Chapter 5: Exposure

Ash had been right—Willow's two latest albums were on shuffle in the back rooms of the venue. The after party spilled out into the VIP lounge, where people Hollis knew well and people he didn't relaxed and drank. Some sat in booths while others leaned against the walls. They all joked and told tour stories, including the incident early on in the tour when they'd left Hollis behind in the hotel thinking he'd already been asleep in the back of the bus. They all laughed about it now.

Hollis didn't.

He sat in the corner, the muffled pulse of music in his chest, the world tilting slightly beneath him. His bandmates floated somewhere across the room, untouchable, and Hollis was already too far gone to follow. His mask was off, leaving him raw and exposed in the crowd of musicians and techs and stage crew. He sunk deeper into the chair. The room wavered in and out of focus, blurred by more than just dim light. The drink in his hand felt too heavy, sloshing dangerously as his grip loosened. People moved like shadows, blurring into the thick air, the hum of voices distant and unreal. Someone from the crew shouted something, laughter erupting like a wave through the room, but Hollis didn't catch the words anymore. He didn't want to. He knew the sound of those words, the shape of them, the way they twisted in his stomach. So he closed his eyes against the dizziness, and when he opened them again, a new figure stood before him.

"So, what's it like, having a sold out show at Ansley Street?"

Hollis was too confused to know whether or not he'd stifled his scowl. The figure's features were sharpened by disdain, and was the frontman of their opener, This Side Up, Hollis knew that much. Though the name was a jumble in Hollis's mind. 

Drunk and half-hidden beneath a dirty blonde fringe, the vocalist looked down at Hollis. His smile was a slow stretch as he slid into the empty space next to Hollis, forcing him further into the corner.

Darian—the name finally came to him.

Hollis shrugged. "Haven't thought much about it, honestly."

"Well, it's nice to see you come out of hiding for once." Darian's voice teetered between jest and jeer as he gestured towards the absence of the mask. "I didn't recognize you for a second."

There was a challenge in the statement, sharpened by the sloppy confidence of too many drinks. Hollis's fingers tightened around his cup. He looked away, fixing his eyes on a stained spot on the carpet, and took a slow, deliberate drink. The beverage tasted metallic, sour on his tongue. 

"Wouldn't want to intimidate anyone," Hollis finally slurred, the dry edge of his tone almost drowned by a burst of noise from the other side of the room. Ash's laugh, Linden's distinctive drawl, each sound a pinpoint reminder of how far away they were.

Darian leaned in closer. "Takes a lot more than a grown man in a butterfly mask to intimidate me."

Hollis met Darian's eyes. The words bounced around in Hollis's mind as anger and alcohol began to churn, a potent mix he knew too well these days. But he held it all back, refusing to give Darian the satisfaction.

Even in an inebriated state, Hollis knew where this was going. Too many times with too many bands he'd had this encounter—words from other musicians that had shaped the way Hollis viewed himself, carried himself, until the words began to rot everything away inside him. It was always a quip about the mask, or the lyrics, or the infamous show after his mom died when he broke down on stage during "Even When." Videos and photos and words of sympathy circulated for days, but so did apathy, and it wasn't long after that when Hollis picked up the bottles and never put them down.

"Is that so," Hollis said now, though the effort of staying calm set his teeth on edge.

"Not everyone can hide behind a gimmick," Darian said. "Some of us have to use our skills."

Hollis drew back. "A gimmick?"

"You all wear those things to cover up your insecurities. Why else would you need a mask to keep your fans at a distance?" Darian didn't back off, and Hollis's blood began to boil. "You're a smart guy—you know if they knew the real you, they wouldn't care about you."

Hollis felt the crack, could almost hear it—the sound of himself snapping. 

"If you think everyone buys your mystery, you're wrong. Everyone in this room knows you just can't take the hate that comes with your throne. That's why you hide from the world."

Hollis set his cup down with an unsteady hand, a few drops sloshing onto the table, and turned to face Darian head-on. 

"I guess you'd know all about things missing," he said, his voice carrying more weight than the insult. "Since your talent decided not to make an appearance this whole tour."

The air shifted, a sudden charge in the atmosphere around them. Darian stiffened, surprise mingling with anger, but Hollis didn't flinch. He felt the burning stare, the hatred sparking just beneath the surface, and it fueled the fire.

"If it weren't for this tour, you guys would have been nothing but one-hit-wonder nobodies."

Darian said nothing, speechless as Hollis slid out from behind the table, leaving his cup behind. He met Darian's eyes with the fire the nobody-vocalist had lit all by himself.

"So you tell me," Hollis said, "what's it like, taking a backseat to actual skill?"

Around them, the noise of the party blurred into a static hum. Darian stood and came face to face with Hollis. The tension stretched thin, too thin, and Hollis waited for the inevitable break. 

Darian's shove sent Hollis reeling, drinks tipping off the table that crashed onto the stained carpet. For a moment, he was weightless, his thoughts caught in the spin of adrenaline and alcohol. The cup of anger he tried to keep from overflowing had shattered, and the chaos rushed in to fill the empty space. 

His world narrowed to a single point—a hot, furious pulse driving him forward. His limbs moved before his mind could catch up and he felt the sharp jolt of his fist against Darian's face, a satisfaction cut short by Darian's weight slamming into him. They hit the floor in a tangle of limbs, the dull thud echoing through Hollis's ribs.

Glasses toppled and shattered, chairs crashed against each other as people scattered. Hollis didn't care. The noise only fed the anger inside him, drowning out everything except the urge to fight back. He swung again, the impact sending shockwaves through his bones.

Darian twisted, trying to get the upper hand, but Hollis was quick. Fueled by years of pain and one drink too many, he kept going. He heard shouts, angry and shocked, blurring together. He tasted the tang of blood mixed with stale air, and he knew without seeing that it was his own.

A familiar voice yelled his name, but he barely registered it. His focus was on the fight, running on instinct, on anger that demanded to be let out. People surrounded them now, not just watching but trying to break them apart. The blur of faces closed in, shouting, grabbing, pulling at Hollis. He shook them off, vision swimming, and went for Darian again.

"You're fucking frauds!" Darian's voice cut through, raw and enraged, his own bandmates straining to hold him back.

Hollis felt the words like a fresh blow. The pain twisted into more anger, more fuel for the flames. He threw another punch, but the distance between them grew as Ash and Linden finally managed to drag him away.

They gripped his arms, voices overlapping in a jumble of urgency. 

"Hollis, stop! Enough! You're done!" 

He heard them, clearer and closer, but it was too late for their words to matter. The fight had already been fought, and all that was left was the bitter aftermath.

Hollis's breathing was ragged, the room tilting dangerously as he tried to catch his balance. A line of blood dripped from his lip and the corner of his eye, the taste metallic and sharp. His vision cleared just enough to see Darian on the other side of the room, held back but still shouting. Still throwing accusations like punches.

Everyone was watching. All eyes were locked on Hollis, wide with disbelief and what he decided was judgment. The silence that followed was louder than the fight itself, a heavy, oppressive thing that bore down on Hollis with the weight of a thousand unspoken words.

His heart hammered in his chest, a painful reminder of how quickly he'd lost control. He looked around, meeting the stunned gazes, the absence of his mask branding him with the truth of who he really was—unhidden. Exposed. The realization settled in and he pulled himself from Linden and Ash's grasps. He barely felt Ash's grip loosen just enough for him to slip away, barely heard Linden's voice calling him back. The alcohol and adrenaline had combined in a sickening rush, spurring his feet faster out of the silent judgment of the room. 

He shoved through the door, past a cluster of crew members who glanced up, surprised. Words and eyes followed him, but he didn't slow. He veered through the narrow hall until the door clacked open and the night air hit him in a rush. 

He bent over, gulping down the cold air in painful, shuddering breaths. The chill bit through his hoodie, cut through the sweat on his skin, but he still felt like he was burning. He started moving again, putting more distance between himself and the fight, the scene, the truth of everything that had just happened. He knew better—crazed fans would be waiting at their bus, hovering in the night like shadows, wanting to know him—see him for who he really was.

And he couldn't allow that.

He brushed against the rough brick of the building as he made his way around the opposite side, ambling down some street he didn't know. But he didn't let it stop him, he couldn't. The anger was still there, pulsing beneath his skin, but something else crept in—the truth behind Darian's words, twisting it all into a different kind of pain.

***

Blood pattered in the puddles like raindrops under his ambling steps, the brick wall cold on his palm that held him steady. He held onto his mask inside his hoodie as if it were the only thing tethering him to the ground. The plastic dug into his palm. Faces and voices blurred together in his mind. Fragments of past failures mingled with the night's wounds. They swarmed him, a whirlwind of noise he couldn't escape.

What is the point? Why do you keep doing this? What's it going to take, Hollis?

He gritted his teeth, tasting a mixture of salt and blood that had run down his cheek and onto his lips. The truth was—he didn't know. He had no answer for them, and as he clutched his mask—his persona, his safety—the dark alley to his right seemed like more of a quiet haven than what awaited him back at the venue.

He stumbled forward, hands brushing against the rough brick walls as he navigated the narrow alley. The anger that had propelled him into the fight was a dying ember now, replaced by a creeping numbness that spread through him like the rain-soaked chill. 

"Frauds." 

The word clung to him like oil, slick and suffocating, a dark mirror to everything he'd always feared. He paused, leaning against the brick. The world spun around him as he discarded the mask on the soaked ground. He sank down and his back scraped against the rough wall until he was sitting on damp pallets, legs stretched out and vision blurring at the edges.

He leaned back on the brick, staring at the cloudy city night. Memories swarmed like angry hornets, stinging in places the alcohol hadn't reached. The fight at the bar, the taunts and insults. Faces loomed behind his eyelids: Darian's, the bandmates he'd left behind, the people he'd hurt and been hurt by. They were all there, a gallery of ghosts that refused to let him be.

The rain intensified, cold needles on his skin, seeping through layers of fabric to find the man beneath the mask, the mask that lay forgotten at his side, half-drowned in a growing puddle. He knew, even as the darkness claimed him, that there was no running from the ghosts. They lived in him, were him, and no amount of distance or empty bottles would ever change that. 

Finally, he surrendered to it, a white flag in the form of closed eyes and heavy limbs. The rain was a lullaby now, its rhythm steady and indifferent, carrying him away from the fight and the fear. 

Carrying him past the point of feeling anything at all.