Death of a Rock Star: A Boy in the Band Novella (11 page)

Well, fuck fate! As I bolt from her apartment, I wonder if I can outrun it
.
I’m going to fucking well try.

Half way down her street who should I pass but Hoodie Guy. I recognise the cocky swagger, the battered union jack Chucks. As I get a good look at his face, I see that the swagger is completely justified. Hoodie Guy is Chris fucking Kavanagh… the one and only. I make the connection instantly – CK.

In this moment, the hate solidifies in my heart. I think back to Sylvie and him shamelessly pawing all over each other outside Jamie’s house, sitting in the same fucking spot where the ambulance had pulled up only hours before. I can’t believe that I let myself want her, that she’s all I’ve been thinking about these past two weeks. Who she is, what she’s done… these things are way beyond anything I could ever forgive. I need to get over this and get a fucking life.

As I will myself to keep walking away, to bury this day forever, I try to shake Jamie’s lyrics from my mind, but I can’t. They’re fucking branded there. They’re haunting and unforgettable.

Just like
her
.

The Vine is one of cooler venues on the London gig scene. There are lots of beautiful girls here tonight, lots of hipster guys. Usually this kind of crowd is hard to impress, but we must be doing something right because they’re throwing themselves full force into our set with us. There’s an incredible buzz. Not the louche, jaded hubbub usually reserved for the warm up act. We’re killing it. The crowd have bounced and danced and
cheered
along to the last three songs. As I blast out the final line of the outro and lean into the crowd to high five the sea of hands that are reaching out for me, I think,
I love this, I fucking love it - this moment right here.
Being up on stage, carrying a crowd along with you, lifting them, gives just as big a high as any other shit I’ve ever tried. It’s just as addictive. Just as dangerous.

Fran catches my eye, and he sees it in me, the hunger for more raging inside me. He gives me a nod and a cocky arsed smile. Bastard. He thinks that I’m being won over, that my reservations about moving back to London, that my morbid fears of this band actually snowballing into something beyond our control are gradually being eroded by moments like this. But this high is just as fleeting as any coke high and the crash will be just as big. Right now this all makes perfect, crystal clear sense. I feel like I’m king of the fucking world, like I own this moment, own this crowd. Like this is what I was born to do. Half an hour after I come off stage the same old doubts and fears will come crashing in on me again. I put my finger up to Fran to signal that I need a quick breather. I neck my bottle of beer in one and do what I always do, give myself over to the temporary high, fuck the consequences.

Fran starts to play the intro to
Breathe
. I don’t play guitar on this song, although my fingers ache to do it every time. I’ve shied away from playing it since I first showed it to the lads. It’s painful enough to sing, without feeling the weighty resonance from my guitar in the pit of my stomach too. I always get a little nervous performing this song. My emotions are still raw surrounding it. It’s good in a way that this song has become our torch song. In the small familiar venues of Brighton, my voice is often drowned out by the audience. The times when the lyrics catch in my throat, the audience is there to catch me. But tonight we are unknowns here, there’s no safety net.

I stare out into the crowd. I’m thankful for the dazzling spotlight. It’s so easy to become someone else in its glare, to let the sea of faces watching me become an abstract mass.

My voice is surprisingly steady and strong in spite of the hush that has descended on the place. This song has a strange power. It works its dark magic on the audience, and I feel the shift in the air. But for once rather than feeling oppressed by it, I feel strengthened, emboldened. As my voice soars, I let myself scan the audience again.

It’s almost as if I’ve been expecting it, as if fate has been waiting for this moment. My eyes fall on a face that’s haunted me for the past year, a face that is so much more beautiful than I remember.

She’s
here.

She’s here, and she has no fucking clue who I am. I should be relieved, but part of me wanted those stunning golden eyes of hers to flame with something other than this appraising, avariciousness she’s pinning me with. I swear I can almost see pound signs flashing there. It fucks me off and saddens me beyond words.

I watch her warily in the dressing room mirror as she schmoozes Dex and Fran and Charley, giving them the standard A&R patter – hinting at big things to come. This Sylvie seems so much harder, so much slicker than the broken girl who shattered in my arms another lifetime ago. Yet the need to hold her again is overwhelming and heart-breaking, the need to consume her so strong. It’s like she’s my air, like I’ve been living on nothing but thin dregs for the past year. In her presence, it feels like my heart is finally doing what it’s supposed to. Like its beat has a purpose.

I’ve denied and avoided and closed myself off to these feelings for so long now that suddenly faced with them, I’m overwhelmed. Part of me wants to forget all about the promise I made to Jamie. The one I made to myself the night of Jamie’s funeral.

I want to see Sylvie Smith as just another girl. I want to fuck her to get her out of my system, to toss her aside and never have to think about her again. But fucking hell, Jamie was so right. She’s not just another girl. She’s
the
girl. So beautiful, she’s fucking lethal. I know somewhere deep in my heart that I’ll let her in and that she’ll destroy me too.

Betrayal has never sat easily with me. I can’t betray Jamie. I can’t. But the dark rogue part of my heart whispers,
fuck it, I couldn’t think of a more beautiful way to fall…

Blake, Sylvie and Chris’ story continues in

Coming Summer 2014…

Read on for an exclusive preview.

I always wondered if it was true. If your whole life flashes before your eyes in the moments before you die. I guess I’m about to find out.

As I ease down the plunger, savouring the euphoric kick, I know this speedball is going to be my last.

The instant it hits my veins it feels like the universe is fighting there. Exist. Don’t exist. Live. Die. Dark. Light. Fight. Let go. Crash. Fly. My body is finally saying no to all the shit I’ve put it through. Beat. Don’t beat. My heartbeat stops. In that silence, I see it all. Everything that brought me here. My life story in one lethal hit. Sensory and emotional overload.

I see what finally brought me to my knees. I see Sylvie. In all her bold Technicolor beauty. In a cold grey world that’s getting further and further away, she’s like a burst of sunlight splitting into a million different shades and hues. I know there has to be a God, because a beauty like hers can’t be down to chance. She’s the golden ratio. So perfectly imperfect. The dazzling constellation of her is as stunning as any night sky you’ll ever see.

I see Blake. My shadow self. I see his darkness wrap around Sylvie.

They always seemed inevitable somehow, like a tide I was trying to hold back. Now I see the truth so very clearly. The truth of what they are and what they will be. I am their unwitting facilitator, the catalyst, and now I’m all used up. Now I’m no longer fighting fate I can finally rest.

The world is narrowing, getting further and further away, until it’s just a lit window in the distance. Isn’t this what I wanted? To become nothing. To escape. To not feel.

Then in a sudden rush I feel
everything
. But love burns the brightest of all and consumes everything else. The whitest, most beautiful light I’ve ever seen.