“I’m right.”
“Whatever.” He brushes a hand through his hair, tattoos stark against skin. “You’re right. I don’t have anyone else to talk to about this shit. Does that make you feel better?”
“No. Why would that make me feel better? I’m not happy you’re on your own. So that’s why I’m offering to talk. If you want to.”
Tension pours off of him in waves, but finally he exhalesand rubs the back of his neck. And once he opens his mouth, he doesn’t stop.
He fills me on the last few years of his life with some things I knew from reading about him and the band online, and mostly details that the press never knew.
Like how Nikolai and Hayden both witnessed a mass shooting at their younger brothers’ high school graduation, and it led to the band taking a hiatus. How Hayden completely shut himself off from Reid and the demons he witnessed Nikolai battle. His voice broke talking about that, and there’s clearly a lot of details he left out, but I got the picture. He starts to tell me about a trip he made back to Pittsburgh during that time, but as if he realizes what he’s about to tell me, he shuts his mouth and doesn’t elaborate any further on it.
I don’t try pushing him on that part.
His vulnerability talking about everything quickly morphs into anger as he tells me how heard through the grapevine on their hiatus that Walker was in the studio with other artists, working on their projects with them. How he couldn’t wait, how he stepped out on the group, but when the opportunity for the tour they postponed came back around, that Walker was more than happy to jump back onboard.
All I hear the entire time is the underlying fear that he’ll never admit to. That he was trained to prepare for. Being abandoned. Being left behind by the people he loves.
But I don’t say anything as he continues to rage. No, I let him have it all out and listen, because when is the last time anyone listened to all his bullshit just to hear what’s beneath it all?
Then he tells me about their tour, the final one, and how Walker fell in love with their opening act, Scarlett Lane. Butwhat truly shocks me is when he tells me that he was the one who leaked information to the press about her. That Reid was the one who found out about her past, and instead of taking it to his best friend, he sent it to the press.
I’m dumbfounded as I listen to him, and it’s no surprise to me that after that the band was pretty much done for. No dinners, no bonding, no amount of meetings could bring them back from that. And the entire time he talks about it, I don’t see a single hint of guilt in Reid’s eyes. Only white-hot steel and hostility.
When he tells me that the party last night didn’t go well, I’m not all that surprised at this point. The flash of hurt in his eyes as he tells me he doesn’t think he’s going to get an invite to Hayden’s wedding surprises me because he still seems to be so angry at him for shutting him out.
And yet, Reid hasn’t done himself any favors.
He slumps over after he finishes his entire rant, as if the words overflowing inside of him finally spilling out on the bar are a physical relief. He looks up at me with a silent question in his eye. Seeking validation.
But all I can think to ask is, “Don’t you feel bad?”
“No.” His brow is furrowed in genuine confusion, as if asking if he feels any remorse is some sort of foreign concept. And to him, maybe it is.
“Reid, you can’t be serious.”
“What?”
I cock my head. “You just told me you literally fed dirt about your best friend’s girlfriend to the media, causing more false stories to come out. You iced out your other best friends because of how they each dealt with a traumatic event they lived through, and instead of communicating that you felt abandoned by them and talking that through with them, you fed your anger and let those cracks rundeeper. And every chance for reconciliation so far, you’ve pushed away. Which all culminated in Whisper Me Nothings breaking up and you being on the outs with two of your best friends. But yet you don’t feel any sort of remorse?”
His jaw ticks and knuckles turn white against the glass in his clutches.
I know I got him.
“It’s bullshit the way you’re framing it?—”
“I’m not framing it like anything! That’s how it is.”
“You weren’t there.”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “I wasn’t. But if you expected me to coddle you and say you’re right about everything and the victim in this entire situation, then you clearly don’t know me.” Holding people accountable to their words and actions is something I’ve learned the hard way. If you’re too nice, too forgiving, too passive, the world will take advantage of you over and over again. If Reid expects that of me, he’s mistaken.
“Well maybe you don’t know me,” he spits.
I angle my head. “I think I know you better than most. And that’s why I can say that I understand where your hurt comes from, more than probably anyone else can understand it. But that also means I’m obligated to tell you when you’re wrong. And in a lot of this Reid, you’re wrong.”
His jaw clicks.
“And I’m not saying that it’s right that they hurt you and that you’re just supposed to take it. But you have to acknowledge that the hurt seems to have gone both ways.”
