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Fuck, what are you doing, Decker?
I pulled at my hair, trying to get my head around what the hell was wrong with me. And I found myself wishing, for about the thousandth time in the last week, that Caleb were here.
But Caleb wasn’t here, because I’d been an idiot. I’d let my excitement at the idea of having Caleb on the album overshadow the fact that he clearly wasn’t in a place where he’d want to be in the studio. I didn’t know a lot about the specifics of Caleb’s addiction. He hated to talk about it, said he’d talked about it enough in rehab to last a lifetime. But I got the sense, from other things he’d said, that it wasn’t the real reason. The way he talked about his life as if it were over. The way he spoke about music as part of the past, wistfully, like a lover who had left him.
The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt him or make his life harder. But I hadn’t done it on purpose and he’d just…shut down. He’d pushed me away and I could see him battening down the hatches, preparing to weather the storm alone. If only he’d given me a chance, I would’ve stayed; helped. Instead, he’d made it clear what he really thought of me. That I was a kid, a fake, an egotist.
That he’d be just fine without me. It was a sickeningly familiar feeling.
If I let myself think about how much Caleb’s rejection hurt, I’d never be able to get through the rest of the day. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, playing piano on my folded knees. I ran through a few scales, arpeggios, Hanon exercises, like I always had as a kid. They calmed me. I knew their patterns, and I knew what to do next.
After a few minutes, I heard Coco call my name, and cringed, tucking myself even further into the alleyway and dropping my forehead into my hands.
“And now you’re hiding in an alley from your own bandmates,” I muttered into the safe dark cave of my arms and knees. “Great. Whatever. Maybe just for ten more minutes.”
* * *
—
The front door was unlocked, and I slid into the cool shade of the living room. As the door thunked shut behind me, something moved on the couch.
“Caleb?”
The figure unstuck itself from the darkness and the blanket and indeed revealed itself to be Caleb, hair messy and expression grim. The couch was oriented as it was the first time I’d been here, pushed against the wall so it formed a sort of fort you’d need to climb into. A pillow from Caleb’s bed was there in a tangle of sheets.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, voice low and rough with sleep.
“Can I come in?”
“You’re in.”
He didn’t sound angry, exactly. More exhausted.
I’d tried calling but he hadn’t answered, and at first I’d sulked. For days, I’d sulked. It felt like a major rejection over an honest mistake. But I’d also missed him. I’d missed him more than I thought was possible, because I wasn’t sure I’d ever really missed anyone before. There had been Eric, who moved away freshman year of high school. But, really, I’d missed having someone, not Eric specifically.
And maybe it made me pathetic, but I didn’t want to let Caleb push me away. So here I was.
I kicked off my shoes and climbed up on the couch so I sat on the arm, feet on the cushions, facing Caleb, who slumped back into the nest of blankets, as if being upright took too much energy.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was a dick. I didn’t mean to be, but I see that I was. About the studio stuff. I just…I got so excited at the idea of having you on the album, and getting to play with you, that I…I didn’t think about how it would feel for you. I don’t think of you as my backup. You have to know that, right?”
I touched his ankle, the only part of him in easy reach. I heard a sigh from deep inside the tangle of bedclothes, and Caleb propped himself up. When he looked at me, he looked wrecked, and a bolt of fear shot through me that our fight had upset him so much he’d gone and used again. As if he could see the suspicion in my face, he dropped his head back against the back of the couch and raked his hands over his face, his beard, and through his hair.
“Look, this is hell, okay? Music is…it’s everything to me. And these days, it scares the shit out of me.” His eyes pleaded with me to understand, and I thought I did, but this felt too important not to be sure of.
