I made love to her for hours, bringing her to the point of trembling and crying out in bliss over and over until I couldn’t hold out anymore. I came hard, spilling out into her as she clung to me, kissing my neck and shoulders with something close to desperation. My mouth settled onto hers, and I gave myself over to another kiss. Our bodies and spirits became one, and in that moment, everything was perfect.
* * *
Morning came before I wanted it to that day. The bed was so comfortable, and I’d slept deeply, enjoying having Leah right there beside me. All I wanted to do was stay like that. Maybe I could convince her to play hooky from work for the day and hide under the covers with me. I was sure I could come up with a compelling cover story that would excuse her not being there. Some creativity and a little bit of stretching reality would definitely be worth spending the day ordering takeout and pretending nothing outside existed alongside Leah.
But it seemed I was too late coming up with that plan. When I rolled over to kiss her awake and try to convince her to forego work in favor of a day hiding out from the world with me, I found the other half of the bed empty. Getting up, I went over to the bathroom, but the door was open. The rest of the apartment was empty. It disappointed me but wasn’t that much of a surprise. It was fairly late in the morning, and Leah had probably already left for work. She knew how much shows exhausted me and wanted to give me the chance to sleep it off some. It was nice, but I would have rather her wake me up to say goodbye.
I went about the rest of my day and figured Leah had to work late because by the time I had to leave for rehearsal, she still wasn’t back. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. Getting this promotion worked her hard, and she often stayed away well after normal work hours. I texted her a few times from practice, but she didn’t respond. The next morning, I still hadn’t heard from her, and when I left to run some errands, her car wasn’t sitting in the driveway. I called her again, this time leaving a voicemail.
“Hey, Leah. It’s me. I just haven’t heard from you in a couple days and was thinking about you. Miss you. Don’t work yourself too hard, okay? Let’s have dinner tonight. We can go back to the seafood place. Or something else if you’d rather. Just come on by when you get home from work.” I hesitated, leaving a pause. “Bye.”
I almost filled that space with “I love you.” It would fit in, feel right, but I didn’t say it. As much as I felt it, that wasn’t something Leah and I had said to each other, yet. I didn’t want the first time for her to hear it to be when I was leaving her a voicemail wondering where she was.
That evening I waited for her to knock on the door. It got later and she didn’t come, so I walked to her door and knocked on it. She didn’t answer, and I checked the driveway. Her car still wasn’t there. Another series of texts went unanswered, and I was starting to feel like a pathetic sap in some bad TV movie. Even that didn’t stop me from wanting to find her. Worry was really starting to settle in, and I just wanted to make sure she was safe. I called again, but this time it went straight to voicemail. There wasn’t even the nicety of a ring.
I tried not to think about it for the rest of the night. There had to be some sort of explanation. She was working more, or something had happened with a friend who needed her help. The ideas of what could have happened became more and more of a stretch throughout the night until I finally fell asleep. I slept late the next day and woke up to the sound of a car pulling up in front of the building. Looking out the window, I saw the landlord climb out of his car and reach into the back seat. He came out with a sign and planted it in the lawn.
I rushed out and caught him just before he drove away.
“For Rent?” I asked. “Why is there a ‘For Rent’ sign?”
He rolled down the window and peered out at me.
“What?” he asked.
I pointed at the sign. “What’s this for?”
“The other unit is for rent again,” he said.
“What do you mean it’s for rent? Where’s Leah?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t leave a forwarding address. Just paid the rent for next month and told me she was leaving. Hopefully I’ll find someone to move in before that runs out.”
Without another word, he rolled up the window, waved, and drove away. I turned to the sign and stared at it, trying to find some sort of explanation in it, but I couldn’t. There was no explanation, no answers. All I knew was Leah was gone. I was completely blindsided. In an instant, I went from worrying something might have happened to her or at the very least that she was working herself into oblivion to regain ground after the failed retreat, to facing the reality that she was simply gone.
Realizing I’d left my phone inside, I went in and called her. I didn’t expect her to actually answer. But I did expect her voicemail. At least then I could have left her a message. Instead, I got a monotonous voice telling me the number I’d dialed was disconnected. It wasn’t just that Leah was no longer physically present, that she wasn’t in her house anymore. She was no longer a part of my life at all.
I loved her. I knew that with every bit of me. And I believed she loved me too. I’d convinced myself I was as important to her as she was to me, and that we had something special. Every day since finding out about the tour, I’d been thinking about how we were going to make it work. I’d spent hours poring over the schedule and figuring out how to get her from here to various places so we could spend even just a day together. It was supposed to be a big surprise for her, and I’d even started getting excited about what it was going to be like to travel around and experience this with her.
Now that was gone along with Leah. All my images of what our future could be and how our relationship would continue to build, and grow were snatched away from me. I loved her, but I was wrong about her loving me. The pain was instant and intense, and I knew it wouldn’t go away anytime soon. I had to throw myself into thinking about something else to stop myself from going crazy.
For the next few days, I was still somewhat in denial. It just couldn’t be real. There had to be some sort of misunderstanding. Something happened and there was a miscommunication between Leah and the landlord. I figured I would wake up or come home and she would be there. She would call me or text me, and I’d find out she lost her phone or broke it and that’s why the number was disconnected.
But by the end of the week, when the landlord came by with a couple wanting to look at the apartment, full reality hit me hard. There was no misunderstanding or miscommunication. Leah really was gone.
I tried to focus on the upcoming tour to keep me distracted and stop the pain. But my heart was broken. Even thinking about the amazing opportunity and the benefit this tour could have on my life and the future of my career didn’t help to lessen the blow. I wasn’t looking forward to it anymore. I couldn’t be happy about it. All I wanted was Leah. The only thing I could do was turn to writing songs to help deal with the pain. And soon I was surrounded by page after page of lyrics.
26
Leah - Ten Months Later
“You can always go home again.”
That’s what they always say, isn’t it?
Of course, it was one of those things that people said with the ubiquitous “they” who no one knew and they never specified. That always got to me, and now I knew exactly why. It’s because the “they” people talked about when they said those types of things didn’t know shit about what they were talking about. That’s why there were no names or qualifications. Just “they.”
And what they said about going home again gave me the inkling they never did actually go home again. Or they never left to begin with.
Not that I hated being back in Dixon. It was my home, after all. My true home. The place where I was born and raised, and where my family still lived. It was the place I always thought of when it came to things like holidays and visits and feeling sentimental. When I sang that whole thing about being home for Christmas… that was Dixon.
But this wasn’t a
visit, and it definitely wasn’t Christmas. This was just me being back in Dixon living with my parents and feeling like the biggest failure on the face of the Earth. So, in that way, sure, I could still go home again. But it wasn’t the warm and fuzzy experience “they” would want you to think. Instead, I felt more like I’d dragged myself back with my tail between my legs and hoped my mother and father didn’t just toss me aside.
It would have gone along with the general theme of how my life was unfolding at that point, though. I moved out of my apartment in the middle of the night like I was running from the law, paying my landlord early so he didn’t throw a fit about the broken lease. That wasn’t nearly as hard as quitting the job I loved. I’d worked so hard for that job and for the promotion I wouldn’t have a chance to earn. I loved the job and I loved the people I worked with, but that was the very reason I had to walk away from it when I did. Piper already knew about the baby, and it wouldn’t be long before everyone else I worked with found out as well. If I stayed much longer, someone would let something slip and Jayson would find out about the baby.
That wasn’t something I could let happen. I made the choice not to tell him, and that was a choice I wouldn’t change. He had a different life ahead of him, and I couldn’t take that away from him. But I also couldn’t raise the baby alone. My career was fulfilling and I enjoyed it, but my salary definitely wasn’t enough to support both of us. Not with the exorbitant prices of LA. I needed to go somewhere with a lower cost of living where I could find a job that would take care of us comfortably. And I needed someone who could watch the baby while I was working, someone who would love her and ensure she was safe and had what she needed when I wasn’t there to give it to her.
Which led me to the one real choice I had: I came home so my parents could help. And as demoralizing as it was, it turned out to be the best decision for me at the time. My mother was there for me throughout my pregnancy and had been a huge help since my daughter was born. Never once had she said anything to make me feel bad about what happened or to question my decisions. It was turning out in the best way it possibly could, I guessed, but it wasn’t completely smooth. Being back home in the tiny town after the bright lights of the big city was a hard feeling to cope with. But at least I had my baby girl. She brought her own bright light into my life.
At the end of a long day, it was good to be back home, sitting on the couch with my baby in my arms. Breastfeeding her gave me a sense of purpose and contentment I didn’t realize I could experience, and after the initial challenges, it became one of my favorite parts of taking care of her. Sitting there with her as she happily ate, I turned on the local news. In a town like Dixon, the local news didn’t tend to be the most exciting thing to watch. Little happened in Dixon, and when there was something to show up on the news, it was usually no more thrilling than a house fire or a local bake sale.
That night, though, the anchor had widened eyes and seemed excited to actually have something to talk about.
“Calling all music fans. In two weeks, the national tour of The Monsters will make its way through our area. There are still tickets available, and the show promises to be…”
The rest of her overly enthusiastic presentation and canned laughter about the band name melted away in the buzzing in my ears. My jaw hung open as I stared at the screen and the images of a recent show. I knew that name. It wasn’t exactly my type of music, but I knew I’d heard of the band before. That was the band Jayson was opening for during the tour. That meant he was going to be in my vicinity soon.
I sat there on the couch thinking about what that meant, trying to wrap my head around the idea of him being so close by in just two weeks. In the ten months since I’d left LA, I hadn’t seen or spoken to Jayson. I knew he had called me several times. I’d listened to the messages he sent me before disconnecting my phone. It was too hard to keep ignoring him, to pretend I didn’t want to pick up and talk to him. Moving back here to Dixon made me feel like I was a world away from him. There was no way I would run into him or accidentally cross paths with him.
Now it was like the universe was leading him back in my direction. Perhaps that was a bit dramatic, but I couldn’t just ignore it. The news anchor said there were still tickets left for the show. If I was going to go along with the idea of all this being a sign, there being tickets left was just another one. I happened to know most of the shows in the tour sold out weeks, sometimes even months, in advance. This was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Supporting my daughter with one arm, I took out my phone with the other hand and searched the ticket sales website. Several options popped up, and I couldn’t help myself. I bought a ticket and tossed my phone away as if I could somehow convince myself it was no big deal. And it really wasn’t. I was just satisfying curiosity, continuing the support and encouragement I used to give the band before leaving. It wasn’t like Jayson was going to see me. The concert was being held in a huge arena. It wasn’t like the shows I used to go to where he would be able to look out of the crowd and see my face. There would be no winking at me or waving from behind his drums. I would just disappear into the crowd, become one of the sea of faces, and he would never even know I was there. Besides, the show was still two weeks away. I could change my mind and not go if I wanted to.
But I didn’t. I woke up the morning of the show with butterflies in my stomach. I was excited to go and looking forward to hearing the band again. After ten months I was sure they had gotten even better and maybe would even have new songs for me to hear. It would be a nice little trip down memory lane, then I could go right back to the regularly scheduled program of my life and no one would know the difference.
Only, it didn’t work out quite that way, either.
The show was every bit as thrilling as I thought it would be. Seeing Jayson up on the stage made my throat tighten with emotion and tugged on my heart, but it was also good. He was in his element up there. This was a much larger stage and a much bigger show than I’d ever seen him in, and it looked good on him. He looked out over the crowd and never once did his eyes settle on me. I felt guarded by the anonymity of the audience, and when the set was over, I was ready to go. Being away from the baby was difficult when it wasn’t for work, and my breasts were telling me they were full and ready to be pumped. I needed to fill bottles for her for the morning so they’d be ready while I was at work.
The headlining band didn’t matter to me, anyway. I was only there to see Jayson. Slipping out while the headliner was getting ready to go on meant I wouldn’t have to grapple with the crowds and would get home much faster. And it would have worked if I hadn’t chosen the exit I did.
I could have gone to any of the other exits in the arena. But a last-minute detour through the restroom put me at the door toward the back. I decided to leave through there and just walk around to my car rather than crossing back through the building. As I was headed to the door, I noticed a familiar figure ahead of me. Leaned against a wall, chugging from a flask, was Carter.
Shit.
I tried to turn and duck out of the way, hoping he didn’t see me, but it didn’t work. Before I could even change direction, he looked over at me and I saw his eyes go wide. Tucking his flask away, he rushed over toward me.
No, no, no. I couldn’t get away, so I stopped and gave the guitarist a tight smile.
“Hi, Carter,” I said.
He looked me up and down like he wasn’t completely convinced he was seeing what he thought he was.
“Leah,” he said. “I can’t believe it. What are you doing here?”
I looked around and threw my arms out to the sides in a casual gesture.
“What everybody else here is doing. You know, just catching the show. You were great, by the way. You guys sound fantastic. But now I’ve got to be going,” I said.
I started to walk around him, but Carter moved in my way to stop me.
“Jayson has been a totally fucked-up mess since you left. You ruined him. How could yo
u do that to him, then show up here?” he asked.
The confrontation hit me in the gut and made heat crawl up the back of my neck, but I couldn’t engage in it. I needed to get out of the situation and not deal with any of this anymore. This was a mistake.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “And tell him I’m sorry too.”
I tried to move around him again, but Carter reached out and grabbed onto my arm, stopping me.
“Oh, no. You’re not getting off that easy. You’re not just going to tell me to tell Jayson you’re sorry and then disappear again. You pulled that shit once. It’s not happening this time. I’m bringing you into Jayson so you can answer for yourself,” Carter said.
He started to drag me down the corridor toward what I was assuming was the door to the band’s green room. In a moment of panic, I kicked out and caught Carter right in the shin. He grimaced and let go of me. The distraction was just enough for me to slip away and run to the parking lot. I didn’t stop until I got to my car and took off. I was afraid to see Jayson, worried about what Carter would tell him.
It was stupid of me to go to the concert. I should have stayed home. I felt like such an idiot.
27
Jayson
Even after being on tour for so many months, finishing up a set and listening to the audience roar and cheer was a special kind of high. It started building even before we walked out on stage and kept getting stronger as we played. It was our job to warm up the crowd, to get them going so they were ready for The Monsters. We did our job well. We walked out on stage to an audience that was feeling edgy, cold, and anxious. They wanted the show. They wanted to lose themselves in the music and have fun. So we whipped them up and got them having fun before the headliners came in for the main event.
The Boy Next Door: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Page 14
