For track six, he wants a brief clash of discordant sounds. Like glass breaking or metal scraping. Not a song at all really, just something that’ll capture the agonizing stab of true adulthood: the knowledge that this time you might’ve broken something that can’t be repaired.
Track seven is about the hell of recovery—Cal’s thinking of water imagery for that one, although he’s not sure how he’ll fold it in yet. Track eight is basically about sitting at home alone in your house while your friends all go to a party to get fucked up without you. Cal’s still working on the melody to that one—he wants something pretty but piercing and sharp. Violin will do, but he’s tempted to try to make a flute work. He’s not sure how heavy distortion will blend with classical flute, and he kind of wants to find out.
Track nine will be the old man’s suicide letter. Cal has no idea what he’s going to do there. The last song—track ten—is going to be mostly about the old man’s realization that he wants to live anyway, only to have him die in the last verse. Cal has a riff and part of the bass line done for that one, but not much more. He does know he’s going to call it “Bullet.” Might work for the title of the album too.
Cheery stuff. They’ll either win another Grammy or crash and burn and their careers will never recover.
He sighs.
Zac’s probably still mad at him for leaving last night. Cal didn’t know how to explain, that was all. His morning routine—run, shower, breakfast, tequila test—is crucial to his mental health. It’s how he knows he’s ready to meet whatever challenge lies ahead, and yes, part of that is the challenge of remaining sober.
Maybe skipping the tequila test was a bad idea. Sure, when he’s tempted, it’s a risk to have it right there in front of him, but not doing it has him feeling unsteady, like he’s missed a step on a staircase. Uncertainty is big in his head, hinting at doubts about his strength, about whether he’s ruined everything with Anya, about what she’ll think when she finds out. He’s embarrassed that he ran last night without explaining, but he was already shaky. What was he supposed to do with Anya sitting there, watching him, her damp tawny hair still tousled from his fingers, blue eyes huge in her face, patiently waiting, leaving him terrified of all the things he might say if he stayed?
Will she still want him once he tells her? Will she still feel safe leaving PJ with him? Oh, that one sends a static crackle of fear down his spine, and it brings all of those old whispers of inadequacy along for the ride.
He gets up and very carefully hangs the Fender back on its pegs on the wall. He goes into the kitchen and takes the bottle of tequila down from the cabinet. It’s Herradura Selección Suprema, his favorite. He sets it on the counter but doesn’t let it go. He tells himself he’s about to do his tequila test—later than usual maybe, but better late than never, right? The test is important, that’s all.
The glass is cool against his fingertips. He can feel the ridged edge of the horseshoe logo beneath his thumb. He stares at the other things in the cabinet for a good thirty seconds—olive oil, vinegar, unopened jars of salad dressings and condiments. He has a bottle of Worcestershire sauce, the kind with the brown paper wrapper, and he doesn’t even like the stuff. Who knows where it came from?
Every cell in his body is listing toward the tequila in his hand. He settles his palm on the cap—just a twist of the wrist and it all gets easier, the whole world steps back and lets him breathe for five fucking minutes, he won’t have to think about Zac or Anya or the music or the articles that will ask what the hell he was thinking trying a concept album and he definitely won’t have to think about what June would say if she could see him now, because all of that’s just an extension of this twisting inside him that can only be fixed by one thing—and then he’s throwing the squat, heavy bottle across the kitchen in the general direction of the sink.
He misses because he wasn’t aiming, and it crashes into the island instead and smashes. The sound is loud and startling. Glass and liquor fly everywhere. A shard hits him in the cheek from a good five feet away. He assumes it’s tequila trickling down his skin, but when he reaches up to wipe it away, his fingers come back bloody.
He surveys the mess he’s made. He can’t walk barefoot through the kitchen with all this glass on the tile, and the fumes of the tequila are already heady enough from here that the idea of going closer makes his heart beat in his throat like a hummingbird’s wings. The longer he stands here, the less he cares about how pathetic it would be, how dangerous, to try for those last few drops coating the larger shards. The twisting need inside him argues that it doesn’t matter that the bottle is broken. He’s not too proud to suck liquor off the goddamn floor, is he?
He turns instead and vaults himself up and over the counter into the living room, scattering a couple of cookbooks in the process. He has to get out of here. He grabs his phone and keys and his shoes and his wallet. His hands tremble as he dials Tracy’s number from memory.
She answers with her characteristic bluntness. “Holy shit, he’s alive.”
“For the moment.” He gets outside, slams the door behind him. Locks it. It takes a few tries, the key going tink, tink, tink against the metal of the dead bolt because he can’t—his hand won’t—it’s just—God.
She pauses, maybe hearing the strain in his voice. “Not a social call, then.”
“No. Sorry.”
“Okay, give me thirty seconds.” She covers the mouthpiece for a second and talks to someone else. Excusing herself from whatever she’s doing to give him privacy. He winces. When she comes back, she says, “Hey, so—”
“Sorry,” he blurts. “I know it’s rude. I haven’t called you in ages. I shouldn’t—It’s rude to call out of nowhere because I need something when I haven’t—”
“It’s not your job to take care of me. Sponsor first, friendly-type person afterward.” She pauses again. Then, “Have you had anything to drink yet?”
“No.”
“Good.” It’s nice that she sounds relieved. “That’s good. I’m proud of you. Where are you?”
“Home. Sort of. In my driveway.” He clears his throat. “I can’t go inside. There’s a broken bottle of tequila in my kitchen. It’s everywhere. I can’t—” He exhales hard. “I went to a meeting this morning. Doesn’t seem like it helped, huh?”
“If you haven’t put a glass to your lips yet, my friend, I’d say it’s getting the job done. One day at a time. Or are we more on the one hour at a time mantra?”
“It’s one minute at a time, at this particular second.” He rubs a hand over his forehead. “It’s been eight years. Sometimes I can barely remember what it tastes like. How can I be this desperate when I can go weeks at a time without thinking of it for more than the three minutes every morning when I do my resistance training?”