Page 50 of Dirty Like Brody
A life that only felt emptier when my brother showed up to flirt, grope and generally adore Katie right in frontofme.
By the time I got back to Roni’s that night I was starting to wonder, seriously, if I should just leave town. Now. Before things got anyworse.
Because where did I fit into all of this anymore? Did I fit in,atall?
HadIever?
Right now I felt so lost, I didn’tevenknow.
One thing I did know, for sure: the more times I came face-to-face with Brody Mason, the more impossible it became to think of leaving himagain.
But I was going to leave; I knew that, too. This wasn’t my home anymore. I couldn’t mope around Roni’s place forever. I had a career to get back to, and an apartment inNewYork.
But I also had to think about what mybrothersaid.
Rememberthis…
After we’d jammed together at the church, Jesse had asked me to give some serious thought to writing a few songs with the band. Just for fun, he said. They didn’t have to go on the album. But I knew that was lipservice.
He wanted me to write with Dirtyagain.
I wanted that too, but I would never tell him so and risk him getting crushed when it didn’thappen.
For the most part, Jesse and Zane wrote Dirty’s music. It had always been that way, ever since I left the band and Seth was kicked out. And we all knew that was why the songs weren’t ever as strong as the ones on the debut album—when we were all together. It wasn’t that Jesse and Zane weren’t great writers. They were. They’d managed to turn out hit after hit over theyears.
But there was something different, something special about those first songs, that without Seth and I, the band had never been able totouch.
There was magic between the sixofus.
A magic that my brother and I had tapped into while writing the songs for his solo album together. And feeling that magic again, just messing around, jamming and letting the music flow with Jesse and Zane at the church… I was sucked right into itagain.
Nothing else in my life had ever felt like that. That sense of harmony. Like things justfit. Like they were meant to be. I’d only ever gotten that feeling writing music with my brother andDirty.
And, years ago… there were times… times when I felt that rightness withBrody.
But now I just kept hearing his words, like tiny electrical shocks, rewriting the truth on myheart.
I’ve advised them against writingwithyou.
Now, Brody didn’t want me around. He’d made that much clear. He thought I should leave, for the band’s sake, if I had any doubts at all about working with them again. And I did have doubts. I had big, huge doubts that Brody would ever forgive me andletme work with them again. And if he thought I shouldn’t work with them… he was probably right. Dirty and Brody were a package deal, and obviously, I’d hurt them all whenIleft.
You broke myheart!
I kept hearing those words, the way he’d yelled them at me, hurled them at me, like anindictment.
And maybe he was trying to protect the band… but maybe he was also trying to push me to leave so he wouldn’t have to dealwithme.
I justdidn’tknow.
I didn’t know if he really wanted me to go, or just wanted me to prove to them all how much I wanted to stay. Toearnit.
And if so—did I take that chance? Throw the white flag at his feet and tell all, and hope he could somehow forgive me? Was there any chance that he coulddothat?
More… that he could everbemine?
That I could have both DirtyandBrodyback?
I lay on my bed in Roni’s spare bedroom for hours, staring at the ceiling as I thought about him. It had been this way for years; no matter where I went or what I did, I thought about Brody. The shadow of him was always with me, keeping a running count of myfailures.
