She waves me off. “Those fucking pills… they had a grip on her like nothing else.”
“Pills are fucking wild,” I agree. “When the alcohol wasn’t doing the job, add a pill. It was sure to fuck you completely over.”
“I went home to see her before I started this job. I was so nervous that I’d get there and see those eyes—the blown pupils and the wild, dissociated look. But she looked good. She was the mom I remembered growing up.”
“How long is she sober now?”
She looks up like she’s counting back the years. “I think eight years.”
“Wow,” I say, genuinely impressed.
A sheepish huff of amusement leaves her. “Sorry, you… This probably brings up shitty memories for you, doesn’t it?”
“No more than any other day,” I admit. “I think about the people who I hurt when I was bad a lot. The band. My dad…I don’t deserve their forgiveness for what I put them through. And the way they supported me after, how they brushed it off and said,hey, let’s just make some music, I’m happy you’re still here… That was everything.”
“Were they what saved your life?” she asks.
I smile at the ground. “No—I mean, yes, they were part of it. But at the core of everything? The thing that grounds me when I have the keys in my hand and purse over my shoulder ready to walk down the street to the liquor store? That’s music.”
“Always music,” she says as if she already knew.
“Always fucking music,” I say. “Music gave me something to dream of when I didn’t see a career path worth wanting a future for. Music was there for me when I was trying to figure out why I was more interested in Ellie’s attention versus Matthew’s in middle school. Music held me every day and night when the walls felt like they were closing in. It told me to hang on, to just make it through the day any way I had to—drunk, high… Because if I could reach sunset, if I could just get through one more day having to put on a strong face and pretend like I was okay, I could have the darkness all to myself.”
I pause to collect myself and blink back the tears burning my eyes.
“Music took me to that Young Decay concert,” I go on. “And it helped me have the confidence to jump on that stage. And without that fucking stage, without them… god. I’d be dead. After I got sober the last time, music somehow became even more meaningful. It was the savior I needed to get through the days and nights when I was most alone—when the bottle called me, and my mind told me no one would know if I took a sip in the dark. It’s fucking hard being the only person in a room who doesn’t have a choice in facing everything head-on. People don’t realize how lucky they are that these vices don’t become a crutch, that maybe they don’t have addictive personalities.”
“Do you hate people for that?” she asks.
I kick a rock. “I used to.”
“And now?”
“Now, I’m just glad to be alive. Everything is a little more beautiful when you’re on borrowed time.”
Gemma twists the cap back on her water bottle. “Remind me to send an offering to the god of music,” she says.
“Why?”
“Because I’m really glad you’re still here, too.”
My heart does a little somersault at the sincerity in her eyes. My fingertips begin to pulse. I need her to kiss me again, so I know I’m not making all of this shit up in my head. Her smile falters slightly when she seems to force herself to stop looking my way, and I quickly hug my arms around my chest and clear my throat.
“So…”
“So,” she says, seeming to get my joking drift.
I huff amusedly. “So.”
We glance at each other, and I swear if we weren’t walking on this fucking trail, I’d kiss that little smirk off her lips.
“Do you want to go inside the observatory while we wait on Darcy?” she asks.
I sigh, the exhale shaky. “Yeah.”
I’ve only been to the observatory a handful of times, and each time, it baffles me. The world seems so small beneath all of this, my life so meaningless in comparison. Gemma quietly walks at my side as I go on and on at each exhibit, pointing out little details and reading fact boards at each stop. When we eventually reach the dark room with the stars above us, I take advantage of us being the only ones in the room and spin a few times in the very center.
My head hangs back, arms out, and I slowly take in everything above me.
