Page 14 of Finding Storm

My eyes are dark. Tired.

I look exactly like Jonny did in the months before he died.

Yes, I’ve analyzed photos of him.

And yes, I have major daddy issues—no fucking surprise there.

In the early photos of Jonny, when TMS had just started, he looked bright-eyed. Like the world was at his feet. I guess it was. Then, as time went on, the light in his eyes was replaced with a cynical look. A drugged-up look.

I wonder if there was a time in those final years of his life if he was ever actually clean.

You’d think that I would’ve learned from Jake and Jonny not to take drugs.

Not that I do it much now. But in the early days, I did.

Drugs are readily available to people like me, and back then, all I cared about was having a good time.

And unlike Jonny and Jake, I don’t have an addictive personality. I can take them or leave them, so it’s never been a concern for me.

But I don’t so much bother with that shit now.

When something is readily available all the damn time, it loses its sheen. Its excitement.

It’s the same with women.

I don’t have to work for it. Any of it.

And it bores the shit out of me.

I know I sound like a whiny ass.

Poor little me, pussy at the ready, but I’m just … tired.

None of it makes me happy anymore.

Only the music.

But even that’s clouded by the constant pressure of living up to the ghost of a man I never knew.

I guess I need to find something that makes me happy again.

Wherever or whatever the fuck that might be.

But for now, I have an interview to get to.

I dress in black jeans and my favorite vintage The Stooges white T-shirt.

I slip on my leather jacket, pocketing my cell, keys, and wallet. I push my feet in my boots, grab a pack of cigarettes from my stash in the kitchen, and leave my apartment.

I ride the elevator down to the parking garage, where my baby is waiting for me.

My girl.

My one and only.

She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

I knew it the second I saw her that I had to have her.