This chapter is extra sad, so I'm dedicating it to none other than palebluedream.
Scomiche22
Followers: 1093
Following: 338
Tweets: 12k
Likes: 14k
His last tweet is time-stamped 4/15/2022, two days ago. "Pixar is everything," he says. That's accurate. I haven't had a chance to see their new movie yet, but I take it he has. I wonder if he's seen anything I've acted in recently, or if he's avoided it all.
It started out with a guest appearance on Empire. Pentatonix's record deal hadn't been renewed. We could have found another, but we had been slipping. We weren't making the charts anymore or selling out shows. We could have found another contract, but it wouldn't have been for half what our last one was worth. We all knew it was time to move on. Even Scott understood that. He took it hard, though. He blamed himself.
The real problem was that we missed the boat with the way the Internet was changing. YouTube was outstripped suddenly by ReView. Our label wouldn't let us upload videos there because the ad revenue wouldn't be as high, and we ended up switching far too late. Then, Twitter stopped being a thing when they went nearly bankrupt and started charging a subscription fee. It's literally just $1 a year, but everyone uses other platforms now. Most of our followers' accounts expired.
Honestly, our sound didn't keep up either. Other vocal groups became popular, and we stopped being new or interesting. We settled into our style as we discovered it, but popular music went the other direction, toward something more dissonant and discontinuous.
My Empire role was mostly a singing thing, but I took the acting seriously, and they invited me back for a few more episodes. I was still living with Scott at the time, but it was going downhill. He was fighting with Alex, I could tell, but they never fought around me and neither of them would tell me what was wrong. Before any of the Empire episodes aired, I got a call about being in Pitch Perfect 3. I played the Bellas' mentor on their journey to transition from college a cappella to professional music. Alex broke up with Scott and moved away. Scott started pouring himself into music and kept shutting me out. "Please don't talk to me, Mitch." "I need to be alone." "I don't want to talk about it." "I need space." "Go away." It was like I didn't know him anymore. He just needed time, though, right?
I started talking to Alex a lot, mostly about Scott and Pentatonix. Even though he had to leave Scott, he was still there for me. I could tell something was changing with him, but I didn't want to be vain, so I told myself he was just lonely and he needed a friend. He wasn't making a move, surely. It was too soon, right? We spent a lot of time together, but he didn't push for more. He held his tongue until I was ready.
I got sick of giving Scott time. He wasn't mentally stable. Too much was happening for him to handle, and he needed some kind of support, whether he wanted it or not.
"Talk to me," I begged him.
He looked up from the piano keyboard he'd been staring at silently for almost an hour. "Why are you still here, Mitch?" Even now, I can feel him glaring at me when I close my eyes. "You should leave. Like Alex. You should be..." A flicker of sadness crossed his face, and I had the courage to move again. I stepped forward tentatively to touch him. Just because his boyfriend left him didn't mean I would. I was permanent, I thought.
He stood and pushed my outstretched hand back to my chest. "Don't. What are you thinking?"
"I miss you."
"You can't touch me." I was repulsive to him.
"Who do you think I am?"
"You don't deserve to touch me."
In retrospect, I realize it actually made a lot of sense for him to say that. He thought I let Alex cheat on him. He thought it was my fault Alex left him. At the time, though, it seemed to me like the most arrogant, conceited, insulting thing he had ever said to me. I slapped him across the face. That was the last time he felt me touch him.
It wasn't the last we fought, though. We shouted at each other for hours until I figured out what the problem was. I don't know who told him, but how could he believe it? I swore to him on anything and everything that it wasn't true. I told him I would never speak to Alexander again if he would just stop hating me.
That's still true.
Over time, I learned how to avoid conflicts with Scott. We basically didn't speak to each other. I absolutely never mentioned Alex. I brought him coffee and tried to talk about happy memories. They were always tainted for him in some way, though, always twisted and profoundly sad, sometimes simply because they were happy. He cried a lot and shouted whenever I moved near.
I came home one day and found him drunk within an inch of his life, passed out and breathing dangerously slowly. When he got back from the hospital, I wasn't there anymore. I left Kirstie, Kevin, and Avi to force him into rehab. There was nothing I could do for him anymore. He wouldn't let me. He was dragging me down with him, and I had to get out.
"Finding Nemo made my life," I type as mitchellover. "Did you see the new Pixar movie? Should I watch it?"
"Yas, Nemo!" he tweets back immediately. "This one's EVEN BETTER. Tbh, you should drop everything and watch it right now."
"Hey Alex? Do you want to go see a movie?"
