Errol

"It's going to be okay," I heard a voice say between the jarring lights that flashed across my peripheral. Everything I saw was hazy, and all I felt was pain. The pain coursed through my body, paralyzing me from head to toe. I couldn't move any part of me, even if I tried.

One moment I was in a car with my mother, driving home from my last show of the year. I remembered that large ear to ear smile she gave me as she repositioned my award and flowers in her lap.

The next thing I remembered was flashing lights that passed overhead, as I was tunneled through an all white corridor. There were people all around me, telling me things.

"It's going to be okay."

"It's going to be okay."

Those words echoed through my ears with a voice that I at first couldn't recognize, but as the words grew louder, I realized it was my fathers...

And that was when I woke up. The sound of my bedside alarm quickly brought me back to reality, as I sat up with such swiftness, I stirred awake the person beside me.

"What is it?" A woman's voice mumbled, still riddled with exhaustion. My body was a wet clammy mess as I felt droplets of sweat drip past my stray hairs and on to my bare chest. The sheets felt soaked beneath my skin. There was barely any light shining through the glass stained bedroom windows, but I could just make out the silhouette of the woman in bed with me.

I didn't remember the night before, but judging by the massive headache I could already feel coming on, and the mysterious woman who had absolutely overstayed her welcome, I knew I had overdrank. A lot.

I felt the woman's hand gently rest on my arm, but I flinched at the contact almost immediately. I may have wanted company last night, but I sure as hell didn't want it this morning.

My body jerked more abruptly than I meant to, making the stranger pull away uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry to rush you like this," I spoke to her through the dim lighting, "but I need to get ready for my day." The light exposed some of her features, like the bright auburn hair that looked like a bird's nest now rested on top of her head. I didn't have any expectations for how anyone looked after a wild night of drinking and sex, but this particularly tangled mess was a new one for me.

What was her name? I wondered to myself. The pounding against my temples stunted all the thinking I was trying to do at six in the morning.

"Right, yeah I get it!" She replied in a rush, clearly a bit embarrassed by the whole situation as she got up and started to get her clothes together. I wondered how I had acted last night. I must've been doing a complete 180° from the person drunk me pretended to be then, and the person I was now.

It took a minute to stumble through the darker parts of my bedroom, tripping over discarded clothes and unpacked boxes, but I managed to find the light switch for the private bathroom. Those fluorescent bulbs wreaked havoc on my sensitive eyes, and yet I pushed through into the space. I needed a clearer image of myself.

My reflection was fully visible now, along with a better view of the bedroom. My body had lipstick and hickey marks all over, which instantly made me annoyed. Lipstick was a bitch to wash off, and I hated when any woman left a mark on me like that. The lady in my room and I, made brief eye contact through the ginormous bathroom mirror. I wasn't sure if this mystery person got a glimpse of clear distaste etched into my face, but she pulled her gaze away and seemed to start dressing even quicker.

I can't blame her for staying, a part of me thought to myself... but I wanted to. Waking up next to anyone instantly put me in a sour mood. Especially after those dreams.

I tried to splash my face, and smudge off some of the lipstick that now seemed to have almost permanently stained my lips red.

"I- uh, I'm sorry about that. It's a waterproof brand," the woman tried to explain from somewhere behind me.

Great.

I just got to scrubbing harder, adding a few pumps of soap to my fingers to help. "Did you maybe want to grab-" I heard the same voice ask from somewhere behind me, but I cut her off almost immediately.

"No," I replied, dabbing my now swollen lips down with a towel.

"But you didn't even know what-"

"There's nothing you could offer me that I would want." I turned back to her. "No offense." I added that last bit like it would soften my immediate rejection. She was now fully dressed in the same sequence clubbing dress I vaguely remembered from the night before. It was a pretty emerald green that went well with her red hair... I guess I had to give drunk me credit for good taste.

The woman must've finally got a good look at her own reflection behind me, because her fingers rushed into her matted hair in a desperate attempt to detangle it.

"Did I do something wrong?" She asked.

You stayed, I thought to myself.

"I had a good time," I lied instead. I didn't even remember what we did, or really her. "I'm just not looking for anything."

"But last night was-"

"There's some snacks on the counter downstairs you can help yourself to. The penthouse lobbyist will make sure to get you a ride to wherever you want to go, just tell him my unit number and I'll take care of the bill." Those were the last words I said before closing the door to the bathroom, and separating us completely.

The shower felt like being wrapped in a hug... by the strength of a thousand suns. No amount of scrubbing would get the love bites off my neck and abdomen, but I still gave it a go with my loofa. My once slightly tanned skin was now red all over with skin irritation.

When I finally staggered out of the shower, and into my empty room, I was pretty disappointed to find out it wasn't all that empty.

"Who was she?" Hendrix asked, startling the hell out of me. Luckily I had wrapped a towel loosely around my waist, otherwise my manager would've had the show of a lifetime this morning. "And why do you look so shitty?"

"Well hello to you, too." I gave her a half assed smile as she sat on the corner of my bed, then I started to rummage through my closet. If she didn't get this conversation off the floor quickly, she was about to get a full strip show. "She's no one important, and I overdid it on the drinking last night."

"Jesus, Errol. What is this, like your fourth night out this week?" Hendrix asked in disbelief. "Have you even touched the work I sent you?"

I let the towel drop to the floor, exposing my bare ass to my manager. She looked away with a scoff, already used to my less than appropriate antics to distract her.

"In my defense," I spoke, as I pulled on some briefs, "I didn't get too drunk the other three nights. Just last night." Hendrix still kept her eyes glued to the wall opposite us, but I could feel the eye roll she must've directed towards me.

"This isn't a joke you dickhead, you should have had something composed by now. What am I going to tell the company?" Hendrix spat out. It was a question as old as time itself.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

What am I going to tell the company?

Hendrix asked it so often, sometimes I wondered if there was some glitch in the matrix that had a portion of herself on repeat.

"Tell them the same thing you always tell them," I shrugged, pulling a pair of trousers from a pile of discarded clothes. My room was a mess, but this is how it always got during my larger projects. Or at least that's what Ive been telling myself this last year.

"If I keep telling them what I always tell them, you're going to be cut out from the company completely. You know this, Errol, you're too intelligent to be saying such stupid, stupid shit."

I turned around to give my manager a glare, but she was already preoccupied by something else. A black lace bra laying on my floor, that the woman I brought over last night must have worn. Or maybe it was from the girl the night before last... it didn't look like the red hairs cup size.

"I'm going to get you a weekly cleaner. This is just... a mess, Errol. I need you to start taking better care of yourself." That glare I was gearing up to give to her, softened a bit at those words. Though Hendrix was a complete ass at times, she had pushed for an extension just a few months ago with good faith I'd turn up with something.

So far I had nothing.

"This one's been hard," I replied a bit more honestly.

"No," Hendrix shook her head. "This project is no different from the last. The only thing that's changed is you. You're being much harder on yourself than you used to be. Especially before-" Hendrix caught herself with that last line, but I already knew what she meant.

There was a long pause before either of us spoke. It always got this way when the crash was inevitably brought up.

"It's just not perfect anymore," I sighed, breaking the silence as I yanked a clean button down shirt off one of the closet hangers. I wasn't even sure what I was getting dressed for, besides sitting at that piano chair for hours doing nothing. I could realistically do that naked.

"It was never perfect. It's impossible for anything to be perfect." Hendrix wagered, but I quickly shook my head as I turned back to her. Though I truly did have a devoted love for Hendrix, she was my manager. Music didn't do for her what it did for me.

"I once was," was all I said in return.

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