Page 77 of Darcy
“We’re here,” Dodger announces, striding through the open door.
His clothes are grubby and dishevelled, there are huge shadows under his eyes, and his hair is a mess.
Great. He definitely hasn’t slept. I give him a pitying look that he throws off with a roll of his eyes.
“We have bigger problems. Arlo decided to get high.” He drags the guitarist into the room and shoves him towards us.
“Stop pushing me everywhere,” Arlo complains, his words falling over each other. “I’m fine. And I can get high if I want to. I’m a rock star, for fuck’s sake. It’s what we do.”
The normal, quiet guitarist is gone. Dodger’s holding his sunglasses, so we can all see Arlo’s blown pupils and the way his eyes are darting from left to right. Great. Now we get to deal with his hyperactive alter-ego chatting shit for hours on end.
That’s when the real hell begins. He’ll deal with hours and hours of nerves and anxiety until he’s ready to take another hit just to make it stop.
Fuck.
I look up at Prophet, silently asking for a truce. As much as he wants out, he still gives a fuck about Arlo, so I’m not surprised when he nods.
“Buddy system,” Prophet grumbles with a sigh. “He goes nowhere alone, andnowherenear Miguel.”
Step one, limit exposure and alone time. Our manager has always kept Arlo with a never-ending supply of blow, either directly, or via his “friends.” When Arlo first tried to quit, things turned ugly, fast. It quickly became obvious that Miguel likes keeping all of us on a tight leash.
The slimy asshole caught on to our tactics and started slipping more and more drugs into Arlo’s pockets, into the glove box of his car, every cabinet of his house. We even caught some taped to the underside of a hotel sink once.
So on top of quitting and dealing with the temptation of coke being literally everywhere he turned, Arlo had to keep up the charade of being an addict. At least he dropped his old friends ages ago. Now it’s only Miguel we need to worry about.
“Agreed,” Dodger mutters, falling back into the pattern with ease. “I’ve got the first hour.”
“Hey, guys, it’s no big deal. I’ve got this.” Arlo grins, ignoring our worried looks. “I have the best idea for a song. I can already see the melody…”
¡Mierda!
There it is. The temptation. Euphoria. Every single cell of his body is up, alert, and awake. Confident in a way he never normally is.
It won’t last.
Already, I can see the sweat beading at his hairline, and his hands tracing lines up and down his arms. When he was using regularly, he picked his skin to shit—coke bugs are no joke. Then there’s the paranoia, the anger, the depression.
I sigh. At least he didn’t overdose and end up in the ER this time. His life is in a much better place now than it was when he used to abuse the stuff. Perhaps that will help. After the rehab program, we learned a ton about supporting someone going sober, and we knew relapse was possible.
Hopefully, when he sees Emma’s reaction and realises what he’s done, he’ll cooperate and go back to being clean. It won’t make the withdrawals suck any less, but hopefully we can get him over this hill before Darcy notices.
When he comes down, he won’t want her seeing this.
“I’ll take second shift,” I offer.
Sully sighs, pacing away from us. “You boys get your shit together and get on that plane. I’ll get your evidence, but there’s no point doing all this if you get yourselves killed.”
* * *
Arlo startsto come down midway through the flight to Vegas. It’s easy to tell, but I think that might just be because I’m used to the signs. He stops talking so much and starts looking around more, checking for invisible threats. He’s rubbing his arms, but hasn’t started picking again yet.
I let Emma know what happened, and as predicted, she struggled with the news. Lo’s baby sister is too tough to cry, but her breathing was shaky from the moment the news broke until I hung up the phone. She offered to help, but we all know how many memories this is dredging up for her. Ems spent her childhood dealing with junkies going through withdrawal, and Arlo’s right not to want to put her through it again.
Instead, Dodger keeps close to our guitarist, fetching him water, forcing him to eat, and making sure the sketchbook is on hand as he switches rapidly between a familiar cycle of irritation, paranoia, and exhaustion.
At least he hasn’t thrown up this time.
The second we land, we’re thrust right into the thick of things. I take point during sound check and rehearsal, deflecting attention away from Arlo at all costs, but there’s no fixing the fact that we have to see Darcy for the safety talk.
