“Dude, you’re freaking me out. Quit it.”

I cut off the drumming routine I’ve been pounding out on our living room table for the past five minutes. I can only stay still for a few seconds before I start tapping my feet instead. JP glares at me and I shrug.

“We all have our nervous habits. You eat things. I drum.”

Point in case: he’s shovelling his third chocolate pudding of the day into his mouth.

“So you’re nervous, huh?”

No point in denying it.

“Yeah, I’m fucking nervous. We’re headlining Metropolis tonight. Only a year ago we would have killed just to open that place.”

“A year ago we were children. Today we are men.”

He dips his spoon back into his child-sized pudding container.

The jitters that are holding my limbs hostage aren’t new to me; I usually wake up on the day of a show with more energy than I know what to do with. What I don’t normally wake up with is a dread that sits on my chest and squeezes my heart until it starts thumping for mercy.

We aren’t ready for this show. We’ve been practicing like crazy, but we’re off. There’s no rhythm when we play, none of that ghostly energy that flows between us sometimes and turns us all into a single unit of sound. This is going to be the biggest venue we’ve ever played, and I can’t shake the feeling that we’re going to fall flat on our faces, or that it’s all going to be my fault. Nothing I say or do has been enough to repair the rift between us, and we can plaster ourselves with smiles and pretend we’re moving on, but the truth comes out when we play.

My phone starts buzzing in my pocket and I pull it out to find I’m getting a call from an unknown number.

“Hello?” a man’s voice asks. “Is this Matt Pearson?”

“Yeah, this is he.”

“I’m calling on behalf of Metropolis. We just wanted to make sure your management got you all up to date on the lunch arrangements.”

“Lunch?” I repeat, as JP gives me a curious look.

“Yes, you and the rest of the band are invited to have lunch on behalf of the venue today.”

If the life of a starving artist has taught me anything, it’s that you never say no to free food.

“We didn’t know about that, but it sounds great. Where is this happening?”

He gives the address for a brunch place on St. Catherine and tells me to ask for a reservation under Dylan Thompson. We hang up and I inform JP that Metropolis is buying us lunch.

“Weird,” he admits, “but good weird.”

“Good weird,” I agree.

I consider asking him to let Cole and Ace know, but I figure it might make a dent in the ever-present hostility between us if I call with news of free food. I fill them both in, and then read over a text from my mom. Her, Dad, and Kyle are all driving down from Hamilton right now.

JP and I walk the few blocks to the restaurant. We pass by the Tim Horton’s where I used to work and I can’t stop myself from craning my neck to catch a glimpse of the top of the building. If I’d known then what I do now, would I still have taken Kay up there that night?

Yes.

The answer comes to me before I have time to consider the question. Maybe that’s the reason I haven’t been able to patch things up with the rest of the band; they can sense that no matter how many times I say I’m sorry, or how much shit my actions get us in, I don’t regret what I did. I took a chance that needed taking.

She may have left me bruised and broken and abandoned on the side of the road, but Kay Fischer was one hell of a ride. Even with betrayal stinging like salt in my wounds, I can’t shake the belief that there was something real there, that somehow this will all turn itself around.

Cole’s already waiting outside the restaurant, and Ace arrives a minute after we do. I mention the reservation to the hostess, and she leads us to a table up on the second floor. A guy in his mid-twenties with gelled-back dark hair is already sitting there.

“So he’s just going to sit here and eat with us?” Ace mutters. “This is weird.”

“Who cares? There’s food. Je vais prendre comme six plats des gaufres.”

He’s not joking. He really will order six plates of waffles.

I offer my hand to the guy at the table as we take our seats. “Dylan Thompson, I’m guessing?”

“That’s me. You must be Matt.”

Introductions are made all around, and we start browsing the menus. There’s a lot of throat clearing and sidelong glances as we all wonder if the entire meal is going to be as awkward as it is right now. It’s only after the waiter takes our orders that Dylan starts to speak.

“So, as you’ve probably guessed, there is an actual reason why I’m here having lunch with you guys.”

Here we go. This must be some kind of business proposition.

“I have a...story to tell you, about some things that happened awhile ago—some things I was involved in, and some things that I did.”

I glance at Cole across the table from me. He looks as weirded out as I feel.

“I used to work as an intern for Atlas Records. It was my first real shot in this industry, my first chance to get some actual experience, and it sucked. Big time. I don’t know what your time with them has been like so far, but for me that place was a toxic environment. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I was doing and saying things for them I didn’t know I was capable of.”

I have no idea why he’s telling us this, or if what he’s saying is true, but something in his words catches my attention like a glimpse of my own reflection in a shard of glass.

“That’s the thing though, isn’t it? In this industry, it’s all about moving up. It’s all just one big hot hits list, and the only thing you start focusing on is whose spot you’re going to take next.”

He props his chin in his hand for a moment and inhales sharply before continuing.

“I was dating this girl at the time. She worked for Last Bastion. I don’t know if she ever saw it herself, but she was one of the best journalists they ever had. She was smart. So smart. I don’t know what she was doing with an asshole like me. She started covering a story on Atlas Records, and I volunteered to be a source. At first she wanted to keep me out of it, but I had information she needed.”

My heart jumps into my throat. I look around to see if the guys have started to make the same guess as me, but they’re still staring at Dylan like he’s speaking Mandarin.

“The story was about a bunch of musicians who’d been claiming Atlas bands were ripping off their songs. It was true, what they were saying. It wasn’t even much of a secret around the Atlas offices, but a company that size has enough power to get away with things. They treated all their interns like shit, so I figured why not give my girlfriend what she needed for her story? She’d keep me anonymous anyway. Then word about her investigation got leaked. They shut the whole thing down and forced Last Bastion to let her go. Eventually they connected her with me.”

“So they fired you too?” I ask.

“No.” He stares at his water glass in front of him. “I did end up losing my job there, but it wasn’t until later. When they threatened to let me go because of K—because of the story, I lost it. I didn’t want to go back to having nothing, to having less than nothing once my reputation was ruined. My priorities were totally fucked back then. So I just...started lying. I made people think she got all the information somewhere else, that she only dated me to try to force me into talking.” He swallows. “I basically implied she slept around with half the industry behind my back to get what she wanted.”

“You did that to Kay?” I spit out.

I don’t bother looking at the guys’ reactions, although I do hear a few gasps. I keep my attention fixed on Dylan as he raises his eyes to me.

“It’s the biggest regret of my life.”

“It better fucking be.”

He nods. “She’s the reason I’m here. I don’t really for work for Metropolis. She knew you wouldn’t see me if it had anything to do with her.”

“This is bullshit,” Ace scoffs. “This doesn’t change what she wrote about us.”

“She was never going to publish that,” Dylan asserts. “La Gare wanted to print that kind of article about you, and Kay wrote it to prove why they shouldn’t. It was just a mock-up, an example of what not to do.” He delivers his next sentence directly to me. “Maybe if you’d actually asked her about it, you wouldn’t be in whatever mess you’re in right now.”

“That seems way too convenient,” Ace states. JP nods beside him.

“Does it?” Dylan leans over his bag for a moment and digs out a copy of La Gare. “Read this. It’s been flying off the shelves all morning. I even heard them talking about it on the radio.”

We huddle over the newspaper. There’s a photo of Ace onstage at our Ottawa show taking up almost half the front page. One of his hands is stretching towards the crowd, fingers just inches from connecting with those of a girl in the audience. His hair is plastered to his face with sweat, features strained from the emotion of the lyrics as he clutches the mic in his other hand.

If this really is flying off the shelves, I have a suspicion the photo’s got more than a little to do with it. Even so, the anticipation of reading Kay’s story has enough blood rushing to my head that I can barely get the letters on the page to stay still. I shift closer to the table and begin to read.

* * *

The topic of Sherbrooke Station prompts a now familiar question among Montrealers whenever its brought up: are we talking about the metro stop or the band? In the case of this article, the answer is the latter. The alt-rock ensemble has risen to recent prominence with the success of their chart-topping single ‘Sofia.’ Stroll up St. Laurent on a Saturday night and you’re bound to hear its catchy chorus booming out of every second bar on the strip.

The song has also won over a legion of fans whose devotion runs far deeper than bobbing their heads along to front man Ace Turner’s raspy vocals; the Montreal Police Service has confirmed they were called in yesterday to remove ticket holders from outside the Metropolis concert hall, where attendees of tonight’s Sherbrooke Station show had started to set up tents.

To put it simply, the band is a hit.

Beginning their career as just another group of college kids, Sherbrooke Station managed to catch the ear of mega-label Atlas Records and secure themselves a three album deal. Completed by keyboardist Jean-Paul Bouchard-Guindon, bassist Cole Byrne, and drummer Matthew Pearson, the group forms an imposing assemblage of inked up arms, pierced eyebrows, and fitted leather jackets that isn’t easy to forget.

No rock legend was ever born without a tragic flaw, though. Turner’s well-documented incidents of public intoxication, including his recent detainment by Montreal Police, have brought the band’s ability to handle their newfound fame into question. Online mockery at the group’s expense has run rampant after a photo of a violent altercation involving Turner took on the role of an internet meme.

Whether their misdemeanours will spur interest in the band on or simply cause their fame to fizzle out remains to be seen, but Pearson is quick to admit the band is struggling: “I thought everything that came with [fame] would be easier to ignore: all the publicity, the partying. Sure, it’s fun. It’s a perk, but that’s it. I never wanted it to be who we are.”

So who exactly are they? When the spotlights are off and the cameras stop flashing, what makes Sherbrooke Station tick?

As Pearson tells La Gare, “I know no one will believe this, but for me, it’s not about fame. It’s not a glory thing. It’s knowing our music has made a difference to that many people.” He shows both humility and determination in admitting, “I’d rather no one even knew or cared what our names are, if it meant they were more focused on what we do on stage than what we do off it.”

What they ‘do’ onstage is certainly worth some focus. As breathless fan Lisa Monet gasped upon exiting the band’s March show in Ottawa, “My entire body is shaking. That was electrifying.” A strange current does seem to charge the air whenever Sherbrooke Station plays. It surges through the crowd the second the group walks on stage, a sort of hair-raising premonition that something big is happening. Something powerful. Something that refuses to let itself be ignored.

As Bouchard-Guindon says, “I think people just really responded to the music, and it took off from there.” He expounds upon the band’s connection to local culture in asserting that, “I don’t want us to just be a band from Montreal; I want us to be a band from Quebec too. It’s my culture. It’s part of me and it’s part of my music.” Pearson cites forming a bond with audiences as a goal for the band: “That’s what this was all supposed to be about: connecting to people with our songs, making moments.”

There’s a depth to Sherbrooke Station’s music that can’t be overlooked, no matter how much drama threatens to overshadow it. As Turner himself croons in the emotionally charged ballad ‘Digging Holes’: “Hit the bottom but I can still stand/ I’ll scale these walls with ragged hands.” While they’ve gotten off to a rocky start, Sherbrooke Station believes they have much more to give us than drunken debauchery and meme material. They’re in this for the long haul and aren’t going down without a fight.

“We get back up [on stage],” Pearson tells La Gare, his voice strained with fervour, “because nothing else is worth it if we can’t. You could cut off both my arms and rip out Ace’s vocal chords. You could break all of Cole’s fingers. You could burst JP’s eardrums, and we’d still crawl our way back onto that stage. For us, that’s all there is. This band is who we are.”

As hundreds of fans line the streets in anticipation of tonight’s show, it’s clear that Sherbrooke Station is the next stop for Montreal’s music scene. In spite of all the controversy hanging over their heads, there’s something promising about these soul-searching rockers that makes any train headed towards them worth hopping on.

* * *

When I look up, Dylan’s watching me.

“I told you she was good,” he tells me, “but you probably knew that already. Just don’t forget it.”

He pushes his chair back and tosses a stack of bills down on the table.

“I’m out now. I’m not gonna sit around and make this even more awkward than it already is, but the food’s still on me.”

No one says anything to stop him as he leaves. Kay’s words are still bouncing around my brain and all I can do is watch him go. He’s almost at the stairs when he turns and walks back towards us, staring straight at me.

“Take care of her, okay?” His voice almost cracks. “Not that she needs it, but I know Kay, and the way she talks about you...” He searches my expression for something, and I can’t tell if he finds it. “I wish I could have been that guy for her. So just be good to her, all right? You should call her or something.”

He leaves again, this time without coming back.

“Damn,” Cole mutters. “Didn’t see that coming.”

JP taps the article. “She did make us sound pretty cool.”

“So what?” Ace tosses the paper at Dylan’s empty seat and wheels on me. “So she didn’t lie to us. Doesn’t change the fact that you did. Doesn’t change anything about Shayla.”

“I just wanted somebody to see us again,” I plead, “really see us. We were falling apart.”

“So that gave you the right to go all vigilante and start doing things behind our backs?”

“No.” I glance down at the tablecloth. “No, that was wrong. I fucked up and now we’re all paying for it. I know that, and I’m sorry.”

“We all kind of fucked up,” Cole cuts in.

He interlaces his fingers and stretches them out in front of him, making his knuckles pop. It’s the telltale first sign of an impending Cole Speech, a rare event not many have witnessed.

“There’s no point lying about it or pretending it’s not true,” he begins. “We were going down. That first thing Kay wrote about us was actually pretty fucking accurate. We need to stop making excuses about why this isn’t working and just start making it work. We don’t have all the answers and not everything’s perfect for us, but so what? People would literally kill for what we’ve been given. Now we have to prove we deserve it.”

There’s a moment of silence before Ace speaks up again.

“And Shayla? What about Shayla?”

“Like I said, we don’t have all the answers. Maybe we’ll have to make another two albums with a label we don’t trust and work with a manager we don’t like. We’ll move on. We can be bigger than all of them someday, but that only happens when we stop acting so fucking small.” He pounds his fist on the table and I notice a few people look our way. “This is all we’ve talked about for years and I’m not giving it up. I want this. It’s time to decide if you really want it too, and if you don’t you might as well leave this table now.”

He pauses. I realize that while a thousand choices might come afterwards, deciding to go forward from this moment together is going to be the only one that matters.

No one moves. Cole nods.

“Good. That’s what I thought.”

I clear my throat. “If we do this...”

I have to stop. What I’m about to say goes against everything I’ve told myself I stand for, but if I don’t get this out now, nothing is going to change. Kay and I’s words from that day in the Old Port echo through my head.

I can’t abandon them.

You can’t abandon yourself, either.

I try again.

“If we do this, we have to go all in. All of us. I admit I fucked up and I’ll be better going forward, but I’m tired of this being one-sided. I’m tired of putting in more than I know I’ll get back.”

I glance at Ace and find him glaring.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he taunts.

I could go with insults. I could give him hell for all the shit he’s pulled on us these past few months. I could call him an asshole and a selfish bastard and every other name in the book. Instead, I try some honesty.

“It means I want my friend back, Ace.” I pretend JP and Cole aren’t there and ignore the burning in my face as I force the next words out. “I miss you.”

Five years of late nights and early mornings and thousands of songs on hundreds of stages pass between us in the look we share after that.

“Okay.” He slaps a palm down on the table, his voice hoarse. “All in. All of us.”

JP thumps his hand on the hardwood next. Cole and I follow suit.

“Now,” Cole urges, “let’s go on stage and make some noise tonight. We’re pretty fucking good at it.”

He’s right. We are. For tonight at least, I know that will be enough.