Page 150 of The Comedown

I try to focus on each word Holter just said, but the only thing I get out is…

“NDAs?”

“Isn’t that what they’re called? Those contracts Slade forces everybody to sign? I didn’t have to sign one though. My mom fought him when he tried making me because I’m underage, and well, she didn’t want you anywhere near me…at first. You know until…” Holter trails off, dropping his gaze to the ground, the ground that I swear hasn’t stopped moving but nobody else seems to notice.

Collette didn’t want me near Holter because I am a grade-A degenerate.

Or was.

Am.

Trying not to be.

Sometimes.

I wish I didn’t have to try at all. I wish I would’ve been enough for Collette and Holter from the very beginning. I wish…a lot of things.

“He makes everybody sign one, huh?”

Holter doesn’t lift his eyes, only nods.

“Even your mom?”

“I know she had to before she could go on tour. That’s how she got us our own bus.”

The fuck? I gave Collette that bus.

Or at least I thought I did. That’s what Slade made me believe anyway.

That’s what I let myself believe.

It’s so easy to be blinded by your own delusions when you’re a big fish in a little pond. Small eyes looking for small dreams with even smaller outcomes.

But then you’re shown the ocean, and someone like Bodee Keys, who’s actually big, comes along to prove you’re really just…nothing. A nobody. A never-was.

He half-laughs, saying, “My mom’s really good at negotiations.” And I almost laugh, too. Or I would if I thought my chest could handle it.

So instead, I nod, lost in thought. Lost in general. I need to figure out what the fuck’s going on, and not just today but what’s been going on. Here I thought I had all these people around me, having my back, having some shred of discretion, but no. I got nothing. For years, my biggest fuckups have largely stayed under the radar, and yeah, I always wondered why, but I never got stuck on it. I figured it was because the people I was surrounding myself with were cool, discreet, loyal.

Nah. They were contractually obligated to keep quiet.

The worst part is Slade’s been doing all this behind my back, without me even knowing. Without me even realizing.

And now I’m finding out Collette—The Collette—joined my circus of contract-bound freaks under those same circumstances. Why didn’t she ever say anything about it? Why didn’t anyone?

NDAs are a regular part of this business—I’ve even had to sign a few myself—but I never knew they were a regular part of my business.

What does that say about me? What does that say about what I’m capable of?

Mass destruction, that’s what. I’m a walking, rapping disaster.

But that, I already knew.

It’s no wonder Collette didn’t want anything to do with me.

At first.

Like Holter pointed out though, that was only at first. Now we’re practically inseparable, so there must be something redeemable about me.