“Been fucking fantastic,” said How, holding out his hand to shake. “I love Australia.”
Jake shook How’s hand, shook Roley’s, and offered his hand to Rand, who knocked it aside and bear hugged him instead, saying simply, “I’m sorry,” before releasing him.
“Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure,” said Jake.
The three men made a noisy exit from the lounge, with Rand coming back twice to kiss Harry. And then they were gone.
“You okay?” he asked Harry.
She sniffed. “I’m great.” She smiled though her snuffling. “I’ll see him soon and we’ll talk every day.”
“Been terrific to work with you, Harry. I wish you all the best in LA and with Rand. You both deserve to be happy.”
“Thank you. I’m so sorry about Rielle. I thought things would work out for you. I really did. I don’t know what to say except give her time.”
Jake nodded, more to be polite than anything else. The possibility that there was a reasonable explanation for what Rie had done was as slim as air. She’d cut and run; ruthlessly, stealthily, deliberately without a word. She’d thrown their relationship in his face by taking Jonathan with her. What explanation could she have for that, and how could he ever find it in his heart to forgive her?
When there were no more details to attend to back at the stadium, the hotel or with the crew, Jake collected Bonne and went home for the first time in over two months. There was a pile of mail stuffed under his door courtesy of his downstairs neighbour: flyers, bills, a second notice for the unpaid gas. There was a fridge full of condiments and nothing to put them on, and a dripping tap in the bathroom that needed a new washer. There was a musty smell, a blown bulb in the galley kitchen, a trail of ants and an unmade bed. He was tired, cranky and frustrated beyond words. And at the back of those feelings lurked deeper emotions: anger, bitterness and resignation.
He stripped the bed, realised he had no clean sheets and slept on the bare mattress, his phone by his side, hoping she’d call and wake him so he’d have the satisfaction of hearing her excuses and the pure pain of knowing precisely where they stood.
The morning’s heat building up in the small flat woke him. He was thirsty and disoriented. It took him a moment to realise he was looking at the rental beige painted ceiling of his flat and to understand she hadn’t called. He did a rough time conversion— maybe it was too early for her to have landed—but he knew that was a lie. He could call again, but that was the problem—again. She’d only earned so much forgiveness, and he was owed a call, a text, something. Surely she’d do that for him.
He dragged himself up, showered and dressed, shopped for groceries. He came home and stocked the fridge, swept, scrubbed and vacuumed, washed and dried sheets and towels. He made the bed, fixed the tap, logged onto his PC and paid bills, left the ants to their enterprise. He went back out for a coffee and dawdled over the newspaper. He made a mental list of people to call to organise work. He came home and chopped onions, cooked mince for spag bol—all the time waiting for the phone to ring. All the time thinking, this was the other side of purgatory.
It wasn’t til late that night, when he was almost asleep in front of an X Files repeat, that the phone did ring and after that he had a whole fresh hell to worry about.
46. Arielle
Los Angeles, USA. Ten months later.
Rielle finished the tour in a dazed, spaced-out state, like an accident victim struggling to process a catastrophic, life-changing event.
Because like it or not, her life had to change. Like it or not, he’d already changed it.
Being with Jake taught her how broken she was. How much her life was about playing a role, and how scared she was to step outside of being the Ice Queen and embrace her whole self and a real life. And if she doubted that, Rand, with a smug look on his face, was there to remind her.
It’s just that it took her months to face up to it. Months of hiding behind the rigours of touring: the tight timetable, full days, exhausting nights, the suitcases, planes, buses and hotel rooms, the different cities, almost identical interviews with different journalists, and the hundreds of times she’d performed the show to millions of fans, whose screaming sounded the same in every location and language.
While they toured, Rielle managed to hold all her grief and guilt in. It was the only way to keep it together. She knew if she avoided thinking about Jake and how she’d taken his perfectly true, unconditional love and deliberately turned it into bitterness and regret, she could pretend it didn’t matter. It’s how she’d survived at fourteen. Got angry, got focussed and stayed that way. And it’s how she’d survived the tour.
But now that it was all over, she had to find a way to be, a way to cope with the knowledge that Jake was the sacrifice, and her punishment for not knowing how to change and accept his help was being alone. And alone, she didn’t think she’d ever find the music and the lyrics to being whole. It cost her sleep, ate at her body and left her gaunt and drawn. She stayed home, watched endless seasons of HBO programs and tried to be happy with the fact she had insomnia and unconsciously bit her nails.
Of course, she’d never meant for it to end so badly, though she’d meant for it to end. Love for Jake meant she had to run or she’d hurt him, ruin him, and infect him with all her own unease and unresolved issues.
He’d been so unshakably loving and trusting. His capacity for acceptance and forgiveness so deep, it was difficult to know how to make things clear to him. That’s why she’d taken Jonathan, to make sure she killed the thing good and dead. To make sure there was no way to falter or weaken. She’d designed the perfect plan to leave Jake with anger in his heart, and the stunning clarity that she was more bitch than beloved. It was the perfect plan for herself too. There was no backing out, no way back. She knew Jake would mend, toughened like the skin formed under a scab, but be better for it, better without her.
But forgetting him was unworkable, and ignoring the scale of how she must’ve hurt him even more impos
sible. Now months later, his phone number was still like a new tattoo on her fingertips, burning, itching to be used. The thought of hearing his voice, even raised in anger, even hard with hurt, was almost irresistible. But giving in would be a coward’s act. So she didn’t dial, she screwed up the letters she wrote, and deleted the texts and emails.
What she did do was recall his messages and listen to them late at night; listen to the confusion in his voice that became bewilderment, then panic, then cold coiled rage—to remind herself it was better this way. And when he never made contact again, she told herself to feel relieved.
She told herself if only.
Post tour, everything was different. Somehow it was all as broken as Rielle felt. The tour itself was a critically acclaimed success, but that miracle was squashed flat and gored bloody now—roadkill. Rand and Stu were barely speaking. Their rivalry and creative differences, once good for business, were now tearing them apart. Then Ceedee shocked them all by suddenly quitting on Stu, the band and the whole industry, to go to college and study business.
They scattered. Roley started playing guest spots with other bands. How crashed in an ashram in India with his new girlfriend. Jeremy bought a beachside house and turned decorator, and Brendan went back to Europe.