Goodbye Note

by J.R. Gray

I’ve loved you for every season of our lives, and after a lifetime apart, I still dream of you in my arms.

“Always gotta be writing,” I repeated our familiar phrase at him. More like drowning my sorrows in ink. Fuck, that was another good line. I scribbled it without hesitation.

I’d heard he hated being the center of attention, but would anyone really choose this life if they hated every part of it? I found it draining but exhilarating when I wasn’t hating myself; I enjoyed all the parts that came with it. I loved people consuming my art. Fans dancing in the crowd, screaming lyrics at the top of their lungs. The attention. The traveling, though we hadn’t done much of that yet.

“I don’t take apologies. Only amends!”

The line between memory and PTSD was a fucking razor-slit.

Something passed between us. There are people we meet in life who click, and he clicked. It was easy with him.

it. I wasn’t attracted to men or women. I was attracted to people and personalities and maybe a little what I made up about someone in my head. But with Arik, it was so much more. He felt a little more real than the rest of the world. Like he was the only one in bold while the rest of us lived in muted tones.

“Your pain whispers familiar.” “What is it about broken people that we recognize each other?” “We feel like home and whole people can never understand the pain layered under our skin. It’s too hard to explain it to them. They are exhausting.” Varian set the vinyl spinning, and we both watched the colors swirl like a star exploding. “And we become artists to share our pain with others like us, so we know we aren’t alone.”

He’s this comet, and unless I catch him now, he won’t come around for another hundred years. I can’t miss my chance.”

“Without hurt, there is no reward. Or some bullshit.” Life was just suffering with little blips of happiness. So why wouldn’t I chase those moments? “That’s not how the saying goes. Without risk.” “I don’t think that’s true. It’s hurt. You have to set yourself up knowing you’ll get hurt to even be in place to get the reward. So many things in life end up hurting. I’d rather choose my hurt than not have a choice in it.” I pointed at my scar. “Even if you know it’s going to end badly?” “We have to find the ones who are worth the agony, I guess. I don’t know. I’m not the philosophy major. You were.”

I took off. I don’t know what came over me, but I ran at him. It only took him a second before he did the same. We collided in the middle of a parking lot in southern California, and I knew I’d remember the moment for the rest of my life.

“The label told you to date women,” Val said under his breath. “No, they told us not to date anyone. We need to seem single and available to women. They didn’t say anything about what I could do in my time.” I hated it, but it was a thing with all the up-and-coming bands. Sex sells or whatever, but what it really came down to was the music industry was massively homophobic, and we had a better chance of making it if we were viewed as straight.

Arik wasn’t singing yet. He had his lip caught between his teeth and his eyes on his fingers as he plucked the notes. He wasn’t the best guitarist by far, and clearly self-taught, but the emotion in his music was something else. Smart lyrics filled with double and triple entendres.

There were some bands that when you saw them live, they created a religious experience or even a transcendent one. When people went to go see live music, this was what they were looking for.

“I know he’s the new shiny hyper-focus but please don’t fall in love with him while he thinks you’re just friends.” He paused. “You deserve someone who’s serious about you.” “I swear to god I’m going to marry the first person who is serious about me.” I laughed, but it wasn’t really a joke. I craved someone who wanted me for me.

We became a family. Living like a camp of outcasts. We bonded over being the black sheep. The derelicts of our families. All of us too fucked to fit into what society wanted from us. For the first time in my life, I felt normal. Like my mania wasn’t that big of a deal. Not a person on this tour wasn’t damaged. We’re artists, after all.

“Part of changing the world is changing how we speak and what we allow those around us to say.”

“Hard to go against what you know, and like I said, there’s no high like a crowd of people singing your art back at you. I love it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its downside,

throw myself off that roof just to not face the future everyone else wanted for me. I knew I had to do something for me. That’s why I named my band Second Star.” “I thought it was a Peter Pan reference.” His lips were so close to my ear, it took everything in me not to groan. “It is. It’s the escape. The way to not have to grow up. To chase dreams and make believe. To fucking defy what adults want. Make our own reality. All of it.”

“I thought a lot about it.” His voice got thicker, softer. More loaded. “You’re important to me.” “I better be. I’m about to be tattooed on your body forever.” “You’ll always be important to me.” He was closer somehow, but I hadn’t noticed either one of us move. “And you’ll always be important to me.” It hurt to say, because I knew I might not mean it the same way he did. I knew then I’d love him my entire life. Arik would be a more permanent scar on my heart than the one my father gave me on my face and I’d live with it for another night with him. For as many as I could get.

This industry is like trying to carry water with your bare hands while threading a needle they keep moving. It’s image and marketability

“What are you saying?” Arik asked again, flexing his jaw, while squaring up with his manager. But I didn’t need to be told. I knew what Kiernan meant. I’d been told it my whole life by my grandparents and our manager and my brother. I knew I had to hide who I was and all my father’s secrets if I wanted to make it. Not be too queer, but queer enough to appeal. Use my nepotism, but not make it obvious. The game was rigged with rules they’d never tell us, and navigating it was a nightmare.

Pink purple and blue splashed across the sky give new meaning to life.

Ghost friends forever because even when I’m dead I’m haunting you. The ghosts were holding up their middle fingers.

Ghost secret club. You can’t see us, we’re invisible. It had a ghost giving a peace sign. Then he flipped it over to show me the back: Chemical Smuggler

“You two with matching ghost shirts?” “They were funny!” “They have the rumor mill spinning up again.” “They are going to talk about anything now. We’d have to stay away from each other to get them to quit.”

“Whatever you want.” He paused mid-step back, leveling his chest. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” “I’ll keep them all.” “You’re mine forever. No matter what happens.” His words were final. Demanding but also sure. I wished I had an ounce of his confidence. “You gonna give me a promise ring with words like that?” He wore a smug grin, dimples and all. “You dream too small. This, between us, is more than a ring or commitment. It’s everlasting.” I knew he believed every word he said. He wasn’t the type to speak without cause.

His fingers tightened on my back as he heaved with a guttural gasp. I lived for the sounds he made. I’d carry them on my mind along with every touch to my grave. Marks in time when I felt most happy.

I don’t know what I’d been scared of. Maybe it wasn’t his dick at all but knowing I could never go back. Once I was his, there was no room to ever belong to anyone else. Varian owned me utterly and completely.

I felt it coming on. There is nothing quite like watching your sanity start to slip but you’re already strapped into the ride and can’t get off.

“You rat bastard. You told me you’d give that shirt back.” “I like wearing it.” “You’re wearing my shirt onstage?” “If I can’t claim you publicly, I’m going to do it the ways I can.” I wanted to mark every inch of him, let the entire world know who he belonged to.

“Christ on a fucking cracker.

Hey that's my line 😂

you can throw them up online, too. Start your own label, and then you don’t have to give the label a cut since it’s not band merch.”

give me butterflies like galaxies. a shape i’d never hoped to feel.

Every minute we weren’t onstage from that point on, we were naked. It wasn’t always easy, but we took advantage of every place we could be alone. Including rest stop showers, which I’m not really proud of, but I was addicted to him. We got more tattoos and avoided calls from our parents.

“I thought we told you both to lie low,” John started when we sat down. “We have been.” Arik was already defensive. Not the way to deal with anyone with authority. “Then why are there whole Tumblr blogs and conspiracy TikToks dedicated to your ship? It’s everywhere.

“Who doesn’t borrow each other’s clothes on tour? He showered and stole a shirt and a pair of shorts. It’s not a big deal.” “The fans seem to think it is.” “Did you get more coordinating tattoos?”

“Maybe you two should spend some time apart,” John suggested. “Don’t fucking ask me to do that. Besides, that will look worse. We are friends, and if we change our behavior based on this crap, that will only have them talking more.”

“Why do we even have to hide? Why can’t we just do what we want and not comment?” Arik glanced between them and slid his fingers between mine. “You can’t come out!” Kiernan and John said together, like he’d just threatened to post naked pictures of himself. “Why not?” I smiled, squeezing his hand. “I told you, we are in a really fragile place with the tour and the label. We need their full backing for this, and then you will blow up. If you give it a couple years and do what they say, then you will have ‘fuck you’ money to do whatever you want.” “A couple of years?” Arik was on his feet.

Sadness took hold of my chest. I’d been so happy twenty minutes ago at the idea of coming out, but I knew it was stupid. I knew we couldn’t. His parents would freak and my dad would throw a fit, not to mention our management and labels. But the idea had taken root, and I wanted it. It felt like losing. Cutting off a part of us even if we never had it. Rejection iced my veins. What if he pulled back? What if he actually listened to them and… I had to get it to-fucking-gether. The rumors would kill us.

It sucks we can’t be ourselves, and we have to hide so much. I don’t think it’s good for either of us.”

“I just want to be chosen. To belong to someone and—” I didn’t want to make Arik feel bad over something out of his control, so I stopped myself. “And?” “I want to be the most important thing to someone. That we come before the rest.”

Talk about us riding on the same bus flooded social media. Every bit of content started us trending, and the rumors about us grew louder. Our managers put restrictions on everything we did and told us we weren’t allowed to spend a night in a hotel like we wanted. Varian was told if he rode with us, he couldn’t get off the bus. The walls were closing in around us, and the more we tried to hide, the less it worked.

God forbid, a picture of any part of our tattoos got out. Those were all documented, like this was some criminal investigation.

How many fans had walls of all the connections with string linking them? And the worst part was they were right, and our management was trying to gaslight everyone out of the observation. So instead of being able to be proud of all the ways we showed love, we had to hide them. It took a toll.

“Why does it feel like the longer you’re away from me, the more I can’t breathe?” “Because I’ve stolen the oxygen from your lungs to keep myself functioning.”

He felt like home, and I hated him a little for that. I wanted him to be home like I’d never wanted anything in my life. I might give up everything for him. Every single thing. Fame, family, life, limb. And that scared me. How did people just live with handing over this type of power to another human?

“First off, I’m a fucking adult. The way you’re talking to me is so out of pocket after I’ve done everything you, the label, and the publicist have asked.”

A few days later, a set of rules was handed down from on high. No walking in together. Arrive and leave at different times. No posting about it on social media. We had to be in a different city than we had performed in. No more liking each other’s social media posts or commenting on them. “Varian has been commenting on my posts since I started the journal. You don’t think this is going to backfire? This is wild, you know that, right?” I said after Kiernan briefed me. “No one should have to live like this.”

Seeing him became harder, not because of the rules but because the entire deck was stacked against us.