Chasing Ghosts

The next several months were depressing—soaked in the weight of picking up the pieces of a shattered dream. While Scott was in rehab, Stan and Doug started making us participate in biweekly group therapy. It eased some tension, but everyone was still speaking in half-truths.

I didn’t really care about fixing anything until we got the new material done. My goal was to keep pushing the themes from A House of Cards—make music that captured the ugliness we’d become. I spent every night in my room, working through demo after demo, trying to build something the band could rally around.

Each track sounded more like a confession than a song—darker, emptier, angrier.

Skye had written the lyrics for a track called “Chasing Ghosts.” It was perfect. If it ever got released, I’d have to cut a deal with Stan for royalties. There was no way I’d let her go uncredited.

By then, I was basically living at Skye’s parents’ place. I’d drifted there during recovery, and never found a reason to go back to the silence and ghosts of my own house.

As fall crept in, our relationship spiraled deeper into its sadomasochistic undertones. Gradual, controlled, ritualistic. Skye kept her word and started inviting Courtney to watch again—and for some reason, she started coming twice a week. It added danger, sure—but also a strange intimacy. A blur between love and spectacle.

By late October, we were behind on Stan’s schedule. I had fifteen demos, but the only person who’d touched them besides me was Jim. Scott and Kenny had stopped showing up to practice. They weren’t answering my texts or calls. I understood the appeal of peace—but I thought we’d agreed on at least trying.

After one of our performances, once Skye and I had finished our affirmations and aftercare, I turned my attention to Courtney.

“How’s your brother doing?” I asked, still catching my breath.

“He’s getting better—distant, but better.” Her eyes were glassy, detached.

“I haven’t seen him at the practice space.”

She didn’t flinch. “He doesn’t seem like he wants to make music anymore. After rehab, he just… stopped. I get it. After my detox, I didn’t want to be around the band either.”

“But you still want to be around us at our worst?” Skye asked, smiling.

“That’s different. EoT is an entity. It takes effort, control, and commitment. It’s not just music—it’s something that pulls you in and consumes you. If you’re not all in, it eats you.”

“So you’re basically trying to climb out of your depression by chasing a little serotonin fix,” Skye teased, settling onto Courtney’s lap.

I wasn’t sure what Skye was thinking—but I trusted her.

“Maybe,” Courtney admitted, eyes distant. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes since the deal. The guilt’s been hard. I started medicating to make it disappear. Tulsa was a mistake. Caleb didn’t want that. I crashed when he said no and spiraled. I was going to feel wanted that night—no matter who I got it from. It was him or a stranger.”

She paused, voice trembling. “I told Jim because I wanted someone to think I was doing better. But I knew it was a mistake the second I woke up.”

Skye brushed Courtney’s hair gently. “So what are you going to do?”

Courtney buried her face in Skye’s chest. After a few minutes, she sat up straighter.

“I’m going to apologize. To Scott. To Caleb. It won’t fix anything, but it’s a start.” She turned to me. “And I’ll make sure Scott comes back to practice. He can’t quit until he tries.”

Skye tilted her head toward me. “Wes, does she get a reward for being honest with herself?”

“That depends,” I said. “What do you have in mind?”

I had no idea what she was going to ask—but I was bracing for the worst.

“Courtney, do you want to feel wanted by the right people… just this once?” Skye’s voice was low, seductive. Her arms wrapped around Courtney’s neck, their faces close enough to kiss.

Courtney didn’t answer. I couldn’t tell if she was really thinking or just surrendering.

Then she nodded.

“I don’t care if it’s out of pity, Wes.”

Skye met my eyes. If she was comfortable, then so was I. I’d made enough bad decisions lately—letting her make this one felt like a smart bet.

It went on for the rest of the night.

I didn’t enjoy touching Courtney. It didn’t feel good. I let her and Skye take the lead. I told myself this was a one-time thing—and if it kept Courtney from spiraling and kept Skye from slipping, then maybe it was worth it.

I didn’t enjoy it—but maybe that was the point.

***

Courtney came through on her promise. On October 30th, Scott looked like someone who hadn’t been touched by sunlight in months—gaunt, pale, with eyes that floated like he wasn’t quite in his body. He was sober, but not alive. Just present.

Jim played his six favorite demos that we had worked on since September. Listening to it with Scott was strange—this was clearly a different sound altogether. The first album was written through a collaboration between Scott, Kenny, and I—with Jim coming in with an almost finished song. These songs all started with a general outline, lyrics, and melody from me—then Jim and I shaped them into actual songs.

Scott reacted to three songs in particular: A House of Cards, Hate Me, and Chasing Ghosts.

“Yeah, A House of Cards is a must—that’s the one you wrote with Kenny and Caleb last winter,” he paused. “Hate Me is better than the other three—Jim, you’ve got an incredible groove on that.”

“That song Chasing Ghosts—that’s deep. I know you didn’t write the lyrics, Wes. I could hear in your timbre on the demo that it wasn’t your voice… There’s enough potential here for me to come back to.”

Jim hugged him.

“Do you want to play a few songs together, to get the groove back before we start doing the new stuff together?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

We ran through the old setlist like ghosts trying to remember who we were. The chords felt familiar, but haunted. Scott’s singing still had soul—it just wasn’t sure where to land without Kenny.

After practice, we sat down to figure that out.

“Do you think he’ll be back—he wasn’t at the last therapy session,” I said.

“I don’t know—he’s been distant from everyone lately. Maggie reached out to me to see if I knew what he was up to,” Scott said, laying on the pavement. “He knows this is where he belongs.”

“That sounds great, but it doesn’t help us,” Jim said.

“Well, have you tried just showing up at his place and dragging him here?” Scott pushed back.

“No,” Jim said. “And I probably should.”

He made a plan for Halloween to try to abduct Kenny and bring him back. I always wondered about Jim’s commitment to this band, but that was a waste of energy.

***

Scott and I were sitting in the practice space waiting for Jim to arrive. We were going through the melodies and the progressions of the three new songs. Even without him, I managed to write all of them to his strengths and preferences.

“Man, I can’t get over Chasing Ghosts. I thought that A House of Cards would be my favorite—it’s just solid, but this song just does so much with so little,” Scott said.

“Yeah, I was listening to a lot of Nine Inch Nails and Porcupine Tree at the time—trying to build something deep, haunting, and open. Jim’s playing is pretty busy beneath, but the open guitars and airy melody bite in a weird way.”

“I know what the song is about, but I’m trying to figure out what the writer’s longing for—I’m singing it like I’m chasing the person I was supposed to be. The version of EoT that didn’t fall apart.”

“I don’t know—I think the writer’s talking about a place they belonged. I interpret it as the narrator picked up an idea in their youth that they’d find a place where they felt safe and loved, and as they got older, they realized that it never existed… so they tried to just make it themself.”

This really was speculation—Skye wasn’t going to tell me, if she wanted to, she wouldn’t have written the song in the first place.

“I can see that—it makes a lot of sense, especially in the bridge,” he paused. “I wish I could write lyrics man—but I just don’t know how to express myself… that’s probably why I started using so much.”

“I get that. Without the ability to put my feelings out there musically, I would’ve lost my mind.”

“Wes, I’ve got to know. How do you stay so in control of yourself when you’re falling apart like the rest of us?”

“I make compromises with myself all the time.”

“Is that it?”

“You guys implode because you cling to your ideals—as you fail to uphold them, the guilt becomes your God, eating away at you,” I paused. “I just choose the easiest path—every decision is a survival instinct.”

Nothing else needed to be said between us.

***

Some time after seven, Jim showed up with Kenny. By this time, Scott and I were just shooting the shit about rehab and how I was doing in school. Kenny was immediately annoyed that we were so chummy after everything.

“Relax, Kenny. They’ve had the last three hours to talk their shit out,” Jim said, reading the room.

“Just play the demos for me… I’m not here for small talk.”

Jim obliged, and Scott stepped up to sing along—trying to help Kenny visualize how the songs might land live. He was digging deep on Chasing Ghosts, trying to make the feelings reach.

“So, those are the three you want to record and send over to Stan?” Kenny asked.

“Yeah,” Jim said.

“They don’t really sound like EoT.”

“Well, if you were here with Wes and I the last two months, maybe they would have.”

Jim didn’t have the patience for fence-sitting—not after Scott’s buy-in last night.

“Look, if you don’t like the material, we’ll just make up for it on the next album,” Jim pressed on.

“I never said I didn’t like it—A House of Cards and Chasing Ghosts are already incredible. Hate Me just needs a bassline,” Kenny said with a grin.

He walked to his amp, picking up his bass.

“Wes, can you walk me through the chord progressions? I want to jam this out tonight so we can head into the studio next week.”

I obliged.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of open space on all of these for you to work with—I made sure to leave room for you in the arrangement.”

We worked through all three songs until midnight—they quickly shaped into something more than they were two days ago.

“Man, it’s good to play with people again,” Kenny sighed.

“You act like you couldn’t have just shown up here anytime,” Jim countered.

“I felt like I needed to be invited back… after everything that happened.”

His gaze met mine. We never did hash out what happened in Dallas.

“Kenny, when Stan laid down his demands, you knew where I’d be, and that it would take all of us,” I paused to manage my tone. “I’m not happy that I have a scar on my face and that I was in recovery for six weeks because the left side of my body was wrecked. I hate being around people who self-destruct over inconveniences, but I never took a day off from EoT.”

He looked me up and down.

“You’re talking about the scar on your face like your arms and hands don't look like hell. How much cutting have you done to ease the pain as you pushed through?”

I laughed. His expression turned negative due to our last conversation.

“Those scars aren’t about pain, not the kind you’re thinking.”

I wasn’t going to expose the dark side of my sex life over this.

He smiled, “Alright, I’ll let you keep that secret. But when it comes to the band moving forward, stop fucking with us when you’re bored.”

I smiled, “Sure, I can do that.”

At this point that was an obvious compromise. We needed to get the second album out to move toward my goals. The back half of the tour was such a disaster that the next era of our career needed to be almost perfect.