Shame and guilt poured over me like molten lava. How could I have been so stupid, so reckless?
"Well, mate, you look like a bag of shite that's been run over by an eighteen-wheeler then left out in the sun to dry," said a cheerful voice with an English accent.
"What..." My gaze landed on Viktor Farrow. I cleared my throat. "What are you doing here?"
He scratched his scalp as he sauntered to my bedside. "The better question is what the fuck areyoudoing here?"
I dropped my stare and scratched my fingernail over a corner of the thin, white blanket draped over my lap.
"Only a fucking knob head would do what you did yesterday at that afterparty." He leaned his forearms onto the railing, pushing his face into my vision. "Are you a knob head, Paxton?"
"I don't even know what that is," I muttered. A low thrumming started in my body, that craving that had recently begun to set in, of needing something to calm my nerves, to make me forget everything.
"A dickhead, you idiot." Viktor laid a hand on my shoulder and firmly shook me until I glanced at him. "You're throwing away your life if you continue to take this path. Drugs aren't the answer. Trust me,Iknow. I spent over a decade of my life trying to wallow my memories away in alcohol and anything else I could lay my hands on. I sacrificed relationships, ruined friendships, and became more miserable than I'd been before I'd started numbing the pain." He shook his head. "And you of all people should understand where that road goes."
I shrugged.
"And so did your dad." His words were harsh but true.
That long-ago memory of Dad lying on that cheap mattress, needle in his arm, his eyes dead, made me shiver.I don't want to end up like him. How did I get to his point?
The sting of hot tears forming in my eyes felt good. I hadn't cried in a long time. Every time I'd felt the ache, I'd self-medicated.
"I don't want to become my dad. That's been my biggest fear and yet here I am, in a hospital from a drug overdose." I stared out the window to the full parking lot below. "How did you break free, Viktor?"
"With a lot of help in rehab and a great mental health team." He leaned back and reached into a pocket, then pulled out a coin and held it in the air in front of me. "Rehab isn't a permanent solution. You must truly want to get better. You can't do it just because youthinkyou should. You have toknowyou should."
"I need to be a better man—not just for Terri—but for me. I've been so terrified of becoming my dad that I didn't realize I'd slowly been spiraling into his same pattern." I thought about the few months I'd stayed with Terri as a kid, how I'd always been strong and so sure I'd never go down the same path as Rhett Ross. "I thought I could control the cravings and prove I was relevant to the world. In a weird way, I was sure by controlling my urges I would never go too far."
“But you didn’t control them.” Viktor rubbed his forehead as he glanced out the window. “They controlled you.”
A nurse, dressed in navy-blue scrubs, pushed herself into the room. "Good, you're awake. I’m Gina. You came to a little earlier but you were still pretty groggy."
I vaguely recalled the doctor examining me and the nurse adjusting a blood pressure cuff, but it was hazy, like a fading dream.
She rolled a cart holding a computer next to the bed, then began typing. "How do you feel?"
Viktor rolled his eyes. "How do you think he feels? Like someone with a really bad hangover."
Her stare cut to the rock god. "Oh," she breathed. "Wow." The sound of her fingertips striking the keyboard stopped.
"Listen, give us a couple more minutes of privacy, and how about I giveyouan autograph?" He smiled, showing perfectly straight teeth. It was the arrogant smile Viktor flashed when on the news or magazine covers.
Gina’s stare cut to mine, bounced to Viktor, then back to me. "Your vitals look great. I'll…I'll go get the doctor…let him know you're awake." With one last peek at Viktor, she wheeled the cart away with an extra bounce in her step, shutting the door with a gentle click.
"I still got it." Viktor stretched his arms toward the ceiling, then twirled the coin across his fingers. "This life—recording, parties, living on the road—isn't easy. It changes most of us on some fundamental level. If we can't roll with it, then we find ourselves steamrolled by the vultures, which makes it hard to trust anyone. And the pressure leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with the side effects.”
I grabbed my cell phone from the nightstand and absently ran my fingers across the surface. "All I've ever wanted is to become a singer with my own band. And the opportunity to follow that dream pushed me from the only thing that truly made sense, that made me happy."
"Fame and fortune are seductive slavers, Paxton. Their shackles feel good and before we know it, we're begging to be leashed."
"I no longer want to pay the price. I just want to be free."
"Come on, mate." He slapped me on the back, the jangle of his bracelets loud in the small room. "You need a sponsor. and it just so happens you're in the presence of the greatest recovering addict the rock scene has ever known."
I nodded, thankful for his support. For the first time in years, I felt a thread of light reaching through that darkness in my head, tempting me to leave my black world and find myself once more.
Chapter forty
