“Click on this one,” Skyler says, pointing.
It’s a thread namedwe miss trevor, and scrolling through it, he realizes he’s reading a vast number of posts that are all about him. Fans not only saying how he was their favorite member of the band, but also talking about how much they loved his solo albumBlue Again. How much they relate to his lyrics, andeven how his songs have gotten them through rough times in their lives. There are so many comments from people hoping he’ll make another album someday.
He doesn’t read through the whole thread—he can’t, it’s too long—but by the time he hands Skyler’s phone back to him, he’s a little dizzy from all his mixed emotions. Despite seeing all the kind, lovely things fans have said about him, he’s still distrustful. Like there’s some angle he’s missing, like they couldn’t possibly mean it when they say he was their favorite member of the band. He can’t quite pinpoint the moment when he lost all faith in himself, but here he is.
“Do you see?” Skyler asks, pressing his thumb into Trevor’s thigh. “They want you to come back to music.”
He shakes his head. “They don’t need me. They have you. You were always the better singer.”
“You were always the better songwriter,” Skyler counters.
“You’re a great songwriter too.”
“Nope. We’re not doing this comparison. Look at me.” Skyler takes him by the chin and forces eye contact, not letting him squirm away from it. “You are incredibly talented. And you used to know that. What happened?”
So many things.
He pushes at Skyler’s hand, grateful when Skyler lets go of his face. “It’s not—It’s not about me being talented, okay? The industry hasn’t exactly been good to me, has it?”
Skyler gives him a sympathetic look, but Trevor isn’t finished.
“Do I really want to jump into that again? Invite all the nosy interviewers to dive back into my personal life, all the critics to judge my feelings? Did you know one reviewer called my album whiney and self-indulgent?”
“No, but you can’t let one person’s opinion get to you,” Skyler says.
Trevor shakes his head. “Maybe you don’t understand how hard it would be for me to put myself out there again because you have this amazingly charmed life, with all your success and fame and the respect of like the entire music industry. All I have is tragedy after tragedy.”
“You have me.”
Some of the fight leaves him at the sincerity and devotion in Skyler’s voice. He places his hand over one of Skyler’s. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Skyler eyes flash with anger as he pulls his hand away, shocking Trevor. “Honestly, I don’t understand what you’re talking about, because my life wasn’t so fucking charmed when I was basically an alcoholic at twenty-two, was it? When the man I loved, the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, told me he wanted out, that he wanted to be with someone else because it would be easier! My life definitely wasn’t charmed then. It completely fell apart.”
“Sky,” he says, but Skyler ignores him.
“Yes, I may have had some luck in putting it back together again. But do you think I didn’t work my ass off for my success? Do you not understand how painfully hard it was to get up every day and even keep existing with my heart ripped clean out of my fucking chest?”
Trevor’s heart jackrabbits. They were supposed to be talking about music, not their relationship. But the one is so tangled up in the other that sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.
The man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
His brain gets stuck on that part, making him deliriously happy in a way he shouldn’t be allowed when he’s made Skyler this upset. But another part sticks out too. Something that can’t be right. “I never said I wanted out.”
“Pretty sure you did,” Skyler scoffs.
“Pretty sure I didn’t.”
Skyler stands abruptly and strides to the dresser, turning to lean against it and crossing his arms, giving him a hard stare.
Trevor panics. Are they actually fighting here?
He can’t lose Skyler. Not again. Not when he just got him back. Not when everything is so good.
He has to swallow around the bile rising in his throat before he can speak. “Hey, I—I’m sorry.” When Skyler’s face softens, it gives him courage to continue, to be honest. “I know it was my fault, and I’m so sorry for everything I did, everything I said that made you feel like you weren’t what I wanted, because you were. And it doesn’t make up for any of that, but so you know, it was just as hard for me to get up every day and keep existing. Probably harder.”
Skyler takes a step forward so he’s standing in the middle of the room, straddling the battle line. “So how’d you do it? In the early days after we broke up, what got you through?”
Trevor eyes him suspiciously because it’s like Skyler already knows the answer to that.
