Page 6 of Paint the Town, Dove
“It’s uh –” he blinked, searching the chaos of last night’s frenzy. “It should be…” His mischievous eyes met mine, defeated. “You’re a lovely singer, Dove. Should come up on stage with me sometime.”
I scoffed, watching him fall out of disorientation. It was sad, truly. Seeing as he wasn’talways like this, that life had been kind then unkind to someone who did not deserve it. I was familiar with the feeling, acquainted with it since birth.
With each passing day, I spun my wheels searching for a solution,anythingto help him out of the hole in his head. But that wasn’t me. Coddling created cowardice.
Pain was a right of passage for some, a requirement to claw through their own decaying mind before facing reality.
Unfortunately, he was one of those people.
“Can you uh…” Dark locks draped over his forehead, shielding the guilt in his eyes. “Can you get me some clothes?”
I crossed my arms. “Any groupies I need to be made aware of before I find a half-naked model camping in your closet?”
He glanced down at the lipstick marks all over his torso. “No groupies, Dove. Just me.”
“Huh,” I tutted, “slow night, then.”
His soft laughter trailed behind me as I moved towards the dresser, sifting through an array of black and white fabric. Most were wrinkled, save for an oversized Led Zeppelin tee signed by Robert Plant himself. I tossed him the shirt.
“Abe’s pissed at you.” I thumbed through my emails, skimming the revised GQ agreement. “I’mpissed at you.”
“I’m pissed at myself,” he shook his head, “you have no idea, Scarlett.”
Scarlett. Henevercalls me Scarlett.
“It’s like I’m programmed to be a bad person.” The ink across his muscles stretched as he lifted the fabric over his head, letting it curtain over his body.
“You’re not a bad person, Ry.”
“Yeah? Then what do you call this?” He waved at the room: the ripped love seats and stained carpets, wet with substances I couldn’t stomach questioning. “What do you callme?”
The flashbacks of our youth washed over me.
Once upon a time, I was enamoured by Ryden Spectre. A time where I thought he could carry the weight of the world on his shoulders even as a stalky, scrawny, thirteen-year-old boy.
We’d been through so much together. Him and I. Dove and Eagle, side by side.
When we made the decision to run away from Slater Street over a decade ago, I never looked back. But Ryden…
That’s all he ever did.
No matter the money, the fame, the PTs or chefs or unyielding fans… Christ, underneath all that, Ryden was a –
“Fucking mess. I’m such a fucking mess, Scar.”
Come back to life,I wanted to say.Come back to me.Instead, I responded with brutal honesty. “I won’t deny it.”
“Want to know how much I did?”
I turned on my heels. “I never do.”
“Two lines,” he choked. “Two lines and I stopped. But then a few fans found me at the club and I got to drinking and then I did another line and –”
I held up a hand, moving towards him. Sometimes, you get so used to disappointment that you expect it. “Look at me.”
And he did, those wild, green eyes glassy with repentance.
“There you are,” I whispered, resisting the pull to caress his cheek, kiss his forehead, love him like he once used to love himself.
