I glued my eyes to the peaceful tan of the curtains that framed the windows. My unfocused vision blurred the bright sand with the vivid blue sea. The sound of the ocean waves crashing outside the cracked window filled my ears with zen. On the window’s surface, I saw my reflection. With my short hair and healthy skin, I hardly looked like the same man I used to be. For the past few months, I’ve seen the view outside this window every afternoon. While I savored the sight of the ocean, a vision that made sobriety just slightly softer, I didn’t enjoy looking at how I’d changed. I’d become much like this rehab facility, dull and colorless and sanitized.

The door opened and an unfamiliar woman entered, her blonde hair in a twist. I held back a cringe when I saw the peonies on her floral blouse. She took a seat at my therapist’s desk, and I waited for an explanation while she studied a folder full of Dr. Bell’s notes. She turned the chair so she‘d face me completely, taking in the sight of me.

“I’m Dr. Paege. Dr. Bell won’t be able to see you today. He’s not feeling well.” Her tone was stiff, and I could tell that she was nervous. I leaned back against the couch, a position I found myself most at home.

“You must be Asya, right? It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She smiled politely, her tone only somewhat easier after I’d loosened my posture, an action I’d used to hide my nervous tension. I often forgot how uncomfortable people could be around me when they knew who I was. When I relaxed, others often relaxed with me.

“I am. It’s nice to meet you.” I gave her one of my signature easy smiles, a face I’d practiced for years and one that came in handy with my line of work.

“Now, I haven’t been seeing you for the past few months the way Dr. Bell has. I‘ll start from the beginning, and he can pick up where you left off with him when he‘s well. Is that alright?” She turned away and sighed gently, her eyebrows pushing together as she looked at the file before she placed it back on the desk. The visible confusion on her face only added to my uneasiness. She looked at me again when she prompted me, “Now, I’ve dealt with a few musicians before with… Other issues…”

Another uncomfortable smile twitched onto my face.

She continued. “Do you think the pressure of your work might have…” She appeared to struggle for words. “Brought you to rely on substances to, I suppose, unwind yourself?” She looked back at me, the light of the summer sun in the window glinted in her silver eyes. They pried into me in a way that my usual therapist’s eyes couldn’t do with their warm, brown color. I made a tense smile at her. Dr. Bell was never so blunt.

“Oh, not at all.” I laughed gently, but my hand was creeping into my hair before I could stop it, consoling a feeling I’d wanted to hide. “The fame is actually one of the best parts of my job. I mean, yeah, there’s stress with handling reputation and all of that stuff, but it’s worse for my bandmates than it ever was for me.” The subject reminded me of the doors fame had opened for me, the parties and the men and all the attention. That little glow that had sparked within me faded just as quickly as it started when I thought of the one door it would never open for me. I shook the thought from my head. “Now, if I were Absinthe, I’d probably blame the fame.” I redirected, thinking about my friend instead. It was odd she’d lasted so long in our band. I always feared that she’d bail at the first hint of attention.

Dr. Paege frowned, scribbling something into her own notebook.

“Now, we’re not here to talk about your friend, Asya. Let’s stay focused.” She reminded me, clicking her pen in a way that seemed habitual. I frowned. Dr. Bell usually welcomed my digressions.

“Sorry.” I gave her an apologetic smile as false as the last she’d gotten from me.

“Although…” She pursed her lips, plotting, “Tell me, what are your relationships with Absinthe and your other bandmates? Is there a lot of strain or pressure?” Her penetrating eyes crept under my skin again, making me feel exposed.

“Well, Absinthe and I were close,” I spoke absently as my gaze drifted out toward the ocean again, trying to ignore her persistent scribbling. “Digitalis just joined the band to get famous.” I scowled, “She puts a lot of stress on everyone, but she’s a good musician. And Gael...” I stopped. Gael. The thought of him awoke something deep down, a myriad of different feelings. Briefly, I wondered if he was happier that I was in here, separated from him. A cold and slimy feeling slithered about my heart. It riddled me with regret and self-loathing and the long-lasting fear that he’d disappear from my life because of the things I’ve put him through.

“You’ve paused. Is there something about Gael that caught your mind?” She leaned forward a little, an inquisitive look on her face.

My eyes snapped off of the window to meet hers, the silver of them piercing into me like a bullet, shaking me back into the present.

“Gael…” I looked back to the sea, to escape the uncomfortable way she looked at me. “I love him.” When the words left my mouth, I nearly shuddered. After all these years I’d kept it inside, speaking of it aloud felt like a bolt of electricity ran through my chest. Her pen scratched at the paper, maddeningly. I could see her small smile from the corner of my eye. Why she was so pleased, I could only guess.

“Were the two of you involved?” she asked, her voice as flat as it was with every other question. I felt like I was talking to an insensitive robot.

“No! He’d never…” I sighed. I wanted to say he’d never love me back, but putting it into words was more than I could handle at the moment. “I... I kissed him once, but I don’t think he knows that I love him. I mean... I doubt he thought of it that way.” Her legs uncrossed and she wrote faster, reminiscent of an invasive reporter.

“Tell me about this kiss. Why do you think he didn’t get the hint when you kissed him?”

I closed my eyes and let my mind sink into the mind of a twenty-year-old me to recount my story to her. 2 years ago...

***

Gael had just announced that he was leaving the band. There was a shudder of soft gasps from the three of us as he looked down at us all from where he stood at the end of the table, framed by the doorway behind him. Gael’s cold, blue gaze revealed nothing, no matter how I tried to claw my way past its guard to read his thoughts. Absinthe sat frozen beside me, silent and listening. Digitalis shot up from her chair across from mine, her red hair flying up with her, her eyes burning with rage. If I hadn’t expected it, her movement might have made me jump.

“How dare you!? Without any warning? You’re just going to leave!?” Her voice only became increasingly frantic, her face adopting a touch of rose as blood rushed into it to feed her anger. “It’s like you’re trying to ruin my chance at fame! You fucking bastard! I can’t believe you’d be so selfish, to bring me- All of us down with this decision! What are you even going to do without us!?”

Gael turned to her, raising his hand in her direction, calm. Absinthe and I sat quietly in the tension that Digitalis exuded, and I watched her with refreshed resentment.

“Don’t worry so much. You have the talent to carry this band. Besides, if I’m not around, you won’t have anyone to share the spotlight with. I thought that you of all people would think my leaving was the best choice possible for the band right now.”

His words flowed like honey. I could never call him manipulative, but with Digitalis he had to be. Her eyes went wide and the rose of her anger left her face. A smile twitched at the corner of her scarlet mouth before she slowly sat back down.

“Yeah...” She muttered. “You’re right... This is great!” She was smiling with an unhinged kind of happiness, now, squirming a little in her chair. If we didn’t already know her well, the speed of her mood change might have seemed sudden. Gael’s eyes rolled before he looked to Absinthe and I. My heart was still falling with that wrenching pulling feeling inside my chest from when he first made the announcement. I couldn’t think of a life without Gael, and I couldn’t imagine the band without him either. He almost ran it alone, with some help from the label and the songs I wrote with him.

“Why are you going to quit, Gael?” I asked, trying not to sound like I would cry. I wondered fleetingly if he could tell. At least my voice didn’t crack... much. I only asked, though, to know what his official explanation would be. I glared at Digitalis, still celebrating in her chair. I knew what the real reason was.

***

It was another party, another night. There was a drink in my hand and I was dizzier than a kid fresh off of a roller coaster with a sugar rush. I stumbled among strangers, laughter on my face with my eyes rolling aimlessly about, drifting from one sight to the next with no focus left. It was one of a billion wild parties in my life, a personal happy place that felt comfortable as long as there were drinks. I held a light plastic cup, empty. In my other hand, I held a large bottle, only partly empty. I took a long, needy drink from the bottle. I was so drunk by now, it hardly mattered what it was in it. It slid down my throat as easily as a cold drink of water after a desert hike. The taste of alcohol lost more of its sharpness with each swallow.

I collapsed into the bathroom, a man laughing in my ear as he tumbled behind me. We climbed up each other until we were both leaning up on the counter. I watched with a feeling of general euphoria, giggling at nothing, while he struggled to arrange a few lines of white powder on the marble.

***

The therapist interrupted, bringing me back to the room full of beachy sunlight. “Is this the first time you did cocaine?”

I nodded as she took a note.

“But not the first time you got drunk, right?” She muttered, still facing her notebook, and I turned the sigh in my mouth into a manufactured laugh.

“About the millionth time for that.” I wanted to laugh at my lame joke, but the frown on her face killed the growing smirk on my lips before I could finish making it.

***

The grating feeling of the blow flying up my nose was strange when I was drunk compared to how it had felt when I tried it sober later on. I’d leaned back against the counter, holding my nose, dizzy as I waited for the hit. The way it felt when it finally did was unforgettable, the rush of pure euphoria leaving me feeling as though I could do anything. The rest of that night disappeared into a blur, and it surprised me I remembered that much. I blamed the stories I’d heard later on for the clarity of my memory. Absinthe knew the most about it all, sharing the tales of that night with a disappointment that would always fill me with shame.

I stumbled into the hotel later that night, crashing into Absinthe’s room where I’d spotted her talking to Gael. My first taste of cocaine had encouraged me to drink even more, and I felt invincible. I’d slurred words and thoughts at Gael, but not a single one of us had any idea what I was saying. He and Absinthe had looked up at me, both expressing in their own ways shock that faded into disappointment. I called him beautiful as well as my mouth could utter it before I collapsed against him, my lips mashing against his in the sloppiest kiss he’d ever have. Gael pushed me off, and I didn’t feel the impact when I hit the ground. He stood over me, his black curls a mess around his face as his eyes pierced into me, angry and a little daunted. His hands shook at his sides until they turned into fists and he sucked in a breath to regain his composure.

“Absinthe...” His voice shook slightly. “When Asya wakes up and you’re sure he’s sober enough to remember it, tell him to fucking grow up.”

Then he walked out of the room, visibly shaken, while I laughed at Absinthe’s name as though I’d heard it for the first time.

There’s a gap between that and when I was in the bathroom, Absinthe’s hands in my hair as I vomited half a bottle of tequila into the toilet. She didn’t leave my side all night.

I woke the next morning, my head splitting in half with pain, my stomach still lurching. My cheek was red from being pressed against porcelain and it relieved me to learn that someone lay me to rest in the bathtub when I saw all the vomit on me. My whole body was sore from the hard tub and I tried to sit up. Absinthe roused from where she was curled up with her head in her arms on the toilet lid. Her tired eyes regarded me and then she slowly stood, looking about as sore as I felt as she stretched.

“Oh, Asya... You’re a mess...” She looked down at me with such a face that I could only imagine how pathetic I must have looked. She reached for the shower head and then suddenly I was freezing all over, the cold water making me jerk until I bashed my arm against the tub. She hosed off the vomit and whatever else dirtied me as the water slowly warmed, my arms failing to shield me with their frustratingly sluggish movements. Some alcohol must have remained inside me.

“You probably got alcohol poisoning, you idiot,” she lectured. “You could have died, you know.” I didn’t care. It was only when she’d told me about what I’d done that I cared at all what went on the night before. I held my head in my hands, the water rushing through my hair, navy back then, as she rinsed out the filth that had remained. Even if I barely remembered the night before, I regretted it all.

***

The sound of crashing waves pulled me back, replacing the dirty hotel bathroom with the radiance of tropical sunshine.

When my mind returned to the therapy session, it vexed me to see that Dr. Paege was looking at her phone. She noticed my glance and set it on the desk, prompting me to speak with only a look.

“I had to take responsibility for the band when Gael left. I mean, I helped him run it before he quit, but suddenly I had to take the brunt of the work on my own. We were working with a label at the time, so thankfully I had a manager to help me, but it was still rough. I had to write the songs all on my own. Absinthe wasn’t the creative type and Digitalis… Well…” I cringed when I thought of the songs she wrote. “At first, she wanted nothing to do with any of that. Parties and scandals were all she was interested in.” I stared at the ceiling, now, willfully ignoring the therapist at this point.

“And how did this affect your drinking? And the cocaine problem I assume followed your eventful night at that party?”

I glared harder at the ceiling. I wondered if she knew anything about the subject, thinking the cocaine addiction started in a single night…

“Well, I stopped day-drinking so much. I had to take responsibility. It was hard to ignore the urge to drink all day. I tried to save all of my partying for the evenings and all of that, but… It didn’t work. I drank less, but I honestly couldn’t get through a day focused without carrying around some spiked coffee or tea. And god… Spiked tea…” I sighed at the thought, how wonderful it tasted.

“Let’s not be tempted, now. You’ve been clean for months, Asya.” She lectured, tapping her notebook with her pen in that neurotic way.

I kept my eyes away from her. I didn’t need to see that look she was probably making.

“Your addiction at this time had already taken significant control, hadn’t it?”

“Yes. It had.” I agreed. It was obvious, now, even if I’d denied it in the beginning.

“What about your cocaine addiction? How did that progress? You had it at the party, but then…” She left her sentence open-ended, making it difficult not to finish it for her. I wanted to resist the urge as revenge for her tactless questions. I thought of what Dr. Bell would want me to do instead, and I finished her sentence.

“I didn’t take it a lot at first. I went to a couple more parties, had it a couple more times, and then I wanted it more. It made me into more than just a lifeless shell. There were a few times…” I stopped, ashamed.

“Go on, Asya.”

“There were a few times I did it while I wrote songs. Or before I went to the studio. And… at a few concerts, too. But, I mean, I was already used to going to concerts buzzed, so that wasn’t a huge step down for me.” The echoes of the old darkness that had lived inside of me were a distraction from the shame that I felt now. She squirmed in her chair before scribbling notes down. I wondered if it frustrated her that I wasn’t making eye contact with her.

“I’m appalled you made it as far as you did without intervention.”

“Well… Absinthe helped me through a lot during that part of my life. She tried so hard to keep my addictions from controlling me. She took some of my spiked drinks away during work hours, coaxed me away from a few parties, and made me spend a few sober nights with her. I mean, it didn’t stop me from continuing my shit, but it slowed me down a little. If I messed it up sooner than I did, I’d probably be nothing more than a washed up memory to my fans.” I closed my eyes, releasing tension with a sigh. “But she slowed me down… So here I am: ‘on vacation.’”

I remembered the endorsement deal that Absinthe took with me during that time without Gael, how it had stolen spare time I’d have just filled with drugs and alcohol.

“Do you really believe she slowed it down that much?”

My lip twitched at the judgment in her tone, but I considered her words. “I suppose it didn’t help a lot, but…” I stopped. I didn’t want to be argumentative. I started over, “Maybe not as much as I thought, but she helped me”

“Hmm…” She scribbled more into her notebook. I resented the tone of her voice a little.

“The year after that was even worse.”

“What made you fall so hard that year?” She asked lazily.

“Well, I mean…” I thought for a moment. I still suffered from the emptiness and loneliness that manifested back then. Those emotions threatened to consume me and I couldn’t feel anything much at all without my unhealthy habits.

I continued, “After Gael left, I… There was a loneliness I’d never known. I rarely felt it when I was drunk or high, so I… Kept burying it away.”

“Why was Gael so important that you couldn’t let him go?”

I thought for a moment, folding my hands together as though I could cage the answer within them.

“Gael is more than just someone I love.” I began, imagining him with a faint smile of nostalgia. “He’s the entire reason I am who I am. I wouldn’t have become a musician without him. He’s just… He’s been my entire world. Since the beginning.”

“Since the beginning? How long have you known each other?” I could hear her weight shifting forward in her chair, the sound of her shoes flattening against the ground. She was leaning forward, engaged. I ignored my irritation. She only seemed interested in stories that could make good gossip.

“We’ve been neighbors since birth. He’s been my world for my entire life. Well… Maybe not my whole life, but… At least since I was ten.”

The sound of a screaming violin echoed in my mind, and it wasn’t long before the evening he dazzled me was as real as the present.

***

There was the sensation of a tightened tie around my throat, as well as the restraint of an ill-fitted suit. I squirmed beside my father, displeased, crossing my arms and glowering so he would know how unhappy I was. In my ears played just another awful song, performed by some kid I didn’t know, making frantic sounds I ignored with every willful fiber of my being. I exhaled loudly and pushed my back into my chair harder, covering my ears. My dad pulled my hand from my ear, glaring at me with a silent threat that put a jolt through me. I huffed and sat straight, obedient despite my displeasure.

Then, Gael got on stage.

He was in a suit, too, but he didn’t seem to feel as uncomfortable as I did in mine. His hair swept around the paleness of his face in contrasting dark curls, catching my eye. He looked so different up there than he did when we played together in the streets of our suburb. I remembered the relief of seeing a familiar face, pointing at him to show my mother he’d come on. She shushed me and lowered my hand with a gentle touch, but she couldn’t kill the giddy fluttering that burst within me.

Gael raised his violin to his chin, his expression cast as a mask of calm. I’d never seen him with a violin before. His father never allowed him to have friends in the house during the hours that he’d practice each night. I wiggled in my seat, my heart filling up with anticipation. I hoped that he wouldn’t screech and hurt my ears as the previous contenders had.

The notes rang through the hall: smooth and perfect and flowing like silk in a gently moving stream. The excitement that had invaded me before was relaxing into frozen awe. The song was over before I was ready for it to end. He bowed and walked offstage, every movement perfectly rehearsed, but natural in appearance.

I wanted to do that. I wanted to play music just like him, to sound so beautiful and to make others feel the way he made me feel. I thought Gael was amazing, like a hero. I sat between my parents, neither of which could look up from their phones, and I looked to the stage where he’d disappeared. Gael became the first person that I’d ever truly admire.

***

I sighed, and the sea outside the window answered me with a crash.