I guess the elephant in the room is best addressed first; I thought it could wait for a while, but I, like I'm sure the rest of the world, am so curious about Geoff Wigington's new hair color. It's the first time he's done much of anything to it, really, and he definitely started off with a bang.
What frames his face is now black, strands that are significantly shorter than they once were, no longer reaching past his ears and gathering close to shoulder-length. The back is clean and the sides are shorter, parted on his right, with a longer piece stretching down into his eyes.
He doesn't seem all that used to it yet. I watch him reach back to tuck it behind his ear multiple times, in the span of only a few minutes, as he moves swiftly around the kitchen to pull glasses from cabinets and switch on the – "old as hell", he chuckles, coffee maker.
When I ask him why he hasn't bothered to replace it yet, he stops where he is and turns to me with the widest smile on his face. "Awsten." He doesn't elaborate and I wonder if that's somewhere I really should be going just yet; Awsten Knight, the illustrious new entry into Geoff Wigington's life, is just about all the world can talk about, right now.
Since they began the band, both at the age of 21, Geoff Wigington and bandmate Jawn Rocha have been on a constant roller coaster ride of progress. An album a year, with tours to follow each, culminating in sold out rooms of hysterical teenagers that scream the lyrics back each night. It sounds great on paper, but when I ask Geoff how he's enjoyed it, he hesitates.
He rests both hands on the counter behind him and exhales heavily. "It hasn't been the best. This year...I don't know. I guess...there's a lot that happens behind closed doors, you know? A lot the fans don't know. And the media loves to fuck with the story and make me look like an asshole."
The twenty six year old singer has had more than his fair share of spotlight this year, for reasons far from pleasant. Following his first suicide attempt, back in May, he spent about a month in a treatment facility, before immediately resuming the tour, determined to make it to every city they needed to cancel on when he ended up in the hospital. That continued until mid-September, as the band made it through all of Asia, Europe, and then finished up the final leg of the run in North America, specifically, Houston, Texas, the city both bandmates call home.
The final show, Geoff says, was a lot for him. "It was kinda like- I didn't really feel better. After I got out of rehab, you know? The world talks up those kinds of places, and for good reason, but sometimes...you say the right thing and act the right way and they don't know you're still hurting."
He explains to me what the subsequent tour became, post-rehab, "it was like, a stopper, for all my shit. Plugged everything up with the tour, and sleeping on the bus and flying to new places every couple weeks, and everything was so busy...I started to kinda, rely on that, I guess? Being busy instead of being sad. It didn't really hit me until the last night that my time was up."
With the conclusion of this tour, slated to go back on the road in less than a month, Geoff was scrambling. He was back in a world he didn't quite know how to navigate; the stopper had been forcefully unplugged and everything was hitting him, all at once. It was finally time for him to deal, to feel, again, and he'd just about forgotten what that meant.
This year has brought a lot of changes for Geoff, including, the end to his four-year long relationship with filmmaker Chloe Kristensen. When I ask him about it, he's silent, for a few moments. "I love her," he says, finally. "Just not in the way either of us deserves. She deserves someone who'll love her the way I can't, and I...I deserve...I deserve to be honest about my feelings."
And honest he's decided to be; as he walks me around the apartment he now shares with his new boo, he explains that it wasn't him, who ended the relationship with Chloe. "She knew I wasn't happy. She'd known for a while, I guess. And then- she saw how happy I was, with Aws, and how it was different, with him, and I think that's why she decided to break things off."
Coming out as gay didn't happen as smoothly as he'd hoped, he continues, "I think- I wasn't really okay with it, in the beginning. I didn't think it was- I was right. I had this amazing girlfriend and the picture perfect life, but I still wasn't happy. And over the years people kept calling me on that, saying I was ungrateful or selfish for not being able to appreciate what was right in front of me, and I guess...I didn't want this to be another thing, you know? Another field day for the media, something else that caused drama...I didn't want my name plastered all over the internet, people wondering what Geoff Wigington had done this time. I just wanted my life to be...mine, for once."
The lack of privacy is something that really gets to him, Geoff explains, referencing the incident just a few weeks before, when he was photographed in a frozen yogurt shop with his now-boyfriend, Awsten. "I just feel like people don't deserve that much access, to an artist. Like, y'all get the music and the tours and the signings and we say hi whenever we can, and try and be around on social media as much as possible, so...why should you get to impose and take pictures of us when we're just trying to live our lives like everyone else?"
Just about two years ago, a slew of pictures surfaced on the internet, zooming in on Geoff's forearms and pointing out numerous self-harm looking scars covering his wrists. Being that the band's audience is mainly compromised of teenagers and younger adults, parents were furious at the news and accused Geoff of "glamorizing" self-mutilation.
Geoff has never publicly commented on the matter.
When I ask him about it today, he starts to tear up a little as he answers, "I think...that was when I first realized how bad things had gotten. I mean, to be completely real...I didn't expect any of this, when we first started out. Jawn and I just wanted to play music; we didn't know it could even become what it is." He chuckles and shakes his head. "But it got so big, so fast, and everyone was looking at us, all the time. We were the role models, up on stupid high pedestals for these kids, 'cause they looked up to us, or whatever, and I can't speak for Jawn, but I know I wasn't ready for that."
"I was struggling too – I have been, since before the band even started – with a lot of my own inner demons and head stuff, and for people to say that I was doing it for attention...that felt like a punch in the stomach."
Geoff then proceeds to roll up his sleeves, and at first glance, it is immediately apparent why he chose not to comment on the pictures when they first came out. Amongst numerous old, white scars, there is still some pink. He informs me that he's clean; self-harm, alcohol, and all drugs, both legal and illegal alike. "All I'm on is what my therapist prescribed me, which is an anti-depressant and anti-anxiety pill, and I don't even take the Xanax every day. Just when the panic attacks are really bad."
"I never wanted to cover up," he explains. "I'm not ashamed, of anything. This is me, with my flaws and my failures and every single time I couldn't handle everything, right here. But I never wanted to trigger anyone. Ever." He goes on to express his hesitation in talking so deeply about his own self-harm, merely due to the feat that he might accidentally trigger someone. That is never his intention.
"But, I guess, also...having the cameras there all of the time, watching me, waiting for my next fuck up so they could make money off the headline...it felt like I had to be perfect, all the time. And parents started saying how disappointed they were, after those pictures came out, so I was like, 'fuck, I'm really not okay, but I can't keep doing this. They've heard the story before and my bad place is old, by now. It's still definitely there and I'm nowhere close to getting out of it, but everyone's sick of it.' So, the long sleeves...I don't remember actively deciding to start wearing them one day, but I definitely did try and cover up more. I couldn't do anything about the attention, but I could show everyone I was okay, when I really wasn't."
Therapy has been a massive influence on Geoff's life, in the past few months. He just started seeing a new therapist, around a month ago, and he tells me it's made a lot of difference. "I think the media and what people were saying really got to me, after a while, you know? I was still depressed and suicidal and the self-harm was...really bad, but I didn't think I deserve to be any of it. 'Cause that's what everyone was telling me. Like, you have all this money and fame and success and you get to live your dream, what are you even depressed about?"
It's something he's still working through with his therapist. "Something I had to learn, from the very first session, I guess, was that, it's okay. It's okay to be sad and numb and sometimes not feel anything, no matter who you are or where you come from. And I also, like...I think, taking time off, even though I was kinda forced into it, helped a lot. It's a lot easier to function when you're not wakin' up every day on the verge of a panic attack over what the world is saying about you."
The band was scheduled to go on tour again, planned to start in the middle of October and stretch all the way into January. However, just a few days before the first show, Geoff was rushed to the hospital once again, after a second suicide attempt. It was decided shortly after that that the tour be cancelled, all tickets refunded. It was a severe financial hit for their management, and caused a wave of backlash that's only now starting to die down.
Bringing it up also brings back the tears, for Geoff. "I...I didn't know where to turn," he explains to me. "Chloe had just ended things, and I knew that'd be the next story, and everyone would hate me all over again. She said she'd known for a while, that I was gay, and at that point, I didn't even want to accept it. It was another problem and another thing for everyone to talk about and I just couldn't, anymore. I couldn't take that again. I wanted to be normal and I knew that couldn't happen, so I wanted to be done."
When I ask him what changed, what got him from that place to the place he's in now, back in therapy, starting over, seeming to enjoy his life again, the bright smile comes back to his face.
"Awsten."
Awsten Knight, Geoff's first (now official) boyfriend, also originates from his hometown of Houston. Geoff tells me that they actually met at the last show, "yeah, so Jawn and Aws are old friends from, like, middle school, and he guest-listed Awsten and his best friend that night, and then introduced us."
It wasn't quite love at first sight, Geoff tells me, but there were definitely sparks. "There was something about him, I dunno, when I first met him, something just...felt different? I was still shoving myself so far back in the closet that i tried to ignore it, but eventually, I just- I couldn't."
A little over a month in, Geoff and Awsten have already moved in together. They've been living together for a couple weeks now, and Geoff swears it's been the best two weeks of his life. "It's soon, and I get that, but...there's other stuff, personal shit, involved, that for the sake of respecting Awsten's privacy, I'm not gonna talk about here, but I've never felt better about a decision I've made in my entire life. Besides starting the band. That was a pretty good decision too. But, yeah, Awsten...he's something special. He's the first thing I've done right in months."
Going forward, Geoff expresses to me his reignited desire for complete and utter honesty. "I'm done covering things up. I want to be real with everyone. I'm tired of being scared and anxious and freaking out over things – people – that don't actually matter. The media is the media and it can go fuck itself to hell and back. The fans are what got me to where I am, and have stuck by me through everything, and I want to give that back to them. I've hid so much in the past, because I've been scared, of the reaction, but I think...I'm learning that the people I was so afraid of aren't the people I want around, anyway."
"The people who stay are the ones who support me, regardless of the place I'm in or the year I've been having, and they're the ones who deserve my attention."
When I ask about plans for the future, specifically, new music, Geoff smiles and shakes his head. "I think I'm just...enjoying things, you know? Spending every day with Awsten and living in the moment, instead of inside my head. New music will come, that's for sure; the band is definitely not breaking up, but for now...I just wanna do this for a while."
Wrapping up our time together, I ask Geoff one last thing: in the spirit of being honest, if there's anything he'd like to say to the fans, the world, anyone who decides to read this.
"It's cliché, and I know it is, but...it's okay not to be okay, regardless of who you are and what your situation is. I've had to learn that a lot this year. It's okay to have bad days and to hurt and to be scared and sad and lonely and unsure, if you're going to make it. I could tell you the things so many people have said before, about getting help and talking to people, and yeah, that's awesome and you should do that, if you can, but I don't really see anyone talking about it like this. Everyone's always so quick to tell you how to fix, or start fixing, those feelings, but no one ever says that it's okay to feel that way. So, I guess...it's okay to be scared, and sad, and anxious, and hurt, and unsure, of the future. Or if you even have one. It sucks. I've been there for most of this year, honestly. But if there's one thing I've learned – and I know everyone says this, and me, even last year, woulda wanted to punch me in the face – it's that finding the right people and seeking help and even getting on meds, if you need it, does really help. It gets better. It really does."
i want to start off by saying thank you.
this is the story that kinda 'blew up' for me, on here, and really brought a lot of people to my page, and my work, and that's because so many of you have supported it and voted on it and left kudos, for so long. thank you. that means the absolute world to me. your support on this story has been amazing. i had no idea that a story i posted on a complete whim, january 1st of last year, would blow up this much.
this story has truly changed me, as a writer. i look back and i am still so utterly proud of every line. i'm so proud of the growth and development and change it's gone through, the symbolism and imagery and metaphor...i genuinely feel like this is the best thing i've ever written and i'm so glad i got to share it with all of you guys. it's a universe that i love, with every ounce of my being, and i'm so glad it's out in the world.
thank you for everything.
now, onto something kind of upsetting, for some of you...i don't think there's gonna be a sequel, to this story. i said there would be, and tried to plan one out, but i think what stressed me out the most about that was potentially ruining the beautiful world i've built and everything about it. i'm so proud of what i've done here, and part of the reason finishing took so long was because i didn't know if could write a sequel, if it could live up to this, etc. i'm not saying it's entirely out of the question, but at the current moment, i don't think there will be one. i'm so sorry.
and finally, again, i just want to say thank you. this could not have been what it is without your support. thanks for being so nice to me. i appreciate it more than you all will ever know.
oh, by the way...thoughts on this chapter? i pulled a lot from ariana grande's interview with fader to try something new, stylistically. y'all should definitely go read that, if you haven't yet. it's wonderful.
this story is such a large piece of my heart, and i hate to let it go, but 2019 is the start of new things and i have so much in store for this year. if you liked this, you're going to love all of it, i promise. keep an eye out.
i've gone on way too long (and rambled way too much), so i'll just leave you with a lasting thank you.
thank you for everything you've given me.
i hope this story's given you something, as well.