It started with a vodka bottle the other day. I miss you. I didn’t know about what Fallon did that night. I swear. She’s in rehab. I gave her an ultimatum about coming clean. Please answer my calls. Or…not.
Don’t tell Blake.
A.
To: Indiebell1996gmail
Subject: How?
I can’t believe this shit’s for real, Stardust. How can you not answer me? How can you not need me the way I need you? How is it fair that I found you, and you found me, and we both know damn well how rare what we have is, and you still let me go?
How do I let you go?
Stupid question, I don’t.
Two more weeks. I’ll be coming to get you. You know I will.
Yours (even if you think you don’t need me),
A.
To: Indiebell1996gmail
Subject: I wrote a song
It goes like this:
Answer me.
Answer me.
Answer me.
Answer me.
Everyone and everything is falling apart. The Chicago gig was a shit show. I forgot most of the lyrics. Don’t ask why, Stardust. You know.
Hudson joined the tour to keep me from taking a shit on what’s left of my career, because Blake is back in L.A. playing baby daddy. I think Lucas and him are hooking up. Lucas and Hudson, that is. Not Blake. I hope they are. That’s good, right? That I’m wishing good things upon good people.
Oh. Side note. Lucas is gay.
I want you to know I thought about it, and even though I’m a sellout, I do love the rough material for the new album. It bleeds your personality. I can’t wait to share you with the world. Share your soul. You were right. It is your soul, but I told you I’d borrow it. You don’t mind, right?
I’m coming to L.A. in a week.
A.
To: Indiebell1996gmail
Subject: Once upon a time there was a prince…
Remember, in The Little Prince, when the fox wants the boy to tame him so they’d always have each other? I think that’s what you did to me. You tamed me. I needed you. And you unleashed me back into the wild, domesticated and YOURS, and now I’m not sure wtf I need to do to survive. Which, I think you’d agree, is ironic. Everything considered and such.
I’m on the road from Chicago to Oklahoma on a tour bus. You would have liked it. We banned Alfie from Mexican food. I think about you a lot. I wank to our Polaroids a lot. I haven’t touched anyone since you left. Okay. Full disclosure: I cupped a tit while taking a photo with a fan. But she’d just had a boob job, and it was for her birthday. And I didn’t enjoy it. At all.
It’s so weird to be here, to do this, to not be chasing you like every bone in my body tells me to. Blake says to give you time, but what does he know about relationships? He and Jenna are a train wreck.
I saw a squirrel today. Its tail was cut. It was still furry, just…short. Ever seen a squirrel’s tail up close? It’s quite magnificent. I felt bad for the squirrel, but reminded myself it didn’t know that its tail was cut.
Then I realized I’m the fucking squirrel, Indie.
I’m the fucking squirrel who ran around with half a tail, and no one told me, so I lived in blissed ignorance. Then you came in, walked away, and guess what? Now I know. I know I’m incomplete and my soul, which I thought was dying, is actually in Los Angeles, riding a French bike in a ridiculous dress.
I know I’m making this about me, and I know you’re going through a load of crap right now, but I guess that’s what addicts do.
And I’m an addict. Again.
Four days, Indie. You. Me. Us. Always.
Blake came back from the OB-GYN appointment he had with Jenna the same week. When he found out what I’d been doing, he took away the laptop Indie had left behind and begged me to stop. Which, naturally, prompted me to call her some more and to order Jenna and Hudson—the latter had reluctantly dragged his arse back to L.A.—to check in on her every week. They said she was doing well. This, consequently, made me feel like shite. I wanted her to hurt like me, and I wasn’t even ashamed to think that. And that was a problem.
Oklahoma, then Texas, then straight back to L.A. By that time, I knew my cocaine and drinking habit was in full swing, but I had a bigger issue to tackle—win the girl.
Everything else—the drugs, the alcohol, the addiction, would be sorted out afterward. Love conquers all, and all that jazz.
The gigs were fine. The drugs pulled me through. But I no longer wrote songs, and I no longer gave the crowd the electric show they’d heard about when I’d toured Europe. “Letters from the Dead” officially featured a corpse—hah. I should write that down somewhere.
The flight to Los Angeles was wordless, and the first thing I did when I landed at LAX was give the driver Indie’s address. I didn’t even care that the others wanted to be dropped off at their flats. Fuck them. They’d sure fucked me over by introducing me to the blue-haired soul-thief.
I hadn’t come empty-handed. I’d thought about it long and hard, then gotten her the perfect present. I thought it symbolized what I wanted to say perfectly. Unfortunately, my gift had the potential of dying. I had no time to waste.
Indie lived in a shite neighborhood in an even shittier building. There was a strip club under her flat, so you had to go around through an alleyway to reach the rusty metal staircase leading up to her complex. I knocked on her door three times and rang the doorbell for good measure. I knew she was home. It was six o’clock. And she had nowhere to go. She didn’t have a job. I’d made Hudson check.
A blond, tall woman opened the door. Natasha. I recognized her from Indie’s laptop time. She arched one eyebrow and looked at me like I’d taken a shit on her welcome mat.
“Can I help you?” She acted like we hadn’t bantered on Skype before, and I wondered how much Stardust had told her.
She told her everything, you little twat. What do you think?
“I’m looking for Indie.”
“Indie doesn’t want to see you.”
“Indie will have to see me at some point, because I’m not going to stop until she does, and she’d probably need a restraining order against me if she really is serious about cutting me from her life. Side bonus”—I waved my full fist with her present, signaling Natasha that I hadn’t come empty-handed—“I made her something. She’ll understand what it means.”