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Everything will be fine. The stage is a good place. A safe place. A place where I like to be. Where I have control. The audience likes us, or they wouldn’t be here.

Tristan opened his mouth and let his vocal cords vibrate. A guttural sound emerged, but it was quickly stifled by a gulping breath. He swallowed the thick lump in his throat and tried to breathe slowly and evenly.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the album release hadn’t been such a disaster. Everything was a blur, but he remembered trying to hang himself on stage.

Fuck… The audience is going to tear us apart. They’re all just here to see us fail again.

Tristan slumped his shoulders and sighed.

How did everything fall apart so badly?

Okay, get it together. Everything will be fine. Even Leaf is starting to crawl out of his dark hole.

Loud laughter emanated from the dressing room. The opening band had finished their set and was now back in the backstage area. The countdown had begun. Tristan’s mouth felt uncomfortably dry and his heart hammered in his chest. Had it always been like this before every performance? They had been on stage so many times.

He felt a slight pressure in his stomach. Maybe it was from the sandwich he had eaten earlier from Valerie’s. It had been delicious though—and so necessary. He could never have gone on stage with an empty stomach. At least the sandwich had been small, because a full stomach wasn’t good either.

This damned tightrope walk every time.

He set the beer bottle back on the sink and resumed his vocal exercises. He had resisted them for a long time until realizing their benefit for his vocal cords. Now, with the opening band returning, the increasing noise heightened his nervousness and stirred chaotic thoughts in his head. Milo’s image flashed in his mind, weighing down his limbs.

O Captain! My Captain!

What should I do?

Dejected, he let his head hang and leaned on the sink.

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Walt Whitman’s words had never hit him as hard as they did now. Of all times, so close to the gig, they stirred the sadness within him, rolling over him like a dark, black blanket.

Fuck…

Milo was dead.

His Captain was dead.

And he would never come back.

Tristan’s knees went weak and something clamped around his throat.

Never again would they laugh together.

Make music.

Drink.

Or be.

Coldness spread within him, in every fiber of his body. His breath hitched. His muscles stiffened.

Not good. Not good at all.

Tristan let the water run and splashed his face. When he straightened up and looked in the mirror, the tears were washed away. Yet he hadn’t even cried.