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It was almost...humbling, him staying here with Canaan. Holding space or whatever Canaan’s hippy friends back at school would call it. Finally, Canaan couldn’t stop the words that tumbled free.
“We had arrived in Prague for a series of shows. Driving from Vienna, we’d been out of cell phone range most of the day, and we arrived late. I had a message to call my grandfather as soon as possible. Somehow I knew something awful had happened.”
“Did you call right away? Prague’s what, nine hours ahead?” Renzo apparently was better at calculating time zones than Canaan.
“Yeah. I didn’t stop to do the math. Just called.” Canaan’s throat burned, and he hadn’t even gotten to the worst parts of the story yet. “Grandpa said Grandma had been feeling sickly but hadn’t wanted me to know. But he’d finally taken her to the doctor, and it was cancer. Metastasized. They gave her less than six months to live.”
“And you wanted to go home?” Renzo scooted closer.
“Yeah. And at first, I thought I’d go for a fast visit. We had Eric with us as a roadie, and he’d filled in once before when I got awful food poisoning in Spain. A few days wouldn’t be a huge deal, but the more I looked at tickets, trying to calculate return dates, I realized that I couldn’t do it that way. I needed to be with her. So I asked Kelly about taking more of a leave of absence from the group.”
“He said no?”
“Not exactly. But he said the band should vote about whether I should get to rejoin them later in the year. It was a split vote. Came down to Damian, and I knew he’d have my back. We were stupid in love back then.”
“Bastard voted no, didn’t he?” Renzo sounded about ready to go hunt down Damian himself.
“He voted no. Said he was doing me a favor because my heart wasn’t with the group anymore. Said that if I didn’t want to put the group first, then maybe it was time for me to move on. Said it wouldn’t be fair for Eric to tour the rest of the year with them and then have to step aside when I came back.” Canaan’s hand clenched, and he was about to punch the rock when Renzo captured his hand, held it.
“That’s bogus. You’d been with the band since what? Fifteen? Seven, eight years at that point? You’d earned six months away if that was what you needed.” Not releasing his hand, Renzo gave him a squeeze.
“That was what I thought.” Canaan’s voice came out bitter and hoarse. “But not everyone saw it that way. And I wanted to get back to my grandmother, not waste time arguing with the band. And I—naive as I was—thought that Damian had a good point about it not being fair to Eric. So I didn’t fight it. I wanted to walk away still friends with everyone.”
“That shouldn’t have been your worry. Your grandma was dying. Of course they should have been there for you. What kind of buddies would they be to not have any support for you?”
“Oh, they were supportive. While I was back in San Diego, Kelly texted often, as did Cindy and Jules. They sent flowers to the funeral and stuff. They all got why I had to leave—the only awkwardness was over whether I could come back. And after I’d been home awhile, I saw Damian was right. My heart was in San Diego with my family. I couldn’t leave Grandpa all alone and return to the touring lifestyle. Not when he’s got health issues too.”
“Totally makes sense to me.” Renzo gave him another squeeze. “But when did the jackass break up with you?”
“My last night in Prague.” A chill swept through him at the memory.
“What? He couldn’t even wait until after she passed away?”
“No. He said it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to do distance—”
“Fuck fair. He should have stuck by you. You love someone, distance is irrelevant.”
“Yeah, well he painted it as doing me a favor. But I hated leaving him there. He said we’d always be friends, but my heart was seriously breaking.” Now, with the distance of years, he could see that a lot of his grief had been for the person he’d always thought Damian was, the one who had supported him and believed in him through good times and bad, and instead Canaan was proved wrong for trusting and loving him so long.
“I bet. He wasn’t worth your pain though. Piece of shit.” Renzo was rather vehement, which Canaan liked more than he should have. “And then it turned out that him and Eric were already fucking?”
“Yeah. Apparently they hooked up several cities prior. And whatever. It wasn’t like monogamy was a huge deal to either of us, but we didn’t usually hide things. We were tight, you know? Best friends. If he got something on the side, he usually told me or invited me to play too.”
