“Well, you can go be your dickish self with them,” Zack said.
“Stop it,” I said. “Let’s try to be calm.”
“It’s pretty hard to do that when you wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me.”
Cy nearly snarled. “That’s the shit you gotta stop. If you want me to stay, you gotta stop acting like you’re the only person in this band. You’re not the only one who matters.”
Zack opened his mouth to say something and then stopped himself—as if Cy’s words were finally hitting him.
Cy took the opening. “I love this band, but you’re a mess, Zack. When you asked me to join, I was excited, ‘cause I never thought of doing something like this with my life—but I loved music and I knew if I practiced, I’d get good. And I did. I love playing, and I’ve grown to love performing too. But it’s exhausting not knowing if you’re gonna be sober…if you’re gonna be able to play a show without sounding like shit. Ever since you went to the hospital, I’ve been wondering how long till that happens again. How long is it gonna be before we find you dead or…braindead? How long before you kill yourself? And then what happens to the rest of us?”
Zack’s face slackened as Cy’s words sunk in. It had felt at first like Cy was rejecting us, rejecting Zack; instead, he felt like he’d been treated like his opinions—andfears—didn’t matter.
He said everything I’d been thinking…and more.
Zack sat up, and the crack in his voice gave away just how much Cy’s words had affected him. “Man, I…knowsorrydoesn’t cut it, but I hope you know I invited all you guys ‘cause I couldn’t imagine life without having my best friends share in my success. Back then, I didn’t stop to think I’d bebringing you along for my failures too. I…I’m trying to get my shit together. I’m taking the idea of rehab seriously. I want to get clean and I want Riot to be successful. We are this fucking close,” he said, holding his index finger and thumb close together so that just a few hairs could fit between them. “I can feel it.”
“Can you?” Cy’s voice was softer, the edge gone.
“Yeah…and OD’ing…that scared me. I was that close to being gone forever, from being wiped off the face of this planet before I leave my mark. I don’t want to go there again. So…I get where you’re coming from.”
Braden nodded—and I blinked, trying to stop myself from crying again, something I’d been doing far too much over the past few months.
Zack said, “If you gotta go…I’m not gonna stop you. If you think you’ll get what you need with AR, you got my blessing. But no one can replace you in Riot. I want us to earn our first gold album together. I want us to tour the world together. I want all four of us to make perfect album after perfect album, songs we’re proud of that will speak for us long after we’re gone. I could get another guitarist in a heartbeat,” he said to Cy, leaning on the table, “but nobody could ever replace you. If you leave, there will be a permanent hole in this band.”
Cy’s dark eyes were hard to read as they shifted from Zack to Braden to me—and then back again. “I want to stay with Riot. You guysaremy family…and I know you can’t make any guarantees, but I want a promise that you’ll try.”
“Iam,” Zack said. But he wasn’t exasperated. Instead, he seemed to be saying that he wouldn’t be able to believe in himself anymore unless we did. This man—the one who’d believed in our success back when we were kids and playing nothing but covers poorly—he’d given us his all and now he needed it back from us.
But it didn’t matter if Braden or I said it. Right now, it was all on Cy. Had I not been so shocked that Cy had been offered a position—or that he’d been considering it—I might have been sad that he was being treated like the prodigal son: special simply because he’d been the one to rebel.
More than that, though, I was worried about Zack’s state of mind.
Cy let out a long breath. “That’s all I needed to hear.”
Zack visibly relaxed, sitting back in his chair. “If you believed in me back when we first started, believe in me now.”
“I do.”
“Good thing you’re stayin’,” Zack said as our server approached our table with two plates. “In Riot, your dickishness stands out. You’d just be one of the gang in AR.”
Cy laughed. “I guess there’s something to be said for that.”
Braden lifted his glass. “To Riot.”
We all clinked our glasses together as our food arrived. I was relieved but wondered about the future of the band…because Cy was right to worry.
And, regardless of what he said, I wondered if Cy would ever feel the same with us.
By the firstweek of March, Zack had been in rehab three weeks and was close to being finished. We’d talked with him a time or two over the phone but, because he was at a rehab center in Arizona, we weren’t going to visit him. In fact, we thought it might be better if the real world left him alone for a while. His mother visited him two weeks in and asked if any of us wanted to send anything. I considered baking some cookies and thought they might not allow anything that they might view as suspect—so I went shopping by myself at theWalmart in Dalton and browsed the craft supplies. I wound up painting a small picture on a tiny two-by-two canvas with a magnet. I painted several chains from one side to the other and then, above and below, I wrote in red letters:YOU ARE STRONG. Then I bought a card…and stared at it for hours. Finally, I pulled out my laptop and brainstormed, finally settling on the following message:
Zack,
I was goingto say this must be hard on you, but I don’t know that. I guess the first week or two might have been rough, but I hope it’s been a little easier lately. I couldn’t tell when we talked on the phone, so I hope so.
I just wantedto tell you that you will always have a special place in my heart. We’ve been through a lot together, some bad, but a lot good. I have so many memories with you that I’ll cherish—and I know Bray and Cy feel the same way.
Get betterand come back to us. We miss you.
