Page 8 of Hamartia

I don’t breathe as he starts to read out the nominations.

Alphabetical order. It goes from Castreal to Klansman. And we’re not there. We’re not nominated.

My head is spinning, sweat licking up my spine. I think I’m going to throw up. We’re done. We’re fucking over, I think. There’s not a sound in the entire room apart from the sound of the commercial that’s just come on. I can feel Cleo look over at me, feel the air in the room stretched to breaking point. A phone starts ringing somewhere, then Mase is answering it and wandering out of the room and into the kitchen.

I move to sit, swinging my legs round and planting them on the floor. When I glance at Cleo, she has this look on her face and I don’t understand it at first until suddenly I do. Pity. She looks like she feels…sorry for me. When I look over at Zeke and Crawford, they’re still pretending to watch the TV. Stunned silence choking the air.

“Fuck. Sorry,” I mutter and then I’m standing up and walking towards the bathroom.

I’m either going to shit myself, throw up, or burst into tears and I need to be alone for any of that. Inside, I slam the door closed and turn the lock, moving to turn on the cold faucet for some noise to fill the room. Then I open the toilet and empty the contents of my breakfast into it.

I need to get out of here. I need to go home, get wasted, and rethink my entire fucking career. The album was good. Great even. I believe that with every cell in my body—even now. It was the best thing we’ve ever done. So why does this bother me so fucking much? Why do I care about an award?

Because they care. Because they’re the ones I had to convince to let me do this. I convinced them to trust me. The sales had been down on Silver River and Chopper and both those records were a fucking mess. Rolling Stone called “Sayonara” a fucking masterpiece.

I’m rinsing my mouth out with Crawford’s mouthwash when I hear it. Screaming and swearing from the other room. At first, I think they’re fighting, and I’m worried for Cleo so I rush out and back through towards the noise. They’re all up on their feet now, laughing with their arms around each other and looking at the TV.

“What happened?” I ask.

Mase comes back in from the other room too, frowning with confusion.

Crawford turns and then he’s barreling over the sofa towards me. I just manage to get a look at the TV before I’m crushed against him. It says, ‘Album of The Year’. It says ‘Dead Poets-Sayonara Sun’right fucking next to it.

“You’re a beautiful fucking genius, Rapha! Have I ever told you that? Have I?” Crawford is saying as he lifts me up. “A BEAUTIFUL POETIC GENIUS!!” He puts me down, grabs my cheeks and kisses me on the lips.

Cleo is crying and Mase and Zeke are laughing their fucking asses off. I can still taste the vomit in my mouth and I think I might throw up again.

Album of the Year.

Album of the fucking year. Relief, happiness, pride, gratitude, and a whole host of other things are rushing through me. I want to call my mom. I want to call Camille. I want to spit on my dad’s fucking grave and tell him that I’m better than he ever fucking was. That I did all of this myself. Without his name or his presence or his love. I wish he was alive so I could call him up and tell him that over the phone. Tell him that he was nothing to me.

Album of the Year. I did it. We did it.

Now we just have to fucking win it.

My phone doesn’t stop ringing all day. Notifications from every app that I have, showering me with praise and congratulations. It feels good. We got a nomination for best Alternative Album and Record of The Year too, but that sort of gets lost in the buzz around the album nomination. I have this weird vision of me holding the award, accepting it, and giving a speech and my breath stops from how badly I want it to happen. I don’t know if it’s good to trust it as another choking certainty, but it feels like ours already.

Camille posts about it on her Instagram: ‘So proud of you, mon amour x’and the internet goes fucking wild over it. She calls me before she gets on the flight from London telling me the same. Her flight lands in eight hours and I can’t wait to see her. I’ve missed her like crazy. I call my mom because she works Mondays and hasn’t likely heard the news yet. She cries like she always does when we do anything, then asks me if I’m eating okay, like she always does. Fuck, I miss her too. I miss Colorado and I end the call with a promise to visit for Thanksgiving.

The label wants to throw us a party apparently, a nomination party. What they really mean is a ‘your sales are about to sky-rocket and we’re relieved we don’t have to drop you’ party. Sam calls us on Skype from Malibu with the news and a smile on his face brighter than the sun. I can see his relief too. And I’m glad I haven’t let him down. He’s been doing this a long time and we’ve given him a lot of stress. I’m convinced one day he’s going to have a heart attack and it will be mainly my fault. I smile back, big and wide, as I tell him it was never in doubt.

It’s close to ten pm when I get home. I’m exhausted, drained, the adrenaline subsiding bit by bit, leaving behind only a warm jittery afterglow.

Grabbing a bottle of beer from the fridge, I twist off the cap and carry it out to the pool, collapsing on top of the lounger to stare out at the night-time view of west Hollywood. There’s nothing but contentment and warmth settled in my chest, so it’s weird that my dad pops into my head then. Someone who never makes me feel warmth or contentment, someone who I wish made me feel nothing at all. And fuck him, but he does it again, takes that warm contentment I feel and turns it into something melancholic and empty. Something that makes me feel lost and adrift, like a little kid. Like the time I wandered off in Target while mom was at the cashier and thought I’d never see her again.

“Fuck you, Finn,” I say to the night air. “You were nothing to me. You’ll always be nothing to me.” I down the beer and stand.

I’m standing in front of the body-length mirror in the bathroom, hair plastered to my head and body soaked with sweat. My fingers aching and bleeding from the show and the familiar feeling of euphoria a loud buzz in my head. I feel like a god. I’m hard as a rock, as often happens when I come off stage, and I smooth my hand over it but I need something more than my hand this time. I need…the thought fizzes through my mind and then I feel it. Hands creeping around my middle from behind, warm body pressing against my back. When I look back into the mirror, he’s looking at me over my shoulder, as he mouths at my ear.

“Is this what you need?” Jaehyun says, his voice a whispered dream. His eyes are dark and hot and filled with lust. A surge of pressure pounds against my dick.

“Yes…fuck, yes,” I groan, dropping my head back onto his shoulder.

“Say it, Raphael…tell me what you want.”

“Your mouth, your hands, you…”

He laughs, this soft airy thing that tickles my balls, then he’s sliding to his knees and I’m turning to look down at him.