Through All the Dust

I surveyed my bags, all three of them. They were stacked neatly on the bed, organized and sorted like it would make a difference once I got on the road. My mind plagued me as I worried about my luggage. I couldn’t help but think about the last time I was out on the road...I’d only survived it because of Jimmy and Brian.
I was on the edge of my departure and I would have neither. What if I spiraled again? What if I couldn’t stay in control?
All I wanted was a sign. Something to tell me that it would all pan out; that all of the reassurances I’d been offering freely to Brian were true. I needed something...anything.
Where would I have been if Tyler hadn’t died? Would I be married? Would I be a solo artist? Would Justin and I be friends still?
Tyler had demanded so very much of me...and even in his absence, I felt that endless need to validate his existence. At the best of times, I was nothing but a liability. In any point of my life, I knew that I might snap. I just wasn’t sure I’d survive it a second time around.
“Babe?” Brian’s voice beckoned me from the shallows.
I snapped from my daze, scolding myself for entertaining the worries in my soul.
He wrapped an inked arm around my waist and rested his head on my shoulder, surveying my bags as I had been before my mind got away from me.
”I can’t believe you’re leaving,” he sighed. “It doesn’t feel real.”
I mimicked his exhale, desperate not to think about it but knowing I would have to.
”Only for a month before I see you,” I told him in my most reassuring voice. “That’ll fly by.”
”Seven weeks,” he informed me glumly. “That’s closer to two than one, my sweet little accountant wife.”
”Fuck off,” I smirked, swooning at his use of the w word.
”It’s going to be weird,” Brian thought aloud. “For both of us.”
My brow shifted, “To be apart?”
He nodded softly, releasing me from his grasp and fiddling through my bags, “To be without Jimmy.”
I didn’t understand the sentiment. We’d been without Jimmy for nearly nine full months...While it was still weird, it was a strange normalcy by that point.
“On tour,” Brian clarified over his shoulder. “Jim was there for both of our last tours...It’s going to be so quiet without him.”
I agreed with a grim kind of weird breathing. When I really thought about it, it was enough to have me hyperventilating. Brian dig around for a few more seconds, quickly destroying the work I’d put into folding and sorting the contents of each bag.
”You’re not bringing Jim’s necklace?” he asked me oddly.
I smiled, reaching up to my neck to pull the cross from beneath my shirt. Brian smiled back, reaching out to run his fingers over it.
”I’m glad you ended up with it,” he told me seriously.
I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I didn’t. I rearranged my bags before tossing them carelessly to the floor.
”Four months,” Brian grumbled almost to himself.
My eyes dared him, “Please stop. You’re going to work me into a coma and I’ll never fucking come out of it.”
He smiled fondly, “I’ll just miss you.”
”I’ll miss you too,” I assured him. “But once my tours out of the way, I can come stowaway on yours for a while. It’ll be like a hectic and weird honeymoon. Just our style.”
He laughed with a nod, “You can be my Jimmy.”
”Just no overdosing,” I grinned. “That isn’t something I’m keen to repeat.”
Brian’s face twisted into worriesome recollection. He cringed at the very thought.
“Too soon?” I teased.
He cocked an eyebrow, “To joke about the day I almost lost you forever? It’ll always be too soon for that shit.”
”Fair enough,” I said in my best Rev impression to ease the mood.
It worked, thankfully.
“In your travels through my shit, did you happen to notice if I was missing anything?” I asked curiously.
He shook his head, “No...”
His lingering signalled a hesitation that left me wondering.
“Is there a but to follow that?”
His eyes were reluctant, he licked at his lips like his words had betrayed him and left him dry.
“I came across Tyler’s binder the other day,” he told me slowly.
There was no coming across it. It was stored neatly in our bookshelf among the other great minds of the world. I hadn’t cracked it’s cover since I’d peeled a song from it for the benefit. It was something I needed to have around me but it was something I could never convince myself to totally dive into.
It was too deep.
”And?” I beckoned callously.
He hesitated greatly, biting at his tongue.
”And?” I urged again.
”How much of his stuff have you read?”
I shrugged, “There’s some Haven stuff in there..I haven’t been exploring if that’s what you’re asking.”
He nodded weirdly.
”You read it,” I stated flatly.
He nodded more surely.
”How much?” I asked, feeling weirdly defensive.
”All of it,” he said ashamedly. “And before you yell, I wasn’t just being a nosy fucker.”
”Then why? Why now?”
He sighed, “I wanted to find something to include in the wedding for you...But after reading the first two, I knew it would just destroy you...”
I was not pleased by any of this information. I felt violated somehow. It made no sense...but I did.
”And you’re bringing it up now because...”
”Have you read the last one?” he asked pointedly.
I shrugged, “Maybe. I don’t know.”
He sensed my defensiveness and tried to cool me. It wasn’t happening. As if I wasn’t already obsessing about Tyler in the days leading up to the tour, still feeling entirely like I was betraying everything Tyler had worked for...Now Brian was bringing him up in the worlds most abstract and vague way that I was boiling.
“I think you should,” Brian said finally. “You’d know it if you’d read it.”
I stared at him angrily.
”Blair,” Brian croaked. “I know that Tyler’s letter—“
”Do not,” I warned gravely.
That was a hot button topic that Brian had known better to avoid in the years since Tyler’s passing. I’d always drowned in the void left my Tyler’s lack of words, his lack of compassion for where his actions would leave me. But I’d made some attempt at peace with it and Brian and I had silently agreed to never speak of it again.
“Blair,” he said again.
”Please don’t do this to me,” I urged. “Not now. Not right before I leave. I’m already afraid of what being without you is going to do to me... I don’t need to confuse that further by dwelling on the past.”
”It isn’t the past,” Brian argued sternly. “It’s you. It’s every day. I didn’t understand until I lost Jimmy. Now I see it clearly; I know it’s still inside of you. I can see what it’s done...what it’s doing.”
”Brian,” I seethed.
”Just read it,” he instructed me firmly. “Please?”
”No,” I said shortly.
”I’m worried for you too,” he told me then. “And I’m worried for me...But...We need to start moving on. And the only way to do that is to lick our fucking wounds, Blair.”
”Okay, Buddha,” I groaned impatiently.
He smirked, “You’re angry... and that anger is going to wreck you. I’ve let off saying anything about it for a long fucking time. But you don’t even talk about him anymore. You never bring him up. You bring Jimmy up every time—and I’m not fucking judging you,” he added just as I was about to slit his throat. “I get it. I’m angry too. But there’s nothing left for me to make sense of mine...there’s hope for you. I need to help you.”
Against my will, I felt myself giving.
”Wait here,” he instructed me before darting from the room.
I was mad. I was deeply wounded. It felt like Brian was pulling up my past to make sense of his present. I wasn’t a fucking martyr.
He knew I’d give him what he wanted just to avoid rocking his anchored boat. That manipulative fuck.
But he also knew me better than nearly anyone...so I decided to trust him. Even if I didn’t want to.
When he returned, he slid the binder onto the bed and flipped it to the last page. He tapped it twice with his tattooed fingers and then took his leave.
I took my time even glancing at the thing. It seemed a lot like opening Pandora’s box. What good could possibly come of this?
Brian would never lead me down a rabbit hole for kicks.
So, with a big girl breath and a bloody lip, I read.

Watching the wind cut through the clouds,
watching the rain drops blinking red and white.
Thinking of you back on the ground, there with a fire burning in your eyes.
I only halfway apologize.
And I’ll be sorry for now that I couldn’t be around.
Sometimes things refuse to go the way we’ve planned.
And I’ll be sorry for now that I couldn’t be around,
There will be a day that you will understand.
After a while, you may forget... but just in case the memories cross your mind,
You couldn’t know this when I left,
Under the fire of your angry eyes...I never wanted to say goodbye.
I’ll be sorry for now that I couldn’t be around,
There are things we have to do that we can’t stand.
And I’ll be sorry for now that I couldn’t be around,
There will be a day that you will understand.
You will understand.

With no concern for volume, I fell the fuck apart.
This, I knew, was closure. Just as Brian had predicted.
And when he came in to take me into his chest, I loved him more than I ever thought I could.

Notes

This was written on my fucking iPhone so forgive me if there are a shit ton of autocorrect induced typos.

xx