Innocence Lost he sings his heart out, the rap in the middle he smashes. He sings from his heart. His body moves around that stage like it’s meant for him and him alone. He feeds off their screaming.
Next song in his set is called Let the Games Begin. How fucking ironic that right now that fits us, this, them. Whatever it is spiraling around us.
“This is the day of redemption are you ready to play inside the mind of a paranoid human with nothing left to lose.” That verse sends a bitter chill over me. His eyes burn into the camera screen and I foolishly reach out to touch the screen, running my forefinger over his face and body before he disappears, and the camera is turned to Nix.
His body is covered in sweat as the camera finds him again. He’s wrapped around his Mic, in the mic stand. His eyes sad and his hair dripping sweat over his face as he moves his body to the sick beat of his own music. Its magic, he’s magic. It’s a dazzling show of lights and sounds, drums and images that flicker behind them, all chosen to help tell the story behind each song.
Then he surprises us all as rain begins to fall outside the stadium. He goes crazy as thunder can be heard in the distance and lighting flickers and cracks through the sky.
He looks right into the camera.
“Stay on me,” he mouths.
The crowd goes wild. The screaming is insane. I can feel it through the screen. My hands shake as the benzo hums through me.
His hands wrap around the mic in his mic stand, with my scarf that he pulled from the headboard of my bed, the night before he left, in his hand. The same scarf, he used to tie me up then made insane, body shattering love to me.
Taking a long gulp from the bottle, I need it as I know what’s coming. The Jayden I love; the Jayden they never see. He is bleeding on that stage and they won’t even see it. All they will see is the Rockstar. I see it, I feel it as tears roll down my cheeks mirroring his as he opens his mouth and the haunting tone of a broken man sings to me. I say me because this is meant for me and only me. I see it in his glazed over eyes. He sings ‘Here Without You Baby’ by 3 Doors Down, to me.
I feel the pain and I shed the tears with him. I can taste the truth inside the words and see the fear behind the mask.
It was meant to be only him and I. We were meant to leave the people behind and make our own life. Temptation became a drug, a pill he loved to swallow and a high he didn’t wanna leave behind.
Now as his eyes burn into mine, I know what I have to do. I have to save him, for him. I have to go there and be the drug he thinks he needs to replace what will kill him. Me, I will be the safe drug.
The song begins to wrap up with the beat dropping lower as Jayden looks deeper into my soul.
‘I wanna see you and not just in my dreams, baby.’
He mouths out as the rain falls running down his face, soaking his shirt with his hair plastered in long locks around his face.
‘It was meant to be just you and me.’
Again, he speaks to me and me alone, they all scream as he talks. The women are losing their minds and the guys screaming out with him not even realizing this isn’t really lyrics to the song, but they all just sang alongside him.
‘Something to remind you, baby, just what it’s like.’
He blows me a kiss and sends me a wink. The sweet laced with the cheeky.
‘I don’t make this the last chapter of us in my ever-changing life. I can’t breathe without your body inside this part of my mind baby. Falling in love with you hurt more than watching the moon kiss the sun goodnight knowing that it could never touch her with more than a passing rise and fall. This place is so old baby and I need you to erase all the wrong that I have made. I don’t wanna walk this road alone. I need you to remind me that I am more than what they see, more than what they believe, more than the façade that they perceive the man they have built on un-holy pillars. It’s all lies laced with mistakes set on fire with drugs and heightened with rock and roll. They will replace me faster than the high that comes after a shot for when I am gone and the sun no longer touches my face they won’t know me for more than a rap devil who feed on the addiction that came with their screaming.
Baby come and love me before I am gone.’
The lights cut off, the stage went black, the camera scanned the crowd. All you could see were cell phone lights cutting through the pitch black. I had a body full of Xanax and Jack, so on unsteady feet with shaking hands I tried to make my way to my room. It all went black and I fell before I even knew what was happening. I had lost all senses and feeling. My body running away from a heart that was just too dark right now to care. I am alone and we both don’t deserve to have each other. It will take the death of hope for me to let him go. See, that’s the problem with addiction, you will always seek an excuse and never a solution.
The buzzing on my face tickling the skin of my cheek pulls me from a sleep laced coma. My head bangs as I crack open the lids of my eyes. The room is all but pitch-black dark, the phone vibrating on my face was the only light. Fuck, what is the time.
Squinting at the screen my heart jumps at the name on the screen Jayden.
“Jayden, baby.” Omg I sound pathetic. My voice is slurred so slurred. Omg where the fuck am I.
“Tru, sorry no. It’s Mike.”
My heart sinks.
“Oh. Hi,” I say back as I hear a party going on in the background.
“Is he… is he ok?” I ask him pulling my bottom lip between my teeth. Turning slightly to look out the window at his dark penthouse, the mesh curtains really do nothing to block it out. All it does is blur it. My memory sees it all even behind black curtains and closed eyes.
