Every part of my body screamed at me, and not just a slightly elevated scream, but a full-on screeching, which was not so unusual as of late but annoying as hell just the same. I opened my eyes slowly, allowing my pupils to adjust to the light filtering into the room; even that bothered me. I sat up, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, hovering them in the air for a moment before planting them firmly on the cold floor. Why is the floor cold? I paid good money for top-quality luxurious carpeting that normally felt soft under my feet. I stretched slowly, turning my head to look around the room. Nothing looked familiar; in fact, I’d never seen this room in my life. I looked down at my waist and saw that I was completely naked. My tired eyes quickly scanned the floor for my clothes, which appeared to be just past the foot of the bed, the bed that I currently occupied, a bed that wasn’t mine. I felt a tightening in my chest as I twisted my body to the left. My eyes settled on the strange woman resting comfortably beside me, lying facedown on the mattress. Auburn hair spilled over her shoulder, partially covering her pale face. A face I didn’t recognize. Then a sickening awareness washed over me. I’d done it again.

I scrambled furiously around the apartment, collecting all of my belongings, and made a mad dash out the door. I didn’t bother saying good-bye. I dug in my pocket for my car keys and peeled out of the drive as fast as my Shelby Mustang would go, which at this precise moment wasn’t nearly fast enough.

Once I was home, I took a long shower, a vague attempt at washing away the remains of the previous night, and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over my head. This morning wasn’t the first time I’d found myself in bed with a woman I didn’t know. These past nine months had been a downward spiral into more drugs and alcohol than I had ever consumed. Before losing Charlotte, I barely drank alcohol; then one night, a car driving way too fast down a slick, winding road changed everything. I spent the next four months in a darkened haze, withdrawn and racked with guilt. I returned home tired and lonely after our last tour overseas. The partying helped mask the emptiness I struggled through daily. I was fairly good at hiding it, even managing to keep up my Sunday visits with my family in Manhattan Beach when I was in town. No one seemed to notice that I had fallen off the deep end. I had slipped further into a dark abyss than any of us had ever been, which said a lot considering we were one of the hottest rock bands in the world right now. Yeah, as far as I knew, no one had been the wiser.

Little did I know how wrong I was.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

The sudden noise was unbelievably loud and intrusive. I had just drifted off.

“Sebastian, open up! Now!” Another loud bang rattled the door. I groaned loudly before shuffling down the stairs, stumbling slightly along the way. When I swung it open, I was face-to-face with James Dekklan, or Dek as we all called him, my best friend and band mate. He wasn’t smiling, not even remotely. I turned and moved away from the door, not happy with what I knew was about to come my way.

“We need to talk,” he started, following close behind me. “Dude, stop walking away from me.”

“What do you want?” I turned on him, voice thick and slightly slurred even hours later. I must have had more than I realized.

“You can’t keep this up, Sebastian. You’re destroying yourself and the band.”

“The band is fine.” I turned away, rolling my tired eyes in frustration at hearing this lecture again. The guys had been trying to talk some sense into me; for months they had tried to stage an intervention, but I never listened. After six months of talking and tears, even my brother Travis had given up on me, which was why Dek was the last one standing here in my living room having the same tiring conversation but hoping for a different result. Insane, right?

Dek sighed, choosing his next words carefully. “The guys are tired of your antics. You need to pull it together; we’re worried about you, buddy.”

“Yeah, well, nobody asked you to worry. I can take care of myself.”

“Come on, Sebastian, you haven’t been yourself for the past year and a half, not since the accident.”

I turned quickly, my face only inches from his. “Don’t you dare mention her! I don’t want to talk about that night ever again! Just stay the hell out of my business, and everything will be fine.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, man. I’m here because I love you; you’re my best friend. We all love you, but we can’t keep sitting by while watching you fall apart. It’s not happening anymore.” His breathing hitched and I noticed how his hands kept balling into tight fists. “If you don’t pull yourself together and get some help…you’re out of the band.”

“What?” I stepped back involuntarily. “Out of the band? Yeah, right,” I sneered. “The band is nothing without me, and you know it. I’m the face and the voice. People pay to come see me. The rest of you are just a bonus.” My lip curled into a snarl just before I felt his fist make contact with my face. The blow stunned me, knocking me back a few feet. I reached out, grabbing the back of the armchair to keep myself from hitting the floor.

“What the hell was that for?” I groaned, blood pouring freely from my lip and nose.

“I’m sick of your bloated up ego,” Dek huffed. “And I can’t stand by any longer and watch you try to kill yourself. She’s gone, man. I’m sorry that loss has hurt you so deeply, but it’s been over a year. Don’t you think it’s time to move on? You’ll never heal if you don’t allow yourself to face what happened.”

I slumped to the floor, resting my elbows on my thighs, and hung my head. “I don’t know how. What am I supposed to do with myself? When I’m not playing music or hanging with you guys, it’s all I think about.” I ground the heel of my hands into my eyes, suddenly more alert than I recalled being in days, even weeks. “I miss her, man. I miss having someone in my life. Do you know what it’s like to find out that the woman you cared about died because of your negligence?”

“No,” he replied softly. “But I do know you are a good man who deserves the chance to love again. Charlotte would want that for you. You’re better than this.” He waved a hand in front of me as if indicating the state I was in. “You need some help. I’m taking you in for rehabilitation.” He stood up, pulling at my elbow.

“Detox?” I grimaced. “Shit, man, they’re going to kill me. You know that, right?”

“They won’t kill you. You’ll go in defeated but come out stronger; you’ll be the man you were before all this mess started. We’re all here for you, man. Now is the right time to do this.” He pulled me in for a brotherly hug; we’d been best friends since we were young kids. “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”

* * *

I was in hell. There was no other way to put it. I’d been here for six days, and I was going through some pretty nasty withdrawals. When I checked in, they told me this was a ninety-day program. Now, one week into it, and I already wanted to go home and try this on my own. I didn’t need this crap. I couldn’t have visitors, no cell phones, no phone calls of any kind for the first thirty days. I spent my days in a small furnished room that held everything I needed to survive at New Beginnings Ranch. Everything I needed consisted of very few things: three pairs of jeans, five T-shirts, a pair of tennis shoes, my iPod, and a thick, leather-bound journal, given to me by the staff upon checking in. The iPod was the one luxury they allowed on the premises, claiming that the music could help with healing and cleansing of toxins in the body. I met with a counselor every day, and we discussed my feelings. I’d been uncomfortable at first, but after the third visit I had started to open up a little. He asked me to start journaling my feelings, which I’d been hesitant to participate in, because I wasn’t good at focusing on my weaknesses; no man usually is. Yet after a while it became easy to open up the journal and start writing about things that annoyed me, things that made me happy, what I wanted to do with my life. If I felt it might be worth sharing, it made it into the book.

Before long, the days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and I was beginning to make plans to return home. I felt great, better than I had in years. During my stay, the doctor encouraged me that exercise would help deal with the frustration and shame. So I started lifting weights, and soon enough started running again, silently cursing myself for having been so careless with my body.

“So how are you feeling today, Sebastian?” Barry, my counselor, asked, leaning back into the leather armchair. He asked me this every day, and every day for the first month I gave him the same answer. But today was different. Today marked my seventy-fifth day here. Seventy-five days of waking up in a bed that wasn’t my own, something I’d long grown tired of; but today I woke up refreshed.

“I’m feeling pretty good today,” I replied, leaning back into my own chair. “I think I’m ready to talk about it.”

“Okay, that’s good; I’m ready when you are. The last thing you told me was that you two had been on a drive, visiting wine country.”

“Yeah, just a simple drive, at least that’s what it should have been.” I hadn’t been able to talk about this for nearly two years; that wasn’t because people hadn’t tried to get me to talk about it. I just hadn’t been ready to open up, until today.

“Charlotte wanted to drive to Sonoma Valley; she said it would be a romantic getaway. I remember wanting to spend time with her, but the idea of being trapped in the car for six hours wasn’t exactly the kind of quality time I had in mind. The band had been on the road for five months, and we were young; being apart like that was hard. I just wanted to hang out at my apartment, maybe lie on the beach. But since it was important to her, I caved. The first three hours weren’t too bad; between catching up on all we had missed and listening to the radio, we managed to get along pretty well. After a while, the conversation shifted to a more serious nature. She wanted to talk about our future and what I saw happening between us. Charlotte made it clear that she wanted to get married, settle down, and have at least two kids. I was only twenty-three, my band had just taken off, so I wasn’t thinking about marriage, let alone kids. I was thinking about where my next concert was and how many songs I could pen before the next show. So, instead of telling her what she wanted to hear, I told her the truth, which led to an argument.” I closed my eyes and leaned further into the chair, allowing the cushion to pull me in deeper. I could picture that day like it was only yesterday.

“She was naturally hurt, because we had been dating for a year, and she was older and had already graduated college. She was ready to plan out her life, while I felt like mine had only just begun. I’m not a planner; I fly by the seat of my pants most of the time. I was far too young to consider fathering a child. I have a great father, so I know what it takes to make a good one, and I knew that I didn’t possess those qualities. I was very selfish; hell, I still am today. Aren’t most of us, though? I told her that I loved her, but I didn’t see any of that in my near future. She freaked out and started hitting me, punching me in the arm and swinging at my head. I managed to avoid most of her blows, but each time she would swing again, I would get madder and madder. I knew I should have stopped the car, just pulled over and talked with her rationally, but in the heat of that argument rational thinking went right out the window. I caught one of her wrists as she swung it through the air, and I held on tight, trying to talk her down. She screamed at me, telling me that I was hurting her, and I shouted back ‘good’ and then she cried and said she hated me.” I ground the heel of my hand into my eyes, trying to wipe out the visual that wouldn’t stop playing on the back of my eyelids. “I called her a liar and told her to calm down. That only intensified her anger. She unbuckled her seatbelt and grabbed the steering wheel. We fought some more, and during that struggle I crossed over the centerline. I tried to correct it, but I must have jerked too hard on the wheel, because the car spun around, flipping two times. We were broadsided by an oncoming car that never had a chance to slow down; everything happened so fast. I remember seeing her out of the corner of my eye as her body went through the windshield. I tried to reach out and grab her, but my arm wouldn’t move; my shoulder had been dislocated.” I felt hot tears on my cheeks before I could stop them from falling. Never before had I allowed myself to give in to the grief, having fought so long to smother it.

“If only I had told her I wanted those same things…” I cried softly.

“Sebastian, telling her a lie would have only prolonged the inevitable. You can’t blame yourself just because you told her something she didn’t want to hear. You told her the truth. Did you love her?”

“I don’t know. I thought I did back then, but now, on this side of it, I’m not sure. I know I cared for her, very deeply, but I was too young and immature to think about being in love or starting a family. But if I had only waited until we weren’t driving, if I had held off my honesty until we reached Sonoma, maybe she would be alive. She would be off somewhere living her dream with someone who deserved her. I didn’t deserve her.”

“Why do you say that?” Barry leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

“I didn’t appreciate her. I didn’t value her needs, put her needs before my own. That’s what killed her, my selfishness.” I gave in, finally allowing the grief to wash over me. The tears that poured out felt almost as if they were cleansing me, ridding me of all the shame I had carried since that fateful night.

“I’m proud of you, Sebastian. I know that wasn’t easy for you. I think that you need to learn to start putting others’ needs before your own. I’m not saying you should do that every time, just be aware that it’s okay to put someone else before yourself for a change.” Never before had that concept entered my mind; now that it was out there, served up as a form of healing, it felt like a lifeline. I wanted to grab hold of it and never let go.

* * *

I woke up this morning with a renewed energy. I felt stronger and healthier, and my mind was clearer than it’d ever been. My confidence had been restored. I was able to talk about what happened, even though it hurt. I was still lonely and had a hole in my heart, but I was healing.

Travis was picking me up this afternoon, and I was filled with hope at the thought of seeing him again. It’d been far too long. Travis and I had always been close; he was only three years older than me, so growing up we shared everything. We used to run around the neighborhood and hang out in Dek’s garage playing music and dreaming what it would be like to start a real band. Even when he started dating Natalie, became a married man, and then a father, Travis always made time for me. Maybe that was why it had hurt so much when he didn’t want to see me these past three months. I understood why, I truly did, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Watching me fall apart had been more than he and Natalie could stand. That final day, when Dek had shown up at my house to take me to rehab, I recalled wondering why Travis hadn’t joined him. In my heart, I had known why. That memory had been what helped me get through my stay at the ranch. I didn’t only want to get well for myself; I wanted to get my act together for the sake of my family. They loved me, and I never wanted to hurt them again.

I stuffed my belongings in my backpack; it didn’t take long, there wasn’t much to pack, but it was heavier leaving than it had been coming. My journals were packed carefully at the bottom of my bag, three in all, and I planned to keep them with me until the day I died, serving as a constant reminder of the life I never wanted to return to.

I had just zipped my pack when I sensed his presence. That was the cool thing about being brothers. I didn’t have to see him; I felt him. I couldn’t hide the smile that spread evenly over my face. I welcomed it joyously; it had been a long time since it had taken up residence there. I hoped like hell it wouldn’t leave anytime soon.

“Hey, man.” Travis clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Are you ready to go home?”