Page 32 of It Happened on a Sunday

Sloane

The question—and the way he asks it—melts another layer of ice deep inside me. It’s what I used to ask Jarrod when he let himself get too out of control and I had to try to reel him back in.

“When we first got together, he stopped a lot of his not-so-savory habits. We were happy, and—for a while, anyway—he didn’t seem to need all that anymore. But then our careers started keeping us apart more and more and he started doing all that crap again.

“He always told me I didn’t understand, and he was right. I just wanted to be with him, but he…he wanted to be with every one and be at every thing and go to every kickback in L.A. One with the universe, he used to say.”

“One with the universe?” Sly looks skeptical. “How exactly does one go about doing that?”

“Pretty much as you’d expect,” I answer. “A lot of alcohol, a lot of meditation, a lot of extreme sports and mind-expanding drugs. And, as it turns out, a lot of sex with a lot of people who weren’t me.”

His eyes go wide. “Ouch.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I tell him. Because ouch barely scratches the surface.

The trail gets wider, affording more room, but I keep my hand in Sly’s anyway. I like the way his fingers feel laced with mine and how he rubs his index finger gently along the length of mine in a way that feels both familiar and brand new.

The small, gentle touch grounds me in the here and now, and I smile gratefully at him. The story so far has been a literal walk in the park, but that’s all about to change.

We pass a bench, and I think about sitting down for this part, but I’d never get it all out. Something about being able to admit something while moving keeps me walking forward, even though a part of me can’t help being dragged back to a past I’ve been running from for five long years.

I want to say it’s the tourist flip-flops combined with the rocky trails making me so uncomfortable, but I know better. Besides, the pinpricks of pain from the rocks that keep wedging themselves between my feet and the cheap rubber shoes is the only thing keeping me focused.

“I knew about most of it. Not the sex, obviously—I found out about that when my manager told me about a rumor she’d run down as fact.

But I knew about the rest. The meditation, I encouraged, at least until it led to a whole bunch of experimentation with mushrooms and ayahuasca and jimsonweed and—later on—a bunch of other stuff he had horrible reactions to.

The excessive drinking, I discouraged for so many reasons, including the fact that I had lost the last man I loved in a drunk driving accident that had nearly killed me as well. ”

“Hayden?” Sly asks quietly. His face is blank, his voice lacking its usual warmth and inflection. I don’t know if that’s because he’s judging Jarrod or because he’s judging me.

Either way, it makes me wary because Sly is a lot of things—light, laughter, kindness, warmth—but he’s never, ever blank. Seeing him like that now makes me wonder if I’ve already done what I set out to do.

If I’ve already driven him away.

The thought makes me hurt in a way I promised myself I never would again. Part of me wants to stop right here, to run away and forget this—forget Sly—ever happened.

But I’m not a runner, and it’s too late to stop now anyway.

“Yeah. He—” I break off, because now isn’t the time to get sidetracked by that story. One disaster at a time—that’s my motto. “Anyway, I knew there was a problem even before I found out about the other people. Toward the end, every time I came home, he would be acting stranger and stranger.”

“Stranger how?” There’s a watchful look in Sly’s eyes now, and I tell myself it’s okay, he’s not judging me. Then again, he doesn’t have to, because even after all these years, I still judge myself.

Every time I think about those days, I wonder if there was something else I could have done, something else I could have said, that might have actually gotten through to Jarrod. I’ve been through years of therapy, but I still hate myself for never figuring out how to suppo—

I cut myself off before I can go there, repeating the mantra my therapist has told me a million times.

Jarrod’s death is not my fault. I did not come into this world to carry him through it.

And it’s true. I exhale. I did everything I could for Jarrod. The choices he made were his own.

“He went from taking careless risks to being flat-out reckless.

Free soloing dangerous cliffs without a rope.

Jumping out of planes and then waiting almost too long before opening his parachute.

And the drugs… It started with tropical vacations and ‘sacred ceremonies,’ but before long he was a regular user of too many to name.

He claimed they helped him write, but they also made him unpredictable and scary.

“We’d be having dinner and I’d only figure out he took something when he started hallucinating. His hallucinations were almost never of the chill, mind-expanding kind he was chasing. They were terrifying and violent, and more than one trip ended with me newly injured.”

“He hurt you?” Sly’s face is still blank, but now there’s a tension to him I can’t miss. “How?”

“It was never on purpose. It’s not like he would get mad and hit me or something. When he wasn’t high, he was one of the most gentle men I’ve ever met. That’s why it was so hard to leave, because most of the time when he hurt me, he thought he was keeping me safe.

“One time, he thought someone had come to kidnap me. He threw me to the ground to try to save me and accidentally slammed my head into the kitchen counter on the way down. I passed out, then woke up bleeding profusely several minutes later while Jarrod watched, doing nothing to help.”

“He did what ?” The blankness disappears, and in its place is a simmering fury that has Sly’s jaw clenching and his eyes turning a molten chocolate brown. “Are you fucking serious? And nobody intervened? That’s horrific.”

I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help being warmed by his anger.

Of all the emotions the people around Jarrod felt while this was going on, none of them was anger—at least not on my behalf.

To be fair to them, even I wasn’t angry then.

I was devastated, terrified, and desperately lonely.

The anger didn’t come until later—and by then, it was too late.

“He wrote a bestselling song about the experience. ‘Your Love Rains Down On Me.’”

I shrug, because as horrible as it is, I came to terms with it a long time ago.

“After that, there was no reasoning with him. He had a song at number one for months. In his mind, whatever he was doing was working, and he didn’t want to hear otherwise.

Not from me. Not from his manager or his agent.

Not from his family or friends. We tried everything—interventions, rehab, therapy. Nothing worked.

“After one of his stints in rehab, which the label forced him into, Jarrod released a song that didn’t do as well as he’d hoped.

One he wrote without the help of any drugs or alcohol.

Its failure—and by failure , I mean it hit number five instead of number one on the Billboard charts—only served to convince him that these drugs and experiences were the only way he could truly access his art.

When I tried to convince him otherwise, he would scream that I was jealous and afraid he’d outgrow me. ”

My breath hitches in my throat, and Sly squeezes my hand. He doesn’t suggest that I stop this time, and I appreciate that. I can’t fight him and the memories all at once.

“Things got worse after that. I tried to never be home when he was high, but it got to the point where that was impossible. And that meant that I got hurt—not every time or even close to every time. But twice I had to go to urgent care for stitches, and more than once I had to cover bruises with makeup.”

“What—” Sly starts, but I interrupt him.

“And I know I should have left the minute he decided his drugs and the art they helped him create were more important than my safety. But when he was sober, he was still the amazing guy I had fallen in love with when I was nineteen years old. That doesn’t make it okay—I know that.

But I just kept telling myself I’d eventually find the key to get him to stop using and then things would go back to normal, whatever that was.

And also, I was the only person who could help regulate him, keep him somewhat steady.

Everyone—his family, his managers, me—was afraid of what would happen if I actually left. ”

“What about you?” Sly asks, his voice low and gruff. “Did no one wonder what the fuck would happen to you if you stayed?”

“He was a genius, making important music that changed the world. I was just a pop star. Of the two of us, he was definitely more important.”

“To whom?” Sly asks, and when our eyes meet, I can’t miss the shattered look in his. Like his heart is breaking for me . Because I don’t know how to feel about that, I focus on his question.

“To everyone.”

“That isn’t true,” Sly tells me. “People love you—”

“No. People love to objectify me. They love to measure themselves against me and place the weight of their expectations on my shoulders. No matter how bad or stressful their lives are, they come to my show, and they listen to great music and they dance it out, confident they’re never the most fucked-up person in the room.

Because at the end of the night? They haven’t killed two men.

And that would make anyone’s sins look small by comparison.

At least they aren’t the Black Widow of pop. At least they aren’t me.”

Again, he looks like he wants to argue, but I know if I stop speaking now I’ll never finish. My stomach is churning, my head aching, and five years of therapy feel like they’re dripping down the drain with each word I say.