The Run

174

Yesterday was a very long day, and a very quiet one. After the fiasco of the day before, I guess Emmie felt like she had to make herself invisible, and she did. I don't really understand why – she had many occasions to do just that before – and I guess I'll never truly understand her, but she did, and in my head I thank her. I needed this silence. I needed to think.

After the thrift shop incident, she didn't say a word. She paid for her stuff, not letting go of my hand, then dragged me away. Without a glance, she threw her purchases on the back seat, as if they didn't matter, then sat me down on the passenger seat. She buckled my seatbelt for me, I think. I don't know. I wasn't really there, or so it feels like. Then she took place behind the wheel and started driving again, in silence. I saw her glance at me a few times, as if checking that I was still alive, still breathing. I was breathing, sure. I don't remember the last time I felt alive.

She drove for a couple hours, I didn't know where to, and I remember thinking that maybe we should decide on an itinerary, but that thought was drowned out by all the other thoughts running through my mind, mostly that one thought of me sitting behind the drum kit in the thrift shop, beating the crap out of the instrument like I used to do before. It wasn't even a great instrument. I could have bought it for less than a hundred bucks. The snare was really damaged, and the bass drum didn't even have a proper head, but that could have easily been fixed. Sitting there, in the passenger seat of my car, I was calmly imagining all the ways I could have improved the looks and quality of that instrument, but when I first saw it in the shop... I just froze.

Images of my time in the band were thrown at me with the violent force of a hurricane. I remembered us, playing in your parents' basement until your fingers bled, until your voice broke and my hands burned. I remember our first show together, in front of a couple people only. I remembered that crowd growing and growing with each performance. I remembered signing that stupid piece of paper, and the smile on your face when I told you "We did it!" and you whispered in my ear "Not yet" when I hugged you in the record label offices in New-York. I remembered our first summer in Europe when we played major festivals, sometimes on the main stage but in the early afternoon when the audience was just waking up from their late-night partying and probably didn't really feel like listening to yet another American band. Yet I remembered that day, I think it was in the Netherlands, when I was out exploring the city, looking for the best coffee place, and these two girls who barely spoke English came to me and asked me for a picture, telling me how great our band was. When I came back to the hotel that night, I told you "We did it" and granted, it sounded more like a question than a statement, but still you said "Not yet". When we performed at the MTV Movie Awards, I thought, "We did it". You didn't say it, but I'm sure you thought, "Not yet". There were so many nights, so many times, after and before that, when I thought "We did it". But I kept it to myself, as I'm sure you did your "Not yet". Because it was not enough. It was never enough.

But then we played Madison Square Garden. And not just one night. And I didn't dare to think that "We did it", yet when you looked at your audience that night, there was a fire in your eyes and you uttered those words, and you let them resonate, and thousands upon thousands of people cheered when you included them in our story. And you were right to do so. We wouldn't have made it that far without them. But strangely enough, that night, I didn't feel like I was a part of it anymore. I remember this as the first time in my career that I wanted to drop these burning drumsticks, drop them on the ground and let them turn off that noise forever. The first time in my career when I would have preferred silence over our music.

We had our first big fight that night. I don't remember much, who started it or how, but I know some things were said that could never be unsaid. "So, we did it, uh?" I asked you with spite in my mouth. You laughed, and you said "Not yet, I just thought it sounded cool," and I swear on my life that I almost punched you. I told you that you always wanted more, asked you when it would stop, and you told me I could stop if I wanted to, but you wouldn't. You apologized, almost immediately, but the hurt was done. And before I left the green room that night, I remembered a conversation we'd had the previous winter and I told you that: "What's the point in starting over every morning if you know you're gonna ruin it anyway?"

You didn't ruin it. We did it.