Page 191 of The Comedown

“A liability? Julian, I love you.”

“You know what happens to the people who love me. I drain them until they die.”

The thorny devil lizard. Julian not only believes he sucks other people’s love dry, he thinks he kills them in the process.

“So…what? Is that what tonight was about? Is that why you’re…” I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to put a voice to it and make it real. “Is that why you’re breaking up with me?”

With zero reluctance whatsoever, he says, “Yes.”

I feel myself falling backward, my equilibrium thrown off, so I steady myself by grabbing on to the back of the closest chair.

“Goddamn you. Goddamn you! You promised! You promised me you wouldn’t hurt me anymore!” My voice strange to my own ears, I glance around, surprised to find it didn’t come from someone else. Everything about me is unrecognizable right now.

When Julian gives no reaction, I scream, “This is hurting me! You’re hurting me! You promised—”

He stands so suddenly he sways, too. “I lied! A life with me would be nothing but hurt.”

“You don’t know that. You’re not even giving us a chance to see.”

“I can’t. I…can’t. Everyone that loves me, everyone I love, dies, and I’d rather there be a world where you exist without me, than one without you in it at all. I can’t fucking risk it. I’ll never fucking risk it. Not you. Not your boy. Not. You. Collette.”

“Do you know what that’s called? Sacrifice. The kind that sets deep love apart from regular love. You taught me that. But if you love me, truly, deeply love me, the kind that has the power to soak a person from head to toe before they even realize it’s raining, there wouldn’t be any other choice. Come back to me, Julian. Come back to me and stay.”

For a moment, I think I’ve gotten through to him, I’ve brought Julian back, but then in a blink, he’s Julez again, pointing at me and saying, “You almost had me going there. Where was all this ‘no other choice’ talk when I was asking you to go to Vegas with me?”

Stepping around the chair, I sit on the edge and gaze up at him. “I won’t marry you until I know I’m marrying you.”

He holds his arms out to his sides. “I’m me. I’ve been me, but that wasn’t enough to bring you back, to make you stay. I wasn’t enough.”

“This isn’t you. When you’re like this, you’re angry. You’re mean. You’re bitter. You hurt people. You hurt me.”

“I hurt!” He falls backward on to the loveseat again, repeating, “I hurt. Every day I’m broken down, smashed to fucking pieces. People everywhere think they know. Think they have a fucking clue about me and what I’ve been through. About my life, my art. I put out a song, one song, any fucking song, and it’s not just the song that gets ripped apart, it’s me.”

“I know,” I whisper. He’s not the only one. It happens every single day. Like a firing squad of relentless insults, they never stop coming.

“I don’t go online anymore because I can’t. Every fucking time I do, I see entire threads saying it’s a good thing my mom is dead so she can’t see how bad my music is. Threads I’m tagged in! How am I supposed to ignore that? How is that okay?”

“It’s not okay, Julian. I’m sorry you have to see that. I’m sorry. It’s not okay.”

This life takes a toll on all of us. A harsh toll that people like to explain away because of how much money we make. It doesn’t even matter how much we actually make, it’s assumed we make more, much more, so we should be able to handle the criticism that comes with it. Criticism is one thing. Bullying, verbal assault, and death threats are another, and nobody’s immune to those. Sticks and stones may break bones but words—even typed ones—burrow. They burrow until they’re so deep nothing can fish them out completely, not even money. Especially not money. Money can’t keep you company. Money can’t buy you warmth, love, acceptance.

Money is temporary, but the effects from incessant psychological abuse can, and do, last forever.

Just this morning I saw a post with an unflattering photo of me with a caption about how Julian’s munchies must be rubbing off on me. The only thing I had to eat for the rest of the day was a single pouch of baby food. Even knowing I had to prepare for one of the biggest performances of my career, I just kept imagining people staring at my stomach, and so, I didn’t eat. I didn’t fucking eat. After doing so well, and finally feeling like I had a handle on it, one photo is all it took for me to slide right back into old habits.

It shouldn’t affect us, yet it does. We’re human, too, and flawed ones at that.

“Everyone has a fucking opinion. Except me. I gotta keep quiet about everything, just keep my head down and put out more songs I hate for them to shit all over, then smile for their fucking pictures, wondering why the fuck they even want one.” He scoffs, picking up a random bottle, bringing it to his lips. “This is the only thing I have a say over. The only thing I get to myself that no one can take from me.”

“I’m not trying to take anything from you. I’m only trying to keep you.”

“The Family Julez Tour is over, Collette. Go home.” After taking a long drink, he adds, “Or go to your next tour. Just go.”

“If you don’t stop, you’ll end up exactly like your mom.” I hate saying it, but I need to. Nobody else will.

Julian’s on the same path his mom was except he has access to more, better, harder stuff than she ever did.

He also has access to something else his mother didn’t have—rehab.