After we get all the men out of her apartment, Digitalis and I head to the studio. She smokes a cigarette, chatting about the night before fondly. I cradle my head against the passenger door and listen. She drank less than I did, and I’m surprised to hear what I’d missed in my intoxication.

She recounted that I did a beer bong with one guy. After that, we were pretty trashed. Things headed in a sexual direction. Most of our clothes came off there, but Digitalis moved everyone to the bedroom to keep her couch clean.

When I learned I’d been drunk enough to join them all in bed, my heart raced. After the bar, I was too far gone to refuse anything the group wanted to do. I looked at my scratched up wrist, the stinging sensation mild enough to ignore, and recalled the way she held my arm for most of the act. I was ashamed of myself for getting smashed and losing control again. Seeing how happy Digitalis was, I wouldn’t admit to feeling that way.

When we arrive, Absinthe and the manager are alone in the conference room.

“Where’s Gael?” Digitalis asks, her tone toeing the line between annoyance and genuine curiosity.

“He won’t be coming today. He went on a date.” The manager grinned at the word ‘date’, but my face was making the opposite expression. Digitalis snapped.

“What, so he’s allowed to skip on meetings, but if I do it, it’s a problem?” Her brown eyes flashed with anger and everyone tensed.

“Digitalis, let’s just focus on the matters at hand. He was overdue for a day off, anyway…” The manager held up his hands, desperately trying to calm her. She continued to glare as she threw herself back into her chair.

“I can’t believe this.” She muttered through her teeth. I sit between her and Absinthe, my glazed eyes falling to the table. Sparks of jealousy came to life inside me, but I couldn’t show it. The manager set his papers down and organized whatever notes he had for the meeting.

“Are you okay?” Absinthe asked, her eyes fixed on my scratched wrist. I lift my eyes to her, offering a weak smile.

“Yeah. Just have a headache, that’s all.” I try to sound a bit unwell, but Absinthe wasn’t naïve enough to fall for it. She gives me a concerned glance but doesn’t pursue the topic. The manager passes out paperwork. There were copies of the Gael’s sheet music and some label policy updates that he wanted us to go through. We start our meeting.

I can barely focus on the information in front of me. I don’t know if it’s the hangover or the heartbreak. When the meeting ends, the manager moves on to take a phone call. Absinthe heads to the practice room alone to work on her parts of Gael’s new song ideas.

“Why does everyone forgive Gael so easily? I get the third degree if I’m late!” Digitalis asked me. Her face deformed with quieted rage, overshadowed by insecurity.

“Who knows?” I admit.

“I’ll probably never be a genuine star like him. Not as long as I’m living under his shadow like this.” She sighs. “No matter how famous we get, he’s always loved more than me. We both sing. We both play guitar. What makes everyone love him so much more?”

“I think we all live under his shadow. The fans always flock to him first.” I state it as a fact, one that I’d never been bitter about. My tone remains saddened from thoughts of Gael, but Digitalis takes it as though I share her feelings.

“We should start our own band together, Asya. Together, we can finally get the fame we deserve. And I’ve heard you sing before. You’d be a great compliment to my voice.” She turns to me now, her eyes shining with excitement.

“I don’t know… I enjoy being in PHAGE HEAD. Digitalis, I thi—” I stop short when I feel her hand sliding up my thigh. She’s groping me through my jeans and I stand up, staring at her with shock. She looks back at me with confusion, the hand that touched me turning into an awkward claw.

“What’s wrong?” She asks, pulling on the hem of my shirt. “Don’t you want it?” I instinctively back away, freeing myself from her grasp.

“I’m… I’m gay, Digitalis. I don’t...” I stutter my reply and she laughs.

“Then what was last night? We were with those men together, you know. We technically had sex.” I shake my head vigorously as her eyes darken with each word she utters.

“No… That’s not what that was. And I was too drunk to understand what I was doing, anyway. It doesn’t count.” She stands and closes the distance I made between us, grabbing the wrist she scratched up.

“It does. It happened. Look!” She holds my wrist for me to look at, her eyes predatory and wild. “Don’t tell me it doesn’t count. That was the most intimate night of my life, Asya! The evidence is right here! We held hands!” Her voice rose now. For the first time in a while, I felt a genuine fear that stopped everything else within me.

“We never once engaged each other sexually, Digitalis. Not once. You held my arm, but I didn’t once want to reciprocate anything with you.” I wasn’t sure what drove me to keep arguing.

She was spiraling out of control, and my words wouldn’t help.

“I thought we’d just have a close friendship. I didn’t want to go any further than that.” I added, my voice shivering.

She quivered and glared, but suddenly her face became pleading, afraid. It caught me off guard and I tensed.

“We can still have a close friendship, Asya. I want to be your friend. I don’t want you to be my lover.” Her voice was soft and her eyes looked like they’d burst into tears.

“Then why did you-”

“I wanted to have an intimate friendship, Asya. And we can still have that. Please.” She got on her knees in front of me. I tried to back away before the wall I’d reached stopped me. Her hands drifted towards the front of my pants.

“Just pretend I’m a guy and enjoy it.” She murmured.

For a moment, I was frozen. When she touched me, I could move again. I jumped away from her. She turned to look at me; her face a mess of emotions.

“You don’t understand, Digitalis. I don’t want this with you. I don’t know why you keep trying.” Digitalis yelled after me as I fled into the sound room where Absinthe played. She called me a prick and an array of other colorful words. Beating drums overpowered her voice, finally sealed away by the closing door behind me.

I fall against the wall and experience everything at once. I take a deep breath, trying to shake the leftover fear and tension from my confrontation with Digitalis. That’s when the old depression creeps back in: the empty worthlessness that weighs on me. The years of my life have gotten me nowhere with Gael. Even now I’m just damaging my relationship with him, all while dreaming of a day that he falls in love with me. It’s almost laughable at this point that the fantasy persists.

The sound of the drums stops, then.

“Asya? Are you okay?” Absinthe asks, looking down at me from her stool behind the drum set.

“I-” My eyes flick up to her, but the door beside me swings open. Digitalis stands in the opening, enraged.

“I’m going to leave the band. I can’t stand any of you! All you people do is hold me back! And when Gael comes to work again, give him this for me!” She flipped everyone off with both hands, storming out of the room. Absinthe and I stare after her in silent awe. I grin bitterly, knowing that my act of rejecting her was instrumental in her decision. I leaned back against the wall, hoping that my choice didn’t just kill the band.

“Asya… Does that have anything to do with why you’re sitting like that right now?” Absinthe asked.

She sat beside me, unaffected by Digitalis’ exclamation.

“One of many things, Abby.” I sigh, curling my legs to lean on them. Her hands were on my head, gentle and caring.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asks, the warmth of her body barely penetrating my icy skin.

“I’m ashamed of myself, Absinthe,” I whisper. “I can’t handle anything.”

“What’s going on?”

“So much, Abby. It’s my fault Digitalis left the band. I can’t stop hurting over Gael. And…” I stop before I confess the events of last night. I’m embarrassed enough that I got drunk and joined an orgy, even without telling Absinthe about it.

“How is it your fault?” Absinthe was wise, choosing one problem at a time.

I sighed into my legs.

“We’ve been hanging out a lot and… Well…” I took a deep breath. “Last night I was at her place and we brought some people over. She mistook what happened as an intimate moment and tried to make a move on me after the meeting. I rejected her and ran in here. That must be why she quit...” I hugged my legs tighter, suffering the crawling sensation of guilt. My eyes were dry.

“She’s unstable, Asya. You’re allowed to reject someone. It wasn’t your fault.” She stroked my back tenderly. “Asya… What happened last night? Why did she get confused?” I sensed the fear and hesitance in her tone. I knew what she suspected, and I wouldn’t lie to her.

“Well… We uh… Had group sex in her apartment.” My face heated and, for a moment, her hand paused before it kept making gentle circles on my back.

“Like an orgy or something?” She feigned naivete to get answers out of me. I knew it was futile to keep withholding them, but I was terrified to admit them so abruptly.

“Yeah.” My voice was timid.

“You’re not into women. Why would you do that with Digitalis?”

“Well… I mean…” I couldn’t make myself say it. She already seemed to know.

“Were you drunk, Asya?” Her tone wasn’t cruel, but I still buried my face deeper into the safety of my curled legs.

“Yes,” I admitted, ashamed. I quivered at the sound of her sigh.

“Oh, Asya… Why did you drink again?” The sheer volume of concern in her voice nurtured the shame within me. I wanted to end my existence.

“It was only one night… I just… I couldn’t handle feeling the way I did. It just happened.” I squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as I could, as if it would erase me with my sight.

“How did it happen? What feelings?”

“I mean, I was just trying to hook up with someone. I ended up drinking to gain confidence and one drink turned into many… I just lost control of it.” She was hugging me, her slender arms wrapping around my curled form, legs and all.

“Why did you hook up with strangers again?” She whispered. I leaned against her, my leg wall loosening and falling away so we could embrace.

“Gael. I can’t stand to see him with that girl. It’s killing me.” Tears were coming, now. Recalling how he looked at her poisoned me.

“We’ll find a way through this. You don’t have to go back to drinking your pain away.”

“What am I supposed to do? All I have is unbearable pain… If anything at all…”

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure something out.” We spend a moment in silence, holding each other. It had been forever since she last consoled me this way. It always used to comfort me, but somehow, it only deepened my pain this time.

Absinthe rose to her feet and picked up her drumsticks.

“Practice with me.” She invited, “Maybe the emotions will ease if you pour them into music.”

I pulled my studio bass from the wall and stood beside her drum set. I did as she said and put my whole heart into my song. It didn’t relieve the aching, even after we went at it for hours.

The sound room door creaked open, and we both stopped playing to see why. Gael was there, looking irked and weary. He had dressed very nicely and the smell of cologne emanated from him, different from his usual scent.

“Digitalis is done, then. We have lots of work to do.” He announced. Gael gestured for us to go back into the meeting room. He didn’t seem to notice the looks of worry Absinthe made at me.

“You mean, she’s really quitting this time?” Absinthe asked. In the past, she’d stormed out like that only to return later like nothing happened.

Gael nodded, waiting for us to pack our equipment.

“She sent me a shrieking voicemail. The manager messaged me shortly after, saying she’d broken into my office to rip her contract apart.” His eyebrows knitted together at the thought of it. He hated others being in his office without him.

We sat at the conference table once more. I stared at the empty seat where Digitalis would always sit. It was strange to return here after she made her pass on me. I wondered if this is how Gael had felt before he left the band the first time.

Calmly, Gael started planning. We rewrote the songs to work without Digitalis, and we started working on how we’d handle the media. His girlfriend was there, her plain eyes following Gael like he was a god in her world. I wished that I was in her place. I could scarcely focus on my task, and it took all I had in me not to glare at her. My envy for her was a poison, flooding my veins. If I could spend one day in her place, I’d trade every pleasure in my life for it. No such offer would be made, so instead, I spent the passing hours crushing myself.

I checked my phone when the meeting wrapped up. The guy from the bar messaged me, making an offer to see him later that night. I promised myself I wouldn’t have a single drink. When the meeting ends, I take a taxi to the man’s apartment. Every minute I spend inside, I am numb. The pleasure of the sex we have fades to nothing beneath the growing emptiness that devours me.