I stare at the table willing myself to stay strong, but the devil on my shoulder tells me I’m unworthy of Kathy. Do it, he whispers in my ear. Don’t be a pussy. You want this, you know it. And the more he whispers, the more I know this is my way out. It doesn’t take me long to melt the rock and draw the liquid into the syringe. My hand shakes as I hold it in the air, tapping the cylinder with my middle finger, causing all the little pockets of air to rise to the top. With just a press of the plunger, the tiny bubbles evacuate through the needle.

Just a little liquid courage, I tell myself as I swallow several more gulps from the bottle of Macallan left over from the previous night. I can do this, I reassure myself. What’s the worst thing that could happen? My life ends and all the pain I’ve been living with over the years is gone. It’s just the incentive I need to pull the band around my left bicep. With my right hand, I tap the crook of my arm, causing the veins to raise just high enough that I’m sure the needle will pierce the vein I want. The plunger drops, pressing the liquid into my arm. I watch as the last drop leaves the syringe before pulling it from my arm. The room starts to spin around me just as it starts to go dark. “Forgive me, Elle,” I whisper and fall to the floor.

* * *

I hear voices around me. They’re angry voices that get louder and louder as I start to wake up. I’m no longer in my hotel room but in a hospital room. I blink a few times, letting my eyes adjust to the bright light, and that’s when Cayson sees that I’m awake.

“Thank fuck, Rocky. What were you thinking? No, scratch that, you weren’t thinking once again.” Cayson flinches as Kayla slaps him. “What was that for, princess?”

“You're an insensitive ass,” Kayla tells him as she steps closer to my bed. “You’re going to be alright, Rocky. Don’t listen to him. How do you feel?”

I lie there and think for a moment. My brain feels like it’s moving in slow motion as I try to rein in my thoughts so that I can form a cohesive sentence, but nothing seems to fit together. I close my eyes and turn my head away from everyone. That’s when I hear Kayla tell Cayson that they should leave and give me a little bit of time to myself. When I hear the room door open and close, I turn my head back and stare at the closed door and remember exactly how I ended up here.

When I close my eyes once more, I see myself lying on the floor of my hotel suite, halfway coherent. The door opens, and Rusty comes barging in. I guess in a way I should be thankful that he swiped the spare room card before he confronted me at the elevator.

“Rocky, Rocky, answer me!” I’m being shaken, my body moving with every push from Rusty’s hand, but it's not enough to snap me out of the blackened haze I’ve fallen into.

“Rocky, I’m calling an ambulance. Stay with me. God, please, stay with me.” Rusty’s voice sounds a million miles away, a faint whisper that sneaks its way into my head.

“I need an ambulance to the PanPacific Hotel room 3503. My friend has overdosed.”

The fear in Rusty’s voice as he answers the questions of the person on the other line resonates. When he’s finished, Rusty places another call. This one to Cayson, and once again, there is a tremble in his voice as he answers the questions. Moments later, I can hear Cayson and Kayla’s voices. Kayla is crying, and Cayson is trying to calm her down. Before I know it, I’m being lifted onto a gurney and wheeled through the lobby, then lifted into an ambulance. The sound of my hospital room door opening snaps me back to reality.

Rusty pulls up a chair beside my bed and takes a seat just as Cayson enters the room again. This time, Kayla is nowhere to be found. I can already feel the tag team coming on. This is an intervention; I can tell by the look on both of their faces. Cayson is the first to speak up. “Rock, what the hell were you thinking? You know this is it, right? The label is going to drop us right after we finish this tour.”

I’ve crossed the line for the last time. I knew from the last time that I was skating on thin ice, and it would have been over back then if they had had truly known why I took sixty days off the tour. “So, what happens now?”

Cayson stands and paces back and forth at the foot of my bed. “We’re done.” Two words that tell me everything I don’t want to hear. “We’ll need a new label, but there is no way anyone will pick us up right now, not with you like this.”

Rusty is a silent observer to this conversation. When I finally find my voice, I speak up. “I won’t go back to rehab, CJ, I won’t. I’d rather drop off the face of the earth before I let that happen again. It doesn’t work for me. Nothing works for me. I can’t sit and talk about myself while someone I don’t even know is trying to dissect everything about me. Twelve steps. I don’t believe in one step, let alone twelve. I can’t buy into it, CJ.”

Rusty leans forward, his arms resting on his legs. “I feel like this is all my fault. I let my personal life about my sister get in the way of me doing my job properly. I knew you weren’t in a good place when I ran into you at the elevator, but instead of doing what I was hired to do, I let my rage out and ignored why I was hired in the first place.”

As much as I would love to let Rusty take the blame for all this, I can’t. This is my fault, and I have to own it. “It’s not your fault, Rusty. It’s mine. And it has everything to do with how I feel about your sister, how I’ve treated her, and how I’m handling the pressure of the band.”

I have both Cayson and Rusty’s attention now. “Cayson, I can’t do it. I don’t enjoy it anymore. The pressure from the label, everyone watching me all the time. It’s too much. I’m not happy anymore, and the more pressure I’m under, the more I want to escape. Sometimes I even think of ending it all.” I watch as Cayson absorbs what I’ve just told him. “You’ll never understand what goes on in my head until you walk in my shoes for a day. When we started out, man, it was just us five, and we didn’t answer to anyone. We played the music for sheer enjoyment, but somewhere we got lost along the way, and it became a job. I can’t play that way anymore. Dude, I’m so sorry that I’ve let you all down.”

I watch as Cayson stands and walks to the window. He doesn’t say a word. He just looks out at the city below us. Now, it’s Rusty’s turn. “Rusty, I put you in a predicament that was wrong of me. I went behind your back and thought I was building a relationship with your sister and fell in love. You did nothing wrong. Hell, if the shoe were on the other foot and you were dissing my sister the way I did yours, I would have ended you. I mean it, six feet under, and no one would have found the body. This is all on me.”

I know I have to explain my actions—I owe Rusty that—so I proceed to tell him exactly how much in love I am with his sister. He was right. I should have never touched another woman, but all I’ve been doing since I got on that plane is trying to find a way to get her out of my head. I was just going about it the wrong way. I need to get back to Arizona, away from all the people and away from the band. It’s the only way I’m going to be able to get my shit together. “Rusty, I want you to stay on. I know you don’t have a medical degree, but I don’t care. I need a sponsor. I’ll go to classes, but I won’t check myself into rehab again. It doesn’t work for me. Will you stay on and help me get through this? Then maybe I’ll be worthy of trying to start fresh with your sister, if you’ll let me.”

Rusty stands and places his hand on my shoulder. I feel a slight squeeze. “Yeah, man, I’ll help you. I think you and the man there have some serious things to talk about, so I’m gonna leave, but I’ll be back later.”