And we were young, but we weren’t stupid.

We knew.

No excuses, we knew.

Janis. Jimmi. Jim Morrison. John Bonham. Keith Moon.

Work hard. Play hard. Get stoned. Drink until you feel it and then drink some more, that needing to be more and more as your body gets used to it.

Hey, that’s rock ’n’ roll.

Right?

[Expression loses focus]

Wrong.

It wasn’t that we were young, and we felt immortal.

Especially me.

I’d learned I was not immortal.

Even in the beginning, the first time you put that pill on your tongue, you think, “Is this wise?”

But then you gulp it down because your man has a press conference the next morning, this being after you get on a plane, land, hit the venue, and he wants you there because he always wants you at his side, and you have to be bright. There are going to be photographers, so you have to look gorgeous. All of this not for you, but because you love him, and this means something to him, and you can’t let him down.

So, you have to sleep that night.

And wake up and be on the next day.

Then you close your mind to it. That little voice that’s there to make you think twice. You shut it down.

For me it wasn’t about thinking I could stop at any time.

I was thinking I had to keep going.

This thing you’re doing, this book…

[Dips head to phone that’s recording]

If I want people to get something out of it, anything, what I’d want them to get is that nothing for anybody is effortless.

That was a rep I got.

Everyone said, “That Lyla, the woman behind the Roadmasters, she was so cool. She just had it. She had that something. And it was so effortless.”

Well at first, I was just living my life, being with my man.

And from the very beginning, as you’ve heard, none of that was effortless.

Jealousy and even hate starts when you think that about someone. You think, “Look at them. Look what they’ve got. It came so easy.”

Only the wise know that nothing comes easy for anyone.

And if it does, it’s about to get hard.

You know, when I heard Prince died, my first thought was, “Oh God, no.”

And then I knew how it happened.

I’d never met the man.

But I knew precisely how it happened.

My mind was cluttered for a variety of reasons, most especially trying to figure out what was going on with Preacher.

This as I came out of the bathroom after packing my stuff when I saw Preacher toss the pills in his mouth then take a glug of water.

But before they disappeared, I saw how many pills were in his hand.

He usually took two.

That was four.

When did he start taking four?