Page 139 of Cherry Beats

She passed them over, and I flicked through before I opened the one on the top and worked my way through his letters.

Cherry,

Missed me? Of course you have. Who wouldn’t?

Should you have missed me? No. Should I be missing you? It doesn’t make any sense.

It’s been a year since I last saw you, and I still feel like you’re the realest thing I ever held… and that’s coming from a guy who once thought the only real thing in his life were his drumsticks.

Now I hold them in my hands every day.

Sometimes all day.

But they don’t pulse beneath my fingertips the way you did, no matter how hard and heavy I hit. They’re not warm like your skin. They don’t hold me back the way you did.

Guess you made me high. Made me reach a peak I didn’t know I wanted to climb.

Can’t match that on the drums now, so I’ve become the fucking cliché—the one thing you didn’t want me to be, and I’ve barely even begun.

Say hello to the grieving, addict rock star.

I’m constantly chasing more, Cherry, and it isn’t ‘cause I once liked the high of coke or the rush of pills.

It’s because of you.

Sweet, sweet tasting Cherry and her body beats.

Thump. Thump. Thump. That’s all I hear when I go to sleep.

You may be my Bon Jovi.

Presley.

Cherry,

I’ve seen things. Bad things. Things that now burn my brain every time I close my eyes. Things that make me want to curl up in a ball and scream out in pain. I won’t go into it because you don’t deserve the visuals it’ll plant in your mind, but let’s just say dead dad, selfish mum = me needing something to hit. Boxing’s never been my bag (<-- I just spent half a minute laughing at my own pun there) so the drums saved me instead.

Headphones on. Sticks in hands. I lost hours to the music instead of the memories.

Days and weeks, too.

Drumming was my oxygen mask, and when I wasn’t hitting the drums, I was wanking or some shit. I used to love wanking, imagining women bending at my will, desperate to take me away from the stuff I couldn’t control. Most men hate it. They think they need a girl to suck them off or stroke their dicks for their egos to let them get a stiff. Not me. I loved the imagination of it all. I loved visualising things that might never happen. The power… fuck, it was good.

I loved thinking of you. Taking you over that bar, twisting your hair in my hand and driving into you until your legs gave in.

Do you know what, Cherry? I’m so fucking drunk now. You can probably tell.

The buzz is making me feel like shit tonight.

Rhett is in the corner doing lines. I’ve tried coke so many times, and it’s nothing like the high of inhaling you. Not even close.

Big D has a woman wrapped around his cock. You think I’m kidding? I can hear the suction as she gives him head. I’m already numb to this stuff. I’d be more shocked if I saw someone praying around here or doing something decent for once.

Hawk just vommed.

Coops is blowing rings of smoke above his head, high and desperate to make one big enough he can jump through.

And I’m wasted, wondering if this is really how I’m gonna spend my life.

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