Page 1 of Faithful

1 UNTITLED DEMO

August sneaks up on me quietly, like a creeper.

The self-imposed radio silence Kai and I agreed to maintain due to the incident with the lighter that got out of hand is depressing.

His absence reminds me of a coloring book. You flip through the pages you’ve already completed, soaking up all the hard work you’ve done, and then you eventually reach the ones that are yet to be filled and their dullness, their monochromatic state pushes against your eyes with such ferocity that you forget altogether it’s your job to transform the drawings.

So you just sit there and wonder what to do next.

Kinda like I’m wondering now each time a new Google alert hits my phone.

The only positive in this mess is my move.

One minute I’m cataloging my possessions to determine what to take with me to my new place, the next Leigh calls to let me know a two-bedroom in her building just opened up and she made an appointment for us to see the unit.

I suppose I should be more excited about the upcoming change, and in part I am, but my happiness is tainted by the shitstorm the accusations Kai has to battle are causing in the media.

Divine Dave is happy. His YouTube channel has a whole series of videos about Iodine–and specifically its front man–and the views keep crawling up. His theories about the band’s ties to the occult are wilder and wilder with each new upload.

But Spotify streams forBlack Masshave also skyrocketed.

People are curious. They hurry to fire up their apps and play the fuck out of the “most controversial” record of the year. They want to know if they can detect which lyrics are satanic and which lyrics are a camouflage. And if they can’t figure it out, they run to YouTube to consult Divine Dave’s channel.

And it’s exactly what the band needs.

Publicity is publicity after all. (Am I right?)

So, yeah, it’s a good thing.

The bad thing?

The awful silence that’s filled these past couple of weeks.

Deep down I know it’s what we agreed on. It’s wise. But every night when I go to sleep, I keep wondering where he is and what he’s doing and if he’s feeling just as terrified as I am of this distance growing into something more permanent, and those thoughts, those feelings, and those wants scare me even more.

I never believed I could be this worried about someone other than Ava.

I was wrong.

* * *

For Kai, the scrutiny doesn’t end after Iodine’s PR representatives issue a public statement about what truly happened and why the singer reacted the way he did.

Apparently, the half-assed apology–as his haters call it–doesn’t diminish the fact that Evelyn Grimm is now in need of a new haircut.

In turn, Evelyn Grimm demands justice on Twitter.

Iodine stans offer to pay for her new wig.

Meanwhile, Olivia Vazquez from California gives an on-camera interview to some online magazine that concentrates on modern witchcraft. In it, she continues to call Kai “a medium” and claims that he has appeared in her dreams more than once since the fainting incident in L.A.

Two days after said interview, the internet speculates whether Kai is the father of her child.

I want to strangle them both–Olivia Vazquez and Evelyn Grimm.

* * *

Unlike my private life, work is mostly boring.

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