Everything - Larry Stylinson

ONE: PUSH MY HAIR BACK

It had always been about our characters. That's all we ever were, fake people with stolen names, an echo of my makeup-ed face in other people's mouths. I love the music, the fans, my job, but none of that is me, a miraged illusion of something whole. Plagued with this, I allow my body to sink into the over-priced heather couch cushions. My designer gushed over this one, explaining it's 100% vegan-cruelty free, shipped in recycled boxes, from some country I've performed in but never actually been to. I thumbs up her message and it was built in my house within two days. It's nice enough. The entire house. Better than my living room in LA. Still, there's a questioning if any of this is even me. I'm haunted by the eerily real possibility that the only part of me that is actually me was swallowed up by the persona I've been carrying since I was 17, spit out again backwards.

Therapists have tried to tell me I'm not chasing a high, I'm chasing the discovery of my personhood. That was in LA. I guess I have a hard time listening when I'm paying more than my mum paid for rent on our first house for her to swirl her overpriced smoothie around while she talks. I wonder how many people in the neighborhood have over-priced 100% vegan heather gray couches. I could get high, but peeling myself off this fifteen-thousand-dollar mid-century modern sectional seems too ambitious. I could call someone. But I won't. I like to wallow in my pity. Plus, I know an identity crisis over a couch costing more money than I had ever seen before 6 years ago is better than crashing out at an office job. At least when you're famous, you can afford the hard drugs.

Really, I should shower. I'm still in last night's clothes. The sour reek of beer leaks off my clothes like mold releasing gasses, sticky residue splotched down my arms and the area of my chest where my button had been undone. There's a mess of pink kiss marks across my pale skin, from whoever. The jeans are the worst part, uncomfortably tight, brightly stained with streaks of white against the harsh black denim. I can still taste last night between my teeth and watch it ferment the air with every exhale of my stale warm breath.

The drone of London's rain washes the white walls gray, inviting shadows to seep from their corners and drape through the empty halls. Sighing, I feel around on the floor until I find my Macbook under old take out boxes. I should call someone to come clean today. I've got about a billion emails and texts exploding across the screen. My manager's been pushing these ridiculous weekly goals: stay out of the tabloids, don't go out in yesterday's clothes, answer messages. I agreed, just to end the conversation, throwing her a bone with the promise that I'd pay someone to filter through the emails. Unfortunately, personal texts are another beast entirely.

There's a handful from unknown numbers, boob shots and dick shots and a lot of desperation I ignore. I've got a message from Niall, which would usually stand out to me, but he's in a new era of "healing" where he's committed to a life of sobriety. I get he's trying to be nice, but his whole missionary act is getting way too annoying for me to handle this hungover. Maybe there is someone out there I could pay to text back for me. I don't open it, leaving it to rot as next week's problem. There's a dim satisfaction in ignorance, but I'm not sure if it's the illusion of choice or the mean spirited act of rejection I'm rarely granted.

Rain spills over the window in thin streaks, sliding down the glass in lazy trails. London crawls on, and I know that somewhere out there, under dim streetlights and behind tinted windows, are people who think they know me, people wearing my face on their t-shirts, people who would give anything to step into this house, this life, just for one night. I'll repeat some garbage in interviews that the thrill dies fast, that people should relish their normalcy. That's all lies though, the thrill is intoxicating, a raging rush of wide eyed adrenalin that keeps my fingers twitching in sleep. A neon vomit of movement spewed across every aspect of my life, inescapable even in dreams. It's nothing but saltwater; the more you gulp down the thirstier you become.