Love Will

by Lori L. Otto

  “Says the guy who couldn’t even make it to the car unassisted.”

  “Dude, cut me some slack! I’m in a shit-ton of pain and I had to teach a guy how to play my fucking music for eight hours today.”

  “Sorry… I was just kidding around.”

  “I’m not really in the mood.”

  “Okay. What do you want to eat?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Thai? There’s a place a few blocks from the hotel. I can run in.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Jon parks the car but leaves the engine running while he goes inside to order and waits for our food. I recline the seat carefully and try to sleep, but the aching in my body still overrides any desire to rest my eyes.

  After what seems like an eternity, but is likely only ten minutes or so, my phone rings, and while the interruption unnerves and bothers me, I know it could be Shea, so I fight through the stiffness and get the device out of my pocket. It’s my mother, her name on the display delivering massive disappointment.

  I press the button for the speakerphone.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Did Jon tell you to call me? I told him you were supposed to call me as soon as you were done with the band.”

  “No, he didn’t. He sucks as a human being.” I say this just as he comes out of the restaurant with two bags of food. He climbs in the car, pulling out of the lot and merging into rush hour traffic.

  “That’s not what I was saying. I just have a parent/teacher meeting tonight and I wanted to check on you before I went.”

  Jon smiles at me apologetically. I nod at him, giving him a stern look.

  “I’m fine. Go to your meeting.”

  “Now, wait. I’m not finished. I want to know what happened…”

  “Shit happened, Mom. That’s all. Ben’s a fucking asshole. I ended up in the ER with eight stitches over my eye and a huge fucking bruise on my ribs, and Shea ended up fuck knows where because she walked out on me and won’t take my calls!”

  “Will,” Jon chides me, “stop it!”

  I try to compose myself, realizing I shouldn’t have gone off on my mother like that. “Sorry, Mom. I’m in a lot of pain, but I shouldn’t have yelled like that.”

  “It’s okay, Will.”

  “That one slip-up I mentioned to you came back to haunt me. It was with Ben’s girlfriend, but it was before he had met her, and before I had met Shea… but neither she nor I told Ben about our little hook-up, and when it came to light, he was pissed.”

  “Oh,” my mother whispers.

  “I still maintain that neither of us did anything wrong…”

  “Why did Shea leave?”

  “Because the girl’s number was in my phone, and I guess she thought something was still going on. It wasn’t… but she won’t give me the chance to clear anything up.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “No shit.”

  Before I can apologize for the profanity, Mom agrees. “No shit.”

  I wake up in the middle of the night with a crick in my neck. My back’s against the headboard, and I’m still wearing the clothes I’d had on all day. I vaguely remember Jon prying a half-eaten plate of noodles out of my hands. I guess the meds finally kicked in while I was having dinner.

  After stripping down to my boxers, I crawl under the covers and accidentally kick my brother’s leg, the hair grossing me out for a millisecond before I realize it’s not a woman in bed with me.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  Struggling to get comfortable, I grasp for one of the four pillows I’d been using to prop myself up to eat and hug it into my chest, giving my right arm a place to rest. It seems to take some of the pressure off my ribs. If Shea were here, and I were holding her, it would feel so much better. Even though I have to strain to do so, I check my phone. I knew there’d be no text and no voicemail, so I’m not sure why I made myself endure the physical pain. Now it’s compounded with more heartache.

  “Jon?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is it time for another pill?”

  “If you’re in pain.”

  “I am. Would you mind?”

  “Not at all.” He brings me a dose and an opened bottle of water. “You didn’t eat much.” He yawns and stretches, checking the time on my phone.

  “I don’t want anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “Where’s my guitar?”

  “By the chair.”

  “Can you move it over here?”

  “What for?”

  “Just so I know where it’s at.”

  “It’s… It’s still by the chair…”

  I start to get up to do it myself.

  “I’ll get it. Just stay there.”

  “Thank you.”

  He climbs back into the bed after making a stop in the bathroom.

  “Hey, Jon?”

  “Yeah, kid…”

  “Could this really be it?” I ask him.

  He’s quiet for a few seconds, but answers me before I have to tell him what I’m talking about. “Maybe so, Will. Maybe she never trusted you like we all thought she did.”

  “It’s fucked up, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s fucked up.”

  “Do you think… maybe…” I don’t want it to be awkward, asking them to get involved again.

  “She’s not taking her calls. You think Livvy’s not still trying? We want this for you as much as you do, man. I see how you’ve changed since she’s been in your life. I know you love her. I don’t want you to suffer another broken heart, Will. You’re too good a person to have this happen the only two times you’ve ever allowed yourself to fall in love. This isn’t fair. I thought for sure she’d talk to Livvy.” He sighs heavily. “I just can’t figure it out.”

  “I thought for sure she’d talk to me,” I tell him. “She said she loved me.”

  “I know, Will,” he says softly. “Let’s not give up yet. Close your eyes. Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s another day–another day she may come around. Another day to hope for that, okay?”

  I thought the Percocet would be a sure thing, but it’s three-forty-five in the morning, and I’ve been trying to prove that ten is a solitary number in my head since I laid it on the firm pillow. That’s what I get for trying to count fucking sheep. I never can get past the first ten without getting into this math problem.

  And while I haven’t been able to solve this problem yet, some day, I will. I’m sure I’ll be the one to do it.

  And the moment after I do, I’ll die of exhaustion and delirium.

  And I’ll die alone.

  Holy shit, I’m tired. I need to sleep. I need to focus on something else. On Shea. I need to write. Feeling numb from the pain pill, I slowly push myself off the bed and carry my guitar and phone into the bathroom. To hopefully mask the sound and provide some white noise, I flick on the fan before taking my guitar out of the case. Closing the toilet lid, I sit down and start recording chords and lyrics as they pop into my head.

  I miss the warmth of her skin; the smoothness of it. The feel of her soft hair between my fingers as I untangled the strands in the mornings I was lucky enough to wake up with her. Her smile. Her brow. Her dimple. I miss the way her body moved in sync with mine, anticipating each move I made because it was instinctual and primal and the only thing I could do at the time that made sense in my world. In our world. My life made sense with her. Sex had meaning with her. A purpose. An exchange of passion and desire and–more than anything else–of love. It was traded between us in kisses and sweat. In tight embraces. In words, whispered and spoken and shrieked at the top of our lungs. In the war and the peace–the beautiful struggle and silence–of sex itself.

  Nothing will ever compare to her and what she brought to my life. No one will ever live up to what she was to me.

  Before I know it, two hours have gone by and my side, back and ass are aching from sitting on the hard seat. I should have brought a
pillow with me.

  Jon’s watching TV when I exit the bathroom.

  “Shit, did I wake you up?”

  “It’s fine,” he says. “You were tossing and turning all night anyway.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. It was either play or go out and find a girl.” He looks over at me with his brows raised. I can’t tell if he’s questioning me or pitying me. “I wasn’t gonna kick you out. Don’t worry.”

  “You can’t give up on her.”

  “I wasn’t really going to go find a girl, Jon. If that’s where my head was, I would have gone. I would have called Damon.”

  “Sounds like you were writing?”

  “Yeah. Wanna jot it down for me?”

  “That’s not embarrassing for you?” he asks me.

  “Last I checked, we were both grown-ups, Jon. My pad and pen are in my drawer. I have to lie down or my lung may collapse.”

  He brings me another pill after he gets the stationery materials, then sits next to me on the bed. I put one of my earbuds in to listen to the words I’d recorded and recite the lines I’d ended up with:

  Most delicate of fruits, intense yet sweet

  Her skin–the taste, it lingered on my tongue

  The scent of apricot perfumed her hair

  A smell so fresh, I gasped, inhaled, I clung

  Onto her body, flesh as hot as mine

  My fingertips now intimately wise

  The push and pull of lovers intertwined

  Her curves, her form, there was no higher prize

  You were mine to keep

  Be someone else’s ideal

  My sun would always rise and set

  With the image of your smile

  You weren’t meant to be my standard

  Sure everyone needs that person

  To hold all others up to

  But to me you were the one

  An apparition stood in front of me

  My vision insufficient; the allure

  Of her, an angel, perfect as she was

  She’d never see the same in me, I’m sure

  “Open. Come in.” Her voice rang clear that day

  I spoke. She talked. I heard her dialect

  She whispered once, then shouted out my name

  She sounded like a song, in retrospect

  You were mine to keep

  Be someone else’s ideal

  My sun would always rise and set

  With the image of your smile

  You weren’t meant to be my standard

  Sure everyone needs that person

  To hold all others up to

  But to me you were the one

  “I love you” was never easy for me

  Is this really it for us? Say no

  She’s incomparable–no other woman can be

  She’s the best of everything I know

  You were mine to keep

  Be someone else’s ideal

  My sun would always rise and set

  With the image of your smile

  You weren’t meant to be my standard

  Sure everyone needs that person

  To hold all others up to

  But to me you were the one

  “I love you, kid,” Jon says as I begin to drift off, the image of Shea still fresh in my mind. “Rest.”

  Chapter 23

  The show in Fort Collins is our last in Colorado. We have two days off in the state before we head to our next stop. I’m still planning to pay a visit to the asshole tomorrow. With Jon gone and Shea still absent, I guess I’ll be taking a pretty expensive cab ride.

  “You’re comfortable here?” Damon asks me backstage. I’d settled into a nicely-cushioned chair and had propped my feet up on a busted amp, the same place I was sitting at rehearsal this morning.

  “Perfectly fine.”

  “Horizon’s fifth on the set list.”

  I give him a thumbs up and look to my right to see my acoustic on the stand, ready to go. The band hadn’t played the song since I’d been benched because Bradley couldn’t master the chord progressions, but we’ve been working on it all week. He’s good enough to back me up today, and I feel well enough to play. I think I could have played the show tonight if I just limited my movement, but Damon wanted to give me one more day off.

  Even though Bradley struggled with our newer songs, he’s come a long way this week. I think he’ll be a decent replacement for me. He doesn’t write music, but his talent is evident now that his confidence issues are behind us.

  He loves to read, so we’ve gotten along really well, discussing our favorite books. I don’t mind having a fellow nerd on the bus.

  Alex hands me a set of earplugs just before the band starts. “You good?” he asks me.

  “Great.”

  He shakes my hand and walks off, returning thirty seconds later with my favorite brand of bottled water. I really like our new manager, too. I think Ben purposefully avoided the brand of water I liked just because he wanted to be a dick. Alex takes care of all of us, though. He’s an older guy with years of experience, and it shows. I think Ben was fine when Damon was up-and-coming, but he’s a genuine star now. He deserves a professional.

  I watch my best friend through the break in the curtain, admiring just how good he is and how far we’ve both come. I’ll admit, though, I knew he was going to be somebody from the first time we ever performed together. I truly hope this tour isn’t the last one I go on with him. I’d hate for this to be it. I just feel like we have so much more to do together. I guess this is what my life is going to be about: balance. Finding balance between everything I’m passionate about and everyone I love.

  It won’t be as difficult now as it would have been, say, a week ago. It’s not that I love her any less. I don’t. It’s just that I don’t guess she’s going to be a part of my life, moving forward, and I don’t have any say in it. That pisses me off. I always should have had a say. Had the tables been turned, I would have given her a chance to explain. I’ve been thinking about that a lot over the past twenty-four hours. Trying to put myself in her shoes.

  If it was her with the reputation.

  Her with the questionable past.

  Her with the occupation known for philandering.

  Her with the guy’s number that she wasn’t completely honest about.

  Or at least forthcoming with before all hell broke loose.

  And all things considered, I would have wanted an explanation. I would have needed one. I would have stood there, frozen, with my heart bleeding out, until she gave me every last detail of why she had that guy’s number. I’d want to know how she spent her time with him. How they met. How they parted. I’d have to know all of that to make sure the love I felt for her was greater than any obstacle that came between us. I felt very certain–regardless of what she told me–that it was. Because I soared when I was with her. I felt boundless; the way I loved, it was limitless.

  So how the fuck could she just walk away without even asking a single question?

  “You ready?” Alex asks me, my guitar staring me in the face. I’d moped my way through the first three and a half songs, but at least it put me in the right mindset for Horizon.

  I must not have deserved her love, and it does make me question if I deserve love at all.

  “More than ready,” I say, standing up and taking a few deep breaths to stretch out my lungs and ribs. My body’s still sore, but some hefty ibuprofen is enough to quell most of the pain. It doesn’t help me sleep, but nothing really has been, anyway.

  “Go kill ‘em.” He follows me through the curtains to the opposite side of the stage and sets a cushioned bar stool down in front of Bradley. Two sound guys are adjusting two mic stands in front of the stool as I take a seat and strum my guitar a few times. The crowd erupts in screams and applause, bringing an involuntary smile to my lips. That feels nice.

  “Look who decided to join us…” Damon says slowly into the microphone. Another deafening chorus of shouts echoes throughout the cl
ub. “You guys know Will, yeah?”

  “Yeah!!!”

  “He was out stargazing in Denver and got mauled by a bear… I mean… it was a little baby bear… a plush one, actually. Truth be known, a girl beat him with a stuffed animal after a show.”

  I nod my head, laughing with the crowd.

  “You learn your lesson?”

  “Don’t hit on girls who still play with toys?” I ask him.

  “Certain toys are fine,” he says, matter of fact, and all the women squeal.

  “That was a given,” I agree, and they scream even louder. When the noise level dies down, I look back at my best friend. “Why are you getting them all worked up, man? Aren’t we bringing it down here?”

  “Yeah, yeah… I guess we are… have you guys heard this lovely little ballad that Will wrote?”

  I smile as the audience responds accordingly.

  “We’re gonna play a special version of that tonight with Bradley here backing us up. Here’s Where Your Horizon Meets Mine.”

  As I play the song tonight, I remember when Shea put me on the spot and asked me to play it for her the second day I went to her restaurant. I close my eyes to block out my surroundings, focusing on that night and on her, feeling especially morose tonight when I can remember how much hope and promise I had back then. I hadn’t even kissed her yet. I’d wanted to.

  She sat on the couch and wept while I sang the depressing song to her. I couldn’t watch her because her sadness made me want to cry, too. I remember wanting to find that connection with someone, and I’ve since found it.

  I got a standing ovation when I was finished in the restaurant that night. Shea had said she hoped I’d never have to live through loss like I wrote about in the song. Sure, in the song, the girl chooses to end her life.

  In reality, my girl chose to end the relationship. It’s still torturous. Either way, the girl chooses to leave the guy in a world where she doesn’t exist, and for that, the pain is still harsh and tangible and so unfair. I never had a say. I deserve to have a say.

  Tears are rolling down my cheeks by the time we get to the bridge, and I can’t sing the harmonies anymore thanks to the lump that’s blocking my airways. I’m glad Peron’s got me covered. I keep my head tilted toward my guitar, pretending to focus on the chords. Being bent over like this is killing my ribs, but in truth, I really don’t want a crowd of a thousand people to see me crying–regardless of the fact that I know I’m not alone by the amount of sniffles I hear amid the near-silence of the room.