We should’ve stayed together.
I know what you’re thinking—that I was the one who broke up the band. Why wouldn’t you? That was the headline splashed across tabloids the world over. “Jealous RJ Quits AnyDayNow Over Bodhi’s Rising Fame.” That didn’t happen. Sure, I’d admit to having one foot out the door well before the band actually imploded, but it was Mother Nature who dropped the final shovel of dirt on AnyDayNow’s grave.
If you somehow missed the story of our destruction, a quick Google search would pull up the cautionary tale of my bandmate Bodhi and the swift-moving firestorm that nearly ended his life. But it was the chaotic aftermath, with the news falsely reporting Bodhi’s death, that made the four of us remaining band members unanimously call it quits. At the time, it seemed impossible for the band to weather his loss. Of course, that same Google search would tell you Bodhi showed up alive the next day, having survived the fire by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin. But, by then, the damage had already been done.
AnyDayNow had run its course and, the way I saw it, we’d gotten out just in time. See, here’s the problem with boy bands—they were never meant to last. In fact, there was a simple mathematical formula (puberty + eight) that accurately predicted how long a boy band could thrive in the wild. Our little girl fans didn’t want us to grow old. They wanted our youthful faces and smooth skin to stay frozen in time. But there was no aging in reverse. Inevitably, we had to grow up, get hairy, and move on.
My phone buzzed. I swiped it off the counter, saw it was Bodhi, and set the phone back down.
“Sorry, dude, not today,” I said, hitting the ignore button. Keeping Bodhi and the boys at arm’s length was essential if I wanted to continue wallowing in my own misery.
Speaking of which…
“Alexa, play ‘Apologies.’”
Yeah, I was pushing it now. “Apologies” was the first single off my debut album, and the one I was sure would catapult me into a successful solo career. I’d put everything into its creation, nurturing it to perfection. And once it was ready to share with the world, I’d sent it off like a baby bird learning to fly. God, I was so proud. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined my songbird would slam into a closed window and plunge to the dirt with a sickening thud. But that was exactly what had happened following a disastrous concert on the pier—and the added horror of watching “Apologies” barely slide into the Billboard Top 100 charts before dropping away soon after.
Yeah. Too bad I couldn’t swipe left on that memory.
I listened to the lyrics trying to decipher just what it was about the song that people hated but as hard as I tried to find fault, I couldn’t. Despite what everyone else thought, I still loved my baby.
“Alexa, do you like this song?” I asked.
“Hmm…if you like this song,” she replied, “maybe try Nickelback.”
“Fuck you!”
I shot up from my chair and threw the shirt across the room. Everyone was a goddamn critic. Silencing the shrew, I headed for the kitchen and tossed all the ingredients into my blender for the perfect smoothie. Even as everything was collapsing around me, I held onto my fitness routine, eating clean and continuing my workouts because, as my life spiraled out control, my body was the only thing I had left to count on.
My cell rang again. Bodhi. Answer the damn phone, I told myself. You can count on him. You know you can. But try as I might, I couldn’t get myself to answer. Grimacing, I let Bodhi’s call go to voicemail. I loved the dude. He was my best friend. We’d done everything together, including being the dueling heartthrobs in AnyDayNow. Ours were the names screamed from the stands. RJ and Bodhi. Bodhi and RJ.
But then he’d gone on to bigger and better things, leaving me stuck spinning my wheels in the mud. I should have been where Bodhi was, slowly building a solo career with a good woman by my side. But instead, I’d been overconfident, rushing things in order to be the first Dayer to release a solo album. And now here I was, paying the price for my arrogance. Fuck me. Fuck all those armchair critics who reveled in my despair. And fuck Bodhi Beckett.
Whoa! Ease, son. This wasn’t Bodhi’s fault. Not even close. He was only calling me because he was worried. They all were. How could I blame them? I’d basically dropped off the face of the earth, ghosting the guys I’d claimed would always be my brothers. But here was the deal: they wanted me to be fine. And I wasn’t fine.
So I hid, holing myself up in this shitty apartment and living under the alias Chad Woodcock—one of the many fake names the guys and I had dreamed up on our multiple tours together. Back then, it was funny as shit. Now it just seemed sad. Maybe, deep down, I wanted them to find me, and that was why I’d picked the name Chad Woodcock. It was a clue—a piece of low-lying fruit ripe for the picking. If my buddies were really motivated, if they put their collective brains together, then maybe, just maybe, they’d find me. I wasn’t holding my breath.
“Shit,” I whispered, disappointed in myself. I was such a bad friend. A bad singer. A bad human. I should just go back to bed, pull the sheets up over my head, and drift away. But there was nowhere safe for me. Not asleep. Not awake. Not work. Not home.
I flicked the blender switch to ‘on.’
Here’s to the start of another wasted day.
Dani
Brother from Another Mother
Why did he have to be so perfect?
I dropped my forehead to the table and did a little no-hands head bang. It seemed appropriate, given the circumstances. Last night, I’d been on my first date in months, but somehow, I’d managed to ruin a perfectly good evening by slut-shaming the dude’s mother over a slice of cheesecake.
“Uhhh,” I groaned, smacking my head against the table one last time. What was wrong with me? Most girls would feel so lucky to get a date with a man like James. Set up through mutual friends, he and I seemed perfectly matched—so much in common. Some might say too much. Both driven, articulate, and dare I say, attractive, we really did have instant chemistry.
James was a catch in every sense of the word. He was gainfully employed and loved his mother—like, a lot. Maybe even more than most, but you know, there was nothing wrong with a strong parent-child bond, even if the son was in his late twenties. Right? I mean the fact that I found it even remotely creepy spoke more to my less-than-stellar relationship with my own mother than it did James’ with his.
And don’t even get me started on my father. Let’s just say he wasn’t in the picture—nor on my birth certificate. My father was nothing more than a vial of sperm, yet he’d still managed to wreak havoc on my personal life. See, if my dad hadn’t been such a Lothario in his early years, I wouldn’t be in this predicament with James. And, yes, I understood that made me sound like I was shifting the blame for my own bad behavior onto my father, but his bountiful right-handed tug-and-pulls in the sterile backroom of a fertility clinic really was the bane of my existence.
Last night was a perfect example of what I was talking about. Within minutes of the start of the date with James, I began noticing little things about him… eerily similar things. The way he used ‘so’ as a word filler between pauses. The way he traced his finger along the table top. The color of his eyes. The brightness of his hair. The dimple in his cheek. It was then I realized—James and I could be siblings. And once the thought permeated into my brain, there was no shutting it off. Suddenly all I could do was picture us finishing each other’s sentences, and not in the cutesy, unrelated sort of way. Or us celebrating the birth of our future daughter, who would arrive in this world sporting an extra nostril protruding from her belly button. Dating in the city was hard enough without having to worry that every man I met might actually be my brother.