63: Vanish Into You
"Saw your face and mine
In a picture by our bedside
It was cold in the summertime
We were happy just to be alive."
Holden Young
Minutes passed like weeks the moment my eyes met Alissa’s again.
A whirlwind of emotions — good and bad — collided inside me. I could’ve gone from laughing to crying in seconds, if I was even capable of expressing anything at all.
And despite being numb from the alcohol, I still felt too much. More than I wanted to. More than I could allow myself to feel after all this time apart.
Fuck… I couldn’t believe it was really happening. It was her. Alissa Blake. My... the girl who used to be mine. She wasn’t anymore. She wouldn’t let herself be. Always found a way to push me away, like my pain wasn’t valid enough.
Holden Young — the spoiled rich kid — hadn’t suffered enough in life, so now he could go fuck himself. And I was. God, I was suffering. Even if I didn’t think I deserved it. Being raised by my parents wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.
But suffering, guilt, pain — none of that gives a shit about what you’ve been through. There’s no emotional quota that adjusts itself to your capacity.
It just happens.
Seeing Alissa again just happened. I didn’t ask for it that week, that day. I was too busy stressing over not disappointing the record label that was considering investing millions into me — giving me a contract even bigger than the one promised to the winner of the show.
But life — cruel and unpredictable — threw me off course. I’d already disappointed them, badly. Now I was facing a potential fine so massive it might cost me every penny my parents ever set aside for me.
And I disappointed Alissa, too. I didn’t need to walk up to her to know. Her face said it all — frozen, staring at what I had become. Pale under the bar’s flickering lights, red eyes that had definitely cried.
That face — one I’d known since childhood — haunted me for years.
Before she left the first time, when she kicked me out in that high school hallway, she wore the exact same expression.
I didn’t want to live through that again. I didn’t want to relive a single one of those memories — the ache, the longing she left behind. And even though I knew it wasn’t entirely her fault, part of me still found it easier to blame her. It helped. It made me feel like I hadn’t driven her away.
But now, as adults — supposedly more stable — she still chose something else over me.
That’s what hurt. Because I did everything right. I punished myself with guilt, replayed our moments on a loop, locked inside that hotel room long enough to know: I did everything right.
I brought her close, I took care of her, I tried everything to make it work. The tour came at the worst time, yeah, but how was that my fault?
It wasn’t fair to abandon me over it.
My throat burned. I didn’t even know if it was from the alcohol or the crying I kept choking back. The urge to go to her, grab her shoulders and yell why? was overwhelming.
But I stayed frozen. Wearing the kind of expression that reeked of bitterness — I could taste it in the back of my throat.
A woman walked over. They always did around this time. Hoping for a picture, a meaningless chat with a drunk singer who had nothing to give, or — more often — a mediocre fuck because I was always too groggy to even pretend to enjoy it.
“I’m Caroline, remember me?” The blonde, short-haired woman whispered like we were old friends.
I pulled my eyes off Alissa for the first time, pretending she wasn’t silently waiting for me to go to her. Pretending I hadn’t just ignored the look of disappointment on her face since she spotted me, after months apart.
“Of course I remember,” I lied. I just needed an excuse to leave, and now I had one.
“That night… was amazing,” she added, her voice all sugar and flattery. If I were drunker, I might’ve believed her.
I smiled, placed a hand around her waist, letting her scent — sickly sweet perfume — close in around me until I was near enough to kiss her.
I brushed my lips against hers, tasting the nauseating gloss that reminded me of Chloe’s fruity shampoo. Two reasons to hate it already.
Still, I ignored what I felt and kissed her. It was supposed to be subtle, but she went all in. Her tongue, chilled from her drink, clashed against mine like she was trying to prove something.
That cold, sloppy kiss gave me chills — the bad kind. It was disgusting. Only drunk people could enjoy kissing like that.
Even so, I pretended to like it. Didn’t want to make her feel bad, even though I was already using her.
I guess we were using each other.
I looked toward where Alissa had been — but she was gone. I didn’t know if she’d watched that whole pathetic scene unfold. Part of me hoped she’d left early. But another part wanted her to feel it.
I wanted her to know what loss tasted like. The kind I’ve lived with since I was fifteen. I wanted her to feel how it is to love someone and not be able to have them.
Petty, tactless, pathetic. I could already hear Cyrus assigning me those labels when she inevitably ran to him, angry, telling him their little plan hadn’t worked — whatever the hell that was.
I went back to my room with the girl — couldn’t even remember her name anymore. She undressed me in a hurry, climbed on top without even asking for a condom. I grabbed one from the drawer and put it on myself.
Didn’t think I’d be able to get hard, but rage was a good motivator. We fucked for a while, but the whole time I just wanted her turned around.
I pictured Alissa a few times. I know, that’s awful.
I was losing myself. But I kept looking for fragments of her in other people — even if my favorite thing with her was never the sex.
But sex was the only thing I could offer these women. A photo, a story to tell. That’s all they wanted from me.
When I came, I felt nothing. Just sadness. A crushing urge to disappear and live completely alone.
But I knew I wouldn’t be able to. And when someone knocked on the hotel room door, I knew it for sure — I wouldn’t be able to run. Not when every part of me still hoped Alissa would be standing on the other side.