Go Ask the Wind, or Better Yet, Go Ask Herr Forehead

Chapter 22

AIGHT I GOT IT LEZZGO FLASHBACK EPISODE HOPE YOU LIKE IT

The moment he got home, Klavier crashed face first onto his bed.

His breath heated the sheets, sweet smelling and pressed up against his face. Klavier wished he could collapse there forever, and never get up again. That concert was exhausting, and even more so than usual.

It was the usual wee hour of the morning he'd get home from a concert, with the usual mix of adrenaline and weariness. Concerts were always draining- obviously because of the singing, the moving, the walking, the lights beating down on his back and the nerves. Then mentally, there were always the concerns- what if people didn't like it? Klavier was always particularly hard on himself there, when Daryan called him a perfectionist; he wasn't exaggerating in the slightest.

Klavier closed his eyes at that, breathing heavily. Right. His medication. He had to take that, he couldn't risk another episode like a few nights ago. It got harder to take it, the farther in you got. That night he had wanted to take something, anything, but he wasn't sure if he'd be able to resist the temptation to overdose. Better to suffer than give himself the means to end it all, even if he needed to call Apollo to keep on going.

This concert was particularly difficult for Klavier, though, primarily because of the weight of making every single decision there was to make. He hated making decisions like that, during the era of the Gavinners he'd preferred to leave them to Daryan. When it came to planning shows, Klavier was the leader of the band only in name.

There was a reason for that, Klavier thought wanly to himself, reaching into his medicine cabinet, even if his younger self hadn't a clue it existed. Making decisions was impossibly hard for him, it always had been, and chances were, it always would be.

Ach, you know the Many Worlds Interpretation, ja? he'd asked his therapist, relieved when she nodded. It's only too easy for me to believe. That's how it feels.

Oversimplified, the Many Worlds Interpretation meant that every choice anyone ever made created a new, parallel universe, in which they made a different choice. It felt too true, too undeniably true whenever Klavier thought about it. Every single choice meant too much to him, like he was responsible for an entire new universe because of what socks he chose to wear in the morning. It was so much easier to leave the choice to someone else, someone who could think things through and weigh options and leave without clammy, sweaty palms.

It was odd, when he thought that others might not go through this. That he was the only one running a magnifying glass over every detail, worrying and tossing and turning in bed wondering if he'd made the right choice. There was too much to consider, from intent to reality. It had always been so much harderto make decisions on his own, second-guessing and second-guessing and second-guessing. Maybe he was wrong, if anything went wrong it was entirely his fault no matter what.

Yet decision-making had always been hard for Klavier, something he accepted in his life. He went up the stairs to the second floor nearly every day, yet if you asked him, he couldn't tell you how many stairs there were. He couldn't even estimate. The stairs weren't something to observe, they were simply present. The difficulty of choosing was like that, something hovering over Klavier seemingly from the moment he was born.

He'd accepted it. Klavier knew not to trust himself with making choices like this, and he'd go to other people without a second though. Klavier usually ended up kicking himself afterwards, he was always too vulnerable, too needy, to unable to do anything but ask and take.

What do I do with all this? Seventeen-year-old Klavier had asked; staring at the balance in his bank account that only grew. Daryan only laughed. If you've ever wanted anything, Gavin, now's the time.