Page 41 of Where Happiness Begins

“That’ll teach you,” I say. Then, because I apparently love torturing him, I shift slightly, making him hiss through his teeth. His hand clenches tighter around my hip, but it doesn’t succeed in keeping me still.

“Hey, lovebirds, what are you whispering over there?” Bong shouts at us.

I straighten, but my gaze shifts behind me. “Carter was just telling me about some water damage at home. Abig pipeleaked, apparently.”

Carter sputters something that he covers with a cough while Bong says, “Shit, really?” The rest of the guys chime in on their meager experience with plumbing, but my attention rests on Carter, who gives a small shake of his head.

“What did I do to get tied to a brat like you again?”

I grin. “I don’t know. Must’ve been really good in a past life.” Then, for good measure, I shift again, ever so slightly.

“All right, you’re done,” he says, making us both climb to our feet, keeping me in front of him.

I laugh, then go to walk away. “Oh, wait, I need to—”

He clamps an arm around my middle to keep me close as a shield, then says in a low voice, “You’re the devil.”

He’s way too fun to mess with. I look up at him, then whisper, “Aren’t you lucky to be stuck with me then.”

Chapter 17

Carter

Three and a half years ago

If I can say one thing about Frank DiLorenzo, it’s that he doesn’t give up easily.

After that second meeting in the diner, I don’t magically begin to pour out my life story to him, but I try to be less of an asshole about the whole thing, and that seems to be enough for him. As payment for me being civil, he tolerates us talking about literally anything else, so long as we meet once a week. He doesn’t even rat me out to the judge about my lack of trying, so for that, I’ll do all the small talk in the world. I begin by humoring him with answers when he comments on the Sox’s shitshow of a season, and when he brings up his favorite movies during the next meeting, I can’t help but butt in with my favorite picks—mostly because of their insane soundtracks—and somehow, during that one-hour session, he doesn’t need to open his crosswords book once.

The following weeks look something like that too. We meet in a café or a restaurant, he asks me how my week has been, and when I say, “Fine,” he opens his book, then begins chitchatting about life. Sometimes I join in, sometimes I only give one-worded answers while I, too, mess around in a sudoku book I bought at the convenience store down the road, and those sessions are fine by me.I still attend the group meetings once every two weeks, but there, I can blank out and pretend I’m not there. All in all, things are fine. I don’t feel like any of it helps keep away from drinking—that is out of sheer will alone—but it’s not so bad either.

Except today, poor Next-Door-Neighbor Frank finds me in a mood I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. It’s not his fault, but I can’t do anything about it. Not when I’m this fucked-up inside.

It started off with something so stupid, it shouldn’t even have caused a reaction. I got a box of things in the mail. That’s it. A box of things.

Except those were things I’d left behind when I escaped California and booked a one-way flight to Boston.

Once I was cleared by the medical staff and was able to leave the hospital after my accident, arm in a sling and soul shattered, I decided that had to be my wake-up call. I didn’t even stop by the hotel where the band had been staying. I knew I didn’t have enough self-restraint to go back there, to see the boys probably high out of their minds, still partying, and be strong enough to leave. So I got a taxi straight to the airport and booked a flight to the farthest place in the States that came to mind. I didn’t know anyone in Boston, and that was just as well. All the people close to me were related to my career as a musician in one way or another, which meant no one was left when I quit.

And because I left so abruptly, I never went back to pick up the stuff I’d left in the hotel room. I never even emptied my studio apartment in LA—my landlord must’ve given my old furniture away to goodwill by now. I’d forgotten all about those things I’dleft behind until I received the giant box to my new address here. I opened it up to find bunched up clothes, my computer, and most importantly, my favorite guitar.

It used to be, at least. Ever since my father sat me down at four years old and decided I would become a guitar player, not a day went by when I didn’t play. That specific guitar is the one I bought the day we signed our record deal.

This morning, seeing it in its case almost made me want to puke. I both wanted to tug it close to my chest and throw it out the window. I slowly opened the case and dragged my fingers over its silk-soft black wood, chipped around the body from so many sessions of heavy playing. I hadn’t touched a guitar in over four months. My fingers itched to pick it up and play.

My relationship with the instrument has always been strange. When I was a kid, I made myself sick over it. My parents said I’d be good, and so I would be. I’d play all the time. When my classmates attended birthday parties, I played. When they won spelling bees, I played. When they hung out over the weekends, you guessed it: I played. I didn’t care how much it overwhelmed everything in my life. When my mother would look up from her phone and pause a few minutes to listen to me play, then come to kiss the top of my head and tell me how good I was, it was worth all the sacrifice in the world.

Then, when I got old enough to understand that my mom and dad sucked at being parents and didn’t actually want kids, only little music prodigies like the clients they focused all their energy on representing, I decided to say fuck it. They wanted meto play? I would do everything I could not to. I wouldn’t bend over backward to please them anymore. It made no sense. They’d neverseeme, and I recognized that now. The thing was, at that point, I was addicted. The guitar was my safe space. It was what I did when I wanted to drown out my parents’ shouting matches in the kitchen, or when I wanted to comfort myself when I realized I was seventeen and didn’t have a single friend, like a goddamn loser. Plus, I was good at it. Playing brought me some sense of comfort I’d never found anywhere else. So, at that point, I started playing in secret. Hiding from my parents because I didn’t want them to think I was their little puppet anymore, but I also couldn’t walk away from it. I didn’t want the guitar to be theirs anymore. I wanted it to be mine and mine alone. I could play for hours, and nothing could ever come close to it.

At some point, when I realized it was the one thing I was good at and Brandon asked if I was ready to go all in with him, I did what any sane person would do: I said yes and followed him wherever he wanted. I wasn’t dumb enough to say no to that, even to piss my parents off.

Our band got a surprisingly good start, even with two players who had contacts in the industry, and soon enough, we were signing contracts and playing gigs with big names and being invited to parties, and I lost myself in that. In a way, the guitar led me to where I am now, which is an alcoholic who has nothing and no one, except for this one man waiting for me at the café table, sitting by himself. The one who somehow hasn’t given up onme yet.

Seeing my guitar this morning only reminded me of everything I lost along the way. Most importantly, I had to give up the one thing that ever made me content. I can’t play anymore—it’s too tangled up in my mistakes, in my drinking.

The fact that no note was in the box didn’t help either. I know Brandon’s the one who sent it. He’s the only one who has my new address, purely for business purposes. We still had contracts and engagements going on when I left. I can see my own fault in that, in destroying everyone around me by trying to save myself, but it still hurt when the only person I’d ever felt was actually on my side decided I wasn’t worth a single word to him.

I spent the day looking at that guitar still sitting in my living room, almost like a living entity that was taunting me with everything it had ever given me before taking it all away. Every glance made me tenser, turning me into a roiling cloud of anger.

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