Page 68 of Last Chorus

She nods hesitantly. “Okay.”

Dropping my feet to the floor, I rub my face roughly.Just do it. Tell her.I take one more deep breath, then prop my elbows on my thighs and begin.

“I learned really young that being around you was like taking medicine for my anxiety. From thirteen on, I lived for the weekends. Making music with you was the only time I felt relief.”

“Really?” she whispers.

I nod. “I know now it was because I felt safe to be myself around you, but back then…” I shake my head. “I think I was fifteen when I wanted to kiss you for the first time. By seventeen, I fantasized about you constantly. I didn’t know how to handle it, so I made all these rules for myself. For us. But at the same time, I was doing weird shit like deleting texts from boys on your phone.”

Her jaw drops. “That was you?”

I offer a wincing smile. “I might have also pretended to accidentallytouch you in the pool more than once.”

Her eyes flare with laughter. “I was guilty of that too.”

“Did you also sneak out of the pool, find my clothes, and steal my boxers to masturbate with?”

Evangeline gapes. “Oh my God, I remember freaking out when I couldn’t find my underwear. That’s nasty, Wilder!”

“It’s like you’ve never met me.”

She considers me for a moment, then nods. “Fair point.”

Our shared smile fades from my face first.

“By the time you left the band, my feelings for you had become synonymous with my fear of losing you—or more accurately, my fear of your rejection and this perceived control you had over me. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was abusing substances by then, too, so my self-loathing and denial journeys were well underway.”

She frowns, her gaze falling to her lap. “When we started dating, you told me that you’d pushed me away because you were afraid.” I’m not sure what she means until she adds, “You were telling the truth. Or as much of it as you could articulate at the time.”

I swallow so hard I almost choke. “Yes. The only thing I lied to you about was my using.”

She nods to herself. “Go on.”

“Fast forward a few years—I met Kendra, who was already strung out on pills. With access to a steady supply through her, I started using Oxy consistently. There were immediate benefits. My drinking slowed down, I finally wrote our sophomore album, and my anxiety was managed for the most part. For the first time in years, I felt like I was in control of my life. I even developed rituals to support the narrative that I wasn’t an addict.”

Her eyes widen. “Really? Like what?”

“I was obsessed with finding the right dosage to not look high while also shutting off my disorder. I was militant about controlling how much I took and when—even had a hidden calendar on my phone to track everything. And every few months, I’d detox myself. I convinced myself that if I cleared the drugs out of my system periodically, it meant I wasn’t addicted.”

Evangeline shakes her head in disbelief. “That sounds like a nightmare.”

“It absolutely was. But I was so locked in, I couldn’t imagine living a different way. When I showed up at your Cathedral show, I was coming off a really rough detox. I’d been sober for ten days. Jax had figured out what was happening, and earlier that night he’d offered to do a dry month with me. For the first time in a long time, I felt hopeful. I didn’t agree to it for you, exactly, but I’d be lying if I said you weren’t part of the reason. After all, you were my first addiction. My favorite high.”

She makes a soft, distressed sound, but my gaze has dropped to the floor and I can’t bring myself to look up.

“I made it another four days. Until dinner that night with the guys. When I left the room, I had the worst panic attack I’d had in years. Completely debilitating. And I cracked. I found two pills that I’d hidden in mybathroom and took them. I didn’t want to, but the compulsion was overwhelming.”

I glance up, catching the tail-end of her pained expression, and add quickly, “My relapse had nothing to do with you. It had to do with me not addressing any of the underlying causes of my addiction. Any substantial stressor would have yielded the same result. It was going to happen sooner or later no matter what.”

She blinks a few times. “Thanks for saying that. So from that point on you were using daily again?”

“Yes,” I admit hoarsely. “In the following weeks, I learned what true self-loathing was. I’d finally admitted to myself that I was an addict, but I didn’t know how to stop or ask for help. I couldn’t see a future where I had what I wanted: freedom from anxiety and you. All I knew was that I couldn’t lose you. So I lied.”

Her mug clanks on the coffee table. Wiping her tearing eyes, she whispers, “I hate that you went through that just as much as I hated you back then for lying to me.”

“Losing you was my rock bottom, Evangeline. It’s what made me ask for help. You saved my life.”

The glassiness in her eyes doubles. “But then I told you I wished you were dead.”

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