“East…” Mason’s cautious voice cuts through the quiet as he rises from behind his drum kit. His sticks rest loosely in his hands, and his posture is a little hunched so as not appear his normal intimidating self.
As the only original member of the band, Mason has been the most worried about me since Rosie’s passing a few months ago. He was standing beside me the day I met her, the day I married her, and the day I put her in the ground. Mason is like a helicopter parent, almost like he knows I’m not capable of carrying on without her. “You good, East?”
“Yeah.” I shrug the lie. The word tastes bitter on my tongue, like pennies and regret. Not because it’s false—although it is, because I haven’t been fine for the past two months, three weeks, and five days—but because it feels like betraying Rosie’s memory.
She would hate this version of me. She wouldn’t be gentle about it, either. I can practically hear her telling me to get my shit together. But if I still had her, I wouldn’t be drinking Jack Daniel’s for breakfast in a futile attempt to numb the pain.
Behind the mic, I perch on the stool and strum at my guitar. The first chord comes out jagged and out of tune. My fingers numb and stiff, like they don’t belong to me anymore. When I stretch them, they tremble slightly. While I can still feel the slight warmth of whiskey in my veins, the dull burn is fading fast and leaving me emptier than before.
Swallowing hard through the tightness in my throat, I strum again. Wrong, again. Somehow, even worse. The noise I’m making doesn’t sound like music anymore. It’s broken and splintered.Like my heart.
The whiskey haze is thinning, peeling back just enough to let the relentless, hollow ache rush in. I run my pick over the strings again.It’s like the music died with her.
Uncomfortably shifting the shoulder strap of his bass, Wade suggests, “Maybe we should?—”
I cut him off with a sharp wave of my hand. “No. I got this.” My voice is rough and slightly slurred. So unlike me that it feels foreign on my lips.
Mason clears his throat. “Easton… maybe we need to take a break?”
“No.” I slam my palm against the soundboard of my guitar, and the vibration buzzes up my arm. “No breaks. We don’t need breaks.” I laugh, but it’s ugly and harsh, reverberating off the studio walls, taking advantage of the acoustics. I hate the sound. Almost as much as I hate that I can’t stop.
After pushing off the stool, I stagger across the room until my shoulder hits the wall. It’s cool through my shirt, grounding me for half a second before the room shifts under my feet. I sway slightly, my stomach churning and head spinning. With my palm pressed against the wall for balance, I reach for the bottle of whiskey in my guitar bag, finding it empty. I drop it back into the case before anyone sees, remembering I left a near-empty one in the back of my SUV.
Damn it.
Damn it.
Fuck!
“Easton,” Lily Mae, my keyboardist, calls softly. She’s always tender—even before losing Rosie—keeping an eye on all of us like a mother hen. The way she looks at me right now, though… This look makes me feel both loved and hated at the same time. Her soft blue eyes are mixed with concern and fear. “We can come back later. Another day. You’re not?—”
“I’m fine,” I snap, the words leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Guilt follows immediately, sharp and unwelcome. I hate that I shouted at her and how it makes me feel.I hate that I can’t stop hating everything right now.
The room falls quiet again—too quiet—as I retake my seat behind the mic. Their stares crawl over my skin, and I can’t fucking stand it. I strum another unpolished chord. My inability to do this one simple task has rage flaring in my veins. The heat rushes up my neck and warms my cheeks as anger courses through me. When it reaches my hands, all I can think is how much I want to throw my guitar against the wall. I want to watch it shatter, hear the wood crack, and the strings scream as they snap. It won’t fix anything, but I want something else to be completely broken, so it’s not just me.
Instead, I sink onto the edge of the battered sofa in the corner. The cushions sag beneath me like they’ve given up as much as I have. I let my head drop forward, staring at the scuffed floor as my fingers rest heavily on the strings of my guitar.
I can’t do anything right.
Except think about Rosie. It’s the only thing I seem to be good at. Thoughts of her flood my thoughts day andnight. Chestnut hair falling into her face as she laughed at something I said. Her hand brushing against mine, soft and warm. The way she always believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Apologizing to them? To her? I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying anymore.
I toss my guitar to the cushion beside me and push from the couch. The floor lurches as I stagger toward the door—knocking over a music stand in the process—and into the parking lot. After fumbling in my pocket for the keys to my Bronco, I tear open the rear door and grab the bottle of whiskey.
“Easton…” Mason calls after me.
“I don’t want to hear it! Not right now!” The shout comes out too loud and angry, echoing off the building; a brutal reminder of the man I’m becoming. I drop to my knees, clutching the bottle like it’s the only thing holding me together. “I can’t do this without her.” My voice breaks. “I just… can’t.”
I take a swig from the bottle. Followed by another. And then a third. It burns down my throat, and the heat spreads, coating my chest and singeing away the ache a little. Just enough to keep me from losing it completely. The heat in my chest is sharp and insistent, but it doesn’t make it stop. Nothing touches the pain.
Mason crouches in front of me, close enough that I can see the worry etched in his face. He just waits, patient and solid, like he always is. “East,” he says quietly, wrapping his hand around the neck of the bottle.
I snarl and bitterly bark, “Don’t. Just…don’t.”
He flinches but doesn’t move. “You’re hurting. And that’s okay?—”
“I said don’t,” I snap, yanking the bottle from his loose hold before he can take it from me. My hands shake, spilling a drop onto the asphalt. “I don’t need… anyone. I don’t need you.”
Mason holds up his hands. “East, calm down?—”
