Page 94 of Take My Hand

I rear back as if he slapped me. “What are you talking about?”

He clenches his jaw and looks away, shaking his head.

“No, tell me. What the hell do you mean I did that to you?”

“Like you don’t remember how you cut me off two years ago?”

I stare at him, truly confused.

“Fuck, you were never this dumb,” he says and earns a round of reprimands from Jane, Nikolai, and Walker. But I keep my mouth shut, watching him, trying to decipher what’s behind his eyes.

Yes, there’s indignation and annoyance on the surface. But I push past that, using the ten years of history I have with Reid to dig deeper, look harder.

Behind it all, the emotion that comes easiest to him and the one he’s been pushing out the most recently, is resentment. And hurt.

It sends a crack down my chest, and I know Reid recognizes it because instead of allowing me to question it, to pick it apart and pull it to the surface for us to talk through, he stifles it.

Because Reid doesn’t want anyone’s pity or understanding. He wants anger. It’s where he’s comfortable these days, where he’s found his haven and the idea of leaving the safety of it behind is scarier than the idea of losing everything the four of us have built all these years.

“I know you’re just trying to get a rise out of me and it’s not going to work this time,” I tell him calmly, drawing the attention of everyone around the table. “What I want is for you to finally tell me, tell all of us, what the fuck is going on. Because I didn’t believe you then and I definitely don’t believe it now when you said that your issue with me was that I slacked off my skills in the time off. That I wasn’t up to par with the rest of you anymore and that I lost my touch with music.”

Sure, I was admittedly a little rusty in the studio when we were still attempting to write our fifth album this spring before we called it off when the decision was made that we’d be done at the end of the summer. But I never thought that was the only reason Reid had for being so angry toward me.

“I just told you,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Well, say it again.”

“Fine.” He chugs that last of his beer and slams the bottle on the table, rattling the dishes surrounding it. “After the shooting, you completely cut me off. No calls, no texts, no work, nothing. I tried reaching out again and again, and each time, I was met with silence.”

My mind races, trying to go back to those days immediately following the shooting. They’re a blur. I stayed in Pittsburgh at my family's house for about a week, until Nikolai and I decided to fly back to LA together to try to get back to our lives.

But instead of being able to return to work, writing music, and jumping back into my routine, my mind sent me into a tailspin anytime I left the house. Or saw someone walking down the street in a hoodie because I didn’t know what they could possibly be hiding under there. There was no difference between my nightmares and my reality because that single event blurred the two of them together.

Every night when I closed my eyes, I saw that student rise in the sea of students and open fire. Splashes of red blooming against white graduation gowns and screams of horror ringing in my ears.

I couldn’t sleep, could barely eat, and all I wanted was some space from everyone. Their comforting words meant nothing to me. It didn’t erase my memory, didn’t bring back the lives that were lost in front of my eyes.

For about six months I lived like that, isolated and struggling with the most basic of tasks.

Until one day it hit me. That I had survived, and I was wasting my life rotting away while there were people who weren’t given the same chance I had. To do something with my life, to continue to live each day.

So I started therapy, slowly but surely making my way back out into the world, until I’ve finally reached the place I’m in today where I’m not magically fixed and my mind still tries to overpower me, but I’m trying. And that’s all I can do.

“I just needed space,” I tell Reid. “It wasn’t anything personal against you, or anyone here at this table.” I gesture to Jane and the rest of the guys, who were all around in the aftermath of it. “I just needed to be alone and process everything.”

“Well, you should’ve fucking said that then instead of leaving me high and dry. How was I supposed to know that when you wouldn’t communicate with me?”

“How was I supposed to know that’s what has been bothering you all this time when you didn’t communicate with me?” I shoot back.

“Because I shouldn’t have had to tell you! You probably still have all my missed calls and unanswered texts on your phone. You really thought that you could just ghost me for months and then reappear all of a sudden, trying to act like nothing happened?”

“I didn’t?—”

“I had enough of that shit pulled on me as a kid, I didn’t need my best friend doing it to me as an adult.”

Reid’s words fall on me like a bomb, regret and realization exploding and destroying all the anger I hold toward him.

Despite being friends with Reid since we were fifteen and sixteen years old, he’s always been tightlipped about his family. He transferred to our school during sophomore year and quickly became friends with Nikolai and he brought him into the fold.

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