One Night Only (Season 1: Deni's Story)

Chapter Four

There's no point in trying to sleep when it's already morning. Tossing and turning got old three hours ago, and so did staring at the ceiling while willing myself to drift off without actually having to close my eyes. My eyeballs are sandpaper, and my right eyelid is twitchy. Staring at my phone screen won't help either of these things, but it's what I do anyway.

I tap the Twitter app and wait for my feed to open. It's always a bad idea to spend time looking at Twitter, even on a normal day, but I'm not reading my mentions. I'm here to see if Bowie has shown any signs of being online since yesterday afternoon. If he's liked or tweeted or retweeted something, my irrational worry about him being at The Domino last night can stop. I would like one less thing to be anxious about.

I don't get past the search page, where my name is listed as the number one trending topic in Los Angeles. Number two is "17 dead." If it's possible for a heart that's already in a zillion pieces to shatter more, mine does.

Seventeen is five more than the police confirmed during the last press conference I watched in the early hours of the morning. That's seventeen innocent victims who didn't get to wake up this morning. Seventeen formerly living and breathing human beings who didn't also spend the night wide awake, remembering. Seventeen fans who didn't leave my concert alive.

Seventeen is one person dead for every year of my life.

The bitter taste of stomach acid and saliva overtakes my mouth. I struggle to push myself out of the tangle of sheets and my duvet, and I can't even make it out of my bedroom before I'm doubled over, heaving into a wastebasket in the corner. A low moan escapes me. I take a few deep breaths, trying to calm the jangle of queasiness and frayed nerves, but my stomach lurches again. Clutching the wastebasket in my hand to be safe, I race for the bathroom. This time I make it to the toilet.

After the gagging finally stops, I sink to the floor and curl my knees into my chest. Tears stream down my face before I can try to convince myself not to cry. I don't know how long I stay that way, with my arms wrapped around my legs and my forehead against my knees, my tears soaking into my pajama pants. All sense of time is lost between the moments I'm silently weeping and the ones when I'm a blubbering mess, shaking and sniffling until I'm forced to get up from the floor to find a tissue.

Once I'm on my feet again, I tie the top of the wastebasket trash bag into a knot, making a note to put the bag outside in a trash can later. I turn the bathroom fan on and crack the window open, then pick up the tissue box and carry it with me back to my bed. After slipping under the duvet, I make it into a cocoon of warmth around me. My body is still shaking, or maybe I'm shivering now. It's hard to tell the difference. I sob into my pillow until it, too, is soaked. My nose feels raw from blowing it, and I'm choking for air.

Breathe, I tell myself. I have to breathe. I focus on that one basic task of getting air in and out of my lungs. It should be simple, but nothing is easy right now. Every breath feels forced. I remind myself to inhale and then exhale again, mentally repeating this until my body stills.

When my breath is even once more, I reach for my phone to text Elton. He has always been the person who can find out anything I ask when it's related to one of my shows.

The girl and her mom who were supposed to have a meet and greet with me last night... do you know if they're okay?

I hit send, then wonder if I should send another text to ask how he's doing. I suspect it would be a lot like asking me how I'm doing today. Elton was there, and I'm thankful he was backstage when the bomb went off. He could have been watching my performance from somewhere else in the venue and not ended the night physically unharmed. If I asked, Elton would probably answer that he's doing okay. So would I, if he asked me. Both of us would know that's a lie.