you're all I need
and maybe some faith would do me good

The change was relatively gradual, but everybody picked up on it right away. We all just watched out of some morbid fascination, watching and waiting to see what would happen next.

First the circles beneath her eyes grew deeper, and then her already angular features hollowed out further. Soon she was forgetting lyrics, appointments, conversations, inhibitions. She took up smoking and I believe she genuinely thought no one noticed the way she'd disappear practically in the middle of a sentence for a break. Her favorite tea was replaced by coffee, and friendly small talk became a thing of the past.

Then I started hearing things. People whispering about how they had heard about her and Rick and what happened back in the day. People whispering about job opportunities and connections, phone numbers passed surreptitiously down the line during lunch. No one wanted to actually admit they'd given up on her, but their false attempts to show concern were pathetically transparent.

And so, for a while, we all walked on eggshells around her, no one daring to speak to her directly. No one wanted to have their worst fears confirmed from the source herself.

The truth that no one else knows is that all of this really started happening a few months ago when Jack went off to school. It was the end of the summer. Annie's parents came to pick her up (finally). Everyone thought Fi would come back as planned, but when she announced that she wanted to finish high school in Seattle, her mother couldn't just say no.

I suppose I don't blame everyone for jumping to conclusions. But I get the feeling that there's more going on here than just a sudden bout of depression and its related symptoms.

I've ignored the whispers and the phone numbers, and I've ignored my own mother, who actually told me the other night about some band whose guitar player chased a whole bottle of headache medicine with liquid drain cleanser.

Who would want to be in a band that apparently drove its last guitar player to believe that a really painful (and, it should be noted, creative) suicide method was a better option than to continue playing with them?

But more importantly, why is everyone just standing by? If they think she's going to self-destruct, why isn't anyone trying to help?

Ever since I came back from college, it feels like we've actually come to be friends. Sometimes on the tour, when Annie was with us, I'd leave her to Jack and Clu to deal with while Molly told me about the old days, how the band got started, how they met, how they met John, the bands they used to share stages with, the groupies, the bad reviews, the stage fright and the rush, and I'd just soak all that history in. It's fascinating, the stories she has to tell.

No one ever asks.

As we all watch her quietly implode, I find myself wondering more and more about the person we've never been allowed to know, the version of her that existed before Rick. What's supposed to happen now that she's all grown up and her husband and her children are gone? Is she supposed to become that person again? Maybe that's what this is about. Maybe this is who she used to be.

Speculation would be just as pointless as the idle gossip the roadies pass around when she's not listening. I know the only way to get to the bottom of this is to go directly to her.

So tonight's the night. I'll come by, I'll get her alone, I'll cut to the chase.

I'll tell her what's going on behind the scenes and I'll be perfect and sympathetic, and she'll smile for the first time in a month because she's so touched by my concern.

She'll sit down beside me and spill the whole story, and I'll listen like I always do.

Maybe she'll ask me what she should do now. I probably won't tell her the solution that's on my mind. Even though the answer has been obvious this whole time, she'll appreciate that I saw through the haze that's been confounding her to point it out.

And then the mystery will be solved. The problem will be gone. And I'll be someone new to her. I'll be the only person she knows who cared enough to come to her instead of deserting the sinking ship.

Who knows what might happen next?

(baby, say that it's all gonna be alright
I believe that it isn't
)

- - -

Fiona Apple, "On the Bound"