▪️Saturday, January 23rd, 2018▪️

▪️Phoenix, AZ▪️

Nothing.

I feel nothing.

Maybe that's what it's like when your heart is no longer functioning.

The racket of a cart takes my eyes off the door into Angie's room. A housekeeper turns around the corner.

"Are you okay, sir?" She stops feet away. I wouldn't approach me if I were in her place.

"Fine. I'll get out of your way." I have to hold on to the wall as I get up. I'm light-headed, and the hallway looks like I'm in the first-person shooter game. If the maid pulls out a semi-automatic and splatters my brain against the wall, I wouldn't be surprised.

She throws another glance at me. "Housekeeping." She knocks on the door of the room she paused by, gives me the once-over, and enters the room.

I look down and remember I'm wearing nothing but my boxers. She's probably going to call the hotel security, and I don't need to be arrested for indecent exposure. I pick up my pants and zip my fly.

"Trouble in paradise?" The English accent tells me one of The Whats is behind me. "Need help getting dressed?" No need to turn and see it's Neil.

"Fuck off." I untangle my shirt and slide my head and arms through the stretchy material.

"You curse a lot for a nice guy. Maybe Angie is wrong about you."

"The fuck you're talking about?" I glare at him.

"Angie. Inside." He gestures at the door to Angie's room. "You. Hallway." Neil points at my backpack, phone, jacket and shows strewn around me. "Clearly, for a reason. What shitty thing did you do, lover-boy?" He walks closer, and although he's shorter and many pounds lighter than me, I can sense the threat. He's been in fights before. But so have I.

"None of your business." I aim for my I'm-in-charge voice, but the words come out more like a trembling mess. My eyes water, and my nose stings. I hide my face behind one hand and wipe the liquid before it trickles down my cheeks. Feeling like a failure isn't unfamiliar but doing it in front of Neil is doubly humiliating. I want rage inside me instead of the tears. I'm not a fucking cry-baby.

"You're wrong there, mate." Neill loses his cocky tone and sounds like he is a person and not a dick. "She's part of our tour family, and we take care of each other." He steps so close I can slam my palm into him. But I don't, because I'm not a dick. "If you do anything to her, you..."

"What?" I stare at him. Bring it on.

"You'll hear from our lawyers."

"Right." I sinker. "Threaten me with legal action after I had a fight with my...with Angie."

"A fight? What exactly happened?" He looks at my hands as if he's expecting my knuckles to be raw or bleeding. Who the fuck does he think I am?

"I've got it handled." I sound so pathetic even I don't believe what I say.

"Handled? She kicked you out."

Sharp pain hits me in the solar plexus. I wish it were Neil's fist. I clutch my chest and hold on to the wall with the other.

"Whoa." Neil steadies me. "You need to sit down."

I watch him pick up the rest of my stuff off the floor. He puts my arm around his shoulder, and we walk side by side to the elevator. The ache spreads into my throat and meets the hastily swallowed tears. They mix into a concoction that's too heavy for me to carry. I'm suddenly frail, and Neil holds me up for real.

"She'll cool down." He pushes the button for the elevator. "She likes you too much."

"I know she does," I grumble. "I don't need your jealous ass to tell me that."

"Jealous?" Neil gets me over the threshold into the elevator. "Yeah, you got me. I'm jealous. And I am also fully aware she's not into me." Neil's the last person I've imagined helping me under any circumstances. He's the last person I've imagined accepting help from. Yet, here we are, me-draped over him. Him-talking to me like he doesn't plan to maim me. "She'll cool down. You're going to figure this out. I'll make sure she's taken care of in the meantime."

"She doesn't want me to take care of her." My fears make their way out of my head and ring in the small space of the elevator. "That's what I was trying to do, but she threw it back at me as if I'm doing something horrible. She has a problem. I can sense it." How can I explain the invisible connection between us? My heart just knows, yet I'd sound woo-woo if I say it to anyone but Angie.

"Is it about the drug thing?"

"How?" I turn my head to guess from his expression what he might be aware of. "What do you know?"

"I've seen the bottle she forgot in the bus bathroom once." The elevator stops and the doors open. "It's prescription. But I don't think she's using them according to doctor's instructions."

Not using them according to doctor's instructions is a nice phrase. What it hides is the truth I've been afraid of. I was right, but this fact doesn't soothe me there's nothing to celebrate. I'd much rather be in the wrong and apologize, but I'm not wrong. The heaviness inside me stirs as we walk in silence along a hallway. If I were not in the elevator, it would be indistinguishable from the floor I left. The only difference is that the room numbers start with six instead of two.

"You didn't even unpack before you came to spy on us?" Neil's suite is bigger, with two bedrooms instead of one, like the one Angie and I swapped for. His suitcase sits unpacked by the closet.

"Not spy. Check. And mess with you." He sucks air through his teeth. "I'm not an angel. I'm still pissed she likes you." His buddy-buddy tone confuses me. Like he's one of my fraternity bros playing a prank on me and drawing a toothpaste mustache or peeing in my beer cup and watching me drink the piss before telling me. But it also feels familiar. Welcome. Like I can trust him. I sit down on the bed closest to me.

"She needs help." The heaviness in me propels the words I'd probably regret. "But she pushed me away and out of the door when I stupidly brought it up. How do I get her help? I can't sit by and watch her ruin her health. How do I get through to her?" Why am I asking this douchebag? I bury my fingers in my hair and pull, as if I can extract the answer from my head.

"Maybe that is not your job." Neil sits in the chair opposite me. His face is neutral. Eyes calm. "This is about her. Not about you."

His calmness reroutes the agony in my body. Not about me. My mind jumps to Angie. Alone in the hotel room. Angry at me. Neil's right. "I don't want her to lose her career to this, or her life."

"I get it. You're not wrong to be concerned." He gets up and opens the mini-fridge, takes a bottle of water, and throws it my way. My training kicks in, and I catch the icy-cold plastic tube without trying. He opens another one for himself and takes a sip. "I'll talk to Poppy. See if there's something we can do with our doc or contractually to make her visit one." Neil takes another sip. "As I said, we're a family on the road... or off. And we take care of our own. You know you can leave her with us, and she'll be safe."

The bottle in my hand is wet. I touch it against my chest, run it around my neck, and put my forehead on it. The condensation on its sides cools my skin and my feverish thoughts. I can think again, but I don't want to. "I have a plane to catch, a big new contract presentation at my job on Monday, need to change so much stuff at the dojang before it opens up in March, and the only thing I want to do is stay here, break the door to Angie's room, and force her to talk to me."

"But you're not going to do that."

"Give me a reason why not." Persuade my stupid heart because I seem incapable of doing it. "Why should I not fight for her?"

"I'm not telling you not to fight for her." Neil crumples the empty bottle, performs a perfect toss, and lands it square into the empty trash can. "You can't use brute force with Angie. She's not that type of a person."

Not that type. I shake my head. "Don't tell me she needs space."

"From what I've seen in the last two months of being with her every day on the road, on stage, in the writing mode, she uses the pills to stop the downward curve when things get rough, instead of facing them. And it's not healthy."

"Yeah, tell me more about how close you two are." He may have said he knows Angie is not into him, but knowing he is into her, and knowing that he, not I, is the one who gets to spend every day with her doesn't do any good for my jealousy. I didn't know this feeling existed before, but I got a full dose of it with Angie. "Rub it in."

"Hey. She needs time." Neil snaps his fingers. "Not to be away from you, but to get closer to herself." He resumes his pacing in the aisle between the beds. "To have a healthy relationship you both need to be healthy individuals."

"The time is for her."

"That's how I see it." He shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks on his heels. "I'm not a doctor, but I've been through trauma of my own and seen this pattern in others, in myself, even, before I got help."

"What made you get help?" I don't lower my gaze.

"There was no one thing, no savior." He winces, like the memory physically hurts him. "Loads of messing up. My bandmates... I know I sound like a broken record... they are my family. They kept at it, and supported me, and tolerated my binges and erratic behavior. They kept suggesting I talk to someone until one day I did. And I started therapy. And that's been two years ago. Can't tell you I'm all better, I'll always be an addict, and there are days I want to give up and give in, but"- He gives me a sad smile and looks at his feet-"I'm on the upward trajectory."

"How do you know?"

"Huh." Neil laughs. "If we met two years ago, I wouldn't be talking to you about Angie and my life. I'd be beating your face into a pulp, then knocking on her door."

"Your face would be the pulp." I feel a smile tug on my lips.

"I'm not picking and choosing what to tell you about my journey. She's beautiful, smart, a musical genius, but she's not interested. I'm at a point in my life where I'm looking for people who want me for me, not the fame, not my talent, and not because I want them. Me wanting someone doesn't make them love me. I've learned that lesson." He pulls his phone out of his pocket. "Let's get you to the airport."