Page 144 of The Comedown

I’m pulled to him in a kiss so fast, I don’t even get my lips open in time before his tongue slips right past, licking inside like flames chasing a line of accelerant. Those tattooed knuckles press into my cheeks and guide me exactly how he needs me to get closer.

A knock at the door is the only thing that breaks us apart as Julian turns his head to the side to yell, “Leave it at the door!” before finishing much softer, “I’ll get it later,” looking up at me again.

“We don’t have much time, little lamb. Brunchtime is approaching.”

“I would’ve had you back for breakfast, you know that, right?”

I lick his chin, over his piercings, up his lips to the tip of his nose, then admit, “I would’ve stayed for lunch.”

“I gotta work on my negotiation skills.”

“And your interrogation skills. You folded like a lawn chair.”

Grinning, he shakes his head. “Pick another tat.”

“The broken wing.”

“For my grandma. She was an angel. She took me in after my mom died. We lived seventeen minutes away from each other but we’d never even met before, then all of a sudden this kid with a chip on his shoulder showed up on her doorstep. I spent the summer before middle school pissed off at everyone and everything, including her. I wouldn’t talk to her or anyone else, but I wrote lyrics…everywhere.”

“Of course,” I say, propping my chin on his chest.

“Of course,” he repeats. “That’s what eventually opened the conversation, then bonded us. Music.”

“Because she was a music teacher?”

“Yeah. When school started again, mine got out earlier than hers, so I’d take the bus over to sit in on her last class of the day. Then after, she’d teach me one-on-one. I was still really angry, like fucking angry. And she showed me how to channel my anger into multiple outlets. Instruments, singing, songwriting. The more, the better. I couldn’t get enough. Music, in any form, was the only thing that helped me not feel so angry all the fucking time.”

Although anger is technically a primary emotion, in this case it was definitely a secondary emotion, born from another, or most likely multiple others. Julian’s anger stemmed from not only sadness at losing the only person his life revolved around, but probably shame, too. Shame for what he thinks he did to lose his mother, shame because she made him feel insignificant with her actions. And being so young, the seed of shame planted, took root, then proceeded to grow from there. And so the anger grew too, right alongside his other emotions to safeguard Julian externally while he grappled with them all internally.

Channeling that anger into his art only to then have it judged, dictated, and ultimately taken away from him later in life, brought the emotions he’d been protecting so fiercely to the forefront in an overwhelming comedown he wasn’t able to face, so he turned to another outlet…the one that was originally to blame—alcohol. Alcohol led to drugs, and eventually, he lost control of all of it, his grasp on not only his emotions, but on himself as well. Julian still thinks he’s insignificant because nothing’s ever chopped down that shame tree flourishing deep inside him.

“Julian?”

“Yeah?”

“I love…” I swallow loudly. “…watching you perform.” I could say it, what I was going to, that I love him. I’ve tried not to, but it happened anyway. I’m scared that love will take over me like it did my parents though, so it’s better, it’s safer, if I just keep it to myself. This tour will be over in less than a month and then it won’t even matter anymore.

He eyes me for a full minute before saying, “I love…watching you perform, too.”

Does he feel the same way? Could he say he loves me, too? And mean it?

Less than a month.

“Tell me about the bullseye,” I say quickly, referencing the top of his spinal cord where there’s a bullseye with solid black circular bands.

“I’ve been stabbed in the back so many times, I thought I’d make the target easier to find.” He shrugs.

“You want people to stab you in the back?” My words come out ragged with regret. I stabbed him in the back, not metaphorically like he’s talking about, but literally. Technically it was just a nick, but the thought that I might be considered one of the people he’s referring to makes me nauseous.

“It’s inevitable. A given. A guarantee. There are more coming, always. I just want the ones that are readying their knives to stop fucking around and hit the mark already.”

“You want to die.” I don’t ask it, I state it, and Julian doesn’t bother denying it.

Instead, he says, “Mm. I don’t…” He pauses, thinking about it. “I don’t think I’ve done a lot of good in this life. I don’t think I deserve… I know I don’t deserve it.”

“Deserve what?”

“Any of it. Everything I’ve been given. Starting at my birth and everything that’s followed.”