Page 190 of Goodbye Note

I flipped him off. “I still don’t get why you think this was such a good idea.”

“Because they have die-hard fans like you do. If we can get them to overlap more, we benefit, and since you are with the same label, they get to double dip. Believe it or not, I don’t want the PR disaster of you two back, which the record label conveniently doesn’t remember. But I didn’t get a choice either. I just embraced it before you did.” Kiernan pointed at my laptop. “You’re on in twenty seconds.”

I put my mask back on and went through the whole spiel, talking about our album and fielding questions.

It wasn’t until the second to last interview I got the question. “Avid fans know the last time you were on tour with Dopamine-Fiend, there were some heavy tabloid rumors about you that got pretty nasty. How does it feel to be on tour with the subject of those rumors again, especially with the very pointed song you just released?” They’d been told not to ask about my sexuality as a condition of the interview. This seemed to be their shitty workaround.

“I didn’t have a problem with the rumors then. Tabloids print clickbait. They always have, and they always will. It’s not an insult to be called those things. The part I found annoying was how aggressive paparazzi have been with me and their lack of boundaries since that time.”

“Do you think you signed up for this when you decided to pursue a career in music?”

“No. I think I signed up for curiosity surrounding my private life since I share a lot, but I don’t think anyone has a right to harass, bully, and stalk people because of their fame.” Thankfully, these questions were easy. I had answers I always gave because the problem never stopped. Only my strategy changed. I’d spent the last seventeen years feeding them crap through PR relationships.

It got them off my back and gave them shit to fill headlines.

“Your album is pretty heavy. Is this a heartbreak?”

“The album is my life in review. It’s a look into the last twenty years, but it’s not all heartbreak. Pain infiltrates our lives in every situation we end up in. There will always be more layers than romantic love. I used the album to mourn all the versions of myself I’ve killed to get here.”

“Killed? That sounds intense,” the host said.

“I think killing is the process of moving on. It’s not bad to shed skin that doesn’t fit anymore.”And if I didn’t kill those versions of myself I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed.

“I think that’s a really good way of looking at it. Thanks for chatting with us, and we’ll see you on tour?—”

I cut off the feed and dropped my head back. “I need to smoke after all that.”

“One more, you’ll get through it.”

The last one pressed the Varian topic—and with a lot less tact.

“Care to comment on all the rumors about you and Varian? There any truth to those?”

“Do you think it’s appropriate to push those kinds of narratives?” I wasn’t a liar, and I’d told everyone from our breakup I would not deny it.

“I think I’m asking the questions the fans want to know.” He shot back, all cocky. Like he was the proud douche for being the one to break our terms.

“I think you and anyone else who wants to know should take a hard look at yourself for asking this shit about a married man.” I gave him the peace sign and ended the video call. “Hope that doesn’t piss you off.”

“Nope. You did what I would have done,” Kiernan said.

“I’m going to go take a walk.”

“Shouldn’t you catch some sleep?” Kiernan didn’t look up from his laptop. “Don’t leave the arena. There are already lines outside.”

“I’m fine. I probably won’t sleep before sound check.” This was the downside to playing arenas. Much bigger production load in and load out, and nowhere to go walk in the morning. I loved festivals for the big empty space.

I did a lap around the underground floor as the crews moved in all our gear and worked through setting up the stage. I hit the elevator, wanting to go score a pretzel. The door started to close, but someone slipped in.

I half glanced at him, nodding before doing a double take.

Varian stood there with an awkward grimace on his face. “Sorry. I didn’t realize.”

I’d have walked out, but the doors had already shut. It felt like a cruel joke. We had a full crew, six buses, and two opening bands besides Second Star and Dopamine-Fiend. Despite that, the one guy I had to see constantly was Varian. I couldn’t stop running into him.

I didn’t even see Ser that much, and he and I shared a bus.

“It’s fine.” I hit the button again. The elevator started moving, and I avoided Varian’s eyes.

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