I held out a hand and he took it, letting me pull him to his feet. Leaving the bathroom, I guided him down the aisle, and he leaned against me without complaint. Didn’t protest when I led him to my bunk instead of his. He just crawled in and buried his face in my pillow.
Before I joined him, I shot Riff a text since he’d likely be up first. I warned him that Bodhi just had a panic attack and was inmy bunk, trusting him to shield us from prying eyes when we arrived at the hotel.
Task done, I climbed in beside Bodhi. I’d barely settled in when he pulled me close. Burying my head under his chin, the scent of sandalwood and spice enveloped me, familiar and grounding.
“Thank you,” he whispered, soft as a breath, pressing his lips to the top of my head.
I said nothing, because nothing needed saying. I just squeezed him tighter, letting him know I was there. Pressing my ear to his chest, I let my eyes fall closed, eventually drifting off to the steady thrum of his heartbeat. Soothed. Content.
Bodhi was here. He was okay.
We were both alive.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
BODHI
We’d madeit to Milan, and I was grateful for the breather. Three days off after back-to-back shows and barely any sleep. Vienna already felt like a blur, and I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d made it onstage, let alone through an entire show, without collapsing.
Nope. That was a lie.
It was all because of Iggy.
I’d still been half asleep when I woke up on the bus in Vienna after less than an hour of shut-eye. The panic attack had wrung me dry, so I let Iggy steer me wherever I needed to go without complaint. I hadn’t expected him to ignore his own room in favour of mine, but after feeling that exposed, that raw, I was grateful for the company.
That didn’t stop the embarrassment from hitting later.
The band had no obligations before the show, which meant we could sleep in more than usual. Normally, I was up well before call time. Partly because my sleep was always fractured, but also because I needed to feel productive. Like my day held more than just sleeping, travelling, and singing.
Dr Williams had drilled it into me. Take time for yourself.Build habits that keep your brain busy in a good way. Raise dopamine naturally, not chemically. Rehab had given me the space to figure out what that meant for me, and that was where I’d fallen back in love with drawing. Before art therapy, I hadn’t touched a pencil since high school. Now, I made sure to draw something every day. An anime character. A stranger through a window. A plant wilting quietly in a hotel room. It didn’t matter what. It just mattered that I did it.
So, I set my alarm earlier than necessary. Enough time to draw, or watch an episode of something, or start a movie. Mundane shit. Normal-people shit. The kind of life you didn’t get much of when you were famous and dragging yourself across Europe on a tour bus.
But last night, Iggy had tucked us into bed, and I’d been too wrecked to remember my alarm. He didn’t know about my routine, so he let me sleep until the last possible moment. And when I woke up to his fingers playing with my hair, to his soft smile as I blinked myself awake...
I didn’t spiral.
Didn’t panic about losing my “me time” or ruining my day because I’d chosen rest instead.
I did, however, try to bury my face in my pillow out of sheer embarrassment.
And because Iggy was Iggy, he’d only slapped my ass, hard, and told me to get a grip. Said there’d probably be more panic attacks in our future. More vulnerable moments. That next time, it might be me holding him together.
He hadn’t looked at me with pity. Hadn’t treated me like glass. He acted like waking up together was normal. Like what we were dealing with was normal. Likewewere normal.
It was exactly what I needed.
After the show, we stayed one more night in Vienna. Separatebeds this time. Iggy insisted I needed space to decompress. He only stopped by long enough to grab his things, then left me alone with Riff.
On his way out, he kissed my cheek and whispered, “Lean on your friends too.”
So I did.
Riff and I made it through two episodes ofAttack on Titanbefore he finally said what he’d been thinking.
“You really like him, don’t you?”
