AllFreeNovel
Share Us
33
BRYN
When I finish touring,my body takes time to find a routine and drag me back to my version of the everyday. My life is never everyday, hasn’t been since I was a teen, and I missed out on more than I realised by experiencing more than most ever do.
This time when I parted company with the guys, I walked into a life I wanted and not a limbo until the next tour. This time, my new life begins, slow and steady with Avery.
The intensity of our early days continues and I persuade Avery to move into my place in London. She's intently focused on her final exams and decided to apply for her teacher training in London, not Wales, cementing us further.
I fill my days with discussions over new projects with Darren from the record company, agreeing to session work, but only if I can stay in the UK. Now I have a girl who completes me, I'm not cutting myself off from her.
The reason for the obsession with Hannah becomes clearer the longer I'm with Avery and the greater the distance between me and the band. I spent my whole adult life with Blue Phoenix, in some ways like an intense love affair. We lived and breathed each other's lives, relying on each other for support. I put my energy into the band – emotionally and physically – and never stepped outside the world created with my teenage friends.
We all refused to grow up. I was stuck.
Over the last couple of years, others have entered our world, real love that came between us, and the intensity has gone. As with any relationship, this stung and cast me adrift looking elsewhere for confirmation who I was. I saw Jem go through something similar – his jealousy over Sky was partly losing Dylan to her. At that point, Jem hadn’t grown up and moved away from our teen years. None of us really had, but now that’s changing.
Hannah was the only other person I’d cared about intensely, and as I lost the guys, I looked to her. In my mind, I was still the sixteen-year-old boy who was convinced he'd lost his soul mate and now I see what little sense that made. Perhaps we are soul mates, but in the way Dylan, Jem, and Liam are my soul mates too. Away from them, there’s a strange sense of disconnection but this doesn't mean those people should be everything to you.
Avery is a part of me in a way nobody has been before. There’s no daily need to tell each other what is implicitly true: we're in love. A touch, a kiss, a smile, or quiet moments in each other's arms closed away from the world into the place we created together say more than three words.
But I tell her anyway. Often. Why? Because the words are returned with a smile to capture and wear for the rest of the day, and when I see my love reflected in her eyes that is enough for me to hold onto.
Life moves on with a new purpose and with a contentment missing for years.
* * *
AVERY
Outside a small cafenear the college, I share a coffee with Bryn, but he's distracted. I am too. My last exam’s in a couple of days before a summer of freedom and then the step into my adult life. Other students sit with laptops or focus on their phones, one or two reading books at the glass tables in the spring sunshine.
“What have you been up to today?” I ask him, stirring my latte.
He blinks back to me. “Me? Not much. As usual. I'd like to go away when your exams are over with.”
“Go where?” Bryn has taken me on weekends away over the last few months, ironically visiting many of the places he mentioned the first night in the restaurant when he lied to my friends about being my partner. Maybe he means further afield this time and I wait in anticipation.
“I thought we could take my bike to Europe. Go camping.”
Okay, not the response I was expecting.“Camping? In a tent?”
“Yeah. That's the normal method, right?”
“Not hotels?”
He tips his head. “I don't think they'd let me put my tent up in a hotel.”
“You're a sarcastic bugger sometimes.”
“I want to get some practice in before I go onI’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.” He gulps from his coffee cup.
“You’re appearing on that show? You never told me!”
The annoying smirk appears on his face. “Avery, teasing you will never get old,” he says. “Of course, I’m bloody not!”
Refusing to show him he succeeded, I drink too.
“Do you like camping?” he asks.
