PROLOGUE —WILL
I don’t hate the tour bus. There’s a lot more room to breathe than in the van the four of us were sleeping in before we got picked up by our new label. It’s pretty fun living and hanging out with my best friends on the road while we travel across the Eastern Seaboard playing our music. Jesse has been in a weird mood since we signed, but I think it’s because he’s under a lot of pressure. We all are, really, but he’s feeling it more than the rest of us.
For me, this feels like a fun time. There’s a lot less pressure living this way compared to back in our dingy shoebox apartment in Raleigh. Not to mention, getting to play music full time is definitely better than whatever bullshit labor jobs we managed to pull off between gigs.
There are some cons, though. The smell, for one. We’ve been on the road for less than a month, and it already smells like more than eight of us live in this small space. Body odor, cigarettes, booze, and a tinge of diesel fuel constantly permeate the air. There’s only one bathroom, there’s no shower, and noone makes much of an effort to clean up after themselves well enough to maintain this kind of living arrangement.
Between the hum of the engine and the rumble of tires on the highway, the traffic, people fucking and playing around, talking, laughing, arguing over whether having to take a shit is actually emergent or can they wait until the next truck stop, it’s never quiet. I’m getting used to that.
My biggest problem is that I can’t sleep, but that has nothing to do with it being loud or smelly on the bus.
I can’t sleep because he can’t sleep, and when he does, it’s fitful. I’m attuned to every sound he makes, and when he mutters to himself or whimpers, that hurts more than knowing he’s wide awake. It puts me on edge. Something bigger is coming, and he’s too far away to soothe. Well, technically, he’s only a few feet from me, but I can’t exactly comfort him the way he needs here. They wouldn’t understand.
So night after night, after long shows and longer parties, I lie here listening to every hitch in his breath. The frightened whimpers of a small child, not the man he is today. I press up on my elbow, eyes trained on the dark bunk just above me, wondering what hellish memory my brother is living in tonight.
A sound comes from his bunk. It’s thin and broken. Not quite a sob, but more than a whimper. It hurts to hear it and have to remain in my own bunk. How long do I let him go on before I step in?
He’s always been like this. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse.
I’ll never forget when Ari came to live with Don and Tina. The first night, they put him in the same room as me and told me tolook after him, which made me resent him right from the get-go. I’d been enjoying my own space for almost six months after living in a group home for two years. And now there was this baby to take care of.
Ari wasn’t a baby. Not really. He was eight, only two years younger than me, but he looked closer to five because he was so small. If he wasn’t crying, he was looking around with big, watery blue eyes as though something might jump out and get him at any moment. Back then, I didn’t understand what he was so afraid of. Don and Tina weren’t exactly warm and welcoming, but they weren’t awful either. As long as we did our chores and stayed out of sight, they didn’t pay us much mind. I didn’t have a problem taking care of myself, and Don would let me play with his guitar sometimes, so I was perfectly content before my new foster brother arrived.
Don and Tina argued a lot, and that seemed to set Ari off big time. At night, he would cry until he passed out, only to wake up screaming just a couple of hours later. I didn’t know what to do or what to say to Don and Tina when they came running into the room to see what the fuss was about. Maybe they were trying to be reassuring, but they seemed mostly annoyed about being woken up. It only got worse after that, considering he had nightmares almost every night. Sometimes he would wet the bed, and that always pissed Don and Tina off because they had to change the sheets and do laundry in the middle of the night.
One night, Don lost his temper. He barged into our room just after the screaming started and yanked Ari up out of the bed. He held him like he was going to shake him and yelled right in his face. Ari shut up immediately, but I think that was only because he was clearly too afraid to make sound happen. He looked like he wasn’t even breathing, and then he puked all over himselfand Don, which made Don drop him, but didn’t make his anger any better.
That was the first time I stepped in. Something about seeing Don tear little Ari out of bed like that, and seeing just how terrified he was, changed the way I thought of him. I was still resentful, and still annoyed at the needy little shit, but I wanted—no,needed—to protect him. I didn’t ever want to see that terrified look on his face again, that’s for sure.
I jumped out of bed and told Don I’d take care of it. And from then on, I became my brother’s keeper. It took me a while to figure out that hugging or holding Ari helped with the nightmares. The first time I tried it, I was just trying to get him to stop thrashing, but the moment I locked my arms around his skinny shoulders, he stilled.
At first, I’d get up and go over to him right before I knew the screaming was likely to start. I could always tell by the sound of his breathing, the way it hitched then picked up until he was panting. As soon as that started, I’d go over and wrap my arms around his shoulders until it stopped, then go back to bed. Sometimes I’d have to do it several times throughout the night, and sleeping with one ear trained on Ari’s breathing made for some long nights. I was always exhausted, which made me moody and quick-tempered.
Then one night I fell asleep that way, and we both slept through the night. I even slept through the pee that seeped into the sheets and into my pajamas. As much as I fought him off and vowed to never let that happen again, letting him climb into bed with me became a habit. One we let continue on for far, far too long.
It’s been almost a month of living on the road, and I can feel Ari growing more restless every single night that passes. I was hoping it wouldn’t be as bad as it used to be. Ari insists he doesn’t need a crutch, but the moment I hear his breathing picking up, I know we were both wrong. If Ari screams and it wakes everyone up, they’ll witness him losing his shit over whatever nightmares are haunting him, and it’ll cause all kinds of trouble for him, me, the label, and the other guys. More than that, I know Ari doesn’t want anyone else seeing him that way.
I push myself out of my bunk and step on the edge to look into his. It’s too dark to see anything, but I reach in and try to rest my hand anywhere—arm, chest, neck, face, foot—that isn’t covered in blanket or clothes. He needs to feel my skin against his to calm down properly.
Looking around to make sure everyone is still asleep and not peeking out to see what the commotion is, I pull myself up to climb into Ari’s bunk. He’s burrowed into the wall, back facing me, and tangled up in the sheets, making it impossible to do anything from the ground.
He’s broken from the worst of his quiet sobs when I jostle him to untangle his blanket, letting the cool air reach him. Pressing my palm against the sliver of skin showing at the small of his back, I push his shirt up and drape myself over him, skin against skin.
Lightly brushing my fingers up and down his arms and sides, I soothe him with gentle touch and light shushes against the back of his neck. Ari shudders and leans into me, sniffling.
“Will,” he rasps.
“I’m here,” I whisper. “You’re on the bus, on your first ever band tour, and all your friends are sleeping safely in their bunks. You are safe. I’m here, Ari.”
“I don’t want to go back,” he sniffs. He’s still out of it, trapped in whatever memories torment him at night. I know what he means. Back isn’t a place, it’s afeeling. A face. A room. A night. A memory that won’t stay in his past.
He turns in my arms to face me, burrowing his wet face against my bare chest. “Don’t leave me alone.”
I kiss his forehead lightly and hold him tight against me. “You’re not alone, Ari. I’m here.” I repeat the words quietly, whispering them against his temple, as he shakes in my arms.
It guts me to see how broken he is. How all these years later, the memories of his early childhood are still monstrous enough to keep him awake or frighten him at night. Maybe if we get famous someday, we’ll be able to afford to get him a shrink or some medicine or something. For now, this will have to do.
I’ll do anything to save him. To comfort him. To quiet his mind so he can get the slightest bit of rest.
