The Rise and Fall of Matt Litter

CHAPTER 6: Return to Sender

"...I'm fine, I swear..." I'm telling Demian, as we walk towards the elevator and he follows me closely, "Just stop asking, please..."

"Matt, I know you, honey, and I know when something's—"

"Look, I'm okay," I tell him, turning to look at him and stopping my walking, "you hear me? I'm fine, everything's fine, I promise..." I turn to the elevator again and push the button to get to the first floor and have breakfast. I'm not staring at Demian, although I'm sure he's staring at me.

"Matt..." he says, sounding more serious than before. Now I turn to look at him, but it's only because he places a hand on the back of my neck. The elevator arrives and a woman gets outside, mumbling 'morning' to us, which we repeat with courtesy. Then, we get inside the elevator and I push the button that'll make it go down. But we have eight floors to go...

Demian's still looking at me, his arms now crossed over his chest and leaning over aside. "You mad because of the interview? Or because of what Kyle said?" he asks me when we've made two floors already. I sigh.

"Sort of... both," I dare to confess because I can't stand to be mad at him —and it's not like I'm even mad at him, I'm just plain mad... but mainly at myself. Or at 'yesterday' because I guess I'm mad at the whole day. Demian is the one that sighs now.

"You can't keep living the rest of your life being mad at interviewers," he says, as the elevator stops on the fourth floor and a couple of kids get inside, kids I choose to ignore.

"You sound like Kyle," I tell Demian, after a few seconds. He chuckles.

"Yeah, I hope I don't... but you get what I mean. And you sort of can't be mad at him all the time either," he adds, turning to me. I nod.

"I do, yeah... but they still can't control our lives!" I snap, suddenly irritated. The kids, two boys and a girl, probably triplets, turn to look at me and I'm pretty sure Demian smiles at them, but I'm not looking.

"No one's trying to control our lives, it's not like that..." I stare at him. We're almost there, on the floor we're meant to have breakfast in.

"Well, it feels like it," I say.

The elevator's doors open. The kids storm out of it. I do the same, and Demian follows me.

We play an amazing show that night. And I know they'll talk about it if it becomes an internet trend or however it's called... I just know it. But I also don't care. At all, I just don't.

I may sound like an idiot right now, complaining about what interviewers say about my life and then deciding to do whatever I can the following night in order to grab attention... but that's not what I'm doing. I'm just showing them something, giving them a lesson; I'm showing them they don't mess with me, nor with my life, nor with the people I love. I'm showing them I am the one who decides what to do and what not to do on stage, or anywhere, really; I'm showing them they don't control me; I do. I control it all, because it's my life, as Bon Jovi says. It's me the one in charge, not them. And yes, maybe we'll make it to the internet and news the following day, or maybe this same night, and maybe I'll care about it next time I'm being interview or that someone sends me a link to something online... but I don't care now. Now I feel free as a feather, I can play, act, and do whatever I want, I can be whoever I want to be...

Our next gig is in Tampa. Everything's turning out to be just fine that night —we played a nice gig, we had a lot of fun (more than any other time this tour, of that I'm sure), and we even had a meet and greet with fans before going out the stage, which is always a nice experience. The meet and greet winners were two young girls, ages about fifteen and seventeen, who were total sweethearts to us and to the ones we, I hope, were total sweethearts as well. The youngest one started to cry when she met me, and even if fans sometimes do that, she soon made it clear it wasn't just because she was meeting me.