No Good at Goodbyes

Chapter 12: Sixteen Months, Part II

Author's Note: Looks like I have a few new readers. Hello! <3 Happy Sunday loves. I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 12: Sixteen Months, Part II

That one pill turned into one pill every day.

That one pill every day turned into one pill every 6 hours.

Just enough to take the edge off.

Scott was happy to see that everyone else was happy. In fact, he hadn't seen Mitch this happy since... well, he couldn't remember.

And if going through these motions made the other four this happy, maybe he just needed a bit of time to catch up.

Until then, at least he had his pills.

Shit.

He looked at the empty bottle as though it was calling him names.

He had no idea how he was going to survive, now that they were gone.

But then it clicked.

"Can we switch our shoot to be at your house today?" Scott asked through the receiver, keeping his voice as pleasant as possible. "I forgot that our plumber is coming."

"Oh... sure. Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem," Mitch replied, looking around his house at the mess. "But I gotta go, then. Gotta clean up."

Scott laughed. Mitch's eyes narrowed at the hollow sound. "See you at one."

Something nagged at his stomach. Something didn't feel right.

Things had been going so well, Mitch knew that he was probably just being paranoid, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In reality, he knew that the truly hard part would be when they released this video. He knew that the hardest part would be the possible social media shitstorm that would follow the news of their return.

They had weighed their options. Should they all deactivate their social media? Should they just make Scott do so? That wouldn't work. That would make him feel isolated in a different way.

They didn't know what the answer was, so they settled on announcing their return next week with a blanket statement: Any negative comments about individual members will not be tolerated by the group.

Yeah, like that was going to work.

Arranging and recording with his friends made him feel something again that he hadn't felt in so long. He felt so incredible lately, in fact, that he hadn't touched his medication since the day Scott asked them to reinstate the group.

Mitch was proud that he didn't have to rely on the medication, but then he felt a stabbing guilt for feeling that way. There was nothing wrong with needing help. He knew that.

But he felt so good, so he was going to be proud of himself, just this once.

"I missed these single-take, live videos. Why did we ever move away from this?" Kirstin asked, setting up the ring light. They had moved a couch against the wall, and Scott had trekked a bunch of recording equipment along with him.

"Three letters, Kirst," Kevin replied as he plugged in a microphone.

"Damn you, RCA," Matt added, laughing.

"Alright, looks set up. You ready?" Mitch asked, smiling back at them.

"One sec. Bad timing, I know. But nature calls when nature calls, you know?" Scott chimed in, laughing as he adjusted the camera.