She laughed self-consciously. “Thanks. I’m no Björn Ulvaeus.”
Niko’s brow furrowed. “Who’s Björn Ulvaeus?”
“He was one of the B’s in ABBA.”
“Oh,” Niko said, confused. “I don’t know any of their names. But I don’t think you sound like them, anyway.”
“That wasn’t the goal, no.”
Niko leaned back in the armchair, and Merritt tried not to notice the spread of his thighs as he readjusted in the seat. “It was just…it surprised me.”
“How?”
He took a moment to answer, his thumb coming up to brush his lip in thought. “I hadn’t listened to a lot of music like that before.”
“Like what?”
“Like…so personal, and emotional. Open. I didn’t expect that from you. The way you are now, I mean.”
She was still, hands folded on her knees, head bent at the neck. “Yeah. I don’t think I would put myself in a position to be that vulnerable, that publicly, ever again.”
He nodded slowly, finishing his beer. “I get that. I think. But…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, a little shy. “I’m sure you’ve heard it all before.”
“If it’s something nice, I can’t hear it enough,” she said with a laugh, only half joking.
“I understand you feeling some kind of way about it now. But…you have an incredible gift, Merritt. I think we’d all be worse off if you’d never shared it.”
Merritt’s blush returned, hotter than ever. She’d worked over the years to harden herself to other people’s opinions of her work, to avoid the temptation to pander to what they liked or rebel against what they didn’t. But somehow, in this moment, hearing that from him made her feel like he’d cracked her open like a walnut.
“Thank you,” she said, her throat tight. “I’m still proud of those records. And it does mean a lot to me, that they matteredto so many people. Made them feel less alone. I loved doing it more than anything. It’s the only thing…” She trailed off, unable to finish. “I just couldn’t handle everything that came with it.” He was watching her with such intensity that she had to look away. “You can’t stay at the party forever. I think it’s better to leave too early than be the last one to realize you’ve overstayed your welcome.”
There was a long, heavy silence. Niko finished his beer but didn’t reach for another one.
“When you say you couldn’t handle it,” he said, his voice low, “what does that mean?”
She met his eyes, searching for the ulterior motive behind the question.
Did he already know? Was he trying to bait her, to see if she’d be evasive about it again?
It didn’t matter, she realized with a jolt. Against all odds, he was here with her tonight, and she didn’t want to hide from him anymore. She was ready for him to know this side of her, her darkest, ugliest shame.
“I wasn’t totally honest with you before,” she said slowly. “That first night at the bar. When I told you about my last show.”
“The night you had the panic attack?”
She nodded. “I had a pretty serious Xanax addiction at that point. I mean, I was overdoing a lot of things back then, but that was the biggest, and the worst, and the hardest to quit. I had it prescribed because I was afraid of flying, but I started taking it to come down after shows, too, and it totally spiraled out of control. I tried to taper off a few times, but then the panic attacks would get worse.”
Beside her, Niko was still as a stone, but he was leaning forward now, hanging on to every word. Merritt’s focus was on her hands, intertwined on her lap to stop them from shaking.
“I don’t remember a lot from that night, especially after I got offstage. But I guess I wasn’t answering my phone, so they sent someone to check on me, and…they found me unconscious in the bathroom.”
It was easier to tell it this way. The passive voice, the omniscient distance. Maybe it was a cop-out, but at this point, it really did feel like it had happened to someone else.
He didn’t need to know the details—like that the “someone” who’d found her was her sweet and soft-spoken bodyguard, Roy. She’d been so racked with guilt for putting him through that that she’d paid for his therapy for the next five years. To this day, they sent each other birthday cards, out of unspoken gratitude that they still could.
