For the millionth time, the words to beg her to come with me rose to my lips. But I couldn’t hear no again. And she’d be right. She was going to be a brilliant doctor and had a long road of medical school before she could even begin a career. Mine was taking off like a shotgun, hers was a long runway. I couldn’t stand in her way.
Even so, it gnawed at my guts that she wouldn’t come with me. Wasn’t logical, wasn’t fair; I had to be one of the luckiest bastards alive to have a record deal right out of the gate, and yet, in that moment, I was so close to throwing
it all away and going with her to Texas.
As I held her and kissed her, a different future rolled out in front of me.
We’d get a place together. I’d get a job while she went to class. Hell, I’d get two jobs to help support her, so she wouldn’t have to work at all. She could concentrate on being a student and then come home and fall into bed with me. Long lazy Sundays in the Texas heat, sweating between the sheets. I’d make her come so hard, her cries would fill the space of our place that was just hers and mine. I could play small clubs on the weekends and build my career piece by piece, instead of being slingshot into the stratosphere. I never wanted fame. I wanted my mom in a safe place, not one crawling with roaches and no AC. I wanted a little piece of security, and I wanted Violet.
Part of me felt like the universe was playing a tremendous prank on me, dumping riches in my lap while taking away my greatest treasure.
I kissed her and tasted her salty tears.
“Miller,” she said brokenly, her hand in my hair, our foreheads pressed together. “It feels like the other half of my heart is being ripped away.”
“I’ll call you every day,” I said. “We’ll visit as much as we can, okay? Weekends, vacations, holidays.” The words sounded hollow and inadequate, even in my own ears. I wanted her all the time, every minute, in my arms, in my bed, in my life.
The twinge of bitterness in my stomach grew and expanded. And I worried how big it would be a month from now. Or three, or six.
“Okay,” she said, though I could read the doubt in her eyes too. The pain of enduring a long-distance relationship when we had only just begun to explore what we were to each other.
We kissed, and she cried, until I was in danger of missing my flight. But Violet would never let that happen. She pulled herself together and took me to the airport. At the curb, I held her close one last time.
“Call me when you get there.”
“I will.” I kissed her a final time, pouring myself into it, into her, trying desperately to seal a pact—the hope that we could make it.
Then the police officer was asking us to move it along.
I let her go, and she made her way back to her car.
“Violet,” I called, my voice rough. “You’re going to be an incredible doctor someday.”
She stopped, alarmed; fresh tears came to her eyes at the strange tone in my voice and finality in my choice of words. I hardly understood them myself.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said firmly, as if trying to patch a hole I’d torn in our hope. She quickly got in her car and drove away.
I waited, watching her go, until the white SUV was lost in a sea of other cars. Until finally, I couldn’t see her anymore.
Part IV
November—
It’s been a while since I’ve written in this old thing, but desperate times and all… Okay, I’m not actually desperate. Just lonely. Desperately lonely.
Miller finished his EP and of course it shot straight to the top of every chart. Before he knew what was happening, they whisked him away on tour to open for Ed Sheeran. I saw the show in Austin two nights ago and I still get goosebumps thinking about it. Miller was just… I have no words. To see him on a real stage with a band behind him and thousands of fans was extraordinary. They were Ed’s fans, but by the end of the first song, they were Miller’s too. I must’ve looked like the crazed, obsessed groupie in the front row, crying her eyes out before he even sang a note. It was magic. It was where he belonged.
We hung out backstage with Ed Sheeran—he’s lovely—and then we went to the hotel. I’m not going to lie; the sex was amazing. With Miller, not Ed Sheeran ;-) Miller was electric and humming and I could feel the energy still pulsing in him. He carried that sweaty, sexy aura he had on stage—pouring his heart out to the crowd—right into bed, pouring himself into me. That was a kind of magic too.
But the next morning he had to get on the bus to Dallas and I had to go back to Waco. We don’t know when we’ll see each other again. He’ll be on tour with Ed for at least six months and then the label wants him back in the studio. I’m trying to stay positive, but I miss him so much. He calls as often as he can, but it’s hard.
And as hard as we knew it was going to be, it’s so much harder than that.
May—
Another plan made, another cancellation. This is the fifth time Miller and I have tried to carve out a little piece of time only to have the plans fall through due to his crazy schedule. Not that I’m counting or anything. Okay, so I totally am. Since we left Santa Cruz, Miller and I have spent a grand total of thirteen days together, scattered over eleven months.
He finished the tour with Ed Sheeran and I thought he’d have a little time off between it and recording his full-length album. But there are music videos to shoot, and publicity events, and if the album sells well, headlining his own tour will come next.