“I think Ari relies on you for a lot, and that gives you something you need, too. But you can’t be all each other needs forever, Will. It’s not sustainable. What happens if or when one of you wants a real relationship in the future?”
Seems like a problem for future Will and Ari, is what I want to say. To make jokes and brush off the truth of what he’s saying. It hurts because I know he’s right.
But that ugly feeling coils up inside me at the thought of Ari ever leaving me. Of choosing someone else.
I change the subject before I do something I’ll regret, like spill the whole truth about how I really feel about Ari. Obsessive. Possessive. Compulsive. Everything that turns my love for him into something twisted and dirty.
“Have you been writing at all?” I ask.
Jesse sighs, pushing his hair back from his forehead as we start walking again. “Trying. It’s all a mess right now. A lot of jumbled thoughts and feelings that are more like trauma dumping without melody. Not really good song writing material.”
“Do you have a guitar or something here?”
Jesse shakes his head. “No. I thought about asking for one, but I was being a weenie about it.”
I huff out a laugh. “What does that mean?”
He shrugs, but I can tell he’s trying to brush off something deep. “What if I don’t have…itanymore? What if all my creativity was tied up in being high or horny?”
“Hey,” I say, feigning seriousness and pointing at him. “No one said you’re not allowed to be horny.”
Jesse chuckles, then gets quiet again. He’s pensive for a few long moments before he talks again.
“Have you ever wished you could go back and fix something you did in the past? Like, one memory that you can’t let go of, where it all started to go downhill?”
I’m assuming he’s talking about whatever memory he has of when his party habits turned into coping habits. Whenever he thinks his spiral started.
I think about his question for a long time. The first memory that comes up is from high school, when I kissed Ari. It was only supposed to make him feel better, but it muddled things inside me. Or maybe the first time I let him sleep in my bed, when we were way too young to understand how unhealthy coping mechanisms start. It’s interesting, and yet also unsurprising, that all my thoughts go to memories I have of Ari. You’d think I’d want to go back and prevent my mom from leaving, or my dad from getting himself killed, or beg any of my relatives to take me before I entered the system.
“I suppose I’ve thought of it,” I answer carefully. “I think everyone has. But when I think about it really hard, I don’t think I’d actually change anything. Because even though things are hard right now, we wouldn’t be who we are or have each other without every moment that brought us here.”
Jesse’s eyebrows meet his hairline. “That’s deep.”
“There’s more to me than just a pretty face, Jesse Moore.”
“Yeah, like a smart mouth.”
I spend the rest of the day being useful.
And by that, I mean doing anything to help anybody but myself or the one person who means more to me than anyone else ever will.
I call Blake to discuss getting not just a guitar, but an electric drum set, bass, and keyboard, too. Anything to help Jesse fill his time and untangle the knots in his head. In the beginning of his treatment, he needed to separate himself from his rockstar persona to find his sober self. But even the therapists at the center agreed that the one healthy coping mechanism Jesse has always had is music, and they also think the rest of the band coming for jam sessions would be good for him as long as it’s casual and not about work.
Blake makes some calls and is able to get most things delivered. Then I make a few runs to the store to get cords, strings, extra notebooks, and a few things we need sooner than they can be delivered, because I’m impatient.
I’m coming out of a store off Capital Blvd. when an unpleasant reminder of my past calls out behind me.
“Well, I’ll be damned, I thought that was you.”
My spine locks before I even turn around.
Don hasn’t changed much. His gut’s a little heavier than it was before, straining the buttons of his stained t-shirt. His hair’sthinner and greyer, and there are a few more veins noticeable in his bulbous, red nose. But his eyes are the same—glossy but still sharp, always taking inventory of how he can take advantage of a situation.
He grins like we’re old friends, equals despite all the times he tore us down. “I heard you boys made it big. Saw your faces on TV, plastered all across the magazines, and on a billboard and everything. Almost didn’t recognize you at first. Thought, no way that’s my ungrateful kids.”
“We were never your kids,” I say evenly. “You made sure to remind us of that every chance you got.”
“And yet I still let you sleep under my roof, eat my food, and kept you even when no one else wanted ya’. I could have thrown you out on the streets when you turned eighteen, but I didn’t.”
