Epilogue
Tommy knew he was in trouble when his nose began to burn and bleed. The room spun and whirled in crazy patterns. He should have known better than to try a new supplier. Shouldn’t have taken that last line. He slid to the floor, lights too much, world a blur. Everyone had been so angry with him. Had been for weeks. He’d been falling apart while they were all pulling it together.
It started with one pill. Something to calm him down. Then he would sleep and sleep and sleep. Then he needed a pick-me-up, and it became a cycle.
He’d failed, hadn’t he? Dane had called him for help, and he couldn’t do anything. Had been helpless before something he didn’t know could even happen. Bas had been a good choice for dealing with it all. That guy was smarter than them all put together, well maybe not with Adam thrown in there. Adam was pretty smart. Tommy was sort of responsible for bringing Bas and Dane together. They’d danced together all night, and seemed happy. So not everything Tommy did was a complete failure.
Ru would have been the better choice. The better man for Dane to lean on. Ru was strong, unwavering, with nerves of steel. He’d left Vocal Growth and made himself a star. Found the guy of his dreams. And even created a new home for himself far from everything he’d ever known.
Tommy wasn’t that strong. He put on a good front, but that’s all it was. He was supposed to be the one with everything together, the oldest of the group, the one who came from a good family and didn’t have the ghosts of a nasty history haunting him. But losing all he had worked so hard to create and watching the brothers of his heart struggle just undid him. Too many nights without sleep, his heart too heavy, he had reached for help in the wrong way.
Outside the bathroom door, the sounds of voices, music, and laughter rambled on, oblivious. Prom was in full swing.
Everyone talked about heading to Bas’s for the night for movies and food. No parents allowed, but it wouldn’t be the fuck fest most teens made of it. Tommy had been unsure of hanging with them. They made him feel old, directionless. His life a theater. What was he thinking?
He’d been coming to this, hadn’t he? Ru had voiced fears of this happening. Tommy had just come in to take the edge off. Too many faces, too many hands on him, eyes begging him for things he couldn’t give. The raffle had been a great idea. He shouldn’t have listened to Katie and let her convince him to come. Dancing with teenage girls who looked at him like he was somebody.
Heused to besomebody. Now who was he? Ru wouldn’t even let him join the tour this time.
“Caught you red-handed, you stupid fuck,” Tommy grumbled to himself, tucking his head into the groove between his knees. On tour Ru had caught Tommy in the middle of snorting a line. It hadn’t been his first, only the first time Ru had seen him do it.
Blood was pouring now, vision popping in and out like a TV with smoking circuits. He tasted the coppery tang of blood on his tongue and spit out pink-tinged bile. Shit, this was it, wasn’t it? He could see the headlines now. Another dead celebrity. Didn’t even make it to twenty-one.
Everyone would say things like “He was such a nice boy,” “He was so talented,” “He was gone so young,” or even “No one ever saw this coming, he was so stable.” Tommy closed his eyes wanting everything to just stop. And as darkness swallowed him, he couldn’t help but think it was for the best.
