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“—can’t believe you grew this,” Theo was saying, gesturing with a forkful of potato, onion, and pepper. “In the ground. Damn, this is good. Thanks.”
He was eating food I’d prepared, and even though it wasn’t much, it felt good to do something to take care of someone. Felt like it’d been a while since it hadn’t been the other way around.
“You said earlier that it felt almost like you were part of the band. Do y’all not get along usually?”
He’d mentioned feeling outside the group back in New York, too.
“We get along,” Theo said slowly, as if testing the accuracy of the statement on his tongue along with the hot sauce he’d liberally doused his food with. “It’s more that they fit together really well. They met freshman year of college and formed a band that summer. Coco sang lead. Their stuff was more straightforward rock, I guess?”
Riven’s music, I could now say, because in the middle of a sleepless night I’d downloaded both of their albums, was also rock, but created its unique sound by drawing from heavy industrial drum lines, the soaring vocals of opera and glam rock, and jazzy changes.
“They worked so hard to get signed, and they had great chemistry. Plus, they’re all attractive, which doesn’t hurt.”
It was undoubtedly a factor. Coco Swift was small and energetic, with long braids that whipped around as she played. Her dark skin was flawless and she had the kind of perfectly symmetrical features and high cheekbones that looked almost unreal. Ethan Duskie was white, with light-brown hair and blue eyes, and looked like a yachting ad come to life. Venedictos Petros was Greek, with flashing dark eyes, glossy dark hair, and bright white teeth that gleamed against his olive complexion.
Theo outshone them all. Of course, I might have been biased.
“They got good feedback from a few agents and labels, but Coco isn’t really a singer, you know? She’s pretty good, but she never really loved it. She just wanted to play guitar. And she and Ethan are decent songwriters, but their stuff was just a little…”
“Generic?” I offered.
“Yeah. But they wanted it so bad. And they knew a ton about the industry. So they decided they would just get a singer who wrote songs and then they’d be golden. And…that ended up being me.”
“You don’t sound that enthusiastic,” I said.
He shrugged and bit his lip.
“We get along best in the studio because we’re all kind of perfectionists, so we want to get the tracks laid down right. But on tour is hard ’cause they’re…They dreamed this whole dream of success together, and I was the afterthought. The one they needed to get big, but maybe didn’t want.” He sighed heavily. “I don’t know, it’s not like they hate me or anything. It’s just…”
He shook his head like he couldn’t explain it.
“I kind of hate it,” he said, softly. When he looked up at me, his eyes were stark, his expression a delicate balance of hurt and angry.
“Hate the band?”
“No. I hate being famous. Being…me.”
He started shoveling food into his mouth as if to stop any more words from coming out, but it didn’t hide the tremble in his mouth or his hand.
I put out a hand and ran my thumb over the smooth inside of his wrist, skin black, red, and blue with tattoos.
“What do you hate about it?”
“It’s too…loud. Not the music. That’s the part I love. The people. It’s like they’re too in my head. Their voices. Their opinions. Their grabby hands. They want something from me, you know? I don’t like them looking at me, or—it’s like they make me into this puppet. A doll. A version of myself that isn’t real and that they get to control. Doll Theo can do whatever they want because they made him up. It just…it fucks with my head kind of, and makes me feel all slimy. And then…”
He trailed off and shook his head.
“What?”
“And then I remember that I did it to myself. Like, I joined the band, I recorded the music, I was so excited when people liked our shit. So like, really what am I complaining about, getting what I wanted?”
“First of all, you didn’t know what being famous would be like, so you had no clue whether you’d like it or not. And you certainly didn’t choose it. You just made music. If I learned anything in this business, it’s that getting what you thought you wanted doesn’t necessarily feel anything like what you thought it would. And second”—I slid my hand into Theo’s and squeezed—“you’re allowed to feel however you feel. Not admitting it doesn’t make the feelings go away.”
“You learn that in this business, too?” Theo asked, his eyes wide and vulnerable.
I disclosed the thing that needed to be on the record before we could go any further. It would be painful if he left now; it would be unbearable if he stayed and left later. That, I could already tell. And it terrified me.
