“Hell, yes.” I didn’t even have to think about that one. “Spent a lot of years angry about it, wishing the past away, wishing I’d never taken that first hit, never tumbled down that rabbithole.”
“I mean, would you do differently withJessa?”
That, I did have to think about. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about it,either.
“No,” I admitted. “Probably not. If I was sober, maybe. But as long as substances were involved… I spiraled around a sinkhole for years with my addiction, and until I quit using, there was nothing I could’ve donedifferently.”
Elle was silent again. And I wondered how well she understood that. Ordidn’t.
“What about you?” I asked her. “You ever drift down that rabbithole?”
“No,” she said. “Not entirely. I did a little coke, you know, back in the day.” She smiled wryly; made it sound like we were old, that comment. But really, it wasn’t so long ago that we were just stupid, naive kids rocking our way to the top of the charts… without a parachute. “I did a little ecstasy. I tried some other pills, some speed. I guess I just dabbled, socially. But after a while, it occurred to me I didn’t really enjoy it. Everyone around me seemed to be getting fucked up to escape their lives. I didn’t want to escape my life.” She shrugged. “My life is pretty damngood.”
“Yeah. That’s one way to look at it. But some people can’t handle their lives, even when they’re good, youknow?”
“Yeah. I see that,” she said. “I guess… I prefer a clear head. Most of the time. I still like pot, sometimes. I like a little booze. I like my sleep. I guess I’m the nun of thegroup.”
I shook my head as the sense of awe I already felt in her presence intensified. “You’re strong,” I told her, and I meant it. “It takes a lot of strength, and character, to stick to what you like, what works for you, when everyone around you is doing something else. And expecting you topartake.”
Elle just shrugged that off. “Did the drugs ever work for you? I mean… did you ever enjoyit?”
“Yeah. Hell, yes.” It was true. It was so fucking sad, but it was true. “You always love it right before you hate it. And even when you hate it… there are moments when you truly believe you might come to love it again. Right up until it almost killsyou.”
I watched the troubled look flicker over her face, and I could only guess that she was remembering, all those years ago, when I’d OD’d. When she saw me after I’dOD’d.
Jude had told me about it afterward; that it had been Elle who’d found me, who’d held me in her arms until the medics came to scrape me off the tour busfloor.
And I wished I could remove the burden of that particular memory from her, but Icouldn’t.
“Do you think… I mean, honestly,” she asked me, “do you think if you hadn’t gotten involved with Jessa, you still would’ve ended up where you did? You know… if you didn’t have your heartbroken?”
I didn’t answer; I wasn’t sure how toanswer.
Despite the things I’d said to Jessa when she confronted me at that cafe back in February—defensive, bitter things—I wasn’t sure Jessahadbroken myheart.
“That’s why you overdosed, right?” Elle said. “That’s why you went so far down the rabbithole.”
“It wasn’t just Jessa, Elle. It was a lot of things.” I shook my head. “It was me. Overdosing… getting kicked out of the band… that was all me. In the end, it had shit all to do withher.”
But Elle just cocked her head and stared at me, a small, thoughtful frown on her pretty face, like she wasn’t sure that was true. As if it was the first untrue thing I’d said to her tonight, and she was trying to make sense ofit.
“You must’ve loved her,” she said softly, her gray eyes on mine. “Alot.”
I thought about that, like I had so many times over the years, with a kind of question in my heart that I had never really been able toanswer.
I knew I’d held onto that idea for a long, long time. That I’d loved Jessa; that she’d rejected me. It was part of the story I’d told myself,aboutmyself, to make it okay to keep hurting myself. To fuel the bitterness and resentment I still felt toward her for abandoning me, toward the band for abandoning me; a bitterness I’d only managed to truly put behind me this year. After they left meagain—and I decided to put the past torest.
To let itgo.
It was a new day. I was a newman.
But it wasn’t that simple, wasit?
You could stop using drugs and get clean, but you couldn’t just wipe the slate clean and leave it all behind. Not when it had all become a part of you, changed you, shaped the whole new you that you believed you’dbecome.
All the pain I’d been through would always be a part of me, etched into me, along with all the mistakes, the regrets. If for no other reason than to inform the choices I made going forth. So that, hopefully, I would never make those same mistakesagain.
In life… or inlove.
