Through All the Dust

Things were better. Throughout the week, Brian had gotten a little more accustomed to the idea of leaving me at home. Their album was nearing completion, and a looming deadline to get in and record Fiction was lingering around my shoulders. Matt had offered to hire someone, given that my hands were currently out of commission; thus, rendering my piano skills to zero. However, I was adamant that I hadn’t put myself through the treacherous task of learning the damn song just to have Avenged take it from me at the last second.
The ache in my wrist was starting to dull and I’d started light duty to try and regain strength. Soup cans were my go-to. I’d tried a few keys of the piano but the pain was enough to make me sick to my stomach, so I’d reserved that for a later time.
Brian was at the studio and Gabriel had just graced me with his presence. He came bearing news of the mental health benefit, and I was eager to hear.
“They’ve made you an offer,” he told me as he sat down, passing me a piping hot brown cup of coffee.
“Okay,” I nodded.
He eyed me up, “It’s less than we’d typically expect for your….services.”
I stifled a laugh, sipping at the beverage despite the stinging it brought to my lips, “I’ll do it for whatever. It’s honestly…it’s just not about that for me. I just want to do it.”
“I knew you’d say that,” he smiled. “So I went ahead and accepted.”
I smirked, “Of course you did.”
“Details,” he said in his most professional tone, handing me a stapled package of papers.
I skimmed through the formalities, most of which I didn’t care about. That’s what my legal team was for—the label took care of that sort of shit, leaving me to focus solely on the music.
“Third page in is the list of other performers,” Gabe told me knowingly. “You’re in some good company…and some…interesting company.”
“Oh?” I mused with a cocked eyebrow, flipping to the desired page.
The page was packed with names. Some warranted no response from my brain at all, like Simple Plan who was slotted to play earlier in the night.
“Oo,” I smiled happily, tapping my finger at one of the listings. “Linkin Park, huh? I can get into some Chester Bennington.”
I thought back to the night I’d met Jimmy. He’d been trying to chat my ear off while Linkin Park was putting on one hell of a show. I’d had to shush him so I could truly enjoy the beautiful sound that was Chester Bennington. I hadn’t had to opportunity, or pleasure, of seeing them perform since.
They were closing up the show, so I knew I’d be in for a long night. There was no way I was missing that.
“I thought you’d like that,” Gabe laughed.
As my eyes skimmed over other bands I adored, like Good Charlotte and Audioslave, I couldn’t help but notice one very familiar, yet unsettling, tag of recognition. My fingers brushed over the name as anxiety spiked up throughout my spine.
“I’m sorry,” I choked. “What the fuck is this?”
Gabriel shifted in his seat, taking a deep gulp of his hot coffee as a means of biding his time before responding—probably in hopes that I’d cool my jets before he’d finished swallowing it down.
“This is a joke, right?” I continued in frustration.
He shook his head, still gulping down the hot liquid.
Haven was slotted to pay directly before me. I do mean directly. Haven had continued on their musical journey, but from what I’d heard, wasn’t finding a whole lot of success or notoriety in their attempts. They’d replaced Justin, they’d replaced our replacement for Tyler, and they’d replaced me—with a male, to boot. You can’t replace a female singer with a man, that just doesn’t make any sense. But no one had ever claimed that Chris or John were intelligent. I wasn’t even really sure that you could call Haven Haven anymore—there were only two original members left. It should have been Havenish.
I tried to process. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I was angry. Something about having to see John again, after all of the things he’d said to me, was enough to dismantle my otherwise collected interior.
“Look,” Gabriel finally said, sighing as he slipped his cup onto the table, “Don’t worry about that. They’re slotted before you, which means—”
“I’ll have to stand in the wings and watch the band that I used to call mine,” I interjected sarcastically.
“No,” he laughed with a great deal of awkwardness. “It means that they’re less important by comparison. If you looked at the timings, it’s clear they were trying to juggle genres in a way that would feel natural. Hell, you have Three Days Grace following you.”
“Really?” I asked happily. “Hey, no—don’t distract me.”
Gabe smiled, “Just focus on what you’re doing, not what those idiot bastards are up to.”
“Justin’s going to be pissed,” I grumbled. “He wants to knock John out.”
“It’s been years,” Gabe reminded me with his most soothing voice. “I’m sure everything has been smoothed over by now.”
I laughed pointedly, “No, it hasn’t.”
“You guys have never spoken to them at all?” Gabe managed, despite his face contorted with shock.
“Never,” I said simply.
Our paths had simply never crossed. Obviously, when I’d moved I’d discarded my land line in favor of a cell phone. I wasn’t sure if Justin had ever spoken to them, but to my knowledge he hadn’t. Neither John, nor Chris, had ever reached out to me—not when Jimmy died, not when I was in the accident, not now…and at no point in between. We were, for all intents and purposes, dead to one another.
It was sad, in a way. While I hated John with a fiery passion, and would never forgive him for all of his venomous words dripping with jealousy, they’d been like a family to me for years. A dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless. We’d all really banded together—forgive the bad pun—when Tyler had left us. But it had all been for naught. Now we were strangers. These people that knew me in a deeply intimate and private way, were now nothing more than ghosts of a life I’d left in my wake. I was worried about confronting it.
“That’s interesting,” Gabriel said because he wasn’t sure what else to say.
I just shrugged, “I’ll survive, I guess.”
“You will,” he smiled reassuringly. “You’re a trooper, Blair.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I waved him off. “So, what else do I need to know? What’s the set time look like?”
“Three songs,” he told me. “Haven was only slotted for two.”
“Good,” I grinned. “They better not play any of Tyler’s songs, or I swear straight to the dark lord—”
And then an idea struck me. My mind jogged away with it while Gabriel talked at me—I wasn’t listening at all.
“Blair!” he finally snapped.
I laughed, blinking away the daze, “Sorry, I was just…inspired.”
“Oh?” Gabriel grinned. “Your inspiration pays my bills!”
I laughed, “Tell me what else I need to know. I need to get to work.”

Gabriel eventually made his exit. Not before aiding me up the stairs and supervising me as I dug around in my countless boxes of keepsakes. When I came across the one with Ty scribbled across the front, I tore into it with an insatiable hunger. I dug around, flipping through papers and trinkets until finally finding the object of my desire.
Gabriel helped me back down the stairs, despite my lingering urge to remain on the second floor. But I had shit to do. There was no time for that—and if Brian came home to find me wandering around upstairs without assistance, I’d be in deep, deep trouble.
So, I made a home on my couch with a notepad and the only piece of Tyler’s untapped mind that I had left.
After a few hours had passed, I’d gotten as far as I could with it on my own. I needed Brian. There was something to be exceptionally grateful for with our relationship; beyond the chemistry and beyond the commitment we’d shared since day one…our virtuosity was shared, and sometimes combined. And every time it was, it was brilliant.
I loved having a guitar god to lean on—and he was constantly utilizing my vocals to try out new runs. We’d play piano and guitar together to sample new ideas, in a completely safe and unjudging atmosphere. For that, and for him, I was eternally thankful.
When Brian finally got home, just after eight, I was immediately hounding him.
“I need you,” I told him right away.
He grinned, “Nice to see you, too.”
“No time for formalities,” I smiled fondly. “I need your help.”
“Okay, Babe,” he laughed, leaning down to kiss my lips. “What do you need?”
“Your fingers.”
He raised his eyebrows at me, “Is that right?”
“Not like that,” I giggled, slapping at his chest playfully. “I had an idea…and I obviously can’t play guitar.”
Brian smirked, “Even without the broken wrist, you can’t play guitar.”
“Brian,” I groaned. “That’s neither here nor there.”
“I’ll go get my guitar,” he started with a laugh, but I stopped him.
“No, no,” I rushed. “We need to be in the studio. We have to go upstairs.”
Brian nodded, holding his hands out to me to aid me in climbing to my feet—foot. Then he scooped me into his strong arms. I wrapped my arms around his neck for stability as he carried me, like a bride, through the house and up the stairs. He sat me down in a chair and immediately grabbed the stool across from me.
“You’re really fucking…tasty,” I grinned at him, admiring the way the muscles in his arms tensed and released.
He looked over his shoulder at me with a devilish grin.
Sometimes time was lost on me. It felt like we’d known each other for two minutes—it was exciting and new and I just couldn’t get enough of him. He enveloped my thoughts and my heart grew an obsession. But other times it was as if I’d known him forever, and I was stable. I was comfortable. I knew that I could rely on him, always. It was this balance of the complexities that made up my love for him that made it everlasting. I knew, without a doubt, that there would never be a single second of any day that I wasn’t completely and totally in love with Brian Haner.
He tossed the guitar strap over his shoulders and strummed a simple chord. Satisfied that his strings were still in tune, he looked to me expectantly.
“I don’t know if I ever mentioned Tyler’s last song to you,” I started awkwardly.
Brian furrowed his brows, “The one I recorded with you?”
“No,” I shook my head, thinking back to working with Brian in the studio—it felt like a different lifetime. “There was another one…One that he’d completely finished the lyrics to, anyway. I have a whole binder full of unfinished songs of his.”
“Okay,” Brian said oddly.
“Anyway,” I continued. “Marge gave this to me a while back…She found it in his things when she cleaned…you know.”
Brian nodded in understanding.
“So I just thought…” I paused. “Haven is playing at the benefit…”
Brian grinned strangely, “As if.”
I nodded, “That’s…whatever. But it occurred to me that they will likely play something Tyler wrote…and I’m pissed that I can’t.”
“So you want to use on of his unused songs?” Brian asked, his tone told me he already knew my answer was yes.
“This one,” I sighed, pulling out the lyrics that I’d had folded up and stashed in my denim pocket, “was titled Blair…So…It’s a little fitting for the occasion, I think.”
Brian watched me curiously. He was still cautious and careful with my soul when it came to Tyler. I’d come to a slight form of peace with what had happened…but he was still, very much, a sore spot. Sometimes it was more tender than others. The truth was that I just really fucking missed my friend.
But there was nothing I could do to bring him back. All I could do was to keeping moving forward, and bring him along with me as much as possible. That’s all anyone could do.
“If I cry,” I half-laughed, “I promise I’m still fine. It’s just…Well, you’ll see…”
Brian smiled reassuringly as I read him the last words that Tyler’s mind had conjured up about our relationship. About his life. About his death.
“Never understood how she could mean so little to so many…Why does she mean everything to me? Is it worth the pain? With no one to blame for all of my insecurities? How did I ever let you go? Questioning her good intentions, jealousy's a bad invention. When you push on glass, it's bound to break. Even when she was defensive, it just gave me more incentive…The more you squeeze, the more it slips away…”
Brian looked heartbroken. Looking at him made me weak with sorrow, so I decided to focus my attention solely on Tyler. I couldn’t bear to read Brian’s mind until I was through with what I had to do. I felt a little like I might be vulnerable.
So, I continued to read, “I never walked so far on a lonely street with no one there for me. Is it worth the pain? with no one to blame for all of my insecurities? How did I ever let you go? Accept this confession… I'm walking on pins and needles. You're not my possession… My conscience is vicious and I'm begging forgiveness... I never walked so far on a lonely street with no one there for me. It took too long to see her in misery…And now it's clear to me, that it's worth the pain—always take the blame for all your own insecurities…How did I ever let you go?”
We were silent for a few seconds, stirring and brewing with mixed emotions. The first time I’d read through the lyrics, I’d thrown myself into hysterics. I thought Tyler had felt connected…I thought that through our friendship, he’d felt as though he wasn’t alone. It was clear to me then, that just wasn’t the case. He was suspicious and he was envious of the way that I was able to live. The way that I could move along, despite the anguish that followed me around like a shadow.
The more he pulled at me, the further I pushed myself away. Brian had surely started to act as a catalyst…and I couldn’t help but wonder when Tyler had written this.
But he made note of letting me go…which made me worry. All of these years later, I was still sure he’d call at any second and I’d have to go running. I was still certain I could save him.
He’d survived for so long to keep me from losing my mind—from losing the only true family I’d ever had. It was healing, in a way…His death wasn’t my fault—even though sometimes I was still sure it was. He helped to relieve my guilt, if only a little, and for that I was thrilled.
“Babe,” Brian frowned.
I swallowed down any feelings I had about it, “It’s perfect, isn’t it? I want to keep it rock…But not too much like the Haven sound. I need to find a balance…and it needs to have guitar. Good guitar…Will you help me?”
Brian smiled affectionately, reaching over to give my hand a squeeze, “Always.”

Notes

The song is Pins and Needles by Billy Talent, in case you didn't recognize it. It's beautiful and wonderful and I absolutely had to poach it. Here's a link in case you're curious about the sound of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg-GSagBJgY

Merry (almost) Christmas!

xx