The time was three-thirty in the morning. She had just turned off the light in her bunk to settle in and possibly get a little sleep before the tour bus rolled into the next stop around 9am (if they were lucky. Lucky had not been on their side on this leg of the tour.). In the dark, even above the mechanical hum of the bus motor, the multiple refrigerators and the light snoring of one exhausted drummer, she could hear someone singing softly. The stylist pulled her curtain back just a bit, wondering if she could hear a little better.
Closing her eyes, she tried to place the song. A radio? Was the bus driver listening to something way up front that she could hear even with the door to the front lounge closed? A few seconds later, she decided that no, it definitely wasn’t a radio, but the song WAS very familiar. She was sure she recognized it. Just as the melody was starting to form in her head, the tune switched to something different but equally haunting. There was only one person on this bus who could sing like that and it had to be Josh.
No wonder it had sounded so close. He slept in the bunk beneath hers. Due to his insomnia, it seemed like a better fit than having him climb over someone multiple times a night. She must have been more groggy and sleep deprived from the night before than she originally thought. She should have figured that out much more quickly.
She listened for a few more moments before the song he was singing quietly to himself switched back to the original. This time, it was slower and more mournful than before. And it certainly hadn’t been a happy tune the first time around.
She twisted herself sideways after freeing herself from the blankets and slid the curtain of her bunk back even further. Grabbing the side of the bunk, she hung herself over the side upside down. Carefully letting go with one hand, she tapped lightly on the curtain of Josh’s bunk and whispered, “Knock knock.”
Immediately the singing stopped and it was quiet. The blood was beginning to rush to her head, so she tapped again. This time, the curtain was pulled back and Josh turned on his light. All he could see was a tangled mess of curly hair as she turned her head to avoid being blinded by his light.
“Do you know what time it is?” he whispered.
“Yes, do you?”
“About three, I think. What is it?”
She grabbed hold of the bunk with both hands again and turned to throw her leg over the side. Shimmying out of her sleep space and dropping to the floor, she sat on Josh’s bunk near his feet. “I could hear you singing. I know you don’t sleep well, but you’re usually quiet at this time of night.”
He looked a little…what? She couldn’t tell. Guilty that he had been caught singing to himself? Worried about disturbing her? “Sorry,” he said quietly. It seemed that the look he had thrown her had been apologetic more than anything else.
“Don’t be. It’s not often I actually get to hear your concerts, despite traveling with you to gigs. And despite what you might believe, I do enjoy listening to you sing.” She smiled at her joke but he didn’t even seem to be listening.
“Could you tell what the songs were?” he asked.
“No. I couldn’t spy well enough to tell. You really were very quiet. I never would have heard you had you not been in the bunk under mine.”
“Can we keep this just between us?”
“Of course. You know I don’t spill secrets,” she said, slightly offended.
“You forget…I don’t know you that well yet. Mike, Ian and Matt have spent more time with you than I have so far.” Josh sat up a little further against his pillows and pulled his long legs up to his chest, giving her room to scoot back.
She took the cue and leaned with her back against the wall, drawing her own legs up into the bunk to sit “Indian-style”. Josh then pulled the curtain closed. This was a bit too intimate for her, but she knew he simply wanted to talk in private. And this was just about as private as you got on a tour bus filled with eight other people. “I noticed that you and I haven’t spent a whole lot of time together. Why is that? Do I intimidate you or something?”
Josh snorted a little before answering. “Ha…no. It’s not that. Truth is, I haven’t spent much time with any of the guys lately. I’m sorry. It’s not you. I enjoy your company when you’re around.” He reached up and flipped the switch of his lamp off.
“Ok, good. Then what’s up? I mean, it’s great to hear and all, but there seems to be something more to that.” She pressed him a little, unsure of whether she should or not. As he said, they didn’t know each other very well yet.
She heard Josh take a deep breath and he made a gesture she couldn’t see in the dark. He could have been shrugging his shoulders or flipping her off with those infamous middle fingers of his and she wouldn’t have known the difference. “Just between us, right?” he asked again, almost pleading.
“Yes. Just between us.”
“The songs that I was singing before…they were from the albums, of course. They were “So Soon” and “Skin and Bones”. Do you know those?”
“A little, but not well. Even though I both travel with you and work for you, I have to admit that I’m only really familiar with the songs from your current album because you’re singing them on this tour.” She shrugged her shoulders this time, even though she knew he couldn’t see her either.
“Okay,” he sighed. “It’s…never mind.” He sounded utterly defeated.
“No. Just because I don’t know the songs well doesn’t mean I don’t care.” She shifted a little to get more comfortable, even though she wasn’t sure if Josh wanted her to hang around much longer. As part of his apparent ADD personality, he tended to get bored when he had to explain things that people weren’t already aware of.
“It’s hard to explain if you don’t know the songs.”
“Well then…sing them to me?” she hesitantly suggested.
Josh groaned inwardly as if she had just asked him to walk through a mall full of people completely naked. Honestly, with the way he was feeling, he might have rather done that if it meant he didn’t have to talk about himself seriously.
“Or don’t,” she countered. “I asked because I care, not because I want you to get mad or annoyed.”
“No, it’s ok. I’ll do it, but then I have a lot of explaining to do, so we’re gonna be up for a while.” He offered her a pillow…or rather, accidentally hit her with it and she shoved it behind her back after thanking him.
Taking another deep breath, he started his “serenade” with “So Soon”. By the time he got to the lyric, “but what if here and now I tell you that I’m all figured out?/ Or maybe I just like how that sounds…,” her eyes were damp and she was feeling emotions that she couldn’t quite put into place. As soon as he got to the ending line, “this just feels so soon,” he launched into “Skin and Bones”.
She wasn’t sure her heart could take it by that point. The man had so much talent and every time he opened his mouth to sing, it was raw, pure and gritty. She’d heard the band sing a couple of songs live before and had even listened to their CDs a time or two, but in her profession, she couldn’t play favourites. This was a job.
“…it only hurt a bit/and I still feel like shit…” Now she was legitimately crying. She was wiping her eyes with her hands every few seconds and trying to pull herself together without much luck.
Josh finished his song and leaned his forehead against his knees as he wrapped his arms around his legs. He knew she needed a few moments to get herself together, and frankly, so did he. These songs, as well as a few others were always the hardest for him, no matter how many times he sang them or who he sang them to. This time, his audience had been just one person and the reaction was strong. He loved that his music had so much effect on people, but it still secretly hit him like a ton of bricks each time.
Three or four agonizing minutes for Josh went by before she was composed enough to say anything. She cleared her throat and wiped her eyes one last time before attempting to speak. “Josh…,” she whispered, “that was…I can’t even begin to describe it.”
He had heard that before, but he still wished people would try. He wanted her to go on, so he kept quiet and waited.
“It was beautiful. Both songs were amazingly powerful and so personal.”
“Thanks…yeah…they are personal.” His voice was a little unsteady. “That’s the problem.”
“Now I think I get it,” she said, moving closer to Josh by another inch or so. She reached out blindly in the dark, wanting to make some kind of physical contact, and as it was, she managed to lightly pat his leg. She hoped the little gesture would be enough to show him that she was there and supportive of anything he wanted to say. She felt him shaking a little. “Have you had to sing these songs lately in shows?”
“No…” He was barely audible now. His voice was muffled and she was unsure why.
She held back for a bit, debating in her head as to whether he needed space or a hug. In the end, her heart won out over her head and she shifted around in the tight space until she was sitting beside him, their shoulders touching. He still had his legs drawn up to his chest and his forehead on his knees. She would have to grope around in the dark to hug him. Instead, she ran her hand up his arm and squeezed his shoulder. From there, she smoothed her hand over the back of his hair. He was still shaking.
Since Josh didn’t pull away, she slid her arm around his shoulders and he leaned into her, just like a child who was having a bad day. He rested his head on her shoulder as he straightened his legs and crossed them at the ankles.
“What’s going on in your head that these songs are so significant right now?” she asked as she twisted a loose thread on the shoulder of his shirt around her finger.
By this time, he was now taking quick shallow breaths. She was afraid Josh was going to have a panic attack. It wasn’t well known, but he had informed everyone he worked with that ever since the heroin use at a young age, he had started to suffer from panic attacks. He told everyone- friends, band members and crew alike- what he needed from them if they saw he was acting a little different and/or seemed to be trying to deal with one. What he usually needed was calm and quiet. She started to remove her arm as she had heard that he also felt quite claustrophobic during these episodes. Her plan was to head back up to her bunk to give him the space he needed.
“No,” Josh said a bit more loudly than he meant to, startling them both. She had been thinking so hard about what he might need that she hadn’t expected to hear him speak, so she jumped and her heart pounded in her chest. “Sorry,” he said. “Please stay… I want to talk to you about those songs. I really do.” He folded his hands in his lap.
“Ok...ok. I’ll stay. I’m not going anywhere.” She settled in again and he leaned his head on her shoulder as she slid her arm around him once more. “Whenever you’re ready…” She was usually a very patient and understanding person, but now it was nearly four in the morning and in some odd turn of events, Josh had actually gotten more sleep than she had over the last week. Her level of patience was wearing thin, unfortunately. But still, she tried her best.
“I don’t know where to start. It’s just…it’s so much.” He spoke as if he was completely exhausted and tired of even turning these thoughts over in his mind.
She leaned her head against his and hugged him a little tighter. She hoped the gesture would be enough to get him talking. It seemed to do the trick when she felt him take a breath.
“How much of my past do you know about?” Warily, he asked this question. His reputation seemed to precede him wherever he went.
“Truthfully? Only what I’ve heard you say in interviews. And even then, you don’t really give a whole lot of information out. You’ve also mentioned the panic attacks.” She couldn’t remember anything else she really knew about the man, aside from what the media and fans had heard.
“No, I guess I don’t. It’s just…hard. I don’t wanna come across as a fucking martyr or something. You know what I’m saying?” He was fidgeting. He didn’t ever seem to stay still for very long and she knew this was driving him crazy, as well as having to take himself seriously and talk about things he’d rather do anything than discuss.
“I do, yes. It’s why you guys don’t know that much about me either.”
“Hey, this is true. Next time we have one of these little heart-to-hearts, we’ll make it about you. I’m glad you understand, though. But that means I have to tell you a lot of stuff.”
“Go ahead. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care.” She ran a hand over the back of his hair once again and placed it back on his shoulder.
“Okay, so, you should know by now that I’m a recovering heroin addict, right? And I also put myself through several years of bulimia. I had a very short foray into the world of alcohol, which is partly why I don’t drink now. I also tried anorexia out for size around the same time as the bulimia thing, but I just couldn’t handle being hungry all the time. I’d rather puke and ruin my body that way, I guess. And before you ask, my home life was fine. That’s the question I constantly get asked.” “Is that the source of all your problems?” he mimicked some interviewer in a higher pitched voice. “No, everything at home was fine. I had to grow up pretty quickly, being around professional musicians and everything, but my family has always been super supportive. I just…had a long run of depression that started when I was around 12. I was going through that for about three years before anything else started. The problem was…no one knew.”
At that last statement, he sounded embarrassed and almost ashamed. “Not one fucking person knew. I never said anything. Depression, dude…you either have it or you don’t. It wasn’t something I could control and it wasn’t something I wanted. It was just something that was dealt to me. So when I was finally offered heroin at a party, I won’t ever say I didn’t want it, because I did. I discovered something I really loved and it became a problem. I was never pressured into it. I wasn’t forced to try it. I don’t blame anyone but myself.”
“Right,” she said quietly. “I’m with you so far.”
“The funny thing about the drugs is that it really helped with the eating disorder. I mean, any time I ate, it made me feel sick, so it wasn’t a huge chore to run to the bathroom and puke. I was never truly hungry anyway. It really fucks with your whole body, that drug. Believe me…there’s nothing great about it.”
“From there, what happened?”
“At seventeen, my parents gave me two options. Get clean or get out. At that age, I was already a high school dropout because I was too wasted to go to class. I had no job. I had no money. So my only choice was rehab. There’s nothing romantic about that either. It fucking sucked to not be able to walk, to stay awake for two weeks straight and to not be able to go more than thirty minutes without having to throw up. That was completely the worst time in my life.” He sat up and shook his head at himself, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“I can imagine…and I believe it. You’re a stronger person, having gone through something like that. We all have our stories, and it’s the survivors that amaze me most.”
“No…don’t praise me. Nothing I did deserves that. I’m not a role model.” He seemed almost angry and she removed her arm from around him.
“I didn’t call you a role model. I just…meant that I was glad you came through all of that. You could have given up at any time.”
“I tried…”
“But you’re still here.”
“Heh…yeah. I can’t deny that. The fact is, when I was in rehab, they had us draw these things. There were these circles that represented us. And then around each circle, we had to draw other circles of every drug we’ve ever done and how important they were to us. The bigger the circle, the more important it was. Then they had us do it again, but instead of drugs, they had us draw circles representing the things most important to us. You know...family, friends, school. With most addicts, the drugs are the bigger circle- the more important thing. For me, music was bigger. And that’s when I knew that I couldn’t do both. I just…couldn’t do both. Something had to change. It had to change before I killed myself. At the rate I was going, I knew I would be dead before I hit 21.” Josh’s breath caught in his chest once he had said that. He could detach from the thought if he was talking to an interviewer or in front of an audience. Logically, he knew he was talking about himself, but it always sounded like someone else’s story. Now, though, sitting here in the dark with someone so close to him and hanging on his words, it hit him all over again.
She spoke softly in cautious tones, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say or even if anything she said would make a difference. “I know you’ve probably been told multiple times before that it’s good that you got help. As repetitive as that is, and for as much as this is worth, I’m glad you got help too. I’m glad you’re still around. And I’d really like the chance to continue to get to know you better.”
For the first time since this conversation had started, Josh knew what he wanted to say. He knew what he had been feeling all this time. He reached up and flipped on his overhead light again, nearly blinding her for the second time that night. Through clenched teeth, he asked, “Why? Why do you care? Why do you want to get to know a douche like me? You wanna deal with me on a regular basis? You want to deal with this?!” He reached over with his right hand and shoved his left sleeve up, revealing thin red streaks across his arm. He couldn’t meet her eyes, but stared at the lines he had carved just hours before instead.
All she could do was look at the marks he had created on his body before she responded. “Are there others?”
“What?” he asked, somewhat confused. Josh thought for sure that she would ask what happened or why or any number of other things. He knew that would come eventually, but he wasn’t prepared for this question now.
“Are…there…others?” she asked a bit more slowly and deliberately.
He debated being honest with her. She had been so good to him so far and he was glad she was letting him speak about the things that were getting to him, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to let her in on everything just yet. “You might as well tell me, Ramsay. Your silence speaks louder than you do.”
He shivered a little and glanced over at the curtain to make sure it was still closed. Slowly he pushed the blankets down towards his feet and twisted his body slightly so the hip closest to her was more visible and out of the shadows. He reached over to his side, pulled up the hem of his sweatshirt with one hand and pushed down his pants and underwear with the other to reveal numerous other red slits in his skin, some of which had not yet healed over and were still oozing a bit. Pulling the cloth away from them had opened most of them up again.
Josh couldn’t look away from her face this time. He needed to see her reaction. When he saw her eyes widen at the red, raw ugliness he had produced, he flinched and quickly let his clothes fall back into place. He purposely wore dark clothing on days when he wasn’t feeling his best and tonight was one of those nights. No one could see that the blood had seeped into his pants and stained them. No one would know. Again. Until now.
She sat quietly for a short while, never looking away from Josh’s hip, even when he covered himself up again and resumed his default sitting position of drawing his legs up to his chest. Her eyes stayed focused on his body, unintentionally making him more and more uncomfortable. He squirmed under her gaze, not quite knowing what to do or say. Josh needed her to say something first.
Eventually she diverted her stare away from him and closed her eyes. She took several deep breaths. “Josh…” she said, with her eyes still closed, “are there more?”
She only opened her eyes when she felt him move a bit to stretch his legs out and slide down the wall. Looking over, he had his thumbs tucked into the front of his pants and underwear and had dragged them down just far enough to show her his lower abdomen, which was completely covered in razor trails. She couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began in spots. “These won’t show,” he whispered.
“No…no they won’t…” She was at a loss. She had no idea that Josh had been doing all of this to himself.
“Is -,”
“That’s all. I swear,” he said, cutting her off before she could ask.
She nodded and he pulled his pants back up and pushed his body back into a more comfortable sitting position. He toyed with the edge of his blanket. Fuck, this was uncomfortable. He hated this and he didn’t even know why he brought it up. He didn’t know why he wanted to tell anyone, let alone her. Maybe he felt like she wouldn’t judge him, not having known him a decade ago when he did this for the first time.
“I…have questions…” Even after divulging the things he had done to his body, she still wasn’t sure if it was safe to pressure him into talking at all. But she was going to take a chance because this was so serious.
“I know…” Josh nodded. “Everyone did back then, too…”
“Will you answer them? Or will you be…you know…yourself?”
He ducked his head until his hair fell across his eyes and he shrugged.
“Ok, then I’ll try anyway. How long has this been going on?”
“Well, there was this children’s birthday party back in 2002-“
“No,” she said stopping him mid-story. “I gave you a chance and now I want the truth.”
“Just tonight.” He lightly rested his hands against his thighs and rubbed his palms against the fabric as if trying to get something invisible off his skin.
“You did all of this in one night?? Oh, Josh… dude…”
“Yeah…”
“Josh, what’s up that you’ve started this again? It sounds like you were doing so well for so long. When did you even do this? You were with the rest of us all evening. We never even saw you leave the room. What did you use to do this?”
He leaned his head back against the wall of his bunk. Speaking low and slowly, he absent-mindedly moved his hands from his thighs to his stomach and laid them flat against his body as if to protect the cuts. He avoided most of her questions but tried to give the stylist some form of an answer. “All of this…all of this is fucking useless. Traveling all the time, singing the same fucking songs that I wrote about my own life and having everyone know about it or…think they have some brilliant theory. The hours, not sleeping, being with the same people day in and day out…and…knowing they’re all better people than me. It’s just too much. There are times when I just can’t take it at all. Tonight was it. I’m done. I’m just fucking done. I needed that release. The same one I could find years ago.” Even though his hair threw a shadow across his face, she could see his lashes glistening under the lamp light.
“Is there anything else you’ve been up to? You had a lot of things going on back then, all at the same time.”
He lifted his head and his eyes were dark and angry. “You think I’m back to using again?” He got defensive very quickly.
“I don’t know, Josh! I mean, you keep reminding me that we don’t know each other that well. And I didn’t even know you had done this to yourself tonight. I didn’t know you were having trouble coping with things at all. I’m simply asking. I hope I know the answer, but I wanna hear it from you.”
His eyes softened a little, realizing she was right. She couldn’t know anything he had done because he hadn’t told anyone until tonight. Relaxing just a bit more, he shook his head. “No drugs.”
“Good,” she said, sounding extremely relieved. “One less thing to deal with.”
“What the fuck do you mean by that?!” he asked, the tension coming back into his body.
“Well,” she defended herself, “you’ve got everyone on this tour bus that cares about you and whether you live or die, and it would hurt them to know that you’ve been at this self-harming thing again tonight.”
He knew she was right, but he was even angrier now. “Hey! You promised that this would just be between us. You fucking PROMISED.” Josh was now getting too loud but neither of them realized it until someone tapped on the bunk curtain, causing them both to jump. She quickly moved so she was sitting down near Josh’s feet again. No need to give anyone any strange ideas.
There was muffled whispering coming from the other side of the curtain. Josh pushed the curtain back and a surprised Mike was stooped over staring back at the two of them sitting together in the same bunk.
“What?!” asked Josh with irritability in his voice.
Mike’s eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, even though he had been in his bunk for hours now. “I said, you guys…” he spoke with a raspy voice that could only mean they had woken him, “you’ve gotta keep it down at least a little. If you’re gonna fight, take it up front!” It took a lot to get Mike angry or even upset, but the fact that he looked irritated now spoke wonders. She couldn’t blame him. No one liked being woken up.
“Sorry,” Josh said holding his hands up in a bit of a surrender motion. “It’s time to get sleep anyway.” She nodded along, even though she still had much left to talk to the lead singer about.
“Good,” Mike said yawning. “Maybe I can get back to sleep if I’m lucky. Goodnight, you two.” Starting to straighten, he stopped himself to try to catch Josh’s eyes just to make sure everything was ok when he noticed something odd about his friend’s appearance.
In one quick motion, Mike kneeled down and reached past the stylist to grab Josh’s arm. Josh’s eyes widened considerably as he realized he never pushed his sleeve down. All those marks. All those cuts. They were all showing and now Mike had seen them too. He had given himself away. Fuck. FUCK!
“What the hell is this, Ramsay?” Mike pulled Josh’s arm across his body to get a closer look. His grip on Josh’s wrist was tight so there was no pulling away.
Josh tried to cover his arm with his free hand, but Mike shoved him away. “No, I asked you what the hell this was.” Mike was the most mild-mannered one of the group, but seeing this had changed him. He was completely aware and no longer in the stupor that being woken up had brought on him.
“I…I…” Josh stuttered, unable to complete his thought.
Mike looked at the stylist sitting at the foot of the bed. “You knew about this?” His nostrils flared when he got angry, she noticed. It was kind of a cute trait. She held off answering right away because she had promised Josh that these things would stay between the two of them. She looked up to try to catch Josh’s eyes, but he was staring down at his lap with his hair covering his face again. Taking the plunge, she nodded. “Only for the last hour.”
Mike dropped Josh’s arm and ran a hand through his hair, which had curled after his shower earlier in the evening. “I don’t believe this…”
Josh had yet to say anything, but he had subtly reached up to shove his sleeve back into place, obscuring the view of the slices in his arm from everyone again. He glanced up to catch his stylist looking at him. He looked her in the eyes very briefly before dropping his gaze again.
“Don’t either of you move,” Mike said, placing his hands on Josh’s bunk and shoving himself into a standing position. Through the open curtain, they could see him waking Ian and Matt out of their own deep slumbers.
“Fuck…” Josh whispered to himself. He tugged at the cuff of his sweatshirt. He had been a pale man before, but any colour in his face had been drained away since Mike had discovered his secret.
They could hear Mike telling both Ian and Matt as he woke them that they had “a serious problem” and that they needed to get up, but he hadn’t told them what it was. He had chosen to have Josh show them instead.
Mike waited at the back of the bus while the boys stumbled out of their bunks, sleepily rubbing their eyes, adjusting their clothing and yawning. It was way too early to be awake. Matt and Ian may still have been in sleep-mode, but Mike had said there was a problem and they were going to have to wake up enough to deal with it. Matt shook his head and groaned a little.
“Come on. Everybody to the back lounge. We have to talk,” Mike said, taking charge and opening the door to the seating area. Matt and Ian walked through, both falling back onto the leather seats. Ian let his head drop against the plush head rest and closed his eyes. He wasn’t yet awake and didn’t want to be. Matt sat with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, trying to will himself awake.
Meanwhile, Mike had walked back over to Josh, grabbed the stylist’s hand and pulled her gently out of the bunk. “You guys too. Let’s go. I’m not going to tell them. You are.”
Josh looked completely miserable as he followed his stylist out of the bunk. His stomach was in knots and his vision swam a little as heart pounded and he became slightly light-headed. She stepped into the back lounge first and Josh followed suit, holding onto the wall, wondering if he might pass out before he got there. Mike stepped in behind Josh and closed the door.
The stylist and the singer both found places to sit between Ian and Matt. Josh, yet again, took comfort in sitting next to his new-found friend. Even though the other men were his best friends and people who knew him better than anyone else, he found a bit of safety in sitting with her at the moment.
Ian sat up and looked at Mike, who stood up in front of the group with his arms crossed over his chest. His expression was as serious as his stance was.
“Ok, what’s up? It’s dicks-o-clock in the morning,” Ian said, quoting something Josh had said long ago,” and it’s too damned early to be up.” Matt sat up and nodded along in agreement.
Mike stared down Josh who had yet to say a single word or move since he had sat down. He knew he’d have to come clean now. If he didn’t tell them, Mike would. At least if he told, he could explain. Not that there was anything to explain.
“Josh?” Mike called for his attention. That was his cue. He felt his stylist place her hand on his lower back. He owed her some answers too.
Sighing heavily, Josh stood up next to Mike. The bass player moved over just enough to give him room. The singer closed his eyes for the umpteenth time that night, just to block out their reactions, and rolled up his sleeve revealing the marks along his arm. He heard Matt mumble, “whoa…” After everyone had gotten a good look at his arm, he decided to complete the tour of his body by showing off the rest.
Josh then turned so his right side was facing the group and he tugged down his clothes again, just enough to show them the damage he had done to his hip. He chose then to open his eyes simply to gauge the reaction of the guys and none of them were happy, as he suspected. He let go of the clothes against his side and slid everything down in the front so they could also get a look at his lower abdomen- the spot where he had done the worst as well as the most significant damage to his body.
Once everyone had seen, and Josh felt thoroughly ashamed and embarrassed, he pulled his clothes back up and took his place on the seat again, leaning his head back. No one wanted to be the first to break the silence. Really, no one knew what to say. Matt was the only one who knew Josh back when he was going through this the first time around. Unfortunately, Josh had hidden nearly everything about his addictions to drugs, alcohol, self-harming and eating disorders from Matt as well as the rest of the world. The only thing he couldn’t hide was the fact that he would disappear for months at a time, only to show up looking sicker than he was when he left. Matt didn’t know what to do about that back then and he didn’t know what to do about Josh now.
Mike and Ian threw glances at Matt over Josh’s head as if looking to him for guidance, but all Matt could do was shrug his shoulders and shake his head as if to tell the other guys that he was feeling just as helpless and confused as they were. He had known his friend was a cutter back in high school, but he had never actually seen the scars. At least, not while they were still so fresh. He had only seen some very faint scars on his friend’s wrist, and those blended in nearly perfectly with the pale man’s skin. They were only truly noticeable if he ever got a tan. Matt secretly thought that’s why Josh tended to stay out of the sun so much, but he never brought that up.
Josh continued to be quiet and still, which was extremely unlike him. He was usually the hyperactive one, the one everyone was always wishing would just park his ass somewhere for five minutes and relax without having to talk or move around. That’s when everyone in the room knew that he must be further in over his head than anyone realized. Josh could usually bounce back well from daily struggles, but this seemed to be too much for him. This seemed to have broken him, whatever “this” was.
After minutes that felt like hours dragged by, everyone turned to look at the only female in the room. It’s not that the boys were uncomfortable being affectionate and comforting. Quite the opposite. They had been together for so long that they knew what to say and do to make everyone else feel better about any given situation. In this particular instance, they had each noticed that she was the least shocked by Josh’s little game of show and tell. She looked up at Mike as if waiting for him to tell her what to do. She caught him mouthing the words, “she already knew” to Matt and Ian. Both had odd looks on their faces. Disbelief, perhaps. Ian made a move to stand and Mike held a hand out to stop him. Quietly, breaking the tension and the silence, he said to both Matt and Ian, “no, don’t be angry. I was at first too, thinking she was working for us and keeping secrets like this. But she said she’s only known for the last hour or so, and I believe that. She’s never lied to us before. Let’s forget all that, though. We all know now. Our main priority is Josh.”
Hearing his name, he sat forward, put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands, mimicking the same move Matt had made earlier. His entire body was shaking all over again. Ian, sitting to his left could feel it, but only the stylist was the one to do anything about it. She gently placed a hand on his lower back again, just as she had done before. She felt him take a couple of deep breaths, which sounded louder than usual since he was breathing through his fingers. He was cold to the touch and she knew he was scared.
Though she had no children and was Josh’s age, she had a built-in maternal instinct that kicked in whenever anyone felt this way. She wanted to grab his blanket from his bunk and wrap him up in a cocoon of warmth to protect him from everyone else’s glares as well as from himself. To do that, she’d have to walk past Mike, who was still standing against the door with his arms folded. His facial expression had softened from anger to confusion, but he still didn’t look like someone she’d want to cross in this moment. Just the same, she decided to risk it and stood up.
It proved to be a bold move, as every eye on the room was on her, including Josh’s, as she took the three steps from her seat to Mike. “I need…I mean…excuse me,” she said, reaching for the door handle. He stepped out of the way without question. It had only been forty-five minutes since he had called them all to the back of the bus, but it had already been a long night and she suspected he just didn’t want another fight on his hands. Thankful for that, she slipped through the door, closing it behind her. Josh was her main priority, but there was something she needed to do first. She had to fall apart.
Tears sprang to her eyes before she even got to the bathroom. Shutting the door behind her, she sank to the floor and sobbed. It had been an exhausting and emotional night only made worse by the fact that she still hadn’t slept since the night before. But she wasn’t crying for herself. She had made an emotional connection to someone and she was feeling his pain. The stylist still might not know Josh, the man, very well, but she knew this situation and it made her heart ache and her stomach twist. Her head pounded and her eyes were swollen. She looked on the outside nearly the way Josh felt on the inside. She grabbed some toilet paper to wipe her eyes. Her sobbing continued until she was completely drained. She had no more left in her. She was finally numb for the moment.
Standing, nausea hit her and she retched into the toilet. Fucking nerves were getting the better of her. Eventually she felt well enough to clean herself up, brush her teeth and head back out to face the boys again. She was lucky she remembered to pick up the blanket in Josh’s bunk on the way back.
As she walked up to the door, she took two very deep, steady breaths to calm herself, as her stomach had twisted itself into knots again. Knocking lightly, the door cracked open and she slipped in, shutting it behind her. No one had moved and it seemed like no one had spoken in the entire time she was gone. Draping the blanket across Josh’s shoulders, she took her seat next to him and crossed her legs.
Seconds later, Josh went limp and fell across her lap. “FUCK! What’s this?? What happened? JOSH! Josh, man…come on. This isn’t funny.” Mike had immediately dropped to his knees in front of them and was trying to rouse him by shaking his shoulder.
“He’s still breathing and he’s still got a pulse,” Ian said after grabbing Josh’s wrist.
“ARE YOU SURE??” the stylist asked, in full-blown panic mode.
“If there’s one thing I know, it’s beats,” the drummer joked, true as that was.
Thirty seconds went by…forty…fifty…a full minute. With everyone all over him, trying to wake him up, eventually Josh stirred. The relief on everyone’s face was evident and obvious. Mike sat back on his heels, wiping his face. Ian and Matt exchanged a “thank God” look, but stayed exactly where they were, kneeling on either side of Mike in front of Josh and his pinned stylist.
Josh started to come to in time to hear someone talking from somewhere far away. “…must have passed out…” He was awake but exhausted and done in. He was not at all comfortable, but he didn’t have the energy to move. He felt someone with warm hands brushing his hair back. It felt nice. No one had done that for him in a long time. Not since he was young. He tried to relax and focus on that for the time being.
He flickered his eyes, letting everyone know he was awake and soon enough, the other three backed off. Even with his eyes closed yet again, Josh could sense that there was some silent conversation going on over his head. He didn’t care. He was tired of being involved.
Quietly, from right above his ear came his stylist’s voice. “Josh? Can you hear me?” He still had his head on her lap, so he nodded as she continued to run her hand lightly over his hair. “Can you understand what I’m saying?” He nodded again, drawing his arm up and wrapping his hand in the blanket to pull it tighter around himself.
“Good. Are you ok?” He thought about this loaded question for a time. Eventually, he shook his head no. It was time to be completely honest with everyone. He wasn’t ok.
Matt spoke up this time. “Are you sick?” Josh shook his head a little. All of the head shaking and nodding was making him a little dizzy and he just wanted the questions to stop. After a few more ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions and answers, the room got quiet again, and for that, Josh was thankful.
Everyone sat in silence again, still unsure of what to do. Once again, more of the silent discussions and arguments were going on over Josh’s head. He knew it was about him. What else could it be about? He was the center of their fucking world right now and he hated every minute of it. He had no one to blame but himself all because he had caused this mess in the first place. He felt his eyes sting a little with the threat of tears, but he pulled the blanket up higher to hide his face. His stylist had yet to make him move, in spite of the fact that her leg had gone tingly, then numb at least fifteen minutes prior. She was still petting him like a dog, rubbing his shoulder and his side. Despite feeling sorry for himself on one hand and feeling nothing on the other, he was still glad, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he had such support around him when he needed it.
The later it got, the more patience the group lost. Mike had taken to sitting on the floor and had leaned back against the door while Matt stared off into space and Ian dozed off unintentionally. How he could sleep through this, no one knew. No one else was in the least bit tired now. Josh was still awake, but hadn’t made a move to sit up yet. He truly just didn’t want to face anyone yet. He was embarrassed and guilty among a plethora of other things. It was easier to pretend nothing out there, outside of his own head, existed. He was good at that. It was why he came off as such a douchebag sometimes.
“Josh?” The stylist quietly tried to get his attention without scaring him. He was lost inside his head again so she had to say his name twice before he heard it. “Mmm…?”
“Sit up, ok? We need to talk to you.” He felt her hands under his shoulder as she helped him sit up. He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly. Everyone was swimming in front of him. He didn’t know if he had really done some serious damage or if he was just woozy from his fainting spell.
He looked at Mike, who was still sitting on the floor looking annoyed. He had pulled one leg up and had his arm resting on his knee. His elbow was bent and he was leaning his head against his hand. “Welcome back,” he said.
The sound of Mike’s voice pulled Ian out of his light sleep and drew Matt’s gaze away from the speck of missing paint on the wall that he had been staring ever-so-intently at for the last fifteen minutes.
Ian cleared his throat and shifted his body to the edge of the seat so he could look Josh in the eyes. “Listen, we’re tired, we’re grouchy and we’re worried. We need to know what’s going on with you.” Ian was usually pretty laid back, but he’d had enough. He was worried about his friend, but also his career. If Josh gave up, he’d have to start all over. Selfish? Yes, he knew it was, but with the long silences this night, he had plenty of time to think. Honestly, every person on the bus was having the same thought. Their lives, whether Josh realized it or not, depended on him.
Josh blinked several times and stood up quickly. He reached out to steady himself and his stylist put her hand up to offer support. After a moment or two, he took a step towards Mike, who was watching him with great concern. Mike pulled himself to his feet so he was nearly eye-level with the tall blonde.
“You wanna know what the fuck is going on with me? YOU ALL WANNA KNOW SO FUCKING BAD??” Josh was yelling now. His hands were shaking as they flew to the bottom of his shirt. He pulled it up over his head and tossed it to the floor. Pointing at the lines he had dug into his skin earlier, he dragged the nails of his opposite hand across them, causing the cuts to re-open and blood began to seep through the recently-healed marks. He hissed through his teeth at the stinging, warm, familiar pain. “THIS. THIS IS WHAT’S GOING ON WITH ME. You wanted to know, HERE IT IS. I did this, this,” he said pointing to his hip, “and this,” he gestured to his stomach, “about three hours ago. And if SOMEONE hadn’t stuck her fucking nose into my business, I might have actually finished the job!”
Josh had everyone’s attention from the second he had stood and walked to the center of the small room, but now everyone was staring. No one could believe what they had just heard. He couldn’t possibly mean what he was alluding to.
Now it was the stylist’s turn to look pale as if she might fall over any second. Matt reached out and grabbed her hand to keep her steady and to keep her with them. He squeezed her hand a bit.
Ian and Mike were once again completely shocked by this broadcast as well.
Josh seemed almost oblivious to the kind of news he had just dropped on everyone. Instead of looking up at them, he stared at the blood running down his arm and coating his fingers. He slowly opened and closed his palm a few times, feeling the stickiness of the moist blood in his hand. It was sickeningly satisfying for him.
Ian turned away when he saw Josh so focused on the red staining his body. Blood was not something he was ok with on a good day, but especially not now. Not like this.
Josh only bled for a few minutes before the slices that he had reopened started to heal over again. The blood dried in streaks down his arm. He stood there continually staring at it, watching it dry before touching a finger to the deepest mark on his arm
His stylist watched all of this with a kind of morbid fascination before she realized what exactly she was seeing. “NO!” she yelled, startling everyone in the room. Now all eyes were on her. Everyone but Josh. He was still lost in his own world.
She let go of Matt’s hand and stood. This motion put her right up next to Josh. “I…said…NO.”
He finally looked down into her eyes. “No?” he questioned, seemingly not quite grasping what she was saying.
“Damnit, Ramsay! I said NO. You are NOT gonna do anything to hurt yourself ever again.” She placed a hand against his chest and shoved him backwards until he his back hit the door.
What she said finally registered and she could see it in his eyes. Josh smirked at her and growled back, “and just what the fuck do you think you’re gonna do about it?” He was holding his bloodied arm at his side, but both hands were balled up into fists. Ian noticed this first. Josh wasn’t the violent type, but who knew where his head was right now?
The stylist took a bold step forward. It was either the bravest thing or the most stupid move she had ever made. She couldn’t decide, even as she was doing it. She had barely seen Josh throughout this entire tour and she knew so little about him, but here she was stepping up against him. She might easily be ending her career in this very moment, but she decided it was worth it if it meant she might be able to help save his life.
There were only about six inches between the stylist and the lanky blonde man who towered over her by almost a foot. If he lashed out at her, he had the advantage. She realized she was staring at his bare chest, so she looked up into his eyes. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do about it, but you can bet your ass I’ll find a way to help you. I’ve lost too many people in my life that I care about to suicide in some way or form and I’m not going…I REFUSE…to let you do the same thing,” she ranted. She was nearly out of breath due to the fast racing of her heart as she confronted Josh, but she continued on. “You mean way too much to too many people. You’ve got everyone on this bus. You’ve got everyone in this ROOM,” she gestured blindly around her to Mike, Matt and Ian. “You’ve got your family. You’ve got other friends outside this band. And you’ve got your fans. Everyone cares about you. Everyone needs you around.” By now she was seeing double. Her heart was pounding way too hard. She couldn’t believe she was yelling at the same man that she was in awe of just several short months ago when he asked her to tour with the band as their stylist.
She took a deep breath and stepped back just slightly. If she fainted as Josh had done earlier, the last thing she wanted to do now was fall face-first into his crotch. Her eyes left his and she stared down at her socks. Pink with blue stripes tonight. She was glad she had thought to bring cute things to sleep in. What a stupid thought at a time like this. It’s amazing where the brain goes when it tries to protect itself.
Oddly enough, thinking about her socks helped to calm her down. She was still nervous about the situation, but she was no longer panicking. Her vision had returned to normal and she could breathe regularly again. The trouble with Josh still remained, though. As she was wondering what to do next, she felt two hands on her shoulders shove her backwards and she stumbled until she hit the couch. Thank god for the smallness of the room, otherwise she would have landed on her ass. She already had enough trouble for the day. But as her luck would have it, the couch broke her fall and she landed squarely on the seat.
Seconds later, Josh had been tackled by Mike who was now in his face. “NEVER, EVER do that again. Do you hear me?!” As Mike was dealing with Josh, Matt and Ian had each moved to her sides to make sure she was ok. She was physically fine, just unnerved. What had started out as somewhat of an intervention to help Josh had now turned physical and she was to blame.
Mike stepped in between the stylist and the lead singer and turned to face her Josh peered at her over Mike’s shoulder. “Are you ok? Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m ok.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I never should have involved you in this. You can go if you want,” Mike stated, looking guilty that he had almost, unintentionally gotten her hurt.
“No, it’s not your fault. It’s mine. We all just wanted to help Josh and I opened my mouth when I probably shouldn’t have. This is NOT your fault, Mike. What just happened here…this is between me and Ramsay, no one else.” For the first time since she had spoken directly to Josh, she looked up at his face.
He still looked angry and intimidating, but she was no longer wary of him. Something in her mind told her that even though Josh had come after her, he chose to use the one physical motion that would cause the least amount of damage. He could have hit her. He could have broken her ribs or her nose. Instead, all he did was the same thing she had done to him.
Working up a bit of nerve, she stood up again and took a step towards Mike and Josh. She gently tugged on the front of Mike’s shirt in a gesture that asked him to step out of the way so she could be one-on-one with Josh. Once he did, she looked up at Josh and smiled just a little and shrugged. “Yeah…well…payback is a motherfucker.”
The boys behind her all exchanged glances that said they weren’t sure if they should laugh or be very afraid for her. Josh cracked a smile for the first time that night. She had made perfect use of a great line from one of their songs. “Hah…touché. I’m sorry, though. I shouldn’t have-”
“Neither should I,” she said cutting him off mid-sentence. “I deserved it. But I meant what I said, though. All of this has to stop.” She covered his razor marks with her hand. Bloody or not, it was to show him several things. She wanted to let him know that she wasn’t afraid of him in any way and that she cared enough to be right there with him when he needed someone.
In that moment, Josh broke. The anger, the humiliation, the embarrassment, the guilt, the depression…everything in him shattered.
Everyone in the room watched as Josh’s entire demeanor changed. His eyes became glassy and he sank to the floor. He defaulted yet again to his signature sitting position with his knees pulled up to his chest. He dropped his forehead down onto his knees and wrapped his arms around his legs. His body shook as he tried to control the tears, but this time he couldn’t. It was humiliating. He didn’t want people to see him this way, but there was just nothing he could do about it. He was completely finished. He didn’t have it in himself to fight anymore. He couldn’t fight everything he had been working so hard to contain. Everyone knew his secrets and, as scary as that was, he was glad he didn’t have to deal with this alone all over again. Doing it once was hard enough. A second time would surely kill him, and that’s what he had been hoping for just a few hours prior.
“Help me…please…,” he mumbled. “I can’t…”
At that moment, Mike, Ian, Matt and their stylist were all kneeling on the floor surrounding Josh. Ian had his arm around Josh’s bare shoulders.
Once Josh had calmed down enough to un-tuck himself from his position to raise his head, the stylist handed him some tissues and gently smoothed his hair back from his face. She knew he used that to hide from the world when he didn’t want to be seen. But now it was important that he looked at all of them.
Matt spoke up first. “Josh, man…we want to help you. We just need to know how.”
Mike picked up from there. “Matt’s right. But even more importantly, we need to know when you’re dealing with this kinda thing so we CAN help you. We all thought you’d seemed a little quiet for the last few weeks, but we all have times when we need some space. It didn’t ever occur to any of us that it was more than that for you.”
Josh nodded, looking miserable again. Poor guy. It had been a “vagina of a night”, as he would say. He clearly wasn’t getting off easy by any means. “I know. I’m sorry.” He took a deep, shuddering breath and exhaled slowly as he wiped at his eyes with the backs of his hands, smearing dried blood all over the left side of his face.
The stylist spoke up. “Before anyone thinks of doing anything, I think we’d better let Josh clean up, yes?”
Ian nodded and removed his arm from around Josh. “Yes. Please! This better show you how much I care about you. The blood thing…ugh.”
Josh laughed a little. “Ian, you pans…,” he said, borrowing Matt’s vocabulary.
Ian laughed and stood, helping Josh to his feet.
“I might need help, though. There are some places that I can’t really see…”
The men in the room turned to look at each other. Mike and Matt spoke at the same time. “NOT IT!” “Jinx!” Ian shook his head and backed away.
“Not me. I can’t do blood, remember? If I help him, you’ll all have to take care of TWO of us.”
Matt looked at the stylist and ruffled her hair. “I guess you’re it, kiddo!”
“But…,” she protested. “Me? It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that this requires someone to be at about eye-level with Josh’s crotch.”
Josh looked slightly embarrassed but seemed to almost enjoy the fact that it would make her uncomfortable. “How bad could that be?” he asked, sounding a little better than before. “You’ve already seen us all in our underwear. This isn’t THAT different. Besides, who wouldn’t want to be in that position??”
“Well…okay,” she considered. Knowing she was suckered into doing it anyway, she surrendered. Standing with the rest of the group, she noticed that the other men seemed relieved that she had agreed.
“Besides,” said Mike, “you’re the stylist. So style him!”
That got a laugh out of everyone. “Maybe I’ll request some vajazzling while I’m at it,” Josh joked.
The stylist hung her head and groaned. “Look what you guys are doing to me! Sure, many, MANY women would kill to take my place here, but it’s weird!”
Matt opened the door and practically pushed the two of them through it. “Bathroom’s that way!”
She had to suck it up. It was now or never and they had all just agreed to always be there for Josh and help him in any way possible. Oy. “Vagina of a night, indeed,” she mumbled to herself. Here goes nothing.
Josh reached out and opened the tiny bathroom’s door and stepped inside. It wasn’t spacious by any means and he wondered how the two of them were going to fit in there together, but he just couldn’t see the entirety of his hip or his stomach in order to properly clean it or even to see if he had done more damage than he realized, so he needed his stylist now more than ever. He moved against the back wall, allowing her as much room as he could. She followed him in, closing and locking the door behind them.
Digging the medical kit out from the cabinet under the sink, her first concern was how they would approach this whole situation as well. She rifled through the kit, trying to buy herself some time while looking for bandages, antiseptic and cotton. Finding these things a bit too quickly, she closed the kit and set it down on the floor beside the sink. “So,” she said without turning to face Josh, “umm…”
“Yeah…those are my thoughts too.”
“Ok, we can do this. It’s not weird. It’s…it’s just not. We can do it.” It was more of a pep talk for herself, even though she spoke out loud. He stood against the wall, watching her line everything up on the counter. She was so uncomfortable and he almost felt bad, but not so bad that he was ok with her leaving. He felt bad for snapping at her earlier and he was trying so hard to be better. He needed help and he knew it. He needed to learn to trust that people would be there for him. A line from his song “Alibis” ran through his head repeatedly as he listened to her talk to herself, trying to psych herself up to deal with him and his mess. “I’m in the same place I used to be, but I’m trying harder not to be…” It was true. He fell hard. But his friends showed him that he could be ok and that they were going to help him do just that. His stylist’s words were hitting home for him too.
There was just enough room in the tiny bathroom for Josh to sit on the counter near the sink, so she patted the tile and stepped out of his way as best she could. As tall as he was, he easily slid into place and swung his feet a little as he watched her pour some peroxide onto the cotton she had fished out of the medical kit. Taking the back of his hand in hers, she held his arm over the sink while she cleaned the lines of dried blood from his forearm and hand. The blood mixed with the liquid antiseptic left splattered dots of muted red in the sink.
Josh had been watching her work until he saw the droplets falling from his arm. He turned his head away as his stomach started to churn. Seeing all of this and seeing his stylist help clean him up…seeing how much she cared about someone she barely even knew…all of this was making him realize what he could have done to himself. Looking away didn’t help. He was going to be sick.
Suddenly, he pushed himself off the counter, pulled his arm away from her and shoved her out of the way until he was bent over the toilet seeing everything he had eaten in the last twenty-four hours in reverse. Fuck modesty. This wasn’t something he was ever willing to do in front of someone else, but she had already learned his darkest secret, so he had nothing left to lose, figuratively speaking.
His nose ran and his eyes teared as he lost everything in his stomach. All of this was getting to be too much again. Josh knew that this time around, he was just reacting to the situation, but it brought back every memory he had of his later teenage years. This time, the vomiting wasn’t on purpose like it used to be, but fuck him if he wasn’t reliving all of those moments all over again, making everything so much worse.
Just as his stomach was settling, he felt his stylist kneel beside him and gently rub his back. He wasn’t sure if it was comforting or embarrassing. He really didn’t have a choice either way, though.
Eventually the queasy feeling in Josh’s stomach eased and he was able to flush the toilet and stand up again. He had to clean himself up. The taste in his mouth was not only awful on any given day, but it reminded him way too much of the past. Everything was creeping back up on him again. Every single fucking detail and he did everything he could to try to erase it, starting by brushing his teeth. He wiped at his eyes several times and turned his back on his stylist while he brushed his teeth and filled his mouth with mouthwash. Better, he thought, after all was said and done. At least his mouth was clean again, even if he still felt like shit. Josh’s stomach was still tense, but he now felt like he could stand being doted on without the fear that he would lose it again.
The stylist had stayed right where she was on the floor to give him a few moments to himself. She could have left the room and given him some privacy, but wherever his mind was, she wasn’t so sure it was such a good idea to leave him. So she tried her best to avert her eyes to make the whole situation less uncomfortable than it already was. She only looked up when she saw Josh take his seat on the counter again out of the corner of her eye.
She continued to kneel on the floor looking up at him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes at all. It was bad enough that he had told her all about the recent cutting tonight and his suicidal thoughts, but now she had to witness him getting sick as well. She really couldn’t imagine a worse night for him.
Just when Josh thought things couldn’t get worse for him, they did. Every time he thought he was at the bottom of the pit of embarrassment, the floor opened up and he fell through. He hadn’t been like this in ten years. The last time he was sick in front of anyone, he was in recovery in rehab and he was with a bunch of other people going through the same thing. This time, it was just him. Alone. The last time he had to show off his scars, it was a decade ago. He just couldn’t believe things had gotten this way again. Sure, to his credit, he was clean, but he easily could have been seventeen or eighteen years old again. In his mind, he really never left that age. It’s what drugs do to you, he was told. But he really thought he had gotten past these issues, and now here he was at twenty-eight years old, being watched over and cleaned up like a little kid because he couldn’t take care of himself.
The stylist stood and took the two steps over to where Josh sat near the sink and moved between his legs. He still refused to acknowledge her until she reached a hand out and cupped his chin, gently turning his head in her direction. “It’s ok. There was just the two of us in here. No one else saw. No one else needs to know.”
With that, she let go of his chin and slid her arms around his lanky frame, holding him close to her for all she was worth. She wasn’t sure if Josh knew what to do with that, but after the night he had, he needed the comforting touch. He put his arms around her too, and rested his chin on the top of her head.
He hadn’t felt this safe in a long time. In fact, he didn’t even know he was missing it. Once again, he was feeling things he hadn’t felt in years- things he had been fighting. Instead of ignoring it, he let his emotions get the best of him again that night and the tears fell from his eyes before he could do anything about it. The warm salty tears streaked down Josh’s face and soaked into the stylist’s hair.
She rubbed his back again and this time, Josh felt it as the comforting move it was. He liked it and he didn’t want her to let go. He had no idea how long they stayed like that, but eventually he started to get cold. He was still shirtless and the bus was always
Closing her eyes, she tried to place the song. A radio? Was the bus driver listening to something way up front that she could hear even with the door to the front lounge closed? A few seconds later, she decided that no, it definitely wasn’t a radio, but the song WAS very familiar. She was sure she recognized it. Just as the melody was starting to form in her head, the tune switched to something different but equally haunting. There was only one person on this bus who could sing like that and it had to be Josh.
No wonder it had sounded so close. He slept in the bunk beneath hers. Due to his insomnia, it seemed like a better fit than having him climb over someone multiple times a night. She must have been more groggy and sleep deprived from the night before than she originally thought. She should have figured that out much more quickly.
She listened for a few more moments before the song he was singing quietly to himself switched back to the original. This time, it was slower and more mournful than before. And it certainly hadn’t been a happy tune the first time around.
She twisted herself sideways after freeing herself from the blankets and slid the curtain of her bunk back even further. Grabbing the side of the bunk, she hung herself over the side upside down. Carefully letting go with one hand, she tapped lightly on the curtain of Josh’s bunk and whispered, “Knock knock.”
Immediately the singing stopped and it was quiet. The blood was beginning to rush to her head, so she tapped again. This time, the curtain was pulled back and Josh turned on his light. All he could see was a tangled mess of curly hair as she turned her head to avoid being blinded by his light.
“Do you know what time it is?” he whispered.
“Yes, do you?”
“About three, I think. What is it?”
She grabbed hold of the bunk with both hands again and turned to throw her leg over the side. Shimmying out of her sleep space and dropping to the floor, she sat on Josh’s bunk near his feet. “I could hear you singing. I know you don’t sleep well, but you’re usually quiet at this time of night.”
He looked a little…what? She couldn’t tell. Guilty that he had been caught singing to himself? Worried about disturbing her? “Sorry,” he said quietly. It seemed that the look he had thrown her had been apologetic more than anything else.
“Don’t be. It’s not often I actually get to hear your concerts, despite traveling with you to gigs. And despite what you might believe, I do enjoy listening to you sing.” She smiled at her joke but he didn’t even seem to be listening.
“Could you tell what the songs were?” he asked.
“No. I couldn’t spy well enough to tell. You really were very quiet. I never would have heard you had you not been in the bunk under mine.”
“Can we keep this just between us?”
“Of course. You know I don’t spill secrets,” she said, slightly offended.
“You forget…I don’t know you that well yet. Mike, Ian and Matt have spent more time with you than I have so far.” Josh sat up a little further against his pillows and pulled his long legs up to his chest, giving her room to scoot back.
She took the cue and leaned with her back against the wall, drawing her own legs up into the bunk to sit “Indian-style”. Josh then pulled the curtain closed. This was a bit too intimate for her, but she knew he simply wanted to talk in private. And this was just about as private as you got on a tour bus filled with eight other people. “I noticed that you and I haven’t spent a whole lot of time together. Why is that? Do I intimidate you or something?”
Josh snorted a little before answering. “Ha…no. It’s not that. Truth is, I haven’t spent much time with any of the guys lately. I’m sorry. It’s not you. I enjoy your company when you’re around.” He reached up and flipped the switch of his lamp off.
“Ok, good. Then what’s up? I mean, it’s great to hear and all, but there seems to be something more to that.” She pressed him a little, unsure of whether she should or not. As he said, they didn’t know each other very well yet.
She heard Josh take a deep breath and he made a gesture she couldn’t see in the dark. He could have been shrugging his shoulders or flipping her off with those infamous middle fingers of his and she wouldn’t have known the difference. “Just between us, right?” he asked again, almost pleading.
“Yes. Just between us.”
“The songs that I was singing before…they were from the albums, of course. They were “So Soon” and “Skin and Bones”. Do you know those?”
“A little, but not well. Even though I both travel with you and work for you, I have to admit that I’m only really familiar with the songs from your current album because you’re singing them on this tour.” She shrugged her shoulders this time, even though she knew he couldn’t see her either.
“Okay,” he sighed. “It’s…never mind.” He sounded utterly defeated.
“No. Just because I don’t know the songs well doesn’t mean I don’t care.” She shifted a little to get more comfortable, even though she wasn’t sure if Josh wanted her to hang around much longer. As part of his apparent ADD personality, he tended to get bored when he had to explain things that people weren’t already aware of.
“It’s hard to explain if you don’t know the songs.”
“Well then…sing them to me?” she hesitantly suggested.
Josh groaned inwardly as if she had just asked him to walk through a mall full of people completely naked. Honestly, with the way he was feeling, he might have rather done that if it meant he didn’t have to talk about himself seriously.
“Or don’t,” she countered. “I asked because I care, not because I want you to get mad or annoyed.”
“No, it’s ok. I’ll do it, but then I have a lot of explaining to do, so we’re gonna be up for a while.” He offered her a pillow…or rather, accidentally hit her with it and she shoved it behind her back after thanking him.
Taking another deep breath, he started his “serenade” with “So Soon”. By the time he got to the lyric, “but what if here and now I tell you that I’m all figured out?/ Or maybe I just like how that sounds…,” her eyes were damp and she was feeling emotions that she couldn’t quite put into place. As soon as he got to the ending line, “this just feels so soon,” he launched into “Skin and Bones”.
She wasn’t sure her heart could take it by that point. The man had so much talent and every time he opened his mouth to sing, it was raw, pure and gritty. She’d heard the band sing a couple of songs live before and had even listened to their CDs a time or two, but in her profession, she couldn’t play favourites. This was a job.
“…it only hurt a bit/and I still feel like shit…” Now she was legitimately crying. She was wiping her eyes with her hands every few seconds and trying to pull herself together without much luck.
Josh finished his song and leaned his forehead against his knees as he wrapped his arms around his legs. He knew she needed a few moments to get herself together, and frankly, so did he. These songs, as well as a few others were always the hardest for him, no matter how many times he sang them or who he sang them to. This time, his audience had been just one person and the reaction was strong. He loved that his music had so much effect on people, but it still secretly hit him like a ton of bricks each time.
Three or four agonizing minutes for Josh went by before she was composed enough to say anything. She cleared her throat and wiped her eyes one last time before attempting to speak. “Josh…,” she whispered, “that was…I can’t even begin to describe it.”
He had heard that before, but he still wished people would try. He wanted her to go on, so he kept quiet and waited.
“It was beautiful. Both songs were amazingly powerful and so personal.”
“Thanks…yeah…they are personal.” His voice was a little unsteady. “That’s the problem.”
“Now I think I get it,” she said, moving closer to Josh by another inch or so. She reached out blindly in the dark, wanting to make some kind of physical contact, and as it was, she managed to lightly pat his leg. She hoped the little gesture would be enough to show him that she was there and supportive of anything he wanted to say. She felt him shaking a little. “Have you had to sing these songs lately in shows?”
“No…” He was barely audible now. His voice was muffled and she was unsure why.
She held back for a bit, debating in her head as to whether he needed space or a hug. In the end, her heart won out over her head and she shifted around in the tight space until she was sitting beside him, their shoulders touching. He still had his legs drawn up to his chest and his forehead on his knees. She would have to grope around in the dark to hug him. Instead, she ran her hand up his arm and squeezed his shoulder. From there, she smoothed her hand over the back of his hair. He was still shaking.
Since Josh didn’t pull away, she slid her arm around his shoulders and he leaned into her, just like a child who was having a bad day. He rested his head on her shoulder as he straightened his legs and crossed them at the ankles.
“What’s going on in your head that these songs are so significant right now?” she asked as she twisted a loose thread on the shoulder of his shirt around her finger.
By this time, he was now taking quick shallow breaths. She was afraid Josh was going to have a panic attack. It wasn’t well known, but he had informed everyone he worked with that ever since the heroin use at a young age, he had started to suffer from panic attacks. He told everyone- friends, band members and crew alike- what he needed from them if they saw he was acting a little different and/or seemed to be trying to deal with one. What he usually needed was calm and quiet. She started to remove her arm as she had heard that he also felt quite claustrophobic during these episodes. Her plan was to head back up to her bunk to give him the space he needed.
“No,” Josh said a bit more loudly than he meant to, startling them both. She had been thinking so hard about what he might need that she hadn’t expected to hear him speak, so she jumped and her heart pounded in her chest. “Sorry,” he said. “Please stay… I want to talk to you about those songs. I really do.” He folded his hands in his lap.
“Ok...ok. I’ll stay. I’m not going anywhere.” She settled in again and he leaned his head on her shoulder as she slid her arm around him once more. “Whenever you’re ready…” She was usually a very patient and understanding person, but now it was nearly four in the morning and in some odd turn of events, Josh had actually gotten more sleep than she had over the last week. Her level of patience was wearing thin, unfortunately. But still, she tried her best.
“I don’t know where to start. It’s just…it’s so much.” He spoke as if he was completely exhausted and tired of even turning these thoughts over in his mind.
She leaned her head against his and hugged him a little tighter. She hoped the gesture would be enough to get him talking. It seemed to do the trick when she felt him take a breath.
“How much of my past do you know about?” Warily, he asked this question. His reputation seemed to precede him wherever he went.
“Truthfully? Only what I’ve heard you say in interviews. And even then, you don’t really give a whole lot of information out. You’ve also mentioned the panic attacks.” She couldn’t remember anything else she really knew about the man, aside from what the media and fans had heard.
“No, I guess I don’t. It’s just…hard. I don’t wanna come across as a fucking martyr or something. You know what I’m saying?” He was fidgeting. He didn’t ever seem to stay still for very long and she knew this was driving him crazy, as well as having to take himself seriously and talk about things he’d rather do anything than discuss.
“I do, yes. It’s why you guys don’t know that much about me either.”
“Hey, this is true. Next time we have one of these little heart-to-hearts, we’ll make it about you. I’m glad you understand, though. But that means I have to tell you a lot of stuff.”
“Go ahead. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care.” She ran a hand over the back of his hair once again and placed it back on his shoulder.
“Okay, so, you should know by now that I’m a recovering heroin addict, right? And I also put myself through several years of bulimia. I had a very short foray into the world of alcohol, which is partly why I don’t drink now. I also tried anorexia out for size around the same time as the bulimia thing, but I just couldn’t handle being hungry all the time. I’d rather puke and ruin my body that way, I guess. And before you ask, my home life was fine. That’s the question I constantly get asked.” “Is that the source of all your problems?” he mimicked some interviewer in a higher pitched voice. “No, everything at home was fine. I had to grow up pretty quickly, being around professional musicians and everything, but my family has always been super supportive. I just…had a long run of depression that started when I was around 12. I was going through that for about three years before anything else started. The problem was…no one knew.”
At that last statement, he sounded embarrassed and almost ashamed. “Not one fucking person knew. I never said anything. Depression, dude…you either have it or you don’t. It wasn’t something I could control and it wasn’t something I wanted. It was just something that was dealt to me. So when I was finally offered heroin at a party, I won’t ever say I didn’t want it, because I did. I discovered something I really loved and it became a problem. I was never pressured into it. I wasn’t forced to try it. I don’t blame anyone but myself.”
“Right,” she said quietly. “I’m with you so far.”
“The funny thing about the drugs is that it really helped with the eating disorder. I mean, any time I ate, it made me feel sick, so it wasn’t a huge chore to run to the bathroom and puke. I was never truly hungry anyway. It really fucks with your whole body, that drug. Believe me…there’s nothing great about it.”
“From there, what happened?”
“At seventeen, my parents gave me two options. Get clean or get out. At that age, I was already a high school dropout because I was too wasted to go to class. I had no job. I had no money. So my only choice was rehab. There’s nothing romantic about that either. It fucking sucked to not be able to walk, to stay awake for two weeks straight and to not be able to go more than thirty minutes without having to throw up. That was completely the worst time in my life.” He sat up and shook his head at himself, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“I can imagine…and I believe it. You’re a stronger person, having gone through something like that. We all have our stories, and it’s the survivors that amaze me most.”
“No…don’t praise me. Nothing I did deserves that. I’m not a role model.” He seemed almost angry and she removed her arm from around him.
“I didn’t call you a role model. I just…meant that I was glad you came through all of that. You could have given up at any time.”
“I tried…”
“But you’re still here.”
“Heh…yeah. I can’t deny that. The fact is, when I was in rehab, they had us draw these things. There were these circles that represented us. And then around each circle, we had to draw other circles of every drug we’ve ever done and how important they were to us. The bigger the circle, the more important it was. Then they had us do it again, but instead of drugs, they had us draw circles representing the things most important to us. You know...family, friends, school. With most addicts, the drugs are the bigger circle- the more important thing. For me, music was bigger. And that’s when I knew that I couldn’t do both. I just…couldn’t do both. Something had to change. It had to change before I killed myself. At the rate I was going, I knew I would be dead before I hit 21.” Josh’s breath caught in his chest once he had said that. He could detach from the thought if he was talking to an interviewer or in front of an audience. Logically, he knew he was talking about himself, but it always sounded like someone else’s story. Now, though, sitting here in the dark with someone so close to him and hanging on his words, it hit him all over again.
She spoke softly in cautious tones, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say or even if anything she said would make a difference. “I know you’ve probably been told multiple times before that it’s good that you got help. As repetitive as that is, and for as much as this is worth, I’m glad you got help too. I’m glad you’re still around. And I’d really like the chance to continue to get to know you better.”
For the first time since this conversation had started, Josh knew what he wanted to say. He knew what he had been feeling all this time. He reached up and flipped on his overhead light again, nearly blinding her for the second time that night. Through clenched teeth, he asked, “Why? Why do you care? Why do you want to get to know a douche like me? You wanna deal with me on a regular basis? You want to deal with this?!” He reached over with his right hand and shoved his left sleeve up, revealing thin red streaks across his arm. He couldn’t meet her eyes, but stared at the lines he had carved just hours before instead.
All she could do was look at the marks he had created on his body before she responded. “Are there others?”
“What?” he asked, somewhat confused. Josh thought for sure that she would ask what happened or why or any number of other things. He knew that would come eventually, but he wasn’t prepared for this question now.
“Are…there…others?” she asked a bit more slowly and deliberately.
He debated being honest with her. She had been so good to him so far and he was glad she was letting him speak about the things that were getting to him, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to let her in on everything just yet. “You might as well tell me, Ramsay. Your silence speaks louder than you do.”
He shivered a little and glanced over at the curtain to make sure it was still closed. Slowly he pushed the blankets down towards his feet and twisted his body slightly so the hip closest to her was more visible and out of the shadows. He reached over to his side, pulled up the hem of his sweatshirt with one hand and pushed down his pants and underwear with the other to reveal numerous other red slits in his skin, some of which had not yet healed over and were still oozing a bit. Pulling the cloth away from them had opened most of them up again.
Josh couldn’t look away from her face this time. He needed to see her reaction. When he saw her eyes widen at the red, raw ugliness he had produced, he flinched and quickly let his clothes fall back into place. He purposely wore dark clothing on days when he wasn’t feeling his best and tonight was one of those nights. No one could see that the blood had seeped into his pants and stained them. No one would know. Again. Until now.
She sat quietly for a short while, never looking away from Josh’s hip, even when he covered himself up again and resumed his default sitting position of drawing his legs up to his chest. Her eyes stayed focused on his body, unintentionally making him more and more uncomfortable. He squirmed under her gaze, not quite knowing what to do or say. Josh needed her to say something first.
Eventually she diverted her stare away from him and closed her eyes. She took several deep breaths. “Josh…” she said, with her eyes still closed, “are there more?”
She only opened her eyes when she felt him move a bit to stretch his legs out and slide down the wall. Looking over, he had his thumbs tucked into the front of his pants and underwear and had dragged them down just far enough to show her his lower abdomen, which was completely covered in razor trails. She couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began in spots. “These won’t show,” he whispered.
“No…no they won’t…” She was at a loss. She had no idea that Josh had been doing all of this to himself.
“Is -,”
“That’s all. I swear,” he said, cutting her off before she could ask.
She nodded and he pulled his pants back up and pushed his body back into a more comfortable sitting position. He toyed with the edge of his blanket. Fuck, this was uncomfortable. He hated this and he didn’t even know why he brought it up. He didn’t know why he wanted to tell anyone, let alone her. Maybe he felt like she wouldn’t judge him, not having known him a decade ago when he did this for the first time.
“I…have questions…” Even after divulging the things he had done to his body, she still wasn’t sure if it was safe to pressure him into talking at all. But she was going to take a chance because this was so serious.
“I know…” Josh nodded. “Everyone did back then, too…”
“Will you answer them? Or will you be…you know…yourself?”
He ducked his head until his hair fell across his eyes and he shrugged.
“Ok, then I’ll try anyway. How long has this been going on?”
“Well, there was this children’s birthday party back in 2002-“
“No,” she said stopping him mid-story. “I gave you a chance and now I want the truth.”
“Just tonight.” He lightly rested his hands against his thighs and rubbed his palms against the fabric as if trying to get something invisible off his skin.
“You did all of this in one night?? Oh, Josh… dude…”
“Yeah…”
“Josh, what’s up that you’ve started this again? It sounds like you were doing so well for so long. When did you even do this? You were with the rest of us all evening. We never even saw you leave the room. What did you use to do this?”
He leaned his head back against the wall of his bunk. Speaking low and slowly, he absent-mindedly moved his hands from his thighs to his stomach and laid them flat against his body as if to protect the cuts. He avoided most of her questions but tried to give the stylist some form of an answer. “All of this…all of this is fucking useless. Traveling all the time, singing the same fucking songs that I wrote about my own life and having everyone know about it or…think they have some brilliant theory. The hours, not sleeping, being with the same people day in and day out…and…knowing they’re all better people than me. It’s just too much. There are times when I just can’t take it at all. Tonight was it. I’m done. I’m just fucking done. I needed that release. The same one I could find years ago.” Even though his hair threw a shadow across his face, she could see his lashes glistening under the lamp light.
“Is there anything else you’ve been up to? You had a lot of things going on back then, all at the same time.”
He lifted his head and his eyes were dark and angry. “You think I’m back to using again?” He got defensive very quickly.
“I don’t know, Josh! I mean, you keep reminding me that we don’t know each other that well. And I didn’t even know you had done this to yourself tonight. I didn’t know you were having trouble coping with things at all. I’m simply asking. I hope I know the answer, but I wanna hear it from you.”
His eyes softened a little, realizing she was right. She couldn’t know anything he had done because he hadn’t told anyone until tonight. Relaxing just a bit more, he shook his head. “No drugs.”
“Good,” she said, sounding extremely relieved. “One less thing to deal with.”
“What the fuck do you mean by that?!” he asked, the tension coming back into his body.
“Well,” she defended herself, “you’ve got everyone on this tour bus that cares about you and whether you live or die, and it would hurt them to know that you’ve been at this self-harming thing again tonight.”
He knew she was right, but he was even angrier now. “Hey! You promised that this would just be between us. You fucking PROMISED.” Josh was now getting too loud but neither of them realized it until someone tapped on the bunk curtain, causing them both to jump. She quickly moved so she was sitting down near Josh’s feet again. No need to give anyone any strange ideas.
There was muffled whispering coming from the other side of the curtain. Josh pushed the curtain back and a surprised Mike was stooped over staring back at the two of them sitting together in the same bunk.
“What?!” asked Josh with irritability in his voice.
Mike’s eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, even though he had been in his bunk for hours now. “I said, you guys…” he spoke with a raspy voice that could only mean they had woken him, “you’ve gotta keep it down at least a little. If you’re gonna fight, take it up front!” It took a lot to get Mike angry or even upset, but the fact that he looked irritated now spoke wonders. She couldn’t blame him. No one liked being woken up.
“Sorry,” Josh said holding his hands up in a bit of a surrender motion. “It’s time to get sleep anyway.” She nodded along, even though she still had much left to talk to the lead singer about.
“Good,” Mike said yawning. “Maybe I can get back to sleep if I’m lucky. Goodnight, you two.” Starting to straighten, he stopped himself to try to catch Josh’s eyes just to make sure everything was ok when he noticed something odd about his friend’s appearance.
In one quick motion, Mike kneeled down and reached past the stylist to grab Josh’s arm. Josh’s eyes widened considerably as he realized he never pushed his sleeve down. All those marks. All those cuts. They were all showing and now Mike had seen them too. He had given himself away. Fuck. FUCK!
“What the hell is this, Ramsay?” Mike pulled Josh’s arm across his body to get a closer look. His grip on Josh’s wrist was tight so there was no pulling away.
Josh tried to cover his arm with his free hand, but Mike shoved him away. “No, I asked you what the hell this was.” Mike was the most mild-mannered one of the group, but seeing this had changed him. He was completely aware and no longer in the stupor that being woken up had brought on him.
“I…I…” Josh stuttered, unable to complete his thought.
Mike looked at the stylist sitting at the foot of the bed. “You knew about this?” His nostrils flared when he got angry, she noticed. It was kind of a cute trait. She held off answering right away because she had promised Josh that these things would stay between the two of them. She looked up to try to catch Josh’s eyes, but he was staring down at his lap with his hair covering his face again. Taking the plunge, she nodded. “Only for the last hour.”
Mike dropped Josh’s arm and ran a hand through his hair, which had curled after his shower earlier in the evening. “I don’t believe this…”
Josh had yet to say anything, but he had subtly reached up to shove his sleeve back into place, obscuring the view of the slices in his arm from everyone again. He glanced up to catch his stylist looking at him. He looked her in the eyes very briefly before dropping his gaze again.
“Don’t either of you move,” Mike said, placing his hands on Josh’s bunk and shoving himself into a standing position. Through the open curtain, they could see him waking Ian and Matt out of their own deep slumbers.
“Fuck…” Josh whispered to himself. He tugged at the cuff of his sweatshirt. He had been a pale man before, but any colour in his face had been drained away since Mike had discovered his secret.
They could hear Mike telling both Ian and Matt as he woke them that they had “a serious problem” and that they needed to get up, but he hadn’t told them what it was. He had chosen to have Josh show them instead.
Mike waited at the back of the bus while the boys stumbled out of their bunks, sleepily rubbing their eyes, adjusting their clothing and yawning. It was way too early to be awake. Matt and Ian may still have been in sleep-mode, but Mike had said there was a problem and they were going to have to wake up enough to deal with it. Matt shook his head and groaned a little.
“Come on. Everybody to the back lounge. We have to talk,” Mike said, taking charge and opening the door to the seating area. Matt and Ian walked through, both falling back onto the leather seats. Ian let his head drop against the plush head rest and closed his eyes. He wasn’t yet awake and didn’t want to be. Matt sat with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, trying to will himself awake.
Meanwhile, Mike had walked back over to Josh, grabbed the stylist’s hand and pulled her gently out of the bunk. “You guys too. Let’s go. I’m not going to tell them. You are.”
Josh looked completely miserable as he followed his stylist out of the bunk. His stomach was in knots and his vision swam a little as heart pounded and he became slightly light-headed. She stepped into the back lounge first and Josh followed suit, holding onto the wall, wondering if he might pass out before he got there. Mike stepped in behind Josh and closed the door.
The stylist and the singer both found places to sit between Ian and Matt. Josh, yet again, took comfort in sitting next to his new-found friend. Even though the other men were his best friends and people who knew him better than anyone else, he found a bit of safety in sitting with her at the moment.
Ian sat up and looked at Mike, who stood up in front of the group with his arms crossed over his chest. His expression was as serious as his stance was.
“Ok, what’s up? It’s dicks-o-clock in the morning,” Ian said, quoting something Josh had said long ago,” and it’s too damned early to be up.” Matt sat up and nodded along in agreement.
Mike stared down Josh who had yet to say a single word or move since he had sat down. He knew he’d have to come clean now. If he didn’t tell them, Mike would. At least if he told, he could explain. Not that there was anything to explain.
“Josh?” Mike called for his attention. That was his cue. He felt his stylist place her hand on his lower back. He owed her some answers too.
Sighing heavily, Josh stood up next to Mike. The bass player moved over just enough to give him room. The singer closed his eyes for the umpteenth time that night, just to block out their reactions, and rolled up his sleeve revealing the marks along his arm. He heard Matt mumble, “whoa…” After everyone had gotten a good look at his arm, he decided to complete the tour of his body by showing off the rest.
Josh then turned so his right side was facing the group and he tugged down his clothes again, just enough to show them the damage he had done to his hip. He chose then to open his eyes simply to gauge the reaction of the guys and none of them were happy, as he suspected. He let go of the clothes against his side and slid everything down in the front so they could also get a look at his lower abdomen- the spot where he had done the worst as well as the most significant damage to his body.
Once everyone had seen, and Josh felt thoroughly ashamed and embarrassed, he pulled his clothes back up and took his place on the seat again, leaning his head back. No one wanted to be the first to break the silence. Really, no one knew what to say. Matt was the only one who knew Josh back when he was going through this the first time around. Unfortunately, Josh had hidden nearly everything about his addictions to drugs, alcohol, self-harming and eating disorders from Matt as well as the rest of the world. The only thing he couldn’t hide was the fact that he would disappear for months at a time, only to show up looking sicker than he was when he left. Matt didn’t know what to do about that back then and he didn’t know what to do about Josh now.
Mike and Ian threw glances at Matt over Josh’s head as if looking to him for guidance, but all Matt could do was shrug his shoulders and shake his head as if to tell the other guys that he was feeling just as helpless and confused as they were. He had known his friend was a cutter back in high school, but he had never actually seen the scars. At least, not while they were still so fresh. He had only seen some very faint scars on his friend’s wrist, and those blended in nearly perfectly with the pale man’s skin. They were only truly noticeable if he ever got a tan. Matt secretly thought that’s why Josh tended to stay out of the sun so much, but he never brought that up.
Josh continued to be quiet and still, which was extremely unlike him. He was usually the hyperactive one, the one everyone was always wishing would just park his ass somewhere for five minutes and relax without having to talk or move around. That’s when everyone in the room knew that he must be further in over his head than anyone realized. Josh could usually bounce back well from daily struggles, but this seemed to be too much for him. This seemed to have broken him, whatever “this” was.
After minutes that felt like hours dragged by, everyone turned to look at the only female in the room. It’s not that the boys were uncomfortable being affectionate and comforting. Quite the opposite. They had been together for so long that they knew what to say and do to make everyone else feel better about any given situation. In this particular instance, they had each noticed that she was the least shocked by Josh’s little game of show and tell. She looked up at Mike as if waiting for him to tell her what to do. She caught him mouthing the words, “she already knew” to Matt and Ian. Both had odd looks on their faces. Disbelief, perhaps. Ian made a move to stand and Mike held a hand out to stop him. Quietly, breaking the tension and the silence, he said to both Matt and Ian, “no, don’t be angry. I was at first too, thinking she was working for us and keeping secrets like this. But she said she’s only known for the last hour or so, and I believe that. She’s never lied to us before. Let’s forget all that, though. We all know now. Our main priority is Josh.”
Hearing his name, he sat forward, put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands, mimicking the same move Matt had made earlier. His entire body was shaking all over again. Ian, sitting to his left could feel it, but only the stylist was the one to do anything about it. She gently placed a hand on his lower back again, just as she had done before. She felt him take a couple of deep breaths, which sounded louder than usual since he was breathing through his fingers. He was cold to the touch and she knew he was scared.
Though she had no children and was Josh’s age, she had a built-in maternal instinct that kicked in whenever anyone felt this way. She wanted to grab his blanket from his bunk and wrap him up in a cocoon of warmth to protect him from everyone else’s glares as well as from himself. To do that, she’d have to walk past Mike, who was still standing against the door with his arms folded. His facial expression had softened from anger to confusion, but he still didn’t look like someone she’d want to cross in this moment. Just the same, she decided to risk it and stood up.
It proved to be a bold move, as every eye on the room was on her, including Josh’s, as she took the three steps from her seat to Mike. “I need…I mean…excuse me,” she said, reaching for the door handle. He stepped out of the way without question. It had only been forty-five minutes since he had called them all to the back of the bus, but it had already been a long night and she suspected he just didn’t want another fight on his hands. Thankful for that, she slipped through the door, closing it behind her. Josh was her main priority, but there was something she needed to do first. She had to fall apart.
Tears sprang to her eyes before she even got to the bathroom. Shutting the door behind her, she sank to the floor and sobbed. It had been an exhausting and emotional night only made worse by the fact that she still hadn’t slept since the night before. But she wasn’t crying for herself. She had made an emotional connection to someone and she was feeling his pain. The stylist still might not know Josh, the man, very well, but she knew this situation and it made her heart ache and her stomach twist. Her head pounded and her eyes were swollen. She looked on the outside nearly the way Josh felt on the inside. She grabbed some toilet paper to wipe her eyes. Her sobbing continued until she was completely drained. She had no more left in her. She was finally numb for the moment.
Standing, nausea hit her and she retched into the toilet. Fucking nerves were getting the better of her. Eventually she felt well enough to clean herself up, brush her teeth and head back out to face the boys again. She was lucky she remembered to pick up the blanket in Josh’s bunk on the way back.
As she walked up to the door, she took two very deep, steady breaths to calm herself, as her stomach had twisted itself into knots again. Knocking lightly, the door cracked open and she slipped in, shutting it behind her. No one had moved and it seemed like no one had spoken in the entire time she was gone. Draping the blanket across Josh’s shoulders, she took her seat next to him and crossed her legs.
Seconds later, Josh went limp and fell across her lap. “FUCK! What’s this?? What happened? JOSH! Josh, man…come on. This isn’t funny.” Mike had immediately dropped to his knees in front of them and was trying to rouse him by shaking his shoulder.
“He’s still breathing and he’s still got a pulse,” Ian said after grabbing Josh’s wrist.
“ARE YOU SURE??” the stylist asked, in full-blown panic mode.
“If there’s one thing I know, it’s beats,” the drummer joked, true as that was.
Thirty seconds went by…forty…fifty…a full minute. With everyone all over him, trying to wake him up, eventually Josh stirred. The relief on everyone’s face was evident and obvious. Mike sat back on his heels, wiping his face. Ian and Matt exchanged a “thank God” look, but stayed exactly where they were, kneeling on either side of Mike in front of Josh and his pinned stylist.
Josh started to come to in time to hear someone talking from somewhere far away. “…must have passed out…” He was awake but exhausted and done in. He was not at all comfortable, but he didn’t have the energy to move. He felt someone with warm hands brushing his hair back. It felt nice. No one had done that for him in a long time. Not since he was young. He tried to relax and focus on that for the time being.
He flickered his eyes, letting everyone know he was awake and soon enough, the other three backed off. Even with his eyes closed yet again, Josh could sense that there was some silent conversation going on over his head. He didn’t care. He was tired of being involved.
Quietly, from right above his ear came his stylist’s voice. “Josh? Can you hear me?” He still had his head on her lap, so he nodded as she continued to run her hand lightly over his hair. “Can you understand what I’m saying?” He nodded again, drawing his arm up and wrapping his hand in the blanket to pull it tighter around himself.
“Good. Are you ok?” He thought about this loaded question for a time. Eventually, he shook his head no. It was time to be completely honest with everyone. He wasn’t ok.
Matt spoke up this time. “Are you sick?” Josh shook his head a little. All of the head shaking and nodding was making him a little dizzy and he just wanted the questions to stop. After a few more ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions and answers, the room got quiet again, and for that, Josh was thankful.
Everyone sat in silence again, still unsure of what to do. Once again, more of the silent discussions and arguments were going on over Josh’s head. He knew it was about him. What else could it be about? He was the center of their fucking world right now and he hated every minute of it. He had no one to blame but himself all because he had caused this mess in the first place. He felt his eyes sting a little with the threat of tears, but he pulled the blanket up higher to hide his face. His stylist had yet to make him move, in spite of the fact that her leg had gone tingly, then numb at least fifteen minutes prior. She was still petting him like a dog, rubbing his shoulder and his side. Despite feeling sorry for himself on one hand and feeling nothing on the other, he was still glad, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he had such support around him when he needed it.
The later it got, the more patience the group lost. Mike had taken to sitting on the floor and had leaned back against the door while Matt stared off into space and Ian dozed off unintentionally. How he could sleep through this, no one knew. No one else was in the least bit tired now. Josh was still awake, but hadn’t made a move to sit up yet. He truly just didn’t want to face anyone yet. He was embarrassed and guilty among a plethora of other things. It was easier to pretend nothing out there, outside of his own head, existed. He was good at that. It was why he came off as such a douchebag sometimes.
“Josh?” The stylist quietly tried to get his attention without scaring him. He was lost inside his head again so she had to say his name twice before he heard it. “Mmm…?”
“Sit up, ok? We need to talk to you.” He felt her hands under his shoulder as she helped him sit up. He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly. Everyone was swimming in front of him. He didn’t know if he had really done some serious damage or if he was just woozy from his fainting spell.
He looked at Mike, who was still sitting on the floor looking annoyed. He had pulled one leg up and had his arm resting on his knee. His elbow was bent and he was leaning his head against his hand. “Welcome back,” he said.
The sound of Mike’s voice pulled Ian out of his light sleep and drew Matt’s gaze away from the speck of missing paint on the wall that he had been staring ever-so-intently at for the last fifteen minutes.
Ian cleared his throat and shifted his body to the edge of the seat so he could look Josh in the eyes. “Listen, we’re tired, we’re grouchy and we’re worried. We need to know what’s going on with you.” Ian was usually pretty laid back, but he’d had enough. He was worried about his friend, but also his career. If Josh gave up, he’d have to start all over. Selfish? Yes, he knew it was, but with the long silences this night, he had plenty of time to think. Honestly, every person on the bus was having the same thought. Their lives, whether Josh realized it or not, depended on him.
Josh blinked several times and stood up quickly. He reached out to steady himself and his stylist put her hand up to offer support. After a moment or two, he took a step towards Mike, who was watching him with great concern. Mike pulled himself to his feet so he was nearly eye-level with the tall blonde.
“You wanna know what the fuck is going on with me? YOU ALL WANNA KNOW SO FUCKING BAD??” Josh was yelling now. His hands were shaking as they flew to the bottom of his shirt. He pulled it up over his head and tossed it to the floor. Pointing at the lines he had dug into his skin earlier, he dragged the nails of his opposite hand across them, causing the cuts to re-open and blood began to seep through the recently-healed marks. He hissed through his teeth at the stinging, warm, familiar pain. “THIS. THIS IS WHAT’S GOING ON WITH ME. You wanted to know, HERE IT IS. I did this, this,” he said pointing to his hip, “and this,” he gestured to his stomach, “about three hours ago. And if SOMEONE hadn’t stuck her fucking nose into my business, I might have actually finished the job!”
Josh had everyone’s attention from the second he had stood and walked to the center of the small room, but now everyone was staring. No one could believe what they had just heard. He couldn’t possibly mean what he was alluding to.
Now it was the stylist’s turn to look pale as if she might fall over any second. Matt reached out and grabbed her hand to keep her steady and to keep her with them. He squeezed her hand a bit.
Ian and Mike were once again completely shocked by this broadcast as well.
Josh seemed almost oblivious to the kind of news he had just dropped on everyone. Instead of looking up at them, he stared at the blood running down his arm and coating his fingers. He slowly opened and closed his palm a few times, feeling the stickiness of the moist blood in his hand. It was sickeningly satisfying for him.
Ian turned away when he saw Josh so focused on the red staining his body. Blood was not something he was ok with on a good day, but especially not now. Not like this.
Josh only bled for a few minutes before the slices that he had reopened started to heal over again. The blood dried in streaks down his arm. He stood there continually staring at it, watching it dry before touching a finger to the deepest mark on his arm
His stylist watched all of this with a kind of morbid fascination before she realized what exactly she was seeing. “NO!” she yelled, startling everyone in the room. Now all eyes were on her. Everyone but Josh. He was still lost in his own world.
She let go of Matt’s hand and stood. This motion put her right up next to Josh. “I…said…NO.”
He finally looked down into her eyes. “No?” he questioned, seemingly not quite grasping what she was saying.
“Damnit, Ramsay! I said NO. You are NOT gonna do anything to hurt yourself ever again.” She placed a hand against his chest and shoved him backwards until he his back hit the door.
What she said finally registered and she could see it in his eyes. Josh smirked at her and growled back, “and just what the fuck do you think you’re gonna do about it?” He was holding his bloodied arm at his side, but both hands were balled up into fists. Ian noticed this first. Josh wasn’t the violent type, but who knew where his head was right now?
The stylist took a bold step forward. It was either the bravest thing or the most stupid move she had ever made. She couldn’t decide, even as she was doing it. She had barely seen Josh throughout this entire tour and she knew so little about him, but here she was stepping up against him. She might easily be ending her career in this very moment, but she decided it was worth it if it meant she might be able to help save his life.
There were only about six inches between the stylist and the lanky blonde man who towered over her by almost a foot. If he lashed out at her, he had the advantage. She realized she was staring at his bare chest, so she looked up into his eyes. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do about it, but you can bet your ass I’ll find a way to help you. I’ve lost too many people in my life that I care about to suicide in some way or form and I’m not going…I REFUSE…to let you do the same thing,” she ranted. She was nearly out of breath due to the fast racing of her heart as she confronted Josh, but she continued on. “You mean way too much to too many people. You’ve got everyone on this bus. You’ve got everyone in this ROOM,” she gestured blindly around her to Mike, Matt and Ian. “You’ve got your family. You’ve got other friends outside this band. And you’ve got your fans. Everyone cares about you. Everyone needs you around.” By now she was seeing double. Her heart was pounding way too hard. She couldn’t believe she was yelling at the same man that she was in awe of just several short months ago when he asked her to tour with the band as their stylist.
She took a deep breath and stepped back just slightly. If she fainted as Josh had done earlier, the last thing she wanted to do now was fall face-first into his crotch. Her eyes left his and she stared down at her socks. Pink with blue stripes tonight. She was glad she had thought to bring cute things to sleep in. What a stupid thought at a time like this. It’s amazing where the brain goes when it tries to protect itself.
Oddly enough, thinking about her socks helped to calm her down. She was still nervous about the situation, but she was no longer panicking. Her vision had returned to normal and she could breathe regularly again. The trouble with Josh still remained, though. As she was wondering what to do next, she felt two hands on her shoulders shove her backwards and she stumbled until she hit the couch. Thank god for the smallness of the room, otherwise she would have landed on her ass. She already had enough trouble for the day. But as her luck would have it, the couch broke her fall and she landed squarely on the seat.
Seconds later, Josh had been tackled by Mike who was now in his face. “NEVER, EVER do that again. Do you hear me?!” As Mike was dealing with Josh, Matt and Ian had each moved to her sides to make sure she was ok. She was physically fine, just unnerved. What had started out as somewhat of an intervention to help Josh had now turned physical and she was to blame.
Mike stepped in between the stylist and the lead singer and turned to face her Josh peered at her over Mike’s shoulder. “Are you ok? Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m ok.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I never should have involved you in this. You can go if you want,” Mike stated, looking guilty that he had almost, unintentionally gotten her hurt.
“No, it’s not your fault. It’s mine. We all just wanted to help Josh and I opened my mouth when I probably shouldn’t have. This is NOT your fault, Mike. What just happened here…this is between me and Ramsay, no one else.” For the first time since she had spoken directly to Josh, she looked up at his face.
He still looked angry and intimidating, but she was no longer wary of him. Something in her mind told her that even though Josh had come after her, he chose to use the one physical motion that would cause the least amount of damage. He could have hit her. He could have broken her ribs or her nose. Instead, all he did was the same thing she had done to him.
Working up a bit of nerve, she stood up again and took a step towards Mike and Josh. She gently tugged on the front of Mike’s shirt in a gesture that asked him to step out of the way so she could be one-on-one with Josh. Once he did, she looked up at Josh and smiled just a little and shrugged. “Yeah…well…payback is a motherfucker.”
The boys behind her all exchanged glances that said they weren’t sure if they should laugh or be very afraid for her. Josh cracked a smile for the first time that night. She had made perfect use of a great line from one of their songs. “Hah…touché. I’m sorry, though. I shouldn’t have-”
“Neither should I,” she said cutting him off mid-sentence. “I deserved it. But I meant what I said, though. All of this has to stop.” She covered his razor marks with her hand. Bloody or not, it was to show him several things. She wanted to let him know that she wasn’t afraid of him in any way and that she cared enough to be right there with him when he needed someone.
In that moment, Josh broke. The anger, the humiliation, the embarrassment, the guilt, the depression…everything in him shattered.
Everyone in the room watched as Josh’s entire demeanor changed. His eyes became glassy and he sank to the floor. He defaulted yet again to his signature sitting position with his knees pulled up to his chest. He dropped his forehead down onto his knees and wrapped his arms around his legs. His body shook as he tried to control the tears, but this time he couldn’t. It was humiliating. He didn’t want people to see him this way, but there was just nothing he could do about it. He was completely finished. He didn’t have it in himself to fight anymore. He couldn’t fight everything he had been working so hard to contain. Everyone knew his secrets and, as scary as that was, he was glad he didn’t have to deal with this alone all over again. Doing it once was hard enough. A second time would surely kill him, and that’s what he had been hoping for just a few hours prior.
“Help me…please…,” he mumbled. “I can’t…”
At that moment, Mike, Ian, Matt and their stylist were all kneeling on the floor surrounding Josh. Ian had his arm around Josh’s bare shoulders.
Once Josh had calmed down enough to un-tuck himself from his position to raise his head, the stylist handed him some tissues and gently smoothed his hair back from his face. She knew he used that to hide from the world when he didn’t want to be seen. But now it was important that he looked at all of them.
Matt spoke up first. “Josh, man…we want to help you. We just need to know how.”
Mike picked up from there. “Matt’s right. But even more importantly, we need to know when you’re dealing with this kinda thing so we CAN help you. We all thought you’d seemed a little quiet for the last few weeks, but we all have times when we need some space. It didn’t ever occur to any of us that it was more than that for you.”
Josh nodded, looking miserable again. Poor guy. It had been a “vagina of a night”, as he would say. He clearly wasn’t getting off easy by any means. “I know. I’m sorry.” He took a deep, shuddering breath and exhaled slowly as he wiped at his eyes with the backs of his hands, smearing dried blood all over the left side of his face.
The stylist spoke up. “Before anyone thinks of doing anything, I think we’d better let Josh clean up, yes?”
Ian nodded and removed his arm from around Josh. “Yes. Please! This better show you how much I care about you. The blood thing…ugh.”
Josh laughed a little. “Ian, you pans…,” he said, borrowing Matt’s vocabulary.
Ian laughed and stood, helping Josh to his feet.
“I might need help, though. There are some places that I can’t really see…”
The men in the room turned to look at each other. Mike and Matt spoke at the same time. “NOT IT!” “Jinx!” Ian shook his head and backed away.
“Not me. I can’t do blood, remember? If I help him, you’ll all have to take care of TWO of us.”
Matt looked at the stylist and ruffled her hair. “I guess you’re it, kiddo!”
“But…,” she protested. “Me? It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that this requires someone to be at about eye-level with Josh’s crotch.”
Josh looked slightly embarrassed but seemed to almost enjoy the fact that it would make her uncomfortable. “How bad could that be?” he asked, sounding a little better than before. “You’ve already seen us all in our underwear. This isn’t THAT different. Besides, who wouldn’t want to be in that position??”
“Well…okay,” she considered. Knowing she was suckered into doing it anyway, she surrendered. Standing with the rest of the group, she noticed that the other men seemed relieved that she had agreed.
“Besides,” said Mike, “you’re the stylist. So style him!”
That got a laugh out of everyone. “Maybe I’ll request some vajazzling while I’m at it,” Josh joked.
The stylist hung her head and groaned. “Look what you guys are doing to me! Sure, many, MANY women would kill to take my place here, but it’s weird!”
Matt opened the door and practically pushed the two of them through it. “Bathroom’s that way!”
She had to suck it up. It was now or never and they had all just agreed to always be there for Josh and help him in any way possible. Oy. “Vagina of a night, indeed,” she mumbled to herself. Here goes nothing.
Josh reached out and opened the tiny bathroom’s door and stepped inside. It wasn’t spacious by any means and he wondered how the two of them were going to fit in there together, but he just couldn’t see the entirety of his hip or his stomach in order to properly clean it or even to see if he had done more damage than he realized, so he needed his stylist now more than ever. He moved against the back wall, allowing her as much room as he could. She followed him in, closing and locking the door behind them.
Digging the medical kit out from the cabinet under the sink, her first concern was how they would approach this whole situation as well. She rifled through the kit, trying to buy herself some time while looking for bandages, antiseptic and cotton. Finding these things a bit too quickly, she closed the kit and set it down on the floor beside the sink. “So,” she said without turning to face Josh, “umm…”
“Yeah…those are my thoughts too.”
“Ok, we can do this. It’s not weird. It’s…it’s just not. We can do it.” It was more of a pep talk for herself, even though she spoke out loud. He stood against the wall, watching her line everything up on the counter. She was so uncomfortable and he almost felt bad, but not so bad that he was ok with her leaving. He felt bad for snapping at her earlier and he was trying so hard to be better. He needed help and he knew it. He needed to learn to trust that people would be there for him. A line from his song “Alibis” ran through his head repeatedly as he listened to her talk to herself, trying to psych herself up to deal with him and his mess. “I’m in the same place I used to be, but I’m trying harder not to be…” It was true. He fell hard. But his friends showed him that he could be ok and that they were going to help him do just that. His stylist’s words were hitting home for him too.
There was just enough room in the tiny bathroom for Josh to sit on the counter near the sink, so she patted the tile and stepped out of his way as best she could. As tall as he was, he easily slid into place and swung his feet a little as he watched her pour some peroxide onto the cotton she had fished out of the medical kit. Taking the back of his hand in hers, she held his arm over the sink while she cleaned the lines of dried blood from his forearm and hand. The blood mixed with the liquid antiseptic left splattered dots of muted red in the sink.
Josh had been watching her work until he saw the droplets falling from his arm. He turned his head away as his stomach started to churn. Seeing all of this and seeing his stylist help clean him up…seeing how much she cared about someone she barely even knew…all of this was making him realize what he could have done to himself. Looking away didn’t help. He was going to be sick.
Suddenly, he pushed himself off the counter, pulled his arm away from her and shoved her out of the way until he was bent over the toilet seeing everything he had eaten in the last twenty-four hours in reverse. Fuck modesty. This wasn’t something he was ever willing to do in front of someone else, but she had already learned his darkest secret, so he had nothing left to lose, figuratively speaking.
His nose ran and his eyes teared as he lost everything in his stomach. All of this was getting to be too much again. Josh knew that this time around, he was just reacting to the situation, but it brought back every memory he had of his later teenage years. This time, the vomiting wasn’t on purpose like it used to be, but fuck him if he wasn’t reliving all of those moments all over again, making everything so much worse.
Just as his stomach was settling, he felt his stylist kneel beside him and gently rub his back. He wasn’t sure if it was comforting or embarrassing. He really didn’t have a choice either way, though.
Eventually the queasy feeling in Josh’s stomach eased and he was able to flush the toilet and stand up again. He had to clean himself up. The taste in his mouth was not only awful on any given day, but it reminded him way too much of the past. Everything was creeping back up on him again. Every single fucking detail and he did everything he could to try to erase it, starting by brushing his teeth. He wiped at his eyes several times and turned his back on his stylist while he brushed his teeth and filled his mouth with mouthwash. Better, he thought, after all was said and done. At least his mouth was clean again, even if he still felt like shit. Josh’s stomach was still tense, but he now felt like he could stand being doted on without the fear that he would lose it again.
The stylist had stayed right where she was on the floor to give him a few moments to himself. She could have left the room and given him some privacy, but wherever his mind was, she wasn’t so sure it was such a good idea to leave him. So she tried her best to avert her eyes to make the whole situation less uncomfortable than it already was. She only looked up when she saw Josh take his seat on the counter again out of the corner of her eye.
She continued to kneel on the floor looking up at him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes at all. It was bad enough that he had told her all about the recent cutting tonight and his suicidal thoughts, but now she had to witness him getting sick as well. She really couldn’t imagine a worse night for him.
Just when Josh thought things couldn’t get worse for him, they did. Every time he thought he was at the bottom of the pit of embarrassment, the floor opened up and he fell through. He hadn’t been like this in ten years. The last time he was sick in front of anyone, he was in recovery in rehab and he was with a bunch of other people going through the same thing. This time, it was just him. Alone. The last time he had to show off his scars, it was a decade ago. He just couldn’t believe things had gotten this way again. Sure, to his credit, he was clean, but he easily could have been seventeen or eighteen years old again. In his mind, he really never left that age. It’s what drugs do to you, he was told. But he really thought he had gotten past these issues, and now here he was at twenty-eight years old, being watched over and cleaned up like a little kid because he couldn’t take care of himself.
The stylist stood and took the two steps over to where Josh sat near the sink and moved between his legs. He still refused to acknowledge her until she reached a hand out and cupped his chin, gently turning his head in her direction. “It’s ok. There was just the two of us in here. No one else saw. No one else needs to know.”
With that, she let go of his chin and slid her arms around his lanky frame, holding him close to her for all she was worth. She wasn’t sure if Josh knew what to do with that, but after the night he had, he needed the comforting touch. He put his arms around her too, and rested his chin on the top of her head.
He hadn’t felt this safe in a long time. In fact, he didn’t even know he was missing it. Once again, he was feeling things he hadn’t felt in years- things he had been fighting. Instead of ignoring it, he let his emotions get the best of him again that night and the tears fell from his eyes before he could do anything about it. The warm salty tears streaked down Josh’s face and soaked into the stylist’s hair.
She rubbed his back again and this time, Josh felt it as the comforting move it was. He liked it and he didn’t want her to let go. He had no idea how long they stayed like that, but eventually he started to get cold. He was still shirtless and the bus was always