Page 39 of The Invisible Roommate

LA? Okay!

Cruising down the PCH

Naaaaaaa na-na, naaaaaaa na-na.

That statement sure accounted for this song. The lyrics were vapid, and the melody was extremely simple, but somehow the earworm worked, wriggling into the minds of millions of listeners across the world until that summer you couldn’t go to a pharmacy or a retail store without hearing it numerous times.

“I can see why you called this album Overload,” Emory said before licking wayward chocolate off his fingers. It was odd to see food mess but not the hand to which it clung. “It’s like the first album but with every element turned up to a ten.”

Emory was right. There was more production, more dance elements, more … everything. It was a maximalist album that took off on social media from the moment the first single and accompanying music video dropped.

As the song continued, unchallenging and a little long, given its lack of a message, Gerard got sucked into memories of brown eyes, black hair, bright lights, and tangled bedsheets.

“Where did you just go?” Emory asked. By the time Gerard resurfaced, the second track was already at its bridge.

“Nowhere. Just spaced out,” Gerard said.

If he could’ve seen Emory at that moment, he was certain he was making a quizzical expression. “I know spaced out. That wasn’t spaced out. Did the song bring up a memory?” Emory asked.

Of course it did. Being a recording artist was like capturing your memories in zoo cages and poking at them now and again to be sure they were still alive. “LA? Okay!” unearthed a memory that was hell-bent and hungry. The only way to quiet its ferocious roar was to throw it a slab of raw meat and hope it settled itself.

“I never told anyone this, I didn’t even write his name in my journal, but I met someone on the set of the music video for that first song,” he said, worried he might regret this later. He and Emory had been getting closer, but at some point, he was going to be pulled back to his old life, the kind of life where information like this sold to gossip rags for pretty pennies. Was he unburdening himself to a friend, or handing a stranger the ammunition to implode his life?

That night, he decided he didn’t care either way.

“His name was Toby Stark. He was one of the background dancers in the video. The conceit for the shoot was that we were stuck in gridlock traffic on our way to a headlining show in LA. Our song came on the radio, so we went live on social media to our fans, which gave us the idea to climb on top of the tour bus where there are inexplicably instruments and microphones waiting for us. People got out of their cars and danced around the bus. It was a big production, it took all day, and it was hot as hell. The director was snippy with us, and the choreographer kept getting in my face about me forgetting the steps. We weren’t a boy band. I mean, we were boys in a band literally, but we weren’t trained dancers.” Gerard breathed out an iota of irritation so he could continue speaking without tripping over his words. “Anyway, Toby was nice to me. Between takes, he went over my steps with me, and he complimented how I sounded on the recording. I honestly couldn’t tell he was flirting with me. I’m so bad at recognizing that stuff. Since the music video doubled as our world-tour announcement, we hired a lot of those dancers from the video to come on the road with us. Toby and I kept in touch via DMs, then when rehearsals for tour started, it was like reconnecting with an old friend, and that’s what I told everyone we were, even when he surprised me by asking to be more.”

“You didn’t tell anyone in your family?” Emory asked.

“By that point, we were somewhere in Canada in the middle of our first headlining tour. My dad only wanted to talk business, and my mom was flying back and forth from tour stop to home to help my grandparents move into a fancy retirement community. I saw my brothers more onstage than I did off,” he explained, wondering how he hadn’t run away from it all sooner. He’d felt so trapped. “When the tour ended, Toby wanted us to make our relationship public, so we didn’t have to sneak around. The tour was a really great cover for why we were seen leaving the gym together and going into the same hotels, but after … I guess some decisions make themselves.”

The album played on in the background. Overload went on to be certified platinum, but it sounded like rusted metal being scraped against asphalt that night. Every note, every guitar lick, every riff was chill inducing, in a bad way.

“I was so tired after that tour,” Gerard added. “Not just physically, but mentally tired. Assistants would have to do six, ten, twelve wake-up calls to make sure I was at the photo shoot or the studio on time.”

“You didn’t get a break after that one, either?” Emory asked.

“I didn’t even get a breath,” he said. “We were even more famous after the tour ended than before the tour started. Word of mouth about our shows had been so good that people were already wondering when we might go out on the road again. Not to mention we owed the label another album, which they were ravenous for. I told Toby that I was too busy and that it wasn’t going to work out. I couldn’t handle any more.”

“I know that feeling,” Emory offered. The song changed again. They barely paid attention.

“To me, We the Wells was always a project for now, not for forever. We were going to use it as a launchpad for the careers and lives we really wanted. I told myself I’d reach back out to Toby after All’s Well That Ends Well, but there’s not going to be a hiatus, and there’s not going to be a me and Toby,” Gerard said, up to his eye sockets in feelings.

“Why not?” Emory asked in a strange voice.

“According to social media, he’s getting married next May,” he said. To combat his bitterness, he took another cookie. If only carbs and the taste of cloves could cushion his hurt and not just make his face puffy and his trainer upset.

“I see,” said Emory.

Gerard rolled out his shoulders, letting the music fill the space where their conversation had been for a second. He stared across the coffee table, at the impression Emory’s sleeve was making in the arm of the couch. “I wish I could see you,” he said at the end of a mid-tempo anthem he was half-proud of. “Right now, talking to you reminds me of when I first learned about prayer. My dad—if you can believe this—was a banker during the week and a deacon at our church on the weekends, so I didn’t grow up with imaginary friends, because everybody told me I had God when I was alone or lost. I remember the first time my dad, before tucking me in, told me to kneel beside the bed with him so we could talk to God. He got a good laugh out of me asking, ‘Is God here right now?’ He said, ‘God is always here.’”

“Now, that doesn’t sound frightening at all,” Emory said, deadpan.

“Right?! He followed that up with ‘He is everywhere. Always.’ I couldn’t have been more than five, and I took him literally. In the school hallways and at the dinner table, I was always looking over my shoulder thinking God was like Santa—if I stayed up late enough on Christmas Eve, I could catch Him protecting us,” Gerard said, letting out a self-effacing laugh. “Eventually, my mom noticed how I was behaving and asked what was wrong. When I told her, she didn’t laugh. She very calmly and seriously said, ‘What your father meant is that God is in the sunshine and the leaves on the trees and in the food we eat. God is love and light, and we talk to Him to express our gratitude for the blessings we have. You won’t see Him, but you can feel Him and honor Him.’ That only made me more confused. Why did so many people believe in a power they couldn’t see? It would be years before I accepted that all my extreme questioning and discomfort around religion could be attributed to my neurodivergence.”

“When were you diagnosed?” Emory asked.

“While we were working on All’s Well,” he said, feeling suddenly like he was doing a tell-all interview with some überserious journalist. “No matter what I tried, I couldn’t catch up on sleep, and I couldn’t stop feeling anxious. I was constantly forgetting things and zoning out during writing sessions. Our sound engineer hated me because we’d have to do dozens of takes when that wasn’t the case on previous albums. At photo shoots, I was agitated by the brightness of the lights and the constant shutter of the camera. I’d demand breaks, and everyone assumed I was just being a diva, a rock star, the fame monster, but as soon as I shut myself in a bathroom or my dressing room, I’d sob. I felt out of control, so I quickly and covertly found a therapist. It took him less than three sessions to tell me what I clearly already knew—that the world wasn’t built for me.”