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Another voice invades the fringes of my consciousness. It’s a man talking about a football team. A second later, a woman tells her daughter to eat her ice cream before it melts. People are laughing, and it’s so out of place that it yanks me back to the present.
My heart pounds, and my lungs heave as I take in air, recalling what they told me at the hospital. I focus on my breathing, counting the seconds in my head while I try not to fucking lose it. It’s not a cure, but after a few minutes, everything comes back into focus.
I’m in a hotel room in Tennessee. Alone, but not. People are walking around outside, making noise and disrupting my routine. I’d gotten used to the faces, sounds, and scents at Bethesda, and these aren’t it.
As I stare at the space around me, I find myself asking how I’m going to do this. How the hell am I going to go to Los Angeles and make an album like this? My eyes flick to the revolver in my hand. I don’t even know when I grabbed it, but this is what it always comes back to. This question. The exit strategy lingering in the back of my mind.
I could do it now. I wouldn’t be letting anyone down. Kieran and Ryan would go to LA and do the album themselves somehow. Bianca would marry Adam, and they could forget I ever existed. It would be a clean break. Everyone could go on with their lives.
My phone chimes, and it severs the intensity of my focus on the revolver. When I glance at the screen, there’s a text from Kieran.
Checking in. Let me know you’re alright.
That simple message smacks some sense into me. Everything I just said is a lie. I made a promise to Wyatt, and I can’t take it back. I have to stick around if for no other reason than that. But I know that isn’t the only reason. I couldn’t leave Kieran and Ryan to wonder what they could have done differently to save my sorry ass. Not after everything we’ve been through.
I don’t know how to navigate the uncertainty of my future. But what I do know is how to put one foot in front of the other and focus on the seconds. There are one hundred and twenty of them as I pack up my shit. I didn’t even last more than a couple of hours in the hotel, but I can’t stay here.
On the road again, I drive for a few hours at a time between stopping for naps at rest areas. When I make it to Chattanooga in the morning, I grab some breakfast at a drive-through. I’m not really hungry, but I can’t remember the last time I was. I eat anyway, downing the coffee I wanted more than anything and chasing it with some OTC pain relievers. After finding a spot at a local park, I get out to stretch my legs. I’m in pain from sitting for so long, and they tapered me off the good shit, so the meds don’t even touch it anymore.
As I walk down the sidewalk, I pass a few local businesses, peering in windows and observing people as they go about their lives. In some ways, it feels like I’m watching them from another planet. I don’t know if I even remember what it was like to be one of them. Was I ever that complacent? Did I just walk around like them, never concerning myself with the threats around me?
I pass by a dry cleaner, a bakery, and a shoe store. At the end of the street, I find myself at the door of a rescue shelter. I stand outside, staring through the window, thinking about how much I wanted a dog when I was a kid, but Stefan would never allow it. I wonder how many are in there, locked in their cages, feeling unloved and alone.
A woman opens the door and smiles at me, gesturing for me to come in. “Are you John?”
“Uh, no,” I apologize.
“Oh, okay. We’re just getting opened up for the day, but come on in. We’ve got time for a walk-in if you want to have a look. My name is Kay, by the way. I’m a volunteer here.”
I don’t know why I follow her, but my feet are moving before my mind can catch up. Kay asks me a few questions, to which I give her vague, muttered responses, and then she leads me into the back. She asks me if I’m looking for anything in particular as we walk through the hall of metal cages.
I can’t answer because I don’t know what I’m doing. I just know that every cage we pass, the dogs staring back at me reaffirm how much I fucking hate humanity. They’ve all been let down. Every single one of them. They’ve been failed by people who abandoned them or abused them or gave them up after they bought them as a gift and then realized they required actual fucking responsibility. With every story Kay tells me, my chest feels tighter, and a new sense of frustration takes over me because I can’t help them all. Realistically, I don’t even know if I can take one. But when we reach the end of the line, and she skips over the mutt with the shaggy brown hair and sad eyes, I can’t help but ask why.
