This particular dressing room had a shower, and I took advantage of it. I quickly discovered that the difference between touring in the summer and winter was profound, at least in my case, because I always came off the stage feeling overheated and sweaty. Even with a fan pointed directly at me during the show, there was no escaping the sweat—and when I could shower immediately after a show, I would. Detroit felt humid in addition to the heat, so I did. I’d barely stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my body and another over my hair, when there was a knock at the door.
It was either Braden or Mick—but it seemed too soon for either of them to be here.
And that was because it was.
When I opened the door, Zack stood just outside—and I was pretty sure he’d already started drinking. “Can I come in?”
I almost rolled my eyes, because it was like he hadn’t even registered that I was half naked. “Can you give me a minute first?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Closing the door, I crossed to my backpack and pulled outthe fresh set of clothes inside. Without bothering with underwear, I pulled on my t-shirt and jeans, struggling to pull them up my still-damp legs. Tossing the towel on the back of a chair, I pulled the door open. “Come on in.”
While Zack entered, I pulled the towel off my head and finger-combed some of the strands. What the hell did he want?
“I know you guys are pissed at me, so I wanted to explain.”
“You don’t have to, Zack. We know you’re struggling and that you need to go to rehab again.”
“No, I don’t think so. Fat lot of good it did me.”
“Itdid. You were sober for over a year. I don’t think you could have done that on your own.”
“I could have—but I didn’t want to. Being sober hasn’t worked for me, Dani. I can’t handle the shit in my head.”
“Is it because you can’t talk to your therapist while we’re on the road?” I figured that would be easy to fix, especially because hehadseemed to be maintaining before we’d left.
“Therapist?”
“Yeah—I thought you were seeing someone regularly since getting out of rehab.”
“I tried. But the first guy, some old fart, was a fucking quack. He had a bust of Sigmund Freud on his desk and kept asking about my relationship with my mom. He really wanted to make that happen. And then the second guy kept having me talk about stuff while following his fingers back and forth in front of my face or tapping my legs. It was some strange shit and it didn’t do me any good. I didn’t want to pay good money just so some weirdo could get off on my pain.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t it.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You weren’t there.”
That was true—and this conversation was leadingnowhere. “What can I do for you, Zack? I’m sure you didn’t come here to tell me about your failed attempts at therapy.”
On what seemed to be sure feet, Zack walked a few paces, half-leaning and half-sitting on the counter with the mirror. “Did you know you were the only one in the band who asked about rehab?”
Was that true? “Really?”
“Yeah. Guys…sometimes have a hard time talking about their feelings. Especially, like, Cy.”
And Zack.
I said, “Braden is pretty open.”
Confirming my thoughts, he said, “Yeah. Probably with you especially—butI’mnot always.”
“But you were with me.”
“Sometimes. Because you asked.”
Oh.Although I knew Braden was disappointed and worried about our mutual best friend, I didn’t know if there were any feelings that would stop him from having a conversation with Zack. But Cy had been openly angry and resentful toward Zack for a long time—and the past few weeks had probably reopened that old wound.
“Did you want to talk about that?”
