As Seth once said to me during one of his bouts of melancholy, I couldn’t ride him all the way up unless I was willing to ride him all the way down.
Only I couldn’t predict how far it would go.
THEN
There was one aspect of my former self I clung to with a death grip in my swift descent into addiction, and that was my GPA. It was kind of strange how I hinged so much of my self-perception of handling my shit on maintaining my straight-A average. Not missing a class, quiz, test, or homework assignment. Even though I’d created this fake job in order to go get high with Seth most nights, in my mind so long as I kept an impeccable transcript, everything was A-okay.
It also meant that I hadn’t given up completely on my future because if I could keep up my grades, then a good college was still within my reach. I’d figure out a way to kick all of my bad habits and resume the persona of straight-edge Hiroku I’d been keeping on ice for all of these months. Like switching out a light fall jacket for a winter coat.
It was the beginning of December, final semester exams were upon me, and I needed to stay in one night and study. Seth was dealing with some band drama—Jeannie was pregnant, and Mitchell was talking about cutting back on rehearsing in order to get a nine-to-fiver. Seth wanted me to talk some sense into him, but I had no idea what to say, and it seemed like maybe he should start looking for full-time work because being a rock star wasn’t exactly paying the bills. Seth had his trust fund, Sabrina still lived at home, Dean was a mechanic, but Mitchell was still trying to make ends meet by working for minimum wage at Sunoco. I respected Mitchell for wanting to do right by Jeannie, whether it meant marrying her or paying child support, both of which required making a decent living. His priorities seemed to be in the right place to me.
I told Seth it might be time for Mitchell to get a real job. Seth accused me of not having the same commitment to Petty Crime as everyone else. I was stressed with school, which was exacerbated by the fact that I couldn’t get high, so I snapped at him, “Why would I be as committed? I’m not in the band, Seth.”
“Of course you are,” Seth argued. “Why would you even say that?”
I didn’t feel like getting into an argument with him over the phone, and my time to study was quickly slipping away from me.
“Look, Seth, I really need to study for these exams. I can’t get drawn into band drama right now. Give Mitchell some time to process this huge life change before you go pressuring him into something. Sometimes people have to make decisions for themselves about what’s best for their own goddamned lives.”
Seth glared at me. I knew because we were FaceTiming. “I wouldn’t want to get between you and your Harvard acceptance letter,” Seth said snottily. “What would I know anyway? I’m just a high school dropout.”
I rolled my eyes and told him not to make this about himself. We sparred a little more and then hung up in a huff. I turned my attention back to my studies and figured we’d make up the next night when they performed at Eileen’s. They hadn’t played out in a while, and that was probably part of the reason Seth was on edge. And that damned unfinished album. I still hadn’t written their anthem because so many other things had taken precedence in my mind. I told Seth to go ahead and finish it without me, but he insisted the story was incomplete without my contribution.
No pressure there.
Seth picked me up the next night, a Friday, to take me to our “shift at Sam’s,” which would go until six in the morning. I changed clothes on our way to Eileen’s. Once I was in the passenger seat beside him, Seth brought up Mitchell’s predicament again and then started talking shit about Jeannie, basically blaming her for being stupid enough to get pregnant, calling her a slut and a whore and saying Mitchell couldn’t even be sure the kid was his.
I’d had enough of him making her out to be some kind of monster. “Jeannie has been with us since the beginning, and she’s been with Mitchell for even longer,” I reminded Seth. “She didn’t get pregnant on her own, so why are you putting all of this on her?”
“She messed around with Sabrina over the summer. How is that loyalty?”
“I can’t believe you just said that, Seth. You fuck around all the time.”
“God, you love to throw that in my face, Hiroku. You’re so much better than me, aren’t you? Mr. Ivy League with your holier-than-thou attitude…”
He went on like that for a while, and I tuned him out. Seth was stressed that the band might be falling apart, right when they were on the cusp of making it, so even though I probably shouldn’t have, I gave him a pass.
“You could replace Mitchell if you had to,” I told him, hoping that might make him feel a little bit better about the situation.
“That’s such a typical response from you,” Seth seethed.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“The band is like a family unit, Hiroku. You don’t just kick someone out because they piss you off. Otherwise, I’d have replaced Sabrina a long time ago. And you don’t just drop out because it’s inconvenient.”
He shot me a look as if to imply that was what I was doing.
“What are you even talking about?”
“You haven’t been to a band rehearsal in months.”
I balled my hands into fists and banged them against the dashboard. “You have got to be kidding me. I get about five hours of sleep a day, Seth, trying to keep up with you and your rock star lifestyle. Performing as your fucking eye candy at your shows and parties, servicing your every sexual whim. As much as you’d like for me to be your number one groupie, that shit doesn’t pay the bills, and I have to plan for something beyond high school because who the fuck knows where you’ll be by then.”
Seth was quiet after that, stewing on his own hurt feelings. He hated it when I spoke about the two of us as if we might not be together forever. It was bizarre to me when he said shit like that, but he did get my f-ing name tattooed on his chest. It wasn’t like there were a ton of Hiroku’s out there that he could move on to after me.
The tension in the van was thick enough to fry it up and serve it. We arrived at Eileen’s soon after, and I helped them unload their equipment. I did manage to get Mitchell alone for a minute to tell him congratulations. Only I wished it sounded less like a question. Mitchell clapped my back and said simply, “Life, man.”
After their final mic check I asked Seth if we could go powder our noses, because it had been nearly 48 hours, and the withdrawal was bearing down on me. Like a flu from hell but with a deep-rooted anxiety at knowing exactly what would make the discomfort go away. I kept sniffling and getting chills. The aches and pains were starting to set in as well.
