Page 1 of Every Shattered Note
Prologue
BAD BOY ROCKER DEXTER VAUGHN CAUGHT IN NEW SCANDAL—IS HE CHEATING ON RISING STARLET?
Wild Scene Weekly– December 2000
By Crystal Devereaux, Staff Reporter
It’s another day,another disaster, for Dead Moth Parade’s former keyboardist, Dexter Vaughn.Just months after a grainy sex tape had everyone clutching their Discmans, the eyeliner-loving rocker has stumbled back into trouble—literally.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, paparazzi snapped Vaughn tripping out of the Chateau Marmont with a mystery brunette—most definitely not up-and-coming ingénue Gillian Rose, the girl he’s been “linked” with in every tabloid this fall.The photos?Vaughn in rumpled black jeans, cigarette dangling, eyeliner smudged like last night’s mascara, and—wait for it—a crimson lipstick kiss stamped across his collar.
Here’s the rub: Vaughn’s supposed to be on his best behavior.Insiders tell Wild Scene Weekly that he’s been working on a solo album, with his label selling the story of a sober, serious artist ready to leave the scandals behind.“They wanted him in the studio, not stumbling out of the Marmont,” one label source stated.“This blows the whole comeback narrative.”
Between Dead Moth Parade’s spectacular implosion, a trail of brawls from New York to Sunset Boulevard, and whispers of a second tape floating around, fans are starting to wonder if Dexter Vaughn is aiming for rock’s second act—or just making a career out of public meltdowns.
“If this is his idea of revival,” another insider commented, “we’ll stick with boy bands.”
Dexter
“It’s a fucking lie,” I snarl, the words clawing their way up my throat like acid.My voice ricochets off the walls of Eddie’s office, too loud, too raw, too desperate.“If you recall, I was here.In Seattle.Seattle, Eddie.How the fuck did they even get this shot?Is it even me?”
Eddie doesn’t blink.He never does.He leans back in his chair like a man who’s weathered storms so often that thunder no longer bothers him.
And of course it doesn’t.He’s seen me at my worst.He managed Dead Moth Parade when we thought we were gods, and even when he quit officially, he never really stopped babysitting us.Or me.Especially me.He’s the one we all call to clean up our wreckage.Even when he’s no longer part of the industry.
His gaze drags over me—slow, assessing, brutal in its quiet honesty.“Sure, it’s not you,” he says, voice flat as stone.“But you said the same about that fucking sex video.”
The video.
Maybe I should ask which one because ...well, he’s probably talking about the one that refuses to stay buried.The one that replays in my nightmares until I wake drenched, choking on shame.The one my lawyers tried to erase, that publicists tried to spin, that I tried to drink into silence.It always comes back.
“That was something I stupidly did back in the late eighties,” I spit out, pacing because if I stand still, I’ll combust.My hands shake when I rake them through my hair, knots catching between my fingers.“It was the fucking eighties, Edgar.Everyone was stupid.Everyone was high.Give me a fucking break.”
“It was eighty-nine.”His voice slices through me.“And it wasn’t the only one.”
My stomach twists.Acid churns.Maybe it’s yesterday’s hangover, maybe guilt, maybe both.I can’t tell anymore where one ends and the other begins.
I press my palms against my eyes until stars bloom, bright and violent, like the stage lights that once made me feel infinite.Back then, the roar of the crowd wrapped around me, made me believe I was untouchable.Now the stars feel like they’re falling, one headline at a time, crushing everything they touch.
“Here’s the deal, Dex,” Eddie says, his voice low, burdened by too many years of patching me back together.“You and every member of the old band still sell magazines.They don’t care if it’s true—they never do.Give them a scandal, they’ll gorge themselves on it.Give them silence, they’ll invent something worse.Maybe Gillian’s spinning this for sympathy.Maybe some photographer just cashed in with an old shot.Doesn’t matter.What matters is you’ve been ignoring your so-called girlfriend for three months.”
“I’ve been dealing with family shit,” I bite out, meeting his stare because he fucking knows he’s part of that family shit.
What I don’t say is that when I’m not suffocating under them, I’m drowning in the studio.Or in bottles.Or in myself.
Gillian doesn’t give a damn about my life—never has.She’s been parading across talk shows, promotions, red carpets, flashing her polished smile while my name trails behind her like smoke.I told Eddie I couldn’t follow her around the globe just to make it look good.He told me I couldn’t afford not to.
Fuck.
I want to rip the magazine in half, shred the photograph until nothing remains.I want to throw Eddie’s desk through the window, hurl my own reflection into the glass, and watch it shatter.Instead, my body betrays me.I collapse onto the couch, the cushions dipping, swallowing me whole.My head falls back, eyes on the ceiling, as if it might offer answers.
It doesn’t.It never does.
All I hear is the drag of my own breathing, uneven, ragged, as though even my lungs are sick of keeping me alive.
“So what now?”The question escapes, brittle, daring him to say the words I can’t: that there’s no saving me this time.
“We’ll talk to Ivy,” Eddie says finally.His sigh snakes under my skin, cold and invasive.“See how we can salvage this.”
