We played a few gigs, just me and him, then we met up with Dixie for a few and it did help. Some. For a while.

But then the knowledge that I could never have her, could never hold her, and would eventually have to watch some other fuckhead marry her would get to be too much and I’d slip out to downtown and fuck the first girl who made eye contact.

I imagine Hell will be a lot like my life only hotter and more densely populated.

Once I’m dressed, I make the bed, as if cleaning up the scene of the crime will somehow help. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror above her dresser and I look like hammered shit on a stick. Or worse.

Thank fuck it was dark.

I stagger to the bathroom where she’s barricaded herself from the monster in her house. I lean against the door and I don’t know how but I can feel her. She’s sitting against the other side. I open my mouth to say I’m sorry, or to tell her to just steer clear of me for the rest of her life, but no words come.

Being soulless would be easier. I think I was once, but the first time I kissed her some of her soul slipped into me.

Damning me for life.

And maybe a piece of her, too.

“I’m sorry, Bluebird,” I say quietly, barely getting it out over the hard sob threatening to break free. I clear my throat so I can continue. “I’m a fucking asshole and I wanted you to . . . know, I guess. To see who I really am, what I’m capable of, so you would move on or whatever.”

Christ almighty this is harder than I thought it would be.

“Gavin.” The pain in her voice shoots straight through my chest.

“Dixie—”

“Tell me why, Gav. Tell me all of it.” She’s trying so hard not to cry. I can hear exactly how much effort it takes to get those words out.

I sigh against the door and just start talking. I begin somewhere around the beginning, around why this reminds me of my mom locking me out of the bathroom as a kid. My rambling takes us through my horrific childhood, into meeting her and Dallas, and I do my best to explain why they’ve always been and will always be the most important people in my life. I tell her about Lindy Preston and how that became an addiction—physical contact and why.

“You hurt me on purpose,” she says after a few minutes of excruciating silence.

“I did.” My voice is raspy and I’m not sure she heard me until she responds a moment later.

“Why?”

I breathe deeply and do my best to maintain my composure while the emotions flood through me.

“To help you see how awful I can be. How selfish and just . . . fucked-up, for lack of a better term.” I take a deep breath. “Asking you to wait for me to get my life together when I don’t even know if that’s ever going to be possible is unfair to you. But I know you. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know and you’d wait, you’d love me through whatever. And I love you for that. I love you for a lot of reasons. I love you because I didn’t know what love was before you.” And I apparently have opened that gate of unlimited I-love-yous. “You’ve been my Bluebird for a long time. But I’ve kept you in captivity. I’ve tried to hold you in some tiny cage and when you flew free, to Houston, I lost all control of myself. I . . . there’s so much.”

A sudden turn of the knob startles me and I’m face-to-face with her. She’s wrapped in a robe I assume was already in there and I’m grateful she wasn’t cold.

“Hey,” she says softly.

“Hey,” I answer barely above a whisper. “Thanks for opening the door. I have issues with . . . being locked out.”

Dixie’s eyes widen and gaze into mine. “It wasn’t locked, Gavin. I could never lock you out.”

Something about this, maybe because of my mom or my childhood, or whatever, it breaks whatever has been holding me together.

Dixie rushes into my arms and I hold her until I can’t stand. I rock her gently on the floor and we whisper comforting words back and forth. This is what Dixie is for me—what she always has been. Loving her isn’t trading one addiction for another—it’s finding peace and reassurance in a world of chaos.

Once she’s fallen completely asleep in my arms, I place her gently back in her bed, careful not to wake her.

My Bluebird deserves to fly and be free.

She deserves to belong to herself and not to me.

Now that she knows the truth, maybe she will.

“Gav, it’s me. Dallas. I don’t know what’s going on with you and my sister at the moment, but I need to know something and we need to rehearse if we’re going to do this thing.”

Delete.

“Hey, man. It’s me again. Look, neither one of you are returning calls or messages and I’m starting to get worried. If I worry, Robyn worries. Which puts our child’s health at risk. And Robyn’s health. Anything happens to either of them, I’m going to be pissed. Call me.”

Delete.

“Garrison I don’t know what in the ever-loving fuck has gotten into you or why you and my sister have gone off the grid, but if one of you doesn’t call me in the next twenty-four hours, I’m driving down there and kicking some ass.”

I have no doubt he will drive to Amarillo from Dallas to do just that.

Delete.

“Hey. Robyn talked to Dixie and I don’t know what happened but she said it was bad and that she was upset. She won’t talk about it. That means you’re going to. Be there in a few hours.”

Delete. And then I make sure my door is locked. I guess if he really wanted to get in he could, he’s done it before. Fuck it.

Pretty sure my mom is spending her days blitzed out at a crack house up the street that belongs to her boyfriend.

“I’m here. I’m outside. I will break in if I have to but I’d rather not. Man up and open the damn door please.”

Delete.

“I’m guessing whatever is going on is your fault since you’re avoiding me. ’Preciate the timing. You can withdraw us from battle since you’ve decided to be a fucking toddler. If you ever show your face at work again, that is.”

Delete.

“Hey, it’s me.”

My heart pounds because it isn’t Dallas’s voice on my voice mail this time.

It’s Dixie.

“Um, so I talked to Dallas and I’d really like it if we could go ahead and compete at the battle this weekend. The three of us. If you’re up for it.”

She pauses and I’m a burning man during that pause. Dying to hear more of her sweet voice and knowing it will wreck and ruin me at the same time.

“Anyway, we’re going to rehearse tonight at the same place downtown where we used to go.”

Another pause.

“We reserved two hours from six to eight if you want to come. Bye, Gav. I hope you’re okay.”

Repeat.

I play her message so many times, I feel beat to hell and back by the time my phone battery dies.

I put it on the charger for a while and when it comes back on I see I have another missed call. From her.

I play the message and it guts what’s left of me to gut.

“Hey. Sorry to be all stalkery with the multiple voice mails in one hour but I should’ve said something on the other message and I didn’t. So here goes. I want you to come to rehearsal tonight. I want you to play with us next Friday night at the Phi Kap gig and in the battle on Saturday. But mostly, I want us to not hate each other or hurt each other anymore. At least not if we can help it. I love you, Gavin. Bigger than your mistakes and bigger than the pain you cause me sometimes. Maybe that makes you mad or makes me seem desperate or stupid but I love you as much as I love music, maybe even more because I’ve loved you longer. Anyway, I do think we owe it to ourselves to see if the band has what it takes. Whatever happens afterward, I figure we’ll deal with when it comes.”

Since my mom hasn’t been around, there are no drugs that I know of in the house. Which means if I want any kind of fix, substance or sexual or otherwise, I have to go out. I suspect Dallas might be waiting to pounce on my ass or pound this shit out of me, depending on how much he knows.