53 - Mental breakdown
You get a call from Rydel, which is weird. She never calls. She usually just texts you.
You answer, confused.
"Hello?"
"Hey. So... Are you busy right now?"
"No, why?"
"Riker's kind of... I don't even know what to call it... Could you come over?"
"Yeah, I'll be there in a few minutes. What's going on?"
"He's been stressing a lot about our next album. I think it's just getting to him."
"Ok."
You hang up, and drive to the Lynch's house. You know Riker gets stressed sometimes. Usually a movie night and cuddles are enough to fix the problem. But that might not be the case this time.
You park, and knock on the door. Rydel answers.
"He's upstairs in his room."
"Ok."
You walk upstairs, and go to Riker's room. His door is cracked open. You peer in, and see him pacing his room, while running his hands through his hair constantly.
"Rik?"
You push the door open, and Riker turns to face you.
"Is everything alright?" You ask, shutting the door.
"No! Nothing is going right!"
You can see now that his face is red, and he's been crying. He seems extremely tense and frustrated.
"Well, do you want to talk about it?"
"No! I just want today to be over! I wish I wasn't in R5!"
"Riker, you don't mean that."
"It's too hard! It's too much work! I'm not good enough for the job!"
He's full out screaming, and tears are streaming down his face. You've never seen him like this before.
"Ok, ok. Let's sit down for a minute, Rik."
You take his arm, and pull him over to his bed. You pull him into your arms, and he cries for a few minutes.
"Riker, can we talk about this now? Can you at least try for me?"
"Nothing is going right today."
"Explain."
"My lyrics don't sound good. I can't come up with good chords or music. We have these deadlines for our next album, and nothing sounds good enough!"
"Ok, calm down, Riker. Don't get all worked up again."
"I'm turning into a failure."
"Riker, no you're not. You have a ton of fans."
"Yeah, and when they don't get new music, they'll hate us."
"No, they won't. They'll understand that you need a little more time to make really good music."
"They're going to hate me..."
You pull away, and look at him. His eyes are sad, and he looks devastated and exhausted.
"Riker. I can promise you, they won't hate you. You look really tired. I think you need to take a day off, and just relax. You've been working on music nonstop, and you just need a mental break."
Riker sighs.
"Come on, Riker. I know you're stressed out, but you can't do this to yourself. You need a break."
His eyes fill with tears again.
"Riker, don't cry."
"But if I take a break, that's more time that I'm losing! I'll just be more stressed out!"
"Riker, listen to me. If you don't take a break, you're not going to be able to write good lyrics or music. You need a mental break. Rydel, Ross, Rocky, and Ellington can keep working on stuff today. But you need to take a break from it."
His tears spill down his cheeks, and you wipe them away. You're determined to make him take a break. He can't keep doing this to himself.
"Rik, you're overworking yourself."
"I know, but I can't come up with anything good! I feel so dumb!"
"It's because you don't take breaks, Riker. You need to step away from music. When you give yourself breaks, you give yourself a time to reset. And when you come back to it, you'll have fresh ideas. Come on. Let's go grab some dinner, ok? Change out of your sweatpants, put on something nice, and we'll go."
Riker doesn't budge. You sigh, get up, and grab Riker a change of clothes. You grab his hand, and drag him down the hall to the bathroom.
"Here. Change, and meet me downstairs."
You hand him the clothes, and then go downstairs.
"Is he alright? We heard him screaming up there," Ross says, a bit nervously.
"He's ok. He just needs a break. You guys need to help him realize when he's overworking himself."
Riker comes downstairs, and leans his head on your shoulder.
"Come on. Let's go," you say, taking his hand, and dragging him out to your car.
You take him to a random restaurant, and get some dinner.
Later...
You took Riker back to your house after dinner. You put on a movie in the living room, and made popcorn. Riker was curled up on the couch with his head in your lap. And within minutes, he was asleep.
You sat there and watched the movie, letting him rest. He definitely needed it.
The next day...
You wake up on the couch, with Riker sprawled out in your lap. But he's awake, and he's on his phone.
"Morning, Rik."
"Morning..."
"Feeling better?"
"Yeah... I just kind of accepted that I wasn't going to get anything done, and I couldn't think about anything relating to it. And I just let myself relax."
"Good. You have to remember not to do this to yourself next time. You can only take so much, Rik."
He sits up, and wraps his arms around you.
"Fine. But on my breaks, you better come over and cuddle and watch movies with me."
"Of course I will."
"Love you..."
"I love you too, Rik."
