel bal
cony.”

  She swallows hard. “What stopped you?”

  I can’t look at her. See how this makes her feel. Not when I know how I felt at the time was twenty times worse. “My drunk ass fell the wrong way and I cracked my head on the railing. Kris dragged me inside that time. He doesn’t say anything about it, but he holds on to that grudge. I see it.”

  “But that’s not the end of it?” She lifts her hand to wipe away a stray tear, yet her face remains impassive. She’s determined to hear me out.

  “I can’t keep telling you this, kitty.”

  “You have to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to see what I do.” She gestures for me to go on.

  I scoot forward and slide my legs either side of hers, reaching around her smaller body to encase her in my arms. “Are you sure?”

  Tabby nods, another stray tear threatening to fall.

  I rest my forehead against hers, close my eyes, and continue. “Six months later I swallowed my fresh prescription of sleeping pills. Rick’s old man, Wallace, made sure that doctor never worked with us again. I’ve got it on file now that I get metered anything I’m prescribed.” She sets her things aside with a sigh. The soft touch of her hands as they wrap around the outside of my upper arms encourages me to list the last, and most recent.

  Nobody knows about it—nobody but me.

  “The week before we started the tour I tried to do that again. Except when you’re not allowed anything with any real strength, you have to improvise.” My heartless laugh falls into the void of silence around us. Tabby sighs, hands flexing. “I thought maybe if I mixed enough painkillers—regular strength shit—with alcohol, I could get some epic concoction going. But I fucked it all up. I drank too much before I started, and so by the time I’d chugged the first packet of pills, I was so fuckin’ drunk I knocked the bottle onto the floor. All I had left was top shelf, which isn’t the best thing to chug when you’re halfway cut on bourbon already.” I frown at the vibrations that move through me from Tabby, eyes still closed to avoid her pain. “Long story short, I passed out, vomited in my sleep, and woke up with one hell of a hangover. You’d think the painkillers would have dulled it all, right?” I chuckle again, yet it’s a hollow plea for forgiveness. “I was sick as a dog for four days afterward while the low-level poisoning worked its way out of my system. Told the guys I had a stomach bug so they wouldn’t question why I was in the bathroom so much.”