Chapter 2: Second Skin

He was two when he'd first felt guitar strings under his fingers, five when he started learning how to play. By fifteen, he'd finished his first real, complete song. But that song soon led him down a path he'd only once dreamed of, and at twenty-four, the music had fallen silent. Even in his sleep.

"Hollis," his name came again, cutting through his subconscious, and he forced open heavy eyes to see Ash looming above him.

Blonde hair fell in Ash's green eyes as he furrowed his brow, his lips a thin line. "You have to get up," he said. 

Hollis grumbled and rolled over, burying his face in the couch.

"Dude, let's go. This Side Up is already on."

Hollis winced inside the crevice of the cushion, from both Ash's words and the thought of the opening act for their tour. This Side Up was nothing but a group of ragamuffins barely out of high school. They'd been lucky enough to release one single worthy of their shared label to send Otto an email saying, "Why not let them open for Willow?" But the idea of the newbies being an opener to their headlining tour made Hollis's head throb, both then and now at their double bass shaking the walls. 

"Hollis," Ash urged. "This is our last show—this is it. Just don't do this to me tonight, man."

Hollis said nothing, shifting his weight. The couch thumped in protest. Overhead fluorescents battered him along with the smell of sweat, Ash's strawberry milkshake vape juice, and strong liquor—a grim cocktail that seemed to hang just for Hollis.

He finally dragged himself upright, blinking through the fog of a lingering stupor. His wrinkled clothes matched his disheveled appearance. A slow hand raked through his unkempt hair, failing to tame the chaos while his bloodshot eyes attempted to focus. His elbow hit an empty bottle on the table beside him, sending it clattering to the floor.

"Dude." Ash's frustration cut through the air. He stepped back, quick and restless, eyes flicking to the industrial clock on the wall. "Those kids are already on stage, and you look like shit. You have to—" He stopped, scratching a hand through his hair and trying to steady his breath. His white jeans and tee hung loose, fitting his easy nature even in anger. But now, they were strained with tension.

A silent pause stretched, then Ash ran a palm over his face, the urgency pressing back into his tone. 

"Look, I know you're..."—he hesitated, searching for the right word—"processing things. But you can't do this again. Not tonight." He crouched, grabbed Hollis's jacket from the floor, and threw it at him.

Hollis caught the jacket, wincing at the thud in his skull. "We needed different openers," he mumbled, avoiding the topic of himself.

"Or a new front man," Ash shot back, heat rising in his voice. 

The words should have stung, but the alcohol lingering in Hollis's system numbed it.

Guilt flashed through Ash's eyes, softening the blow. "I'm just... damn it, Hollis. I'm worried. About you, about us." He exhaled, reaching into Hollis's backpack to retrieve the infamous black and blue mask, its delicate monarch paint contrasting with the muted grays of the room. He extended it toward Hollis, almost pleading. 

"Can you even do this anymore?"

Hollis's eyes hovered over the mask, his expression twisting with conflict. "You don't get it," he said, bitterness edging his voice. 

Ash straightened, masking frustration with forced calm. "Then explain it to me—explain why you're doing this again."

"You sound like Otto," Hollis deflected, flinching as if he'd taken a punch. "You can't save everyone, you know."

Ash's eyes searched Hollis's face, fighting between sympathy and exasperation. "And you can't keep burning out." He tossed the mask into Hollis's lap. "Not if you want this. Not if we're still doing this together."

They stood at an impasse, tension snapping between them like live wires. Hollis looked away first, breaking eye contact—breaking whatever resolve Ash might have hoped to have been forming. 

Ash's jaw tightened as he stepped back, putting on his own mask. "Whatever, dude. Just... figure out your shit."

Ash slammed the door behind him. His muffled voice carried underneath the crack in the door. Along with it, clangs, thumps, and laughter resounded outside the door to their room backstage—deafening sounds that made Hollis's stomach turn. Within the hour, those sounds would follow bright lights and thousands of eyes. Phone lenses to record, capture, and pick him apart piece by piece in the comment sections of social media, whether or not a mask covered his face. So he remained motionless, his arms crossed, staring at the mask in his lap until Ash's shadow disappeared from underneath the door.

Hollis exhaled and collapsed onto the couch, his arm resting atop his forehead. He lifted the mask above him, its intricate design seeming alive in the quiet. He stared into its hollow eye-slits that seemed to stare back at him, mocking him.

This is what you wanted, after all.

The crowd outside's murmur rose suddenly like an undertow beneath the music, growing louder with the final song of the opening band. It seeped through the door and reverberated through the walls. Their excitement pressed down on him, amplifying the pressure already coiling tight, faceless voices already hungry for a version of Hollis he could barely recognize anymore.

He shut his eyes, wishing the sounds away, but they were relentless, urging him to slip on the mask and the promises it held. His shoulders sagged under the weight of it all, but still, he clutched it, knowing it was both his poison and his cure. Knowing he couldn't live with or without it. 

Time slipped away, and he found himself still frozen. His grip tightened, and the tremor in his hands became matched only by the tremor in his heart until bangs on the door shattered his thoughts. 

The door swung open with explosive force, rattling the stillness and nearly jarring the mask from Hollis's hands. He jolted, eyes wide, like a fugitive caught in the spotlight. Their manager, Otto, stood in the doorway. His sunglasses hung from the neck of his T-shirt, half hidden by his navy-blue blazer. His slicked-back hair seemed more messy than usual, his face a frown as one hand clutched something small, the other holding a water bottle. The sudden intrusion punched through Hollis's cocoon of solitude, and before he could find words, Otto was on him.

Otto dropped two ibuprofen into Hollis's palm and thrust out the water. "Why?" he asked.

Hollis blinked, still caught in the undertow of his thoughts, his hangover a deep bass thrumming through him. Otto's presence was a bolt of urgency against the tension in the room. 

"You hear me?" Otto pushed, his voice rising above the dull roar in Hollis's mind. "I didn't fly in just to watch you self-destruct."

Hollis stared at him, his expression a battle between defiance and defeat. A dark laugh escaped Hollis's throat, merciless and broken. "What, come to save me again?"

Otto said nothing as Hollis popped the ibuprofen and kicked them to the back of his throat. He took several sips of water, washing it down. He replaced the cap and set the bottle down on the table.

"Answer the question, Hollis."

"What question?"

"You know damn well what question."

Hollis glanced over Otto's shoulder. Ash stood under the threshold, Linden and Kai behind him. They all watched silently while Otto waited, arms crossed, for Hollis's answer. A feeling of betrayal washed over him, knowing they'd likely collectively decided to call Otto after last night. So Hollis said nothing. He removed his sweatpants, losing his balance while pulling on his jeans. Otto huffed and shooed the others away from the door, slamming it shut. 

Hollis stood straight and took another gulp of water, avoiding Otto's eyes.

"What's it gonna take, Hollis?"

Hollis dropped the empty bottle on the floor, looking down at the mask on the couch—it was enough to hide himself from the people within the crowd, but not enough to hide from Otto.

"Talk to me," Otto said.

Hollis forced out a breath of air. "I'm fine, alright?"

"You're not alright, Hollis! You have a sold-out show tonight, eight thousand people in this arena as we speak, and you're laid up in here, drunk and dead to the world."

"I'm not drunk," Hollis protested, his eyes lost in a blank stare. Otto moved in, suffocating him.

"You think you're the only one dealing with this?" Otto gestured around, taking in the room, the situation, the past and present laid bare. "Everyone has sacrificed for this: Ash, Linden, Kai, me. Margaret." 

Hollis's jaw tightened at the mention of his mother, but he gave no retort. He searched Otto's face, looking for some sign of weakness or wavering, but found none. Instead, he found himself—the version that Otto and the rest of the world wanted him to be—reflected with stubborn clarity. 

Hollis shook his head, picking up the mask, but Otto touched his shoulder. 

"I made her a promise." His voice came out softer this time. "I intend on keeping it, come hell or high water. And if she were here now, you know it would break her heart to see you like this."

At this, Hollis gritted his teeth, eyes growing hot. 

"If things are too much, then let's call it quits for a while," Otto continued. "Take a break, think things over. Maybe it'll be good for you to have some time off."

The words hit Hollis like cold water, and his initial anger morphed into something deeper, something wounded and raw. He swallowed, this pill a bitter lump he wasn't ready to choke down. He frowned.

"The second you take time off, people forget about you," he snapped. Otto took a breath to speak, but Hollis's voice grew louder. "They stop streaming and posting, and suddenly no one cares about you because you weren't good enough to make it to the top."

Otto drew back a bit. "Hollis, you—"

"And don't you dare say I already have," Hollis spat. Otto stepped forward.

"Hollis, I didn't mean—"

"And I'll barrel over anyone who tries to stop me because I'll be damned if I'm remembered as no more than a sorry waste of talent!"

It all fell from Hollis's lips louder than he'd intended. Otto blinked, his gaze shifting between Hollis's eyes, as if he didn't know where to look. He opened his mouth then closed it again, and Hollis knew there was history and care and something more dangerous behind Otto's eyes: belief. Belief in Willow, in Hollis. And it pushed at Hollis harder than anger ever could. So he clutched the mask like it might slip away, its edges sharp against his skin, but softer than the suggestion Otto had made to him.

A knock on the door split the tension down the middle, and Otto's head spun. 

"Give us a damn minute!" he shouted over his shoulder, but the door cracked open.

"It's me," Ash called. "They're ready for us."

"Fine," Hollis snapped, bumping into Otto's shoulder and exiting through the door. He slid the mask into place with the precision of ritual—a shaky hand and a soldier's determination—both his safety and his curse. He pulled up his hood as he brushed past Ash, Linden, and Kai, who still huddled around the door's side. They never strayed too far, none of them ever did, whether Hollis wanted them to be there or not. So he'd shaken it all off, forced himself up, and donned the mask anyway, just like he always did.

Even still, he trudged down the backstage corridor with forced resolve, wondering what would give out first—the determination to maintain his fractured self, or the desire to let it all come undone. But his posture straightened and the mask clung to him—a second skin—as he moved toward the door, where the four of them waited for their cue in the sudden stillness. 

And in those moments, only the mask knew if it was Hollis wearing it, or the other way around.