“Shit. Where the bloody hell did they come from?”
“I’ve no idea. I’m going to get the driver to come around, but they’re multiplying fast.”
I could hear a commotion below on the first floor and feared some of them had already forced their way in, like locusts.
“Stay away from the glass,” Desmond said. “I’m going to check with security and make sure they lock the doors.”
There were a handful of other customers on the upper level, and I could feel them eyeing us, curious. One salesgirl, perhaps realizing who Hayes was, approached and bowed.
“Um, I’m probably going to have to leave in a bit of a rush,” he said to her, sweetly. “Could you ring these up for me, please?O-negai shimasu.”
“Hai.” She bowed and took his credit card.
“It’s like a tour bus just deposited them, out of nowhere. Are youfreaking out? Don’t freak out.” Hayes reached to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. “We’re safe in here.”
He had no sooner said it than a dozen girls came running up the marble staircase, camera phones at the ready, squealing, “Hayes!” Their behavior on seeing him was so oddly not Western. There was none of the grabbing or pawing that I’d become used to, but more of a delighted jumping and respect of his space. They did not physically have to touch him; it was enough to be near.
Desmond had called in for backup, and we waited another twenty minutes or so before Fergus arrived with two additional guards.
Outside was chaos. The crowd had grown to terrifying proportions. Girls in all manner of Harajuku dress, Minnie Mouse bows, and schoolgirl knee-highs. Fanboys with purple-dyed hair. I did not see how we were going to reach our car without being trampled. But the guards sandwiched us, and we moved through the throng like salmon swimming in the wrong direction. Perhaps it was because I did not understand anything they were saying besides “HayesHayesHayesHayesHayes,” but their voices were so high-pitched and cacophonous, it sounded to me like cats mewling. Cats in heat, grating, earsplitting. And I would hear it in my dreams for a long time to come.
“Don’t fall,” Hayes said to me, as if it were something I was considering.
There was shoving and pushing and pulling and the feeling of the world closing in on me, the fear of asphyxiation. And then finally we made it into the car. And still I did not feel safe. Our driver was yelling, “Sagattute! Sagattute!Move back!” They were banging on the windows, hard.
Hayes hugged me close, and buried my face in his chest.
“You’re okay,” he said. “We’re okay.”
But I was not.
We did not talk about it when we got back to the hotel. We lay side by side in our room with the view of Mount Fuji and simply held each other.
On Monday morning, the day of their last concert in Tokyo, the day before I was leaving, Hayes worked out with Joss, their trainer. When he returned, I was in the living room answering emails, finalizing arrangements for Frieze New York. Without saying a word, he showered, got dressed, and then sat down before me.
“I don’t know how to say this,” he said, soft. “I don’t know where to begin. But I love you so completely and the idea of you leaving is fucking breaking my heart. And I know… I understand every reason why you’re doing it, but it still doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t make sense that we can’t make it work.”
“Hayes … I’m sorry…”
He’d begun to cry. “Why? Why can’t it work? What if we’re just quiet about it? What if we just go back to not saying anything?”
“We’ve never said anything,” I said. “We’ve never said anything and look what they’ve done to us. I don’t want to hide, Hayes. I don’t want to feel like everything’s a secret. I just want to live my life. And I can’t do that with you right now without it destroying Isabelle.”
“You said you wouldn’t leave, Solène. You said you wouldn’t leave.”
“When? When did I say that?”
“At Bestia. At my birthday dinner…”
I was wracking my brain to remember. God, how he locked everything away.
“What if I quit the band?”
“You’re not going to quit the band, Hayes. It’s such a huge part of who you are. At your core. It’s this extraordinary part of you. It’s thisgift. And you’re good at it and you love it. People spend their whole lives searching for something like that.
“You have to be true to yourself. You can’t just do this for me. Otherwise it will eat away at you and destroy you and you’llresentme. And I don’t think either one of us wants that.”
He was staring at me, his eyes wide, but I couldn’t be certain anything was registering.
