Page 26 of Your Echo
Matt’s a drama queen when it comes to shit like this, but I can hear the hint of fear in his anger now.
“Look, it’s not that bad,” I try to placate him. “I’ll have the song ready. I’m serious when I said it was a breakthrough. I have this idea for the concept of the album—”
He doesn’t let me finish. “We’re meeting with Maxime today to sort this out. I already sent you the details. Be there.”
He hangs up.
Three hours later, we’re all sitting in the living room of the apartment Matt and JP share. The place is littered with JP’s half-finished ‘restoration projects.’ The guy has an addiction to garage sales and fucking around with minor machinery.
Maxime sits in an armchair while the rest of us crowd together on the sagging couch. Matt refused to hold the meeting in our basement rehearsal space, and I don’t begrudge him the fact. I forgot how much this guy actually looks like a goblin. It’s fucking creepy. I wouldn’t want him in the basement. I don’t know how Matt can handle having him in the apartment.
“I can make this all go away,” Maxime is telling us, “withun petit peu de coopération.Atlas has made it clear what they want.”
“Which is...?” Cole prompts.
“Rehab,” Maxime answers flatly. “Or AA. Some sort of structured professional help.”
I let out a sharp laugh. “That’s funny.”
No one else joins me. I lean forwards on the couch.
“Rehab? Seriously? I’m not addicted to anything. I spent two months on tour without drinking a single drop. InEurope, for fuck’s sake.”
Another moment of silence.
“I don’t think you’re an addict,” Cole finally says, stroking his chin like a fucking sage, “but I do think you could easily become one.”
I jump to my feet. “This is bullshit. Atlas can’t ask me to do that. There is nothing in the contract about anything like that.”
“C’est vrai,” Maxime offers, “but they can drop you off the label if you don’t.”
“They wouldn’t do that. We’re their biggest band.”
“You’re their fifth most lucrative asset,” Maxime corrects.
“We’regoingto be their biggest band,” I argue back, “and they know it. They’re bluffing. They’re just trying to prove how big their dick is right now.”
Matt reaches up and pulls me back down on the couch. “A few months ago I would have agreed with you, but they’re getting tired of this. If they don’t feel like they can control us, we’re no good to them. It’s too soon in our career for us to survive the stigma of being dropped, especially from a label as big as Atlas. It would end us.”
I barely hear what he’s saying. There’s no way I’m going through with this. Rehab, counselling, ‘talking’ about my ‘problems’—that’s not an option for me. I was taught from a young age that skeletons belong in the closet and dirt belongs under the rug. No fucking way I’m letting some therapist try to shine the light of truth where it doesn’t belong.
There has to be another way out. I’m fine. I’m in control. Sure I miss meetings every now and then, but I wrote several songs in the span of two days. I fuckingmeditatedlast night.
Then it hits me.
“What if I had a personal meditation coach?” I demand, cutting off Matt’s continued speech. “Does that count?”
I can feel all the guys’ eyes on me.
“Sure,” Maxime answers, looking a bit stunned.
“Done,” I assert. “When do we start recording?”
