Wait!
The door shut quietly, not even a slam. And then Trevor was gone.
And when Skyler’s breath came back to him, it came in a painful gasp that sent him crashing to his knees.
He didn’t know how long he stayed there. How long he’d forgotten how to move, how to walk, how to be a person. He was nothing. For minutes or hours, maybe days.
Then he remembered he had liquor. He might have crawled to the kitchen, his legs too weak to hold him, but he grabbed a bottle.
And he had his guitar. Somewhere. It was hard to think of where, but eventually he found it, and he had music. He always had music.
Music didn’t leave.
He played clumsily, fingers trying to remember how this worked. Then he found his voice and sang. It hurt so much, but he sang until his throat was shot, and then he drank some more and sang some more.
It wasn’t a happy song.
Because the sun had left him, and Skyler was cold here on the floor. But the alcohol made him warm, and the strings cut painfully into his fingers, so he knew he was still alive.
The last thing he remembered was recording the song onto his phone and hitting send.
TREVOR
Maybe Trevor should havestayed and fought. Fighting was better than leaving, right? But in five years, no matter how angry or upset he was, he’d never once told Skyler to get out. And when Skyler said that to him, it fucking hurt so badly he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t stand there looking at him anymore, with Skyler telling him he wanted him to leave. So he’d left.
It had become harder and harder to reason with Skyler when he got upset. And maybe it was better to give them both time to cool off before they said anything worse to hurt each other.
He’d driven aimlessly around L.A. in his mom’s old car for a while, and then when he’d called Sierra out of desperation—because he couldn’t let any of the guys see him such a mess, couldn’t admit his failures—she’d told him to come to her place. He didn’t fully explain what had happened and she didn’t ask him to. She let him fall apart, and then when she was satisfied he was done crying, she set him up with blankets and pillows on the couch and left him alone to get some sleep.
Only he hadn’t slept. He’d taken out his phone and replayed the voicemail his mom had left him before she died, the one where she told him he and Skyler belonged together. He played it over and over again until his phone ran out of battery, and then he cried some more before eventually falling into a pitiful sleep.
He’d kept wondering,What if she was wrong?What if he didn’t have his mom anymore, and now he didn’t have Skyler either? What would he do?
Waking up this morning, he’d determined that losing Skyler was not a reality he could live in, so now he was rushing home. He would have called Skyler right away, began his apologies over the phone—because he was the one who’d started this by saying all those stupid things about wanting something easier—but his phone was still dead, and he didn’t have a charger in the car because he almost never drove himself anywhere anymore.
But god, he hadn’t meant any of that. Or maybe he had. But it didn’t matter if dating literally anyone else would have been easier.
Trevor didn’t need easy. He only needed Skyler.
He was going to tell him that. He was going to finally figure out the right things to say to fix everything. And if Skyler really needed him to come out… Well, that scared the shit out of him, but maybe he could do it. Maybe they could find a way.
And maybe it’d be a huge mistake, and everyone would hate them for it. Maybe the fans would turn on them and call them horrible names. Maybe they’d get kicked out of the band.
But what if none of that mattered?
When it came down to it, all that really mattered to Trevor was Skyler.
So yeah, he was definitely going to tell him that.
But then he walked in their front door to find Skyler passed out on the living room floor, surrounded by empty bottles, one that had spilled its brown liquid onto that stupid rug Skyler loved so much. Skyler’s guitar—the one Trevor had bought for him—laid face down on the hardwood. And Trevor didn’t know if he wanted to go over there and clean up Skyler’s mess before waking him up gently and telling him he loved him, or if he wanted to kick him and yell at him to fucking get himself together already.
He decided to do neither. He tiptoed around him, went to the bedroom to plug in his phone, and then got in the shower to wash the awful night off himself. When he was done, he got dressed and unplugged his phone, turning it on.
He could make breakfast. Wake Skyler up that way and then they could sit down and talk. As frustrating as it was to find Skyler like this, he was trying to stay calm.
Which was going fine as he went into the kitchen and took out a pan, careful not to make too much noise, not wanting to wake Skyler until the foodwas ready. But then he noticed the message on his phone. From Skyler. A voice memo.
As he hit play, Trevor thought, for one stupid second, that it was going to be Skyler’s apology. Because they’d both said things they shouldn’t have. But instead, he heard clumsy, drunken guitar playing. And when Skyler started singing, an angry growl in his voice instead of sweet dripping syrup, Trevor’s whole body went rigid.
