“What are you apologizing for?” Seriously, where was that cab?

“Hey, did someone beat you up?” He squinted at the blue and purple staining my face, then rattled the gate like a prisoner. I halted for a moment before opening the gateway and letting him in. Perhaps I was the one who’d had his arse kicked, but he was the one looking pitiful.

“None of your business.”

“You look rough, man.” He stepped inside the premises.

“Well, let’s just say Karma is a nasty bitch, and her brother, Fate, is not much better,” I muttered.

“Anyway.” He ran his fingers through his sunshine hair. It was obvious we were making conversation—maybe even an important conversation—but we were both locked inside our worlds. “The alcohol you had sent to your rooms…that was me. I hated you, Winslow. Still do. You humiliated me in front of the entire world and made me look like a pussy. Getting back at you was almost easy. Hotel staff would do anything for money. But, it was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

I finally stepped out of my own head, from my misery and doubt and worry over everything Stardust-related, to attend the shitshow in front of me. I turned around to face him.

“You sent the alcohol?” My head was pounding. I’d been so certain it was Will. Turned out, it wasn’t his doing, either. So what was Will responsible for, really, in terms of ruining my life? Just for taking Fallon. And even that had been a huge favor.

“I did. I wanted you to relapse.” He rubbed the back of his neck, sighing. “I wanted you sad. Like me.”

“You little…”

The cab arrived just then, the driver honking outside of the gate. I grabbed my duffel bag and slung it over my shoulder. “Fuck you.” I shoved my index finger to his chest, then left.

“Alex…” he called after me.

I would forgive him, later. Not today.

I rang Blake on my way to the airport, knowing he’d fill Alfie and Lucas in.

“We should probably report him to the police,” Blake said. “That’s what he did to you.”

“Nah. I’m better than the shithead,” I said, and at that time, it wasn’t true yet. But I knew I needed to be better than him, and better than most people, to redeem myself.

So I did.

The second time in rehab was different. I knew it was different because this time, I paid attention. Not that I’d had any reason not to give it an honest shot the first time around. I was simply too self-absorbed and full of words like ‘integrity’ and ‘artistic process’ and ‘Iggy Pop.’ The first time I’d had absolutely nothing to distract me. My last album had flopped harder than a Lindsey Lohan movie, Fallon was with Will, Blake and Jenna were putting out all of the fires I’d left behind, and all I’d been asked—literally, the only thing I was expected to do—was to come out of there in one piece.

This time, I had a huge album in my hands, my greatest masterpiece, waiting to be produced and released, and I just had to sit on it. I had a girl to win—Stardust—and the uncertainty of second-guessing whether she’d even hear me out consumed every millisecond of my day. Still, I knew rehab was important.

So I listened.

I went to every class.

I held hands with strangers. With suburban mummies who’d gotten addicted to prescription pills, and a preacher’s son who’d fallen into the arms of heroin, and a Russian oligarch’s daughter who, like me, had snorted pounds and pounds of cocaine to numb the feeling that the world was closing in on you from all angles. I wrote letters to my family and friends. Angry letters. Apologetic letters. Funny letters. Then I burned them all. I couldn’t write Stardust shite, though. Everything I had to say to her—every single groveling word—had to be said in person.

I took the extended rehab program—I call it the I-truly-give-a-shit program—despite my urge to win Indie—but also because of it—even though I knew every day I wasn’t releasing my new album, I was losing money, and sponsorships, and listeners, and fandom, and who the fuck knows what else.

Three months passed. I came out of rehab.

Blake wanted to pick me up, but I didn’t want to rehash the last time I’d gotten out. I thought it’d jinx the whole process, which, in itself, was a ridiculous thought, but I indulged myself anyway. I took a cab straight to the airport. I landed in New York a few hours later. Ate a gas station sandwich—because some things never change—then crashed for fifteen hours. I slept like I’d never slept in my life. Like I’d worked the entire three months in a fucking cornfield. Then I woke up, took the subway just to feel human again, pulling my beanie and hoodie all the way down, and showed up at the recording studio.

Two months passed. I recorded an album.

Another three months of promotions, and interviews, and magazine covers, and The Comeback of the Year! headlines. Alexander Winslow: An Artist, a Poet, and a New Man. And, Guess Who’s Back? And, Will Bushell, Who?

I felt the time slipping between my hands, but Blake told me it was okay. That she would still remember. That real love never dies. That I needed to prove to her I was actually sober for long enough to make her believe it.

Now, let me tell you something about my album. Midnight Blue broke the record for fastest-recording album in the history of that Williamsburg studio. It took me one week to record and produce twelve songs.

The Little Prince

Chasing Asteroids

Under Darker Skies

Maybe It’s You

Was She Worth It?

Perfectly Paranoid

Oh, But You Are

A Different Kind of Love

Seek and Kill

Why Now?

Fool For You

Midnight Blue

Midnight Blue was the first single I dropped. Jenna and Blake flew into New York that weekend to remind my fragile ego and pompous arse that it was a process. That, at first, the radio stations run the song for trial on different hours of the day and see how it goes. That building hype takes time, and patience, and a lot of arse-kissing. But with Midnight Blue , I didn’t need any of it. The song just sort of exploded, the way my career had when I’d first broken into Billboard when I was twenty-one years old, and took over the charts like they’d been sitting pretty and waiting for me their whole lives.

And it was nice. And reassuring. And completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Don’t get me wrong—I recorded the album because I wanted to record it. It was a part of a bigger plan, a detailed, persevering, calculated one. I wanted Indie to know what she was to me. She wasn’t a dirty fuck, or a pristine secret, or a mistake. She wasn’t some roadie I’d climbed on top of every night because she was there and available.