Once inside the bus, Marc laid himself on one of the couches, feeling completely drained, while Leah changed into her pajamas after having thrown up her first fucking meal and all her guts.
He hadn’t done anything excessive to be so tired, and yeah, it was late, yet it wasn’t as if it was the first time he’d stayed up past midnight. They played in the mornings here, but it was usual for them to perform at night back in Europe. However, his body felt heavy. Or maybe it was his mind. He was seriously exhausted from thinking and overthinking so much. What was the point, anyway? No matter what he did, Chris was straight. End of story.
With his eyes closed, Marc felt as if all the weight he was carrying around lightened with every breath he took. It felt good. This bliss. This silence. This nothingness he was floating in.
“Marc,” Leah called gently, touching his forearm.
“Hm?” he said without opening his eyes.
“Go get in bed.”
“How are you?” He yawned, rubbing his entire face, unsure whether five or twenty minutes had gone by since he’d sprawled there.
“I’m fine.”
“Leah… I meant what I said before. You need to talk about it or you’re gonna explode.”
“Are you a psychologist now?”
“No, but I have a thousand sisters.” His lips curled up when she plopped on the couch beside him, huffing.
Leah didn’t easily open up with anyone—Chris probably being the only exception. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust people; it was that after years of enduring the worst type of solitude in a relationship that had marked her for life, she’d learned to bottle it all up. But her body language right now was telling him she was about to let the current flow, and he was here for it. Silly maybe, but the heart-to-heart talks he’d had with her in the past had been healing, and he needed that as much as she did at the moment.
July20th,2017
St. Louis, Missouri
After their talk the previous night, Leah seemed at peace, a small spark of hope glowing in her eyes when they went to sleep. And while today had started well—the concert, the meet and greet, and an interview—later in the afternoon, she was once again pummeled into the ground.
Marc’s hand tightened around the neck of his acoustic guitar, making the notes he was playing sound as strained as his thoughts.
He was developing a grudge against fate, or whatever crap ruled the universe, because this wasn’t normal. The way life was treating his friend, as if she hadn’t endured enough already, wasn’t fair.
At the beginning, when the guys came back from playing football with the Aussies that afternoon, they didn’t pick up on her mood. She’d been absent-minded, but hadn't been showing any outward signs of what was happening in her head. Later on, they hadn’t noticed something was off until Natalie told them Leah had been scratching her arm relentlessly for a couple of hours—one of the most obvious symptoms of her anxiety peaking. Then they heard the news that spread like wildfire; Chester Bennington had died by suicide.
No, she didn’t know him personally, but saying it hadn’t whipped the entire music industry would be a lie.
To those close to him, knowing he could no longer take the excruciating pain that was devouring him from the inside, had to be devastating. But his death was a hard blow, a realization that no matter the amount of money or success you had, one was never completely safe in the world. That they would never get to listen to him ever again… It was heart-wrenching.
As for Leah… Not only had she felt this same way herself, but learning how that inspiring man had left the earth, hit hertoo close to home.
Marc winced.
It’d happened years before, yet the memory of Chris crying while telling him about when he’d visited her in the hospital, was one of the most heartbreaking moments he’d ever witnessed. How his voice cracked as he told him they had tied her to the bed because of a nervous crisis she’d had after being admitted there for trying to take her own life. The way his hands and entire body trembled. It hurt so much knowing she had reached that point… but it was also painful beyond imagination seeing his friend suffering like that, blaming himself for not having realized how deep her wounds were.
Harsh truth; when the person drowning keeps pretending they’re fine, smiling and joking like soul-shattering emotions aren’t flooding their head, no matter how hard you try to be there for them, no one can do anything until they decide to either cross a line with no turning back or come up for air and ask for help.
However, Marc was certain, even if she kept denying it, that there wassomeonewho could help her out of the hole she’d been in for almost three months. That was why he’d texted Søren before, even though it was wrong, and also so out of character for him since he never meddled in other people’s business.
“Are we really gonna leave her alone all night?” Erik wondered, his voice probably low so the rest of the people around didn’t hear. Although they were jamming and ignoring everyone outside of their bubble. “It just feels so wrong.” He ran his fingers through his hair, a few blond strands falling over his forehead when he looked at Chris and Marc.
“You’re just scared of your girl at home kicking your ass for not taking care of Jäger,” the guitarist quipped.
Erik rolled his eyes at his snarky comment, a faint smile painted across his face. “I won’t admit or deny anything, but I am actually worried about her. Haven’t seen her like this in a long time.”
“You know she’s a tough nut to crack,” Chris stated.
“Yeah, I guess…” The drummer flashed them a concerned look, then took a long sip of his beer.
