Five minutes.
All I want is to become numb.
I just need the edge off.
That’s it. Just enough to get out of my head.
Five minutes.
I can’t keep feeling all of this. It’s too much. I’m tired.
I’m so fucking tired.
Five minutes was all it took to rip everything from me.
I sniff and finally open my eyes, still sobbing and trembling as I look ahead of me.
There’s a photo of Young Decay sitting on my television stand, the rainbow logo banner from the Pride Month show we did a few years back hanging behind it. In the picture, I’m sitting on Reed’s shoulders with the flag held up behind me. Zeb and Mads are on either side of us, mouths open and chanting whatever everyone else was saying.
And something about that photo helps me breathe.
I was struggling that day, too. I was struggling because we had fans coming up to us telling us about the difference we’d made in their lives through our music, and I remember thinking I didn’t warrant any of that recognition. I was just the drummer. I wasn’t someone any of them should be looking up to. I was a fucked up piece of shit. I had ruined the lives of those closest to me. No one should look up to or thank a person like that.
And someone sat on the floor beside me that night and reminded me that I was still here. That I was doing the work and becoming a better person than the one who hurt everyone. That even though I’m ten shades of fucked up, I’m here. I have people who love me still. I may have burnt everything around me to the ground, but trust was reborn in those ashes. Music was created in those residual embers—music that would go on to heal others the way it healed us.
It was never my own willpower that saved my life.
My willpower is shit, and I’m trash.
But music? My friends? That’s the reason I’m still here.
And I can’t get out of this pit without them.
Five minutes doesn’t have to shred whatever control I have left of this life. My attackers don’t get to take my sobriety away from me. They don’t get to take the life I’ve worked so hard for.
My phone is a few feet away from me. I force air into my lungs and reach for it, stray tears still falling onto the screen as I press his number. I need the person who sat with me the last time.
My fingers are still shaking when I hold the phone up to my ear.
“Bon?”
Reed’s voice is hoarse and sleepy.
“Are you okay? What’s—”
“I need you,” I breathe, the words cracking. “The walls… I can’t…”
I don’t know how to say it, how to convey the depths of fear that’s been unlocked.
There’s a pause, a shuffle of fabric against the microphone, and the faint sound of Wren’s voice asking if everything is okay.
“Reed, please—”
“Bon, don’t move. Don’t fucking… I’m on my way,” he says in a panic. “I swear. I’m… I’ll be there.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
GEMMA
