When I wake, my boyfriend’s presence is beside me. Digitalis is draped along the bottom of the bed like a cat. Grey light from the windows bathes the bed in its bleakness. I frown at the cloudy sky outside and close the curtains to cover the room in darkness. My morning shower is scathing as I try to burn away the smell of whiskey that stuck to my skin. I put some frozen waffles into the toaster for Digitalis to eat before sending Gael a message to request a meeting later. Without waiting for his response, I fell into myself on one of the kitchen chairs, craving a drink before my departure. I squeezed my leg with my fingertips, a futile effort to distract myself from the longing.
The snap of the toaster popping the waffles up wakes me from my delirium. I struggle not to burn my fingertips as I take them out with shaking hands. I don’t remember when they started doing that again. It used to happen often if I didn’t hit the bottle fast enough. With the crispy waffles in hand, I shake Digitalis awake and offer them to her. Groggy, she crunches on them slowly and doesn’t seem to care that she’s getting crumbs all over Marcus’ bed.
While Digitalis eats, I wash up and try my best to make my face look fresh and healthy. I splash water on it and pinch my cheeks, but the circles beneath my eyes won’t fade. All the color I summoned up disappears in mere moments. I corral Digitalis into the bathroom so she can shower. In silence, I grab my car keys and we walk down to my car together. I promise to buy her coffee, all the while feeling a spark of excitement to see Gael again.
She is completely aware halfway through the ride once her coffee has perked her up. I can see that her nervousness has left her. She looks too confrontational with her squared shoulders and focused eyes. I worried that I was setting Gael up for another bad time with her.
As the studio draws near, that yearning becomes almost overwhelming. The intensity that Digitalis threw off as we reached the doors of the studio was rapidly transforming into anxious electricity. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried. Every step we took in the halls, her hesitance grows like the longing grows in me. She takes a breath beside me when we reach his office door, and a scarce moment of confidence flickers like a candle within her eyes.
As I reach for the handle, I’m unbearably nervous. My yearning for Gael turned into an anxious jolting in my chest. So many fears pile up inside of me, I couldn’t count them. It’s been so long since I asked Gael to meet me outside of work that I felt as though I was overstepping my place to visit him now. I resented the pane of frosted glass between us, foggy enough to stop me from knowing if that woman was inside.
Finally, I wrap my hand around the handle, my sweaty palm sliding on the aluminum. As the door whispers open, those captivating eyes of his rise from the books on his desk to meet with mine. The sight takes my breath away until I’m woken from my dream with the confused look in them. I am relieved that he is alone. His voice rings out then, pulling me back into reality completely.
“Digitalis is with you?” He asks, his arms tensed. She steps from behind me, the anxious jitters within her consumed by the rising blaze of her confidence. The sight of his face puts the electricity in my chest to sleep.
“I wanted to ask you for something, Gael.” Her voice was entitled in a way that only I knew she’d practiced.
Silently, I faded into the background, taking a seat against the wall.
“What do you want?” Gael’s voice was patient, despite its guardedness.
“Since you opened the label, you’ve taken a few contracts here and there. I realized that you didn’t have any independent singers, so I thought I’d offer to sign a contract with your label.” The strategic way she chose her words was obvious to me. It appeared Gael noticed it as well, with the amused smile that came onto his face.
“You thought that you’d be so kind as to offer yourself to my company?” His eyes lifted to meet hers, their stares clashing in the air between them. “I suppose I could offer you something.” His eyes dropped back down to his paper.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
I saw the tremble in Digitalis’ hand.
“You mean…” The entitled mask crumbled when he cut her off.
“First, I want you to apologize to me. And to Asya.” He demanded, those cat-like eyes raising back to meet hers. She almost lost her balance when they hit her. The firm stance she’d taken fell away in an instant, her hands meeting in front of her chest with thrilled relief.
“I- of course! I’m so sorry for putting you through what I did.” She turned to face me, her eyes a flurry of excitement. “And you too, Asya. I’m so sorry!”
Gael smiles, pulling a paper from a rack behind his desk.
I pulled out my phone for a distraction as they discuss the contract he placed before her. I didn’t belong here.
We leave his office when everything is signed and finished. I notice the way Gael’s eyes trail after me, like he has words on his lips meant for me. Quickly, I rush after Digitalis with only a wave in his direction. I can’t bear the terror of what those words might be.
Digitalis takes me by the shoulders when the door closes. “Thank you so much!” She pulled me into a tight hug and I took it, still wondering what Gael wanted to say. She pushed me back and held me by my shoulders. “I can’t wait for my solo debut!” She was so jittery and enthusiastic that it was surreal to watch her animatedly gush about her contract while I felt nothing at all inside of me.
We picked up my boyfriend and drove to the bar. I spectated them from over the top of my glass as Digitalis told him her hopeful stories of her future solo career. It was odd, realizing that my boyfriend and Digitalis meant more to each other than I meant to either of them. Shouldn’t it be different, since they are only friends to each other, whereas I have been more to both?
I downed the last of my drink and asked for another.
I was a shadow in the months approaching my 25th birthday, holding Digitalis’ hand and observing as she fought the press for her new career move. Everyone in the media seemed to hate her. It left her distraught enough that she came over almost every day to complain before drinking and doing drugs in my bathroom with my boyfriend. I was sure that they also slept together, but it was easy not to care. I didn’t love him, even still.
It was only when my twenty-fifth birthday came close that she didn’t come by for a while. My boyfriend stayed after work later and later, and I would have been suspicious if I wasn’t busy writing songs with my whiskey. If he was out sleeping with someone else, I didn’t mind.
My hair was freshly dyed, the complete blue that I used to wear before rehab. The color was bright and almost uplifting if my growing feelings of emptiness weren’t holding back the scraps of joy I might have gleaned. I pulled into the parking lot and made my way to Marcus’ apartment, where I had all but moved in. I could hear noise leaking through the front door, the sounds of dozens of people laughing and talking enthusiastically. I stop before the door, listening. I checked my phone to see if my boyfriend was planning something. He sent me no message to warn me. Carefully, I open the door and I’m greeted by the vision of a wild party. Most of the people I hardly recognize. Some, I have seen before at band functions or when I went out to the bars with my boyfriend. I weave through the guests to make it to my kitchen, where some men are snorting lines of cocaine off of the countertops between bowls of chips and dip.
I find Digitalis and my boyfriend with some people in the hall, doing pills as usual, before the group congratulates me on my birthday. I watch them pop the pills into their mouths and I am compelled to join them. One girl slides one into my mouth and I accept it, swallowing it down. The night is a blur at first; the people buzzing energetically for the first hour before staggering and stumbling as they get drunker. As people paired off or got tired, the crowd thinned. Digitalis took some guy to the bedroom, but I was too high to care. Some of them didn’t bother to go home, simply making love wherever they could find. I did a line of shots and licked some cocaine left on the counter before I moved on to beer. My boyfriend passed out after some shots, lying among the barstools. My head was a haze when I finished the last beer of my evening. The world spun around me as I tried to traverse the living room until I was on my back, in couch cushions. I let the empty bottle in my hand roll from my fingers onto the carpet. I stared at the ceiling. I wanted to help my unconscious boyfriend to the bedroom to sleep, but I couldn’t lift even a finger. The ceiling spun before my eyes and I blinked at it to see if it would stop.
A dark figure approaches me, a smiling face and terrifying black eyes. A hand reaches out, but before it touches me, the haze in my head takes me away from the world.