A couple of the bar employees were on their cigarette breaks, and they gave him nods, which Remi returned, but he kept moving to the side of the building so he wouldn’t get pulled into conversation.
His performance buzz was waning.He either needed to find some coke or a quiet place to decompress.
Since he had to work the next day, Remi chose the responsible option.
That sense of responsibility seemed to be growing in direct proportion to his waning belief in their band ever making it.
He wondered what Emerson would think if Remi finally admitted defeat.Before he died, Emerson had taken every opportunity he could to remind Remi that they were wasting their time.That Remi and West should go to college after high school and get real jobs, like Emerson had planned on doing.
Maybe if Remi had listened to him, he wouldn’t be twenty-five years old, working a minimum-wage job that barely paid enough for utilities, groceries, and insurance, let alone anything else.
Remi walked around the corner and into the alley at the side of the bar.He leaned against the damp brick walls and fished around in his pockets for his lighter and—
“Ah, fuck me,” he mumbled.His cigarettes and lighter must have been in his other pants.
Remi sighed, running a hand through his hair, and considered asking one of the bar employees for a cig, but he really didn’t have the energy for small talk.
Melancholy was creeping in.After shows, all he could think about was Emerson.
Who knew where Tilted Haze would be right now if Emerson hadn’t died.If Remi could have kept his shit together.
They’d had one viral video in the early days and a label interested in signing them.It’d been their big break, but between the rage and the grief of losing Emerson, Remi couldn’t pick up a guitar, let alone sing and perform.
By the time he’d gotten through the worst of it, it’d been too late.The label had moved on, and he couldn’t figure out how to recreate the viral success of their first video.
Remi wished he could hate Emerson for it.
For going and dying and ruining Remi’s one shot.For all the shitty things Emerson had said and done to him while they were growing up.
Hating him would have been easier than grieving him, but Emerson went and fucked that up for him too.
On the day he died, Emerson texted Remi that he was sorry, that he was always on Remi’s side as much as he could be.
Remi only found out all the hidden ways that was true after he was gone.
Emerson had paid for Remi’s car insurance throughout high school—something their mother didn’t even know about.She’d thought Remi had been leaving envelopes of cash on her desk each month, and Remi had thought his mom had been paying for it.
After going through Emerson’s room, Remi found ticket stubs for every single one of Tilted Haze’s shows.Even the out-of-state ones.Emerson had been there, in the crowd, supporting him the entire time.
And in Emerson’s desk drawers, Remi found his sketchbook with page after page of Tilted Haze drawn in different lettering.Logos and t-shirt ideas and album artwork.
Half of Remi wanted to rip it up.Wanted to burn everything in Emerson’s room so he didn’t have to try to reconcile the brother who hated him, despised him, with the brother who obviously loved him deep down.
It didn’t make sense.None of it made sense.
Then there was the biggest gesture of all.He’d traded in his car and emptied his bank account to buy Remi a touring van.He’d even spray-painted one of the Tilted Haze logos on the side.
Emerson was gone, and Remi couldn’t ask him the questions that kept him awake at night.Why’d you do it?Why’d I think you hated me our entire lives?Why couldn’t we have been brothers?
The alley beside the bar was wet from the downpour they’d had earlier.The yellow haze of a street light reflected in the puddles on the dirty street.
Remi looked up at the blood-orange moon in the sky.He didn’t believe in heaven or hell or afterlives.But sometimes he thought he felt his brother with him.Like a magic clung to him.Like maybe Emerson was watching over him.
Or maybe Remi was just as crazy as the chick who thought she was a vampire and the tourists who paid West’s aunt to read their fortunes.
Maybe it was nothing but a delusional side effect of grief.
The sound of heeled boots clicking on the asphalt drew his attention to the mouth of the alley and the dark outline of a woman backlit by the streetlights.
