- Text Size +
“You okay?”

I pounded my fist on the door a couple more times, straining my ears to be able to hear a response.

“For crying out loud,” I heard Brian mumble, “Are you guys going to be ramming on the door every time I go to a bathroom?” I heard him fumbling with the lock and two seconds later, he appeared. I gave him a skeptical look. We had every reason to be ramming on the door whenever he disappeared into a bathroom; considering we’d found him half-unconscious three times already since the tour started. He stared back at me waywardly; still I couldn’t help but notice he looked three shades paler than he did before he went in there.

“Cousin,” he addressed me sternly.

“Cousin,” I replied. I wanted to ask him if he was okay again, but I remained silent; knowing he wouldn’t necessarily appreciate my concern.

“Well, thank you, for the vigil,” he said with a smile, “I think I can handle myself from here.”

“Eight more minutes!” A voice shouted down the studio’s corridor. I sighed as I saw Brian pale even further if that was possible.

“It’ll be fine,” I mumbled.

“It’s Everybody,” Brian replied pointedly.

“It’ll be fine,” I repeated with a bit more emphasis.

“Uhuh,” my cousin grunted without any conviction.

“It’s alright to miss a note,” I said softly.

His jaw clenched and he shot me a furious look, “It’s vh1, missing a note is not acceptable.”

“Nobody is going to care if you miss one.”

I’ll care!”

I bit my tongue, knowing from past experiences that engaging this conversation wasn’t going to lead us anywhere. Not for the first time I started to wonder what the hell we thought we were doing. I remembered the promo we’d done back in the States. I remember how we’d dragged ourselves through it. Overall, the feedback had been great and most shows had sold out fairly quickly. Overall, it was a success story. And I suspected that promo in Europe was going to be a success story as well.

But that didn’t mean anything.

Not when Nick took his frustration out on a stocked dining table in a dressing room after a particular bad TV performance that was supposed to be very important.

Not when I noticed AJ smoking twice as much as before the cycle started. Not when Howie was running around like a headless chicken trying to keep everyone and everything together and somewhat functional. Not when Brian walked around like a zombie, wrapped up in a cold layer of depression that seemed to drag him down deeper and deeper.

And me?

I was an outsider. I had been the entire time. I started to realize more and more how the four of them had changed as a group and as individuals since I had left. The dynamic had shifted and transformed and I had nothing to do with it.

It was a strange phenomenon.

“We should go to the stage,” I said calmly, seeing the clear reluctance on my cousin’s face. He didn’t say anything, stumbling behind me as we made our way to the stage and to the others. AJ was nervously biting his nails and Nick seemed to have a permanent frown ever since he woke up. The tension was cut-able.

Wasn’t this supposed to be fun? Wasn’t that why I had come back? Because I had fun on a stage and missed the music and the atmosphere and the feeling a well-choreographed performance gave me? As I looked around, I could detect no fun at all on any of my bandmates’ faces as we waited for the performance to start.

To his credit, Brian usually refrained from total panic mode until after a performance was over. I was so thankful that we had not had to deal with any hyperventilation or fainting during a song.

Yet.

Never say never, I thought wryly as I felt my cousin tremble in earnest beside me. Performances on live TV were the absolute worst. I could not even begin to imagine the fear he had to be feeling at the moment. As we walked onto the stage, I tried to hold on to the fact that rehearsals had gone well enough yesterday.

All vocals had been more or less on point and the song had seemed to naturally flow into the empty studio. Of course, there had not been any cameras pointing towards our faces then. The presenter did his thing and then the music started. Nick did that howl thingy that we had discussed during rehearsal and it sounded pretty cool. AJ started the song very strongly, not missing a beat, his voice echoing solidly through my ear monitor.

Nick was next, obviously trying to outdo AJs performance with his own. I started to smile; it was going well.

Then it all went wrong.

When it came to Brian, there were good days, bad days, and absolutely horrible days. On good days, he could make it through a song with only minor problems. On those days, he smiled more and was fairly easy to be around. On bad days, his voice would crack during songs on almost every line he sang and he would have to try his hardest not to let the displeasure shine through in his expression. On those days, he was frustrated and had a tendency to snap at people. On horrible days; -which were thankfully the rarest of the days- he would be barely audible at all and could even hardly speak.

On those days, nobody really saw much of him and I could only guess what he was doing when we all weren’t looking. Those were the days we were likely to find him panicking in a bathroom.

This seemed to be one of those days.

I could barely hear him on his part of the bridge. I shot him a quick look and saw the absolute embarrassment on his face. I had to do my best not to frown and looked down, hoping with all my might that Brian would keep it together for the remainder of the song. I kept my eyes on him as I joined in for the chorus. He didn’t dare to look me in the eyes. I had to remind myself that it wasn’t particularly his fault when the second bridge came along and I had to witness him croak through it. For the millionth time, I wondered what I would do if something like that happened to me on stage in front of cameras. Would I be able to keep singing? Would I just storm off stage and disappear to get rid of the utter humiliation?

I don’t know.

After the torture was done, we quickly exited the stage. I saw Nick’s undisguised fuming expression and shot him a warning look, clearly telling him that this was not the time for Nick to tell Brian what he thought of this performance. Nick squinted at me before tearing off his ear monitor and demonstratively leaving the back stage. AJ threw me a helpless glance before venturing after Nick, while Howie did his best to get through to Brian, who seemed to be rooted to the spot with a terrifyingly expressionless look on his face.

“It wasn’t that bad, alright?” Howie lied quickly, gripping Brian’s shoulder tightly to get his attention.

The far-away look in my cousin’s eyes was scaring me and he didn’t seem to react to Howie’s words at all.

After a few moments, Brian just walked away, like we weren’t even there in the first place. Howie gave me an astonished look and I nodded before we both followed Brian down the hallway. He was surprisingly fast and the fear that his frame of mind was nowhere near positive kept growing.

“Brian, wait!” I called, reaching out to grab his shoulder and turn him around. He lashed out quicker than I could ever have imagined, his nails leaving angry red marks on my arm as they scratched the skin.

“Leave me alone,” he fumed in a low, warning tone.

I took a stumbling step backwards; completely taken aback as I watched him leave. Howie ran after him, grumbling in anger. I stayed perfectly still as my hopes shattered and the veil was finally lifted from my eyes.

We had a far bigger problem than I had ever thought.