Ace's Fall (5 page)

Zee leans his head down next to my ear,
and I’m ready to unleash on him if I need to.

“
Your mother would be
ashamed. That says a lot, considering how much of a
whore
she was.
You
know,
before she got what was coming to her.” He backs
away with a smirk on his face.

However, I end that quickly by sending
my fist flying to his nose. Then I don’t take pause when I swing my
other fist to his eye. Zee staggers back, and I waste no time in
tackling him to the floor. I place my knee to his chest to prevent
him from getting up and I let my fists do all the talking that I
couldn’t seem to do before.

Then everything goes black.

***

My ribs feel as though they were
stomped on, my head is throbbing, and there’s a pressure on my
wrists. Enough so, I can’t move my arms. Finally, I risk opening my
eyes.

I start slowly and
peek
in
the room. It’s dark so I can’t make out much.
There’s a monitor on my right showing heartbeat and
blood pressure
readings. It’s obvious that I’m in a hospital,
but why?

I rack my brain for what
could have possibly landed me
here
, but the possibilities
are endless. The last
thing I remember
is
being
in my dressing room before our last
show.

Shit, I must have OD’d.

Why would they restrain me if that were
the case? Maybe it’s hospital protocol.

I slowly open both eyes and turn my
head to my left. The sight in front of me shreds my heart and makes
me realize what an ass I am.

Grams
is
sitting in
the uncomfortable hospital chair with her head tilted back snoring.
Nate is sitting next to her, his leg is bouncing nervously while
he’s staring at the brightly lit screen on his phone.

“
What are you doing here?”
I softly croak. My throat is dry as hell.

Nate’s head pops up with a
look of surprise on his face. That flips to
worry
, but he
quickly hides it.

He chuckles. “You know,
Grams, she didn’t listen to you when you told us not to come. She
said,” Nate imitates Grams’ little old lady voice
“
Ace can go suck a duck if he thinks for
one second we’re not coming to his show, we’ll camp out at his
hotel if we have to
.”

I laugh at
that
, but it gets cut off because
pain
that shoots through my
ribs and knocks the wind out of me. Once I catch my
breath,
I
ask, “What the
hell happened, Nate?”

He averts his eyes to the
ceiling while exhaling
a gush of air
. “I didn’t see it so I’m
not sure what’s truth and what’s not.” It’s clear that he’s
avoiding telling me. I stare at him waiting for him to continue. He
finally meets my eyes and goes on, “According to reports, you
attacked Zee while tripping balls on drugs. They say you couldn’t
be stopped and three huge ass security guards had a hell of a time
pulling you off of him. Which probably explains your bruised
ribs.”

Shit. I finally flipped on Zee, and I
don’t even remember it. Figures.

“
That boy had it comin’ to
him,” Grams chimes in. I hadn’t realized she had woken
up.

She reaches over from her chair and
grabs my restrained hand. Her eyes are filled with tears, and I
have to bite my lip so that I don’t let my emotions overwhelm me as
well.

I never intended for my addiction to
cause my family harm, but here I am with the two people who mean
the most to me in this world and I see the pain I carved etched on
their faces.

I turn my head away from
them, ashamed of the person that I’ve become. What the fuck have I
been doing? If I’ve learned anything in my
life
so far, it should
be that you can’t take life for granted. Every single moment
counts, especially the small ones.

I’ve dug myself so deeply into this
lifestyle that I forgot about the big picture. I’ve put all my
energy into stressing over these last few years when I should
really be worrying about what the fuck I’m going to be doing five
years from now.

Ten years from now.

Twenty years from now.

I don’t want to be
dead
in
the ground. I want to prove to myself that I’m
more than my addiction. I’m not a prisoner to the
needle.

“
I want to get clean.” No
truer words have ever been spoken. I want to become someone I never
thought I could be.

r
ecovery:

g
oing into the rehab center, I thought it’d be easy. I was so
fucking wrong.

When I wasn’t puking my guts out, I was
snapping at anyone who even breathed in my direction. I wanted to
leave and never come back, but if I did that, I knew my chances of
relapse were huge.

Even now, I feel the cravings. It’s a
constant temptation. It feels like there’s this itch that I can’t
scratch. It’s a form of torture for me.

We go to group every day, and I want so
badly to escape all of my issues and lose myself in the mental haze
of heroin. But, I can’t do that. I have a life to live, and it’s so
fucking hard to cope. I feel like a whiny child, and according to
my counselor, Jim, I still somewhat am because I’ve never faced any
of my childhood issues.

At
the beginning of treatment,
Jim
and I didn’t get along so well. He always smelled like
peppermint chocolate, and while I was in the midst of withdrawal,
his smell made me gag. Which pissed me
off.
He also has
glasses that he’s always pushing up his nose. Oh and let’s not
forget that goddamn comb over.

There were multiple times that I had
considered taking scissors to his pathetic patch of hair or tape
his glasses to his fucking skull, but I knew that was mainly the
mood swings from the withdrawal talking.

I’m better
about
it now, and I’ve learned to deal with my outbursts. I only
voiced my annoyances once and Jim calmly asked why I felt the way I
did. I not so graciously told him why with a lot of choice
words.

Now, I’m halfway done with
treatment, and I feel great. I’m a little lonely, but I’m
working
on
it.

Nate and Grams visit me
regularly. Nate limits his visits to about every other week because
he lives about eight hours
northwest
from the rehab
center. While Grams’ drive is only about thirty minutes. She’s
become a rehab favorite, which is no surprise to me. She brings
loads of baked goods and has new jokes to tell. I think my fellow
rehabbers like her more than me.

I’m on the outskirts of L.A., which is
okay as long as I’m in treatment. As soon as I get out, I’m going
to go up to Nate’s and figure out where to go from
there.

The band has been
completely supportive. They’ve been
more quiet
lately, but they
all have lives. The label sent me a fucking
Get Well Soon
card. I guess it’s
better than radio silence.

I’ve been working on new
songs, and I feel good about it. I think the label might actually
be happy with it. It’s not sexual
angst
, but there are a lot of
layers to the songs that I think even those douchebags can
respect.

One of the things we deal
with in rehab is past mistakes that may haunt us. I have the
obvious issues with my
parents
, but one of the other things I
regret is how I treated Bree. I don’t regret breaking up
with
her
, but I regret how I did it. We just
shouldn’t have dated in the first place.

About a month into my stay,
I decided to call her and apologize. The phone call started
off
rough,
but we both got closure and sent each other well
wishes for the rest of life. There wasn’t even a friendship to
salvage, so we agreed that not keeping in touch was best. She
finally found her happily ever after; she’s married with a child on
the way. I congratulated her
before
getting off the
phone.

That was the first time in rehab that I
felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. The second
time came when I was having a really bad day, and I had a session
with Jim.

“
Why keep pushing through?”
I asked angrily.

“
Because, one day you’re
going to come to the realization that this entire battle was worth
it. It may be a month from now, it may be years from now, but when
you get there, it’s going to hit you like a ton of
bricks.”

I hadn’t put much thought
into it when he first said
it,
but the clearer my
mind
becomes
, the more I think about
it.

I’m going to have moments
when I want to use again—it’s not a possibility, it’s a fucking
guarantee. But I have to push through it for the future that I so
desperately want. I have no idea what kind of
future
it
will
be
, but I do know that I’m looking
forward to when the ton of bricks to come crashing down.

Ace’s story is continued
in
Ace’s Wild
,
OUT NOW!

(For a sneek peek, continue a few more
pages)

If you or someone you know
struggles with addiction there is help out there. You don’t have to
suffer alone.

www.recovery.org

www.addictionrecoveryguide.org

www.aa.org

www.na.org

(Sneak Peek of Ace’s Wild, OUT
NOW!)

Ace

I gave my all for them. Blood, sweat, and
fucking tears. And for what? So I could be kicked out and cast
aside for greed. It sure as hell wasn’t for friendship.

I was in need of my best friends’ support
after the year I’d had but instead they chose money over it. That’s
over ten years down the drain as if it were nothing.

Well, screw them.

I’m still trying to process what my now
ex-manager Bill just informed me. This shit storm in my head all
started with a phone call…

“
Ace, uh, hey man.”

“
Bill! Hey, just the man I wanted to
talk to. I started getting some new tracks together, and it’s
turning out really good. When should we get the band together to
record?” I had been eager to start recording. None of the guys had
been answering my calls, which is a little out of character for
them. So I was relieved that Bill was finally calling me
back.

“
Uh, about that, there won’t be any
more recording sessions. It’s been agreed upon that you will no
longer be a part of Spades. The guys decided to go in a different
direction with the band.”

What. The. Hell.

“
What do you mean they decided to go
in a different direction?” I grit through my teeth. I’m hoping that
I just heard that wrong.

“
It’s just not working out.” He says
robotically. I swear these label guys have no souls.

At that my blood boils and I start to lose
it, “I built this band from the ground up. You can’t just kick me
out!” I jump to my feet and begin pacing the length of my room. My
hand is clutching my cell phone threatening to break it into
pieces. My other fist is clenched ready to send it flying into the
nearest object.

“
Chill out, it’s nothing personal,
just a difference in artistic direction. The guys just can’t see
what your vision is anymore and frankly, neither do I. Your
creative abilities were compromised when you went to
rehab.”

Wow, he really just went there. Bill, the
bald headed, short, stubby, smelly little fuck has been a pain in
my ass since he became our manager when we signed.

“
Compromised? Are you fucking kidding
me? I’ve written some of my best material since rehab. You guys
would know this if you answered your damn phones! I have rights to
all of the songs the band has put out. You can’t kick me out and
expect to use my material!” I’m livid. My head’s throbbing, I can
hear my pulse thumping in my ears. I’m trying my damndest to not go
over the edge but I’m at that thin line. One more step and I’m
going to flip.

“
You’ll be compensated for the
material you’ve written but as far as rights are concerned you
signed those away when you signed the record deal. You have a copy,
look it up. The guys came to a unanimous decision in this. The band
has been drifting apart for a while now. It was only a matter of
time.”

This can’t be happening. I’m finally getting
my life back together after the hell that I’ve lived. Things have
finally started looking up. I spent ninety days in rehab then
another ninety in a sober living facility. I’ve gotten my life back
on track and was trying to prepare myself for life on the road
again. Nothing could have prepared me for this.