After Jay abandoned her, the thought of being a performer was poison. Musicians weren’t people she could trust with her heart and she didn’t want to be one.
Now she felt sick because Errol had mind-fucked both of them.
He’d made Jay feel responsible for standing in the way of his ambition for Evie.
And worse, much worse, her father had sewn so many seeds of doubt about Jay’s ability to commit to her, to the band, that when he pulled away, it was like a self-fulfilling prophecy and she’d crumbled in the face of it.
She dug her nails into the weathered wood of the picnic table. A bushfire burned in her brain, misting her eyes with a heat haze.
Her own father broke them up, broke Property of Paradise up, and made Jay walk away.
She didn’t sing or write today because she’d grown to despise the idea of it from that one sequence of events.
It might’ve all been diff
erent.
She was crying, ugly, rageful tears when Jay sat beside her and pulled her into his arms. “Evie, Evie. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m sorry I got angry. Don’t cry, or I don’t know, cry as much as you need to. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got you.”
Just made her cry harder. Clutch Jay and cry into his chest for the time wasted and the lies told and the intentions that were wrong, for the different choices she might’ve made, for the life they could’ve had together.
When she could get her throat to work she pulled away, put some distance between them. “Errol told you that you were holding me back, right? He guilted you into leaving. That’s why you’re disappointed I’m not a singer.”
“Jesus, Evie.” Jay wouldn’t look at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He’s your dad. He only wanted what was best for you and I could’ve done everything differently. I could’ve talked to you for a start.”
“Don’t defend him. He tried to guilt me into performing, even when he knew I didn’t want to and he used you as weapon against me.”
The two most important men in her life had sold her out, not trusting her to make her own decisions. It just made her madder.
Jay took her hand tentatively, as if he was ready for her to yank it away. “I couldn’t bear the idea that I was stopping you from having the career you wanted. That things were so bad between us you couldn’t talk to me about it and Errol had to step in. I didn’t believe him at first. I didn’t think you’d let me go. When you did, I figured Errol was right, that I had been standing in your way, holding you back and you resented me for it.”
She threaded her fingers through his, needing the connection. “I thought you wanted out, that you’d been lying to me about being happy and I’d been a fool to trust you.”
Jay closed his eyes, brows jamming down tight. “Hurts to hear that.”
“It all hurts. It’s inside me like a fever.” Making her alternatively cold and hot, angry and teary.
“You have an insanely good voice and you loved to sing. It made sense to me that you’d want to use it. I thought you’d be huge. I thought I’d get to be with you while you went on that journey.”
“I never wanted to be out front. The more Errol pushed, the less I wanted it and then when you left, I didn’t want anything to do with performing. I could have written but I shut down on it all.”
He slipped across the seat till their thighs aligned. “Ah, Evie, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“You broke up with me for nothing. I let you go for nothing.”
He brushed her hair back from her face. “We were young.”
“And dumb. And gaslit by my own dad.” She looked out towards the highway where the traffic roared passed. People making journeys to places known, with routes, schedules and arrival times, no matter how roughly planned out. She’d had a plan too and she liked where it had taken her, but it’d begun as a detour and she couldn’t help feel fresh outrage about that.
“Errol has never forgiven me for not trying and now you resent me for that too.”
“I don’t.” Jay leaned into her. She leaned back so they were holding each other up and he went on. “I tried,” he said. “I was bitter for a long time. I thought there should be some good come from giving you up, having you give me up, but that’s not how it works when you love someone.” He rubbed his thumb over the knuckles of her hand. “I never stopped loving you, even when I hated you.”
Jay was a better person with a softer heart. “I basically hated you. For leaving me, for being so successful.” For hardening my heart to making my own music. It had never been fair to blame him for her decisions, but resentment was the oil she’d used to recreate herself, hating Jay the fire.