A New Kind Of Hell

Devin’s POV

The last three shows came fast. Then again, I spent most of the off time on Xanax. I would be gone, and would sober up right before the show, and then afterwards, I would take another pill and go to the van. At times, my vision would be blurred; I would have headaches, and would lose focus of what I was doing as well as feel nauseous. I didn’t want to admit it, but I had a problem, I was slowly overdosing on Xanax and I knew it. I knew what was happening, and I what was going on with my body.

It started with the blurred vision and insomnia, and led to swollen hands, vomiting, tremors and uncontrolled muscle movements, but it got worse. I could barely function. The amount of weight I lost was alarming.

Lying on the floor of my bathroom, I felt too weak to get up. I had felt nauseous and went to go be sick, when I finished, I fell and hit my on the tile floor. Something in me snapped. I was tired of feeling this way. Punching the wall, I screamed out in pain.

“FUCKING HELL WHY DID I DO THAT!!”

Because you are a stupid pathetic piece of shit.

Greeeeaaat. Now the voices are back. I did not miss the voice that constantly reminded me of how worthless I am, and drove me insane.

You are Insane Dumbfuck.

Reaching into the medicine cabinet, I grabbed a couple of pills before downing them with water. Rinsing my hand and cleaning the wound, I put some ice on it before sitting on the couch. Flipping through the TV channels, I stopped it on beetle juice. Losing myself in the film, I was startled when there was a knock on the door. Looking around, the apartment was dirty as fuck. Sighing, I got up and slowly made my way to the door. The person knocked harder. In the midst of their knocking, I opened the door.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“to talk.”

“I’m busy, why not sometime later, like next week or something?”

“No. Because you are going to keep procrastinating and will be ‘busy’ every time I come by.”


“Because I AM busy. You stop by every time I am busy.” Balz had stopped by three times, and every time I hid in my bathroom, and told him I wasn’t home. To which he said my cars was there, where was I? Each time I told him I had gone for a walk and was somewhere not home.

“Let’s just talk right now. Can we dot that?” He asked.

“What’s so important that we need to talk about?”

“Well, uhh I wanted to see how you were. We haven’t heard from you since the end of tour and we were worried. That and the guys want to have a barbeque this weekend and wanted to know if you wanted to come.”

“What day is it?” I asked.

“The barbeque is Sunday afternoon.”

“No today.”

“Its Thursday.” He answered.

“Ah. We’ll I think I have plans on Sunday.”

“Let me rephrase that, we’re having a barbeque, and you WILL be there.” He said.

“What if I don’t want to go?”

“Ghost. For The love of everything dark and scary, will you please just go? The guys want to see you. They miss you. They miss their ghosty.”

“Fine. I’ll go. What time does it start?”

“2:30. It’s at Ryans’s.”

“Okay, well bye.”

“Hey, that didn’t mean this conversation was over, it meant that I was telling you everything. Come on, I’m not busy, you’re not busy, let’s do something!” he said.

“If I say yes, will you leave me alone?” I asked.

“I suppose.”

“Fine. Let me get my coat and change.”

I let him in despite not really wanting to. Going to my room, I grabbed skinny jeans and a worn doll shirt (from my clothing line) and a hoodie. It wasn’t until I was walking out to Balz that I realized the hoodie I put on was Chris’s. Deciding to let it go, I grabbed my phone, wallet and keys and followed Balz out before locking my door.

As we were walking out to his car, I stumbled and about face planted. My coordination was not so hot as of lately. I constantly felt like I was on a boat at sea. As I was changing the song on the radio, my hand twitched and was weird, the first time was pretty freaky, but the second time was down right terrifying. Deciding that it was best to keep my hands to myself, I stuffed my hands in the pouch of the hoodie and tried to not panic.

Balz ended up driving us to the mall, where we oh so coincidently ran into Ricky and Ryan. We spent some time just walking around, before we went in some stores. I will admit, it was a bit of fun. When Balz dared Ricky to go dance behind a group of girls, I about lost it. It was funny as fuck. Balz and I were hunched over laughing so hard that we couldn’t breathe. He finally caught his breath and high fived Ryan, but I couldn’t catch my breath. I kept trying to inhale, but I couldn’t. Getting disorientated, I began to freak out. My lungs burned and the pain in my chest was intense. Balz hit me in the back and within seconds, I was able to breathe once again.

The guys looked at me with worry, but I told them I was fine. I had ‘inhaled weird and some weird shit.’ Changing the subject, I made a bet with Ricky, that if he lost, he would have to let me do his makeup, hair and chose an outfit for him to wear to the barbeque; and if he won, he did the same.

The bet was that if Balz was able to go into hot topic, stand next to our merch, that he would get recognized. I bet that 1 person would recognize him, a small group at most, Ricky bet that the entire store would. As he went in, we spent five minutes out side across sitting down. When he came out he was smirking and said, “Only like 4 people noticed me. Two works and two kids. They took pictures, we ought to go before we get swarmed or something.”

For the most part, only a few people noticed us. And I wont the bet. Ricky wasn’t stoked but he had to do it. The longer we were out, the more I started to not feel good. My stomach was upset, my head hurt and I wanted to curl up and sleep. The guys wanted to all go back to Ricky’s and hang out, that included Balz, so I had to go with them.

I ended up on Ricky’s couch with the rest of the guys, watching Drag Me to Hell. Getting up, I went to the bathroom. Splashing water on my face gently, I tried to wake up a little bit. As I grabbed the door handle, my hand twitched. This time, the twitch was much worse than earlier. Shoving my hand in my pocket, I opened the door with my other hand and went out to rejoin the guys. Flopping down on the couch beside Ryan, I startled Ryan. He literally jumped out of his seat, which sent Ricky, Balz, and me into hysterics. Ryan flipped us off as we all laughed our Asses off. As I tried to breathe, I couldn’t. Hitting myself in the chest, I was able to breathe again. I don’t know if the guys noticed but I hoped they hadn’t.

We watched another movie before we all fell asleep on the couches, well everyone but me. Balz was beside me; Ryan and Ricky were on the other couch. Feeling bad, I found Ricky’s pillows and put one under their heads and placed blankets over them. Letting Balz have the couch, I laid on the floor by the TV. Pulling Chris’s hoodie close, I breathed in his cologne before finally drifting into some well needed sleep.

Notes