Haunted

Dear Agony

Maddox hadn't expected the last 2 weeks of his tour to go by as slowly as they did. The closer they got to LA, the more time seemed to slow down. Each day felt like it was longer than the last one. No matter how much fun Maddox had on stage, he felt like his show seemed to take hours and hours when it wasn't really that long at all.

He tried as hard as he could to spend all this time with Jackson and avoid The Singer at all costs. After the mess with the video of him falling, Maddox found himself getting anxious anytime Tim or Scooter wanted to talk to him. Then he got anxious when he thought about going home and having to come out to everyone.

Which pretty much meant that Maddox spent all of his time when he wasn't sleeping or on stage feeling like a nervous wreck. He chewed his cuticles until they bled and had gotten to the point where he sometimes scratched himself so hard he drew blood. After he'd seen the scratches in the mirror, Maddox decided he had to look up what was wrong with him.

But what he'd learned on the Internet made him feel a thousand times worse than he had before. Everything he read said he needed to avoid stressful situations and might possibly need therapy and medication to help control his anxiety. He wouldn't mind taking medication but Maddox knew if anyone ever found out they would make him give up singing. There was no way to avoid stressful situations while he was working.

Only after he'd looked it up, Maddox realized he couldn't get the idea out of his head. He was standing backstage one day waiting for the crew to finish setting lights so he could do a quick run through and tried to imagine what his life would be like if he didn't sing anymore. The idea of walking away set off an instant panic attack.

Maddox looked around, wishing anyone were there to help calm him down but he couldn't see anyone and a second later the lights went out backstage. He started to sweat as he stumbled through the darkness, trying to find a bottle of water or something to cool him off. His vision was getting fuzzy and he leaned against one of the big shipping crates that usually transported the set pieces.

Something fell off the top of the crate and Maddox bent to pick it up without thinking about it. His hand closed around the plastic and a second later he realized what it was. He never really meant to do it, but Maddox had his shirt up and had dug the blade into his stomach before he could stop himself.

It took a second but then the cut started to sting and everything snapped back into focus. Maddox dropped his shirt and shoved the box cutter in his pocket. His heart was still racing, but he could breathe just fine and his vision had cleared. As he made his way to the hall and ducked into his dressing room, Maddox felt a rush like he'd never really experienced before. He'd gotten away with it.

In the privacy of his dressing room, Maddox examined his stomach. It was an ugly, jagged cut, not super deep but still bleeding. He pushed some paper towels against it and took a deep breath. Seeing it made him feel kind of sick and definitely guilty. Somehow he needed to keep anyone from finding out what he'd done.

But then there was a quick knock on his door and then Justin poked his head in.

"They're ready for you," he said. Maddox nodded and Justin let the door close again.

"I won't do it again," Maddox told his reflection but he was already starting to smile. He didn't want to think about how fucked up that made him or anything else. It was the best he'd felt in almost a week.

Maddox shoved the box cutter into the bottom of his backpack and made sure no one could tell he'd been bleeding. He rushed out into the hall to go on stage and smacked right into The Singer who for some reason was walking through the hall with no shirt on.

"Oh, fuck," Maddox grabbed his broken arm.

"Dax, are you okay?" The Singer asked, his hand on Maddox's left shoulder.