Jamie slammed his hand on the glass. Marshall mimed at him to calm down. He glared at him and then flipped him the middle finger. Marshall's face went darker if that was possible. He crooked his finger. Jamie was all but happy to do what he said.

He threw the headphones onto the stand. The door opened and Marshall stormed in.

"What the hell happened?" He looked around the small room as if the answer was going to come flying out at him.

Jamie stuffed his hands in his pockets, afraid just a bit that he would start throwing punches if he wasn't careful enough. He wasn't trying to land his ass in jail. He didn't want to give himself that hard of a time. 

Marshall was making it so difficult to not give in to that side of himself. He wished that he could solve all of his problems by unleashing his anger. Just to get it over with so that he didn't have to deal with it bubbling up under the surface. 

"I need a drink," he said under his breath. He tried to walk around Marshall, but he was stopped. 

Marshall clamped his hand on Jamie's arm, holding him there as his eyes bore into the side of his face. 

Jamie shook his arm. "Chill out. It was just a couple of takes. I'll get it right next time."

Marshall still didn't let go of his arm. It felt like the whole studio was watching them. They probably were. Nosy fucks. 

He jerked his arm and Marshall let go this time. 

"No drinking."

Jamie rolled his eyes. "A drink of fucking water. You think I'm that much of a boozehead that I can't go without it for a night?"

"Yes."

"Fuck you. That was a rhetorical question." He couldn't quite fault him anyway. He was dying to down a whole bottle. That ache was racing throughout his body. Another reason why he wanted to punch Marshall as hard as he could.

"How many takes?"

He shrugged. "A couple more. Jeez."

He walked out the recording booth. Grant and Sam were sitting with whoever that fucking guy was—he still hadn't made it a point to get to know the guys name or anything. The mic light was on. They had heard everything.

Didn't matter. He was going to get it next time. There wasn't anything wrong with him. He was just a little rusty. It had been two long years since he'd done anything remotely productive. 

In the next room over was a small kitchenette. He cupped his hands under the faucet and guzzled the cold water out of his palms until he couldn't anymore. The taste was different than what he had back at home. The water here was crystal clear, almost fake in its taste, to the point he couldn't quite say that it was water. 

It was a strange thing to think. Yet, it was another thing he missed about his home in Tulsa. The rooms were empty, dark, and the water didn't taste like it had been run through millions of chemicals. 

He shut the faucet off. With the leftover water, he wet his face, running his hands through his hair. He sighed, closing his eyes, and leaned against the sink. 

He didn't think it would be this hard. 

He'd been in the recording booth—that one in particular—many times before. Song after song, he'd gotten into a steady rhythm over the years.

But when he'd stepped in there today it was like he'd never sang a word in his life. The instrumental coming through the headphones didn't sound right. A stuffy feeling had fallen over him and he'd lost his place in the song too many times. The lines were simple. He only had a couple lines in the backing track and a snippet of a verse. Not fucking hard at all.

Then why was he fucking it up so much? Why couldn't he hit the notes like he had before?

The door opened behind him. He stood rigid against the sink. He clenched the edge of the sink, begging inside his head for whoever it was to get the fuck out. They were standing by the door. The handle clicked shut and the room felt like it had gotten smaller. 

He wasn't claustrophobic. At least, he didn't think he was, but standing in the small kitchen with another person while he was on the verge of breaking down, made him wonder if that wasn't the case. 

Footsteps. Soft sounds on the floor that slowed down in his head. He closed his eyes, zoning in on those sounds. He tried to close off his mind, forget about the messups, and the people waiting for him to get over this little episode so they could move on with this album.

He curled his fingers around the edge of the sink. His nails bit into the metal and he swore he could feel the skin peeling back. His teeth sunk into his bottom lip. There was a thought at the back of his head. It was a strange occurrence that didn’t actually form into a complete thought. It was more of a feeling that took in shape in the form of a vague picture.

He must have been high. He must have been on something that he hadn’t even realized that he was on because there was no other way to describe what was happening to him.

The image in his head was that of a car. It was speeding down a road. In a split second the car transformed into a burst of fire.

The red flickered in the corner of his eyes. For a second, he forgot where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. He was weightless, floating in a sea of memories that no longer meant anything to anyone anymore. The media had long forgotten, the fans didn’t care anymore, and Jamie had changed so much he didn’t know if he could call himself Jamie.

The room slowly came back to him. The bright lights shined in his eyes. He blearly glanced over his shoulder.

“Oh. It’s you.”

Jamie ignored the tremor in his hands. He turned around, hands hidden behind his back, still holding firmly to the counter. The metal warmed. It wasn’t as freezing as it had been. He wished that it was like ice against his skin. It would have been a good distraction.

Instead, he had to live in the moment. Again.