Worry. You could hear it in everyone's voices as they talked. Everyone except AJ's. His was pained, like he would break down at any second.
"When're we going back to the studio?" Nick asked quietly.
"Monday. Four days," Howie whispered back.
"Does anyone have Neely's number?" Nick said softly, barely able to say the words.
"I do," AJ said finally in a raspy, strained voice. "I'll find it and give it to you Monday..."
"Can I have it too?" Brian asked.
"Yeah," AJ said softly.
"I'm gonna go," Kevin said. He was barely audible; his voice was always soft, gentle and quiet.
"Me, me too," Howie stuttered. "See you guys."
Soon everyone was off the phone. Howie, Nick, Brian, and Kevin were still worried. And AJ felt like he was dying.
Brian walked into his room and shuffled through his things that needed to be unpacked. He grabbed his duffle bag and unzipped it. He'd written some new material on the way home and wanted to show it to Nick. He shuffled through the cds; this bag wasn't his. He continued picked up things and putting them down when he came to a hardcover book. There was no title on it, so he opened it. Kevin's writing, bold and black, stared back at him.
Brian shut it to put it back when he caught a word that made him leave it open. That one word meant so much. Suicide.
July 19th, 1999
Sometimes I feel like nothing is worth anything. Sadness falls and drapes me in this ugly black robe; I feel like I'm dying inside, nothing can seal this seeping jar of misery and I die still, my heart is open to all shoes and the prints of some are scarred permanently.
If I were like Nick I would get attention, I would get love. Nick has everything he wants. He has fans. He has a voice. He has someone to guide him....a father.
July 20th, 1999
Now that we're on tour, I feel like nothing. A little bit of dust blowing around, floating around....floating in this huge atmosphere of stars and moons and I'm a little particle of dust. Nothing compared to the stars and moons. So beautiful, so big, so bright....so unlike me. Small, weak, powerless.
And yet, everything is the same. The closeness of Brian and Nick, the screaming fans, the sold-out-in-fifteen-minutes concerts. Everything is the same, but everything is so different.
What's holding me is Angie. She's the arms that hold me, catch me when I'm falling. She's not holding me anymore. She's holding air; she not catching me and I'm falling so far.
Am I depressed? Or is this a stage? Is it reliving that time of father's death? Is it....it is real?
Oh God, no one knows how much I miss dad. He was the best part of my life, and God stole him from me, took him right out of my hands. He took my world away, my life away. My happiness. Everything shattered. I built it back up. This time everything is shattered and I can't and don't have the strength to build it back up.
July 25th, 1999
Every little thing counts. Those hugs of joy Brian and Nick share after concerts. Those high fives everyone gives everyone. The phone calls home.
You know, everyone thinks depression is easy to jump out of. Easy to escape. And they're wrong. So wrong. It stacks up on you and it chews away at you and makes you want to grab the razor and cut your wrists until you bleed to death. It makes you want to jump off a cliff, jump away from life.
But you know, that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to want to end it all. But I'm not going to. I'm going to hang on until I escape this. Until this feeling is gone. Dead.
Die, pain. Die, hurt. Die heart ache. Leave me. Leave me forever.
Forever.
August 1st, 1999
It's not dying. It's not leaving. It's growing. It's eatting and eatting, hungrier, hungrier, and hungrier still.
I will win this. I won't let it tear me apart. I'm going to win. I won't lose. I won't let myself. Come on Kevin, pull yourself together. Life isn't that bad, you shouldn't be hurting...
But oh, I do. I hurt beyond hurt. I ache with sadness. Nothing stops it, nothing. Not caffeine, not sugar, not anything. Nothing! It's going downhill, it's dying. Life as I know it is a living roller coaster that I ride twenty-four-hours a day, and all's this one knows is to go down. Falling, falling, falling....
August 3rd, 1999
Still it beats. The hurt, it's hunger for my happiness. It's eatten it all. I wish it would die. I hope all of this pain goes to hell and burns there for eternity. Burn in hell, pain. Burn there forever.
Brian shut the book. It was too much. He shouldn't have opened it. First AJ and the drugs, now Kevin and his hidden depression. He didn't even want to know how long Kevin had been in this pit of sadness; not now.
