His eyes look tired—not hungover tired, not overworked tired.
Soul tired. The kind of exhaustion that comes from fighting yourself and losing. The kind I recognize because I wore it for years.
"Want to tell me what's been going on lately?" I ask.
He rubs the back of his neck, as he struggles with whatever he's about to say.
Tommy's never been good at this part—the vulnerability, the asking for help. He'd rather burn everything down or disappear than admit something's wrong.
"It's not because I don't care about the band and the future or whatever."
"Then what?"
He's quiet for a long moment, and when he speaks again, there's an edge to his voice. Like he's daring me to judge him.
"I got someone pregnant."
The confession lands between us like a grenade.
My chest tightens. My pulse spikes.
"Tommy—"
"Before you give me some lecture on responsibility and allthat bullshit," he cuts me off, and there's something bitter in his laugh. "She's not keeping it. She told me a week ago, said she wasn't ready and didn't want to be tied to some fuck-up musician who can barely keep his shit together."
He shrugs, but the gesture is too sharp, too forced. “Can't really blame her, now can I?"
I stay quiet, let him work through it.
"And the fucked up part?" His hands are shaking more visibly now as he runs them through his hair. “She’s right. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do with a kid? I'm out here drowning in all this fame bullshit—everyone watching, everyone expecting me to be something I'm not. I can't even take care of myself half the time."
"But?"
"But knowing she's giving it up..." His voice cracks, just for a second, before he forces it back to that hard edge. "Knowing there was this... this possibility of something real and now there's just fucking nothing. It made me feel like him. Like I'm already the same piece of shit my dad was."
Just for a second, the armour slips and the kid underneath is visible—terrified, hurting, desperate.
"So yeah, I started using again," he says, and now the words come faster, angrier. "Because what else was I supposed to do? Sit around and feel all this shit? I'm turning into the exact bastard who fucked me up in the first place.”
He laughs, sharp and hollow.
"At least when I'm high, I don't have to think about it. Don't have to feel like a complete fuck up.”
I feel for the kid because I was that kid.
"I didn't want to," he adds, and there's something almost pleading underneath the bravado now. Something raw. "But I didn't know what else to do. And now I'm scared I'm going to lose everything—the band, the music. I'm more worried I'm going to become him and there's not a goddamn thing I can do to stop it because it seems to be my fucking fate."
"You're not him," I say firmly. "And it isn't your fate to become him either."
"How the fuck do you know?" His voice rises, defensive and desperate all at once. "How do you know I'm not just going to repeat the same shit? Make the same mistakes? Hurt people the same way he hurt me?"
I turn to face him fully, give him my complete attention.
"Because you just admitted you're scared of becoming him, which means you're nothing like him."
He looks away, and his jaw clenches.
"Yeah, well. Doesn't feel like much."
