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Chris would never talk about Trent, except in a vague, detached way. At least, he would not talk about what had driven them apart.
That was something that drove Manson quite insane, Jeordie knew. He thought Chris did it on purpose, to annoy him. But Jeordie knew better. That wasn't it.
Because Trent, well, he wouldn't never really talk about Chris, either. He'd tense up when Chris was brought up and say virtually nothing until the subject was changed. That was unusual; Trent usually had no problem speaking his mind about everyone who'd done him wrong. So when he wouldn't even talk about Chris, it was plain that something very deep and personal had happened.
Perhaps, in the end, it had been the prying that had driven Chris away. Or perhaps not. It was hard to say.
Unable to get anything out of him, Manson chose to resort to more underhanded methods. He had heard in a roundabout way that Chris had a box in his closet filled with things collected from the ten years he'd spent with Trent. Maybe he'd heard it from Carrie; Jeordie wasn't sure.
Manson's plan had pretty simple. Let's get Chris drunk and wait until he passes out and then snoop through his things. So they had.
***
The box had actually turned out to be a camp trunk. The lock on it was busted, so it was easy to open.
Strangely, it was neatly organized with expanding file folders and a shoebox. Manson immediately grabbed the shoebox and found that it was crammed full of concert tickets and other small trinkets. Jeordie grabbed one of the file folders. It was mostly full of letters and cards still in envelopes. Most of them were just standard birthday and Christmas cards.
He picked up one of the envelopes at random because it was bright red. Inside it was a birthday card that had a short message scrawled in it.
happy 25th birthday. i miss you a lot.
01001001 01001100 01010101
There was an old envelope with a partially faded postmark. All that he could make out was "IN" and "/88." The paper inside was yellowed with age and the marker pen had faded to purple, but the words were still legible:
greetings from the great state of indiana! ha ha! miss me already? i know you do. you don't even have to speak, i know that look in your eyes so well. i know you pine for me when i'm not around. but don't fret. i'll be back before you know it. keep your chin up and maybe i'll bring you something from san francisco.
A postcard from San Francisco:
wish you were here!
01001001 01001100 01010101
Then in the third file folder, there were stacks and stacks of letters. Jeordie spread them all over the floor. The letters started swirling together in a mass, and only snippets of them stuck out.
... i'm sorry for reacting that like that. but you never came home and you never even called and i didn't know if you were alive or dead. i do trust you, i really do, but when you're not with me, it's like you've disappeared. i wish we could sew ourselves together, but how would i explain that? just don't worry me like that ever again ...
... what have you done to me? you're all i can think about and i wish i could hate you for it ...
... you're mine, chris, and don't you ever, ever, EVER forget that. there will never be anybody else. i've already spoiled you for anyone else. don't deny it; you know it's true...
... hey, you know what? fuck you. there, i said it. fuck you, you pathetic little pissant. do you what you do best, and call up your sister and cry to her about how i'm such an asshole and i've been so mean to you. you are completely replaceable, you know. whatever "deep connection" you think we might have had was nothing but a product of your deranged imagination...
... i miss you so much. i feel like part of me is missing without you. please write back...
... the only thing i wish is that i could fall asleep forever on your shoulder or in your arms...
... where do you think you're going to go, anyway? who else would even want you? you're nothing on your own, without me. and you know you can't stay away from me, christopher. we both know that. besides, i won't let you leave. i'll slit your throat if you ever do again, and you'll drown in your own blood...
... so you still think you can just leave me? everyone knows how clingy and dependent you are. without me, you're nothing and you know it. but if you want to go, then go. you'll try to come crawling back like you always do, but this time i won't take you back. not now, not ever...
"Hey, listen to this!" Manson held a small bottle filled with white tablets. He read the message on the gift tag in a sneering voice:
phenobarbital in a bottle. keep it close to your heart and never fear. if one of us dies first, tickets to a reunion have already been paid in full. take them with whiskey some rainy sunday.
Manson snickered. Jeordie swallowed. Between that and the letters, it really wasn't that funny anymore. It was... it just felt raw.
Manson took one of Chris' journals then and laid down on the couch with a bottle of gin to start reading it, but Jeordie didn't really care to snoop anymore. He laid down on the floor and closed his eyes.
***
Jeordie woke awhile later to eerie silence. He leaned himself up on one elbow and looked around. Chris was sitting on the floor, his attention on a stack of papers he was holding. The letters that Jeordie taken out of the file folders.
As Jeordie's vision stopped blurring, he saw Manson passed out on the coach, still clutching a half-empty bottle of gin, the journal spread over his chest. He wanted to say something to Chris, but couldn't think of anything. There was no way Chris couldn't not know that they'd snooped. Should he apologize? Deny everything? Act like it was a joke?
Chris dropped one of the pages he was holding and let out a choked sort of sob. He finally looked up, but didn't make eye contact. It was as if Jeordie wasn't even there. Chris' eyes were bloodshot and his face was swollen and blotchy. An overwhelming sense of guilt stabbed Jeordie in the gut. Chris finally stopped staring into space and they made eye contact. There was something there in Chris' eyes that Jeordie had never seen before.
"I'm really—" he started to say.
"Don't," Chris cut him off. "It doesn't matter now."
"I never knew it was... I didn't know it was that bad."
Chris laughed quietly and bit his lip. "Don't get the wrong idea. He wrote to me mostly when he was upset, so it wasn't always like that. He could be caring and kind, too, and we had some really great times together. Probably the best I'll ever know."
He buried his face in his hands. "I know what it looks like. But I hurt him, too. A lot." There was a brief pause. "I liked tormenting him because I was so ... obsessed that I resented it. I often hated that he could send me into a tailspin of despair by ignoring me and that when he'd be kind, I feel like I was on top of the world. So I'd constantly throw all the damaging and embarrassing things I knew about him in his face. Or I'd poke at him and do things that I knew would annoy him, so he'd fly into a rage and I'd look totally innocent. But, oh God, how I loved it when he'd cling to me and tell me that no one in the world understood him more than I did."
Chris looked up again. He was openly weeping now and made no attempt to hide it. "Before Carrie left me, she said to me, 'You know he doesn't want you in his life anymore and that absolutely kills you. You know he's much better off without you because you're an emotional black hole. You enabled all his addictions and worst qualities and that's why he'll never speak to you again. You feel used and abused and resent it, but you don't ever try to do anything to better yourself. You often wish yourself dead, but you have don't have the guts to just end it, so instead you just haphazardly destroy yourself and your relationships and your career in a million different ways and hope that you'll end up dead sooner or later.' And she was right, of course. About all of it."
Jeordie knew he should say something, but he couldn't think of anything. "That can't be all true," he finally murmured. He regretted it as soon as he said it.
Chris snorted. "I wish you were right, but you aren't. She hit the nail on the head. I made her life a living hell much the same way I made his. With lies and codependency and more lies and head games. She hates me now and Trent couldn't care less. Oh, he may sometimes worry that I'll start babbling to the press, but that's about it." Chris picked at a scab on his arm absentmindedly. "Like I want the world to know about all this shit."
Chris then got up and became picking up all the contents of the trunk that had been scattered about and started putting it all away. Jeordie felt like he showed help him, but feared making a wrong move, so he just sat and did nothing. Chris picked up the bottle of pills with the note attached and examined it before sort of laughing humorlessly. "You know," he said to no one in particular. "He once talked me into joint suicide. We were broke and miserable, living in a shitty apartment we could barely afford with a cockroach infestation and a heater that only worked when it wanted to. I couldn't see any way out of that either and couldn't bear the thought of being left behind, so I went along with it. He stole a bottle of sleeping pills from Walgreens and we both took a handful of them and laid down to die."
"It didn't work... Well, obviously. Though, we did both spent the night puking and randomly passing out. We probably should have gone to the hospital, but we didn't have the money for that and anyway, Trent was certain that they'd throw us both into an asylum." Chris paused. "Trent came out of it with a ... renewed sense of purpose, I guess you could say. But me? In retrospect, I just find myself wishing we had both died that night. Or at least that I had." He smiled, but there wasn't a ounce of joy in that smile. "Isn't that just the stupidest and saddest thing you've ever heard?"
***
Things were never the same after that. Chris never did mention it again, but somehow he seemed colder and closed off in a way he never had been before. And as soon as the album was finished, Chris quit the band without warning.
It didn't surprise him. Jeordie could never bring himself to tell Manson any of what Chris had confessed, though Manson kept priming him long afterwards with questions about whether Chris had said anything.
He frequently found himself wishing he could forget everything Chris had said, but it was nearly always there at the back of his mind. When news came two years later that Chris had suddenly fled from L.A., Jeordie wondered if Chris had taken that trunk with him and suspected that he probably had. He hoped that Chris was doing better now, but it was impossible to say. Chris seemed somewhat happier in the few interviews he gave, but he might have been acting again, bottling everything up and pretending everything was fine when it wasn't.
That was a bitter thought, but it was one that he'd just have to live with.