“Barrett was always a musical genius,” I say. “He’s sensitive in a way I could never be. It gave him a gift for making beautiful music...and it also made him vulnerable to predators. Monsters like Vance Haydn.” My voice hardens on that demon’s name no matter how I try to keep it neutral. “He signed Barry to a contract with big promises. Fame, fortune, the millions of new listeners. Nothing Barrett ever cared about. He just wanted to share his songs with as many people as he could, and that’s what lured him in. That’s what fucking broke him.”
I can’t help it.
The bitterness leaks out like bile rising up my throat, coating my tongue, injecting every word with hateful venom.
“Haydn pushed him. Treated him like a cog in the machine. The music industry is just as unforgiving as the tabloids. Maybe more so. They’ll wring every drop of life out of you and eat your passion like sour candy, then spit it back out at your feet and tell you it’s not enough. Do more. People like Haydn cannibalize artists, Callie. He devoured my brother whole—and then he dropped him fucking cold.”
Her eyes pop. She strokes my arm with kind encouragement.
Go on. Please.
Somehow, I do.
“Haydn told him he didn’t have what it took after using up everything he did have. Broken promises, broken dreams, and it was so sudden it pulverized his heart. I was furious when I found out, but Barrett promised he’d be fine. He’d find a way back. He said it with tears in his eyes, Callie...and yet the whole damned time he was smiling. I knew something was off; I just didn’t realize what.”
It burns to breathe.
I don’t realize how hard I’m gripping her hand until her knuckles bite my palm.
Inhaling sharply, I make myself let go.
I can’t look at her right now.
I don’t want to know if she’s looking at me with frosty disappointment for failing to save my brother. Or worse—pity for how guilt-busted I am over it.
So I stare at the row of seats across from me, fixating on the stitches in the upholstery, counting the lines in the seams.
Counting the number of knots it takes to make a noose.
“Roland,” she urges.
“I found out what was wrong when I stopped by his place...” I growl in a hoarse whisper. It hurts. It hurts to say this shit, like I’m ripping the words out of my gut. “He didn’t answer. With his car in the driveway, I knew something was wrong. I thought I heard a noise and recognized it—maybe subconsciously—who knows. It’s all a blank. One minute, I’m knocking, and the next I’ve kicked down the door and found him in the living room, hanging from the ceiling fan.”
Callie’s gasp startles me, but now that I’ve started, I can’t stop.
“Guess it’s a good thing he’s never been great at knots,” I spit. “Because the damned thing slipped from all his jerking around, and he fell. I got there just in time to catch him. He was half-dead. Suffocated. He tried to kill himself because of that bastard, that fuck, and I—” I choke on my own rage, coughing into my hand before I can finish. “...I don’t know what the fuck would’ve happened that day if I hadn’t been there to call 9-1-1 and rush him to the hospital. If he would’ve wound up completely brain-dead, lying there on the floor with no one to help, just a vegetable. At least now he has his life.”
A life, yes, but is it truly living?
The question slices me open.
My eyes won’t stop feeling like they’ve just had a cactus dragged across them.
The only thing anchoring me to reality, the present, is Callie’s hand on my knee, reminding me that I’m here, and Barrett’s still alive.
My very worst nightmares didn’t come true.
Sadly, the ones that did are hellish enough.
“I’ll never forgive him for driving Barry to take his life,” I grind out, my fists clenched, shaking against my chest. “And I’ll never stop, Callie. Not until I’ve wrecked everything he has and made him pay. Not until everything he’s taken from my brother gets repaid ten times over, with interest for what he’s stolen from everybody else. I don’t give a fuck how it happens. One way or another, I will break Vance Haydn into a bag of deflated skin and bones. I’ll bring him to justice—with or without Easterly Ribbon’s help.”
19
A Little Rhythm (Callie)
There’s an old haiku my mother had on the wall in our house before she and Dad divorced.
I think the poet was Issa, but it’s been so long that I wouldn’t quote me on that. I remember the English translation, though.
In this world
We walk on the roof of hell,
Gazing at flowers.
I know, I know. The English version doesn’t follow haiku meter. That’s not the point.