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CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Ever since our interview was released, Lizette and I are plastered all over the news and social media. A few sites have started the rumor that Lizzy’s pregnant. I guess they don’t care about being original with the lies they spew.
I’m grateful for the plane ride to San Diego because I can turn my phone off for a while. I’m at the point in my stress and anxiety where I’m constantly nauseous, and each notification I get makes my churning stomach worse. It would be easy to connect to the WiFi, but I refuse the modern technology. I can’t see more news stories on our upcoming wedding or read about the rumors. Especially when I’m sitting so close to Drew.
Guilt tugs me in two different directions. It gnaws on my insides as I think of my last confrontation with Drew. What had I been thinking, going to his room and asking him shit like I deserve the right to know his business? On the other hand, I haven’t bothered responding to Lizzy’s texts or the missed FaceTime call from last night. Ever since we sat down and did our interview together, I’ve been MIA.
Neither one of them deserves someone like me.
Drew sits in the row ahead of mine, off to the left, so I can see his side profile from where he lounges next to Brian. On the way to the airport, I asked Sean if I could sit next to him for this flight, and though that was a peculiar request as I was usually inseparable from Drew, he nodded and didn’t make it weird. Still, I can tell by the way he glances over at me every so often that he knows something’s amiss. I’m grateful when he puts his headphones in and closes his eyes.
For once, I’m not in the mood to listen to music. Instead, I torture myself by looking at Drew as often as I can manage without him feeling my gaze. He’s watching some action movie on the screen in front of him and sipping on a Ginger Ale, which is strange because I’ve never once seen him drink that except for when he had the stomach flu.
I look him over to make sure he’s okay.
I look at him because I can’t stop.
When we land in San Diego, my mind and body are on autopilot. I can’t tell what the others are joking about as we make our way through the airport terminal, and I barely register the setlist or our plan for the night as we ride to the hotel. I cry silently in the shower before we leave for the amphitheater; it’s like my body can’t even manage the usual groans of sadness that accompany tears anymore. Like I’m shutting down completely.
As we ride to the venue, I look at Drew, unable to help myself. He avoids me and pretends to look at his phone. That, or perhaps he’s textingTheofrom the other night. My jaw clenches with the possibility.
Drew is right, and I know it. I’ve known it and ignored the fact for years. I don’t have a say in what he does, who he’s with, whether he leaves the band, or any of his other decisions. I’m not his boyfriend, his partner, his husband. Hell, I might not even be his best friend anymore.
I look down at my feet as my vision fogs up. If Drew isn’t in my life anymore, I don’t know if I will survive. A large part of becoming who I am was because of Drew and his family. If he left…I shake my head and resist the urge to slap my cheeks to keep the thoughts away. But I don’t know what to do. I’ve never known what to do.
As we pull up to the theater, I dread going onto the stage because I’m a shell of Ash Lancing. I’m a shell, a void, and our fans deserve so much more than that.
Just like Drew.
The music is deafening oncewe hit the stage, even through my in-ears—but I’m thankful for the heavy bass that booms through the venue like deep thunderclaps. It allows me to get lost in my element and leave all my worries and guilt behind for a couple of hours.
Once the last song ends and we walk behind the stage in preparation for the encore, everything hits me all at once, all over again. I spiral down deep, barely able to make it to my dressing room before hurling in the trash can. I splash some water on my face from my water bottle and sit down with my head in between my knees, forcing deep, even breaths.
More than once, I look at the closed door and pray I hear Drew’s voice on the other side of it.
Unsurprisingly, he never comes.
I tense up as I stare at my cell phone that rests on the coffee table in front of where I hang my head. I haven’t turned it back on. There’s no way in hell I can stand to look at the notifications or the texts and missed calls from Lizzy.
The crowd roars in the distance. I lean my forehead against my knee and take a shaky breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. I force myself into a sense of fake calm by counting backward from one hundred, and as I start to feel less faint, a loud knock on my door signals that it’s time to come out for the encore. My bones rattle inside of me as I force myself up and out of the room.
I’m the last one to go onto the stage, as usual, which is beneficial because I have a few seconds longer to get my shit together, but it also makes matters worse because Drew goes out right before I do. He strides past me and takes his place in the lineup, and I inhale the scent of him. A visceral reaction to his presence consumes me, leaving me weaker in the knees than I was to begin with. I pinch the inside of my arm and concentrate on the fact that we’re about to run back onto the stage even though all I want is to wrap my arms around my best friend and apologize for all of the shitty things I’ve put him through.
Normally, Drew would look back at me from his place in line, flash me a wicked, shit-eating grin, and say something cheesy like, “Go get ‘em, tiger.”
When he doesn’t turn around, I feel like I’m being gutted–like someone is slowly ripping me open and discarding my entrails.
Before I have a chance to compose myself, I’m running onto the stage and screaming into the mic with a fake bravado that might have made me a decent actor in another life.
As much as I’ve dreaded the entire evening, the next song has my rib cage breaking and my undeserving heart pouring from my chest cavity. One of our popular, fast-paced songs ends and transitions seamlessly into my very favorite song. One that we don’t typically play. Of course, Mike insisted we perform it tonight.
The lights dim all around and transition into a cool violet as the drum and bass stop playing temporarily and the guitar sends out soft, treacherously solemn notes through the amphitheater.
It’s hard to breathe, yet I find the air and make my lungs expand in my breaking chest.“It’s April now, and it’s come so soon, come so soon, and I didn’t even realize that I’d needed you.”The tears well up, and I turn my back to the audience and wipe my eyes discreetly while making it seem like I’m telling Sean something.“And the thing about April is it’s gone too soon, but then I blinked, and it’s turned to June.”I can feel his eyes on me when I turn back to face the audience. His gaze burns my backside like the sun is beating down on me on a cloudless day.“I’ll be home by June, I’ll come home to you, and I didn’t know it then, how you’d make my dreams come true.”
My love song to Drew. Most people don’t mention or ask for it at concerts, but the audience sings along with me, and they don’t miss a single word. Cell phone lights fly up into the air as the crowd sways.
The lyrics are simple, but the meaning behind them has never been that.“My lips touched yours on that day in June, and there in your arms, I wondered if we’d be doomed.”My heart lurches as I remember writing the song at the law firm nine years ago. More tears emerge as I sit in my own misery. Nothing has changed since I wrote the song, except for our fame.“But you see, I love you, and this day in June, and all the days after that I have with you.”
