First Night – Second Night – Third Night – Fourth Night – Fifth Night – Sixth Night – Home
The show’s a mess. Laughable, really. You know you just can’t focus and, as a consequence, can’t keep up the rhythm. You’re throwing him off, and you both know it. Every time his head snaps toward yours, you’re afraid he’ll just call the whole thing off. You’re playing to a tiny bar room, not even half full—who would care if you walked offstage early and left the crowd to their drinking?
You try your hardest to concentrate, but you still can’t shake the memory…
‘I was just being friendly, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Oh, sure. Because you whisper like that in the ears of all your friends.’
He looked furious, as if he were going to swing his arm back and smack you across the face at any minute. You wouldn’t put it past him; he did it once before, when he was drunk. He had that look of pure rage in his eyes, the one he’s fixing you with now.
‘I thought you got over this jealous bullshit,’ he snapped.
The sudden urge to snap back at him was overwhelming, so overpowering you realised you were the one in danger of hitting him, not the other way around. The words were on your lips—Of course, make this about me. It’s always my problem, isn’t it?—but you bit them back and turned away, putting as much distance between you both as possible in the tiny expanse of the hotel room.
‘You need a hobby. This green-eyed monster thing isn’t working for you.’
You knew he was just trying to wind you up. You knew it from the tone in his voice, you knew it because it was what healways did when you were having an argument. You knew he was provoking you, and you reacted anyway, twirling around with your mouth contorted into a half-snarl.
‘Well, I’m sorry if I get a little upset sometimes when you pay more attention to the goddamn fanboys than you do to me.’
You’ve fucked up again, the discordant twang of the guitar strings and his bitter expression tell you that much. You start to wonder how much worse the show could get, how much more you could screw up the song—his baby, the one he insisted on writing instead of exploring with you when you played Montreal—and you understand now exactly how you can get to him. Fuck with the one thing he loves and that’ll teach him to treat you like dirt…
But you don’t. You don’t throw down your guitar and storm off stage, although right now you’d like nothing more. You forcibly push the thoughts out of your head and slowly you return back to the room, to the music, to the crowd of uninterested patrons. He seems relieved that you’ve got things back on track and the song finishes without further incident.
At the end of the night, once all your gear is packed up and the onlookers have returned to their spots around the bar, you sling your guitar over your shoulder and leave the venue before he can stop you.
If you could fly home to LA right now and never see his face again, you would.
You’ll settle for walking back to the hotel alone.
