Page 129 of The Fix

My heart pounds in my chest.

“We get the fuck back up, right?”

The mass goes wild.

Rex lifts his hand, his palm facing the crowd.

“Do you know how long it takes to form a habit?” Rex pauses as some patrons yell out answers we can’t actually hear, then nods. “Thirty days. Do you know how long it takes to break that habit?”

I swallow hard against the emotion building in my throat when Rex lifts the marker to his raised hand and makes a thick black slash across his palm. “Three months … but we’re not here to celebrate three months.”

The yells are loud as he makes a second slash across his palm, the marks creating an X.

“We’re here for two hundred and thirty days.”

My lungs hitch and my heart feels like it might stop.

“Let’s fuckin’ see ’em.”

Rex raises his arm up high, palm facing out, and with it, thousands of As Above’s fans lift theirs.

And each one of them, from the back to the front, all hold high the same mark on their hands, forming a sea of thick black X’s.

A mark signifying that every one of them have chosen to abstain from alcohol, at least for the night.

The very same mark I put on my own hand before I showed up here tonight, as a reminder to the promises I not only made myself, but the ones I made for Anna, too. For my brothers here on stage with me.

For my pops.

My fingers faulter on the strings and my vision blurs.

“For Toby.”

“For Toby.”

It takes me a moment to blink my vision back, but when I do, it’s aimed right at her.

Anna.

My Anna.

Her arm is raised just like the rest of them, her palm donning the same mark as mine, adoration shining in her wet eyes.

I know she can’t hear me, but I couldn’t stop the words from tumbling from my lips if I tried.

And just when I thought tonight couldn’t get any goddamn better, my girl grins at me with shining eyes, nods her head, and mouths the same three little words right back to me.

I love you.

One year later

Epilogue One

Toby

The Resurrection World Tour is in full swing, and for the first time in half a year, the band is finally playing near our hometown again for three solid nights before we jet off to another continent.

Even with breaks in between and my woman at my side, it’s been hard.

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