fade to black | james hetfield [1]

twenty three

chapter twenty three: don't know what you got til it's gone

Iris was doing much better since she moved on. She was even taking care of herself again, making sure she ate and got enough sleep. She was still lonely, but that was daily life at this point.

On the other hand, James was often left in his own head. He was slowly starting to get depressed, and when he was sleeping by himself, the nightmares plagued him every other night.

Emotionally, they were switching places and they didn't even know it. He took it as karma for not going back to her before he left. All because he was too scared to get his feelings hurt or see her in a state he wasn't exactly ready for.

All these feelings were so stupid. He didn't want to get hurt, but he didn't want to lose her either. He just wished everything could go back to the way it was in the blink of an eye. That's all he wanted.

That wasn't to say he wasn't having his fun, because he was. It was the dream job, he would wake up, play a show, and party all night afterward. No one could tell him otherwise because he was a rockstar.

But when the lights came down, and he was left alone, it was the complete opposite. Still, he kept it hidden from everyone else, he wasn't the type to show or talk about his feelings. Not unless it was with Iris, at least.

And then everything was starting to remind him of Iris and it was starting to mess with him. The band reminded him of Iris, the songs reminded him of Iris, any little thing reminded him of her.

For James, this wasn't going to end well. His depression started to eat away at him more and more, and he hated feeling down. So he turned to other methods to make it go away.

That meant getting drunk off of his face every other night. No one could tell him otherwise because he had the excuse of being young, dumb, and free. But that didn't mean it was right. 

He woke up beside a random girl one morning, unaware of how he even got there, but as he had trouble recounting the night before, it didn't take much to figure out what was the cause of his spotty memory.

He groaned as he sat up in bed, the hangover hitting him almost instantly. He was recounting everything that had happened the night before, wondering how he even got himself into this mess.

Looking over at the girl, he even cringed a bit as he saw her face and wondered why he went through with doing what he did. Not his proudest moment. 

The girl was asleep, so she wouldn't notice him leaving. He got up and quickly changed into the clothes he had with him, quietly leaving and beginning to make his way back to the hotel. 

James figured that the rest of the band was back at the hotel that they were staying at. As he drove, his mind wandered to what Iris could be doing. If she was even doing anything. 

There were a lot of times when he thought about the day he would get to see her again. Would she be happy to see him? Would she be with someone else? Was she even going to still be there?

There were so many things that could happen over a couple of months. That only made his fear even worse and he was going to spend all these months worrying himself sick about it when he had all this time to prepare. 

When he came back to the hotel, he met up with the rest of the band, who were trying to hold back their laugh as he came through the door. James knew what was coming next.

"Had fun last night?" Cliff smirked as he watched James come through the door. "I know you haven't gotten some for a while, but were you really that desperate?"

James rolled his eyes and playfully shoved Cliff. "Shut up, you would do the same if you were in my shoes." He laughed. 

He was trying to play it off, but it was more than that. His yearning for Iris was making all the decisions for him, and that included the fact that he was getting into the habit of partying too hard. 

But they weren't supposed to be dealing with girl problems on this tour, everything was for the band and the fans. Everything was happening so fast and he could never have a chance to relax, which was only making things worse.

He didn't want to bring the rest of the band down with his problems. He realized now that the band was right in getting angry at him about letting Iris go. While they never told him that specifically, he could sense it. 

It didn't hit him until they were at the cabin and he saw how they acted around she who shall not be named. She took advantage of the fact that he was at a low point during that time. 

Even though it felt like it would be an eternity before he would see Iris again, that wasn't going to be the case.

He was going to hear from her sooner than he thought.