AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As she peered between the breaks in the crowd, she drank in his onstage presence. He exuded an almost ferocious magnetism. That night, he’d chosen to wear black designer jeans and a matching shirt, open at the neck to reveal not only a glimpse of golden chest hair, but also a glint of silver that caught Sophie’s eye and whipped her breath away. There, poking from the folds of his shirt, was that stupid St Christopher chain she had bought him for his eighteenth birthday and which he had sworn to her he would never remove.
Sophie leant towards her knees, her forearms clenched into her stomach.
‘What’s up, Sophie?’
‘Oh, erm…’
Nessa sat down next to her. ‘I know, darling, I know. You still love him, don’t you?’
‘No, no, I…’
‘Come on, stand up or you won’t be able to see anything.’ Nessa linked her arm through Sophie’s reluctant one and dragged her back to standing.
The next forty minutes flashed by like a dream. Sophie was swept away on a tidal wave of memories stretching back fifteen years to the first time Noah had held her hand in the playground at their primary school. The music playing tonight was the accompanying score to every important event of her life; something she had found solace in when she’d cried herself to sleep on the days when the loss of her parents was the most acute, like on their wedding anniversary or at Christmas or on her birthday.
She’d made a half-hearted attempt not to follow Noah’s most recent success, as reading about him in magazine or newspaper articles only brought the pain of losing him flooding back. Butshe was a masochistic fool and had downloaded a selection of his older music, listening to the lyrics endlessly to dissect their meaning until her brain was fried and the pain once again became ragged and raw.
She was jolted back to reality as she realised the auditorium had quietened.
‘Thank you, everyone. Have you all had fun tonight?’ Noah’s familiar voice boomed over the sound system.
A roar of approval rippled over the crowd.
‘Okay, this is our final song. It’s a ballad I wrote several years ago, but every word is still valid today. I hope you like it.’
Noah nodded across to Archie who struck the first chord. He smiled at his childhood friend and then flicked his eyes along the length of the third row until he’d picked out Sophie’s face.
She tried to avert her eyes, but the music demanded her attention with a mesmeric force. She stood motionless, captivated by the powerful rock ballad Noah was belting out right at her. Goosebumps spread the length of her body and the roots of her hair prickled against her scalp. As she listened to the poetic lyrics, she wondered whether each word was really directed at her. She was tempted to discard the thought as egotistical nonsense. Since they’d split, Noah had no doubt had his pick of attractive and available girls, she knew that. Even though he frequented her dreams, it did not mean she still inhabited his.
As the final notes of the song died away, there was a brief pause before a burst of thunderous applause erupted into the auditorium and the crowd surged forward with whoops and whistles. The Razorclaws stalked from the stage and the audience continued to scream, clap, and stamp their feet as they demanded an encore. It took a full ten minutes for ClipboardMan to restore calm and ask everyone to leave the theatre in an orderly fashion.
Sophie’s emotions boiled over. She could no longer hold back the tears of joy for the magic Noah had created on stage. The lyrics he’d sung spoke of the intensity of love, the cauldron of emotions its many guises stirred, and the agony of its loss. In that moment, she knew he had suffered just as much as she had during their separation, and she could hold back her true feelings no longer.
If nothing else, she needed Noah’s friendship in her life.
Immediately, her heart escaped from its prison of misery and loneliness and her spirits soared. She felt jubilant at The Razorclaws’ success that evening and about the forthcoming honour of playing at Lilac and Finn’s wedding reception. And she would be there to see them perform, she promised herself. It was time to make amends with Noah. This night would go down as one of the best of her life.
‘That was amazing! Thank you for bringing me, Soph.’
‘Thank you for coming with me. Oh, Ness, I’m so happy for the guys. They deserve all their success, especially Noah. I think it’s time I made my peace with him, don’t you?’ Tears smarted at Sophie’s eyes as she sought her friend’s reassurance.
‘Oh my God, at last! Come on. Let’s use those backstage passes!’
Nessa took hold of Sophie’s hand and all-but dragged her against the flow of the departing throng to the corridor that led to the rear of the stage. They flashed their privilege passes at the surly security guard and rushed to the door of the band’s dressing room. Someone had added five huge golden stars to its glossy exterior on which the band members’ names had beenscrawled with green glitter pen – Noah, Archie, Rick, Danny and Serge.
‘Ready?’
Sophie hesitated, her heart hammering out a rock anthem of its own. She was so nervous her thoughts began to spiral away from her, and it took a supreme effort to bring them back under control. The first thing she planned on doing was congratulating the whole band on a fantastic performance, but a close second would be delivering a heartfelt apology to Noah for her inexcusable absence from his life over the last few years. She also wanted to slide into the conversation a question about his inspiration for the ballad he’d performed for the first time that night.
‘Ready!’
She inhaled a steadying breath, plastered a smile on her lips, and mustered every last ounce of her courage she had, then pushed open the door.
The dressing room was packed wall-to-wall with a congratulatory swarm. Men in designer suits and dark glasses, a bunch of wardrobe and make-up girls, and the guy they’d seen on stage holding the clipboard had all crammed into the room to offer their individual congratulations. There was also a coterie of giggling fans, who’d been lucky enough to win tickets to meet their idols after the show, pressing their lithe bodies around the band members.
She could see Rick and Serge lounging on a pair of leather swivel chairs, holding bottles of champagne to their lips as a crowd hustled them for an autograph. Archie had been backed into a corner by a group of girls handing over cellophane-wrapped roses and teddy bears clutching red hearts.
‘Any sign of Noah?’ whispered Nessa, twisting from left to right on her tiptoes as she tried to see over the heads of the crowd in front of her, unable to make any headway into the room.
