Page 75 of The Comedown

Maybe.

I don’t know. Shit’s confusing.

This woman’s got me fucking spiraling like I’m on a ride at an amusement park. One I wish she’d stop trying to kick my ass off of.

Stumbling the few feet to the stage, I rake my eyes across the front row of fans, the faces blending together like some sort of giant swamp creature from a forgotten lagoon.

Sick.

A tank top lands next to my feet as I approach the center of the stage, but I can’t even tell whose tits might be showing. Everything is just…dull. Muted. Ugly.

I flip the crowd off, making the ground beneath me tremble. A look over my shoulder, I can make out Collette talking to Irelynn. Her hands are flying around her like crazy, then swing in my direction, so I turn my middle finger on her instead.

Fuck you, Collette. Fuck you and the things you make me feel.

She made me feel so fucking much today. Everything. Every-fucking-thing. She made me feel every emotion in the book and I hate feeling. I avoid feeling anything, but Collette, she makes me feel things I never even knew were possible. Things I don’t want to be possible.

I’d already made the choice to get a vasectomy—already got my shit snipped—then here comes Collette making me regret even getting the procedure to begin with.

If I hadn’t, I’d give Collette hundreds of kids myself, because if anyone should have more, it’s her. She fucking cares so much. She loves so openly. Fuck a rainstorm, Collette’s a tsunami. You couldn’t outrun her love in a Bugatti. Those kids today sure didn’t.

And if I was capable of loving, I would’ve given them mine, too.

I’m not though. I’m not built for that kind of shit. I’m built for…fuck, I don’t know.

I wish I did. Now. Now I wish I knew. Before Collette came along, putting ideas in my head, putting emotions in my chest, I was motherfucking fine, great, fantastic with being exactly what I was.

I was.

Wasn’t I?

I don’t know anymore. I try so hard to forget, I’m losing control of what stays and what goes.

All I used to want was to forget. Now I found something I want to remember, and I wish I could replace every memory I’ve ever had with one from this tour because I never want to forget what’s happened so far. I want to remember the days I sat on Collette’s bus, watching her with her boy, teasing him, kissing the top of his head. I want to remember the time Collette fell asleep with her head on my shoulder and I spent forty-five minutes with a cramp in my ass just so I wouldn’t disturb her. I want the smiles she gives me when we’re performing together like we’re the only two people that exist. And the look on her face today when she sang her fucking heart out to a bunch of sick kids, giving them hope, giving me hope. I want all of it, every minute of being around Collette locked in my memory for-fucking-ever.

Since the day she pierced my back, I swear Collette’s infected me with this feeling bullshit. All these feelings and I got no clue what the fuck to do with any of them. That’s why I took that Xanny—to try to gain back some of that control, so I could forget. Forget those kids, and their parents, and everything they made me feel.

Then when Collette called me her associate and locked her bus door in my face, I decided to drown myself in booze to see if I could forget her, too.

But she won’t let me.

I won’t let me. Something deep in my subconscious will not allow me to forget her. I tried. I’m trying.

I don’t want to try. I never really did. I just like being numb. It makes everything hurt less. Even now though, I’m totally numb, numb to all of this…except her.

The indifference in her gaze when she finally stops talking to Irelynn to meet my eyes flays me wide open, and I stumble again. Nothing mutes Collette or the pain she inflicts with her apathy.

The sky opens up, and with no overhead coverage out here in this field, rain pours down all over the stage and everything on it.

Maybe Collette’s love isn’t a rainstorm, but her apathy sure the fuck is.

I’ll soak that shit up, too. Straight drain her dry. I’ll take anything she’s willing to give me.

Zeroed in on Collette, I bring my mic up to my mouth.

“Sliced to my core, your blade cut so clean.

Whispered threats miss their mark, sending me back reeling.