The Mighty Storm (The Storm 1)

I hear movement behind me. Turning, I see a roadie carrying a huge keyboard fixed to a stand, looking impatient for me to move. I nudge Stuart and Simone, and we all back out of his way, letting him pass by.

Denny and Smith come bounding off stage and over to us. They are pumped up, and covered in sweat.

I’m guessing Jake went off stage with Tom to the right wing.

I see Simone beaming at Denny as he talks to her. I wish I was with Jake right now.

No I don’t.

The crowd’s cheering and the guy’s enthusiasm is infectious, as I listen to their quick talk, but my heart is dying a slow death in my chest, because even though I said to Stuart I would stay and talk to Jake, I know I can’t.

If I do, he’ll just talk me round, and I know I’m not cut out for all of this.

The encore is readying to start, and the chants are growing louder and louder. The place is practically vibrating under my feet as the fans demand TMS back onto stage.

The place is insane, electric.

You can literally feel the energy from the crowd, it’s like a physical presence touching my skin.

Denny and Smith are called for and they disappear back on stage to take their places.

Then the spotlight hits illuminating Jake.

He’s sitting on a stool, at the keyboard the roadie just carried on, facing left stage, straight in my direction.

The crowd go insane, clapping and cheering.

Jake never plays the keyboard on stage. He knows how to play, but he’s more of a guitar man. I was always the piano player out of the two of us.

A sudden nervous energy sweeps over me, spreading from my head down to my toes.

Speaking into the mic, Jake addresses the fans. “This tour has been amazing for us in so many ways. It was always going to be a hard one for us, but you guys – our fans, have helped us make it a real tribute for Jonny. So we thank you for that.”

The crowd picks up with cheers again.

“Another amazing thing about this tour,” Jakes says over the cheers, “was that it brought someone back to me who I made the mistake of once letting go many years ago – someone important.”

He looks straight at me in the muted darkness. My whole body trembles under the weight of his stare

His eyes drift down from mine, as he starts speaking again. “She once asked me, if I had to pick one song out of every song ever written to best describe me, which would it be. I said the song I’m about to sing.”

My skin starts to prickle as I remember our conversation that night in bed…

“If you, Jake Wethers, had to pick one song as your title song to describe yourself, what would it be?”

“Hurt.”

“Why?”

“Some people said Reznor was writing a lyrical suicide note, others said he was writing about finding a reason to live. But I think it’s both … it just depends on which side you’re looking at it from.”

“And which side are you looking at it from?”

“Now … a reason to live.”

“Reznor’s version or Johnny Cash’s?”

“Johnny Cash … I have a few things in common with him.”

“Like?”

“The drugs … the women … hanging out for the girl of my dreams … you’re my June, Tru.”

I hear his deep inhalation of breath echo around the stadium before he says, “So tonight, I’m singing this for her, my June.”

That will mean nothing to anyone else, but everything to me.

Jake looks across at me, his fingers hovering the keys. He looks lost, afraid and desperate.

I can’t move. I’m pinioned to the spot.

He closes his eyes, concealing his pain, then presses his fingers down on the keys and begins to play ‘Hurt’.

Leaning his mouth close to the mic, he starts to sing, and I feel a stabbing pain in my chest so hard that I can barely breathe.

Jake’s voice is deep and powerful, and is echoing raw around the stadium.

And I know in this moment what he’s doing.

He’s not playing Cash’s version, he’s playing Rezner’s. He’s telling me he’s back there. He’s telling me he’s lost his reason to live.

Me.

I see it in his eyes when he opens them again, looking straight at me, singing so hauntingly beautiful.

And I can’t help the tears that start to run down my face.

My heart is breaking as we stare at one another. Jake is singing his body dry to me, and for this moment it’s only him and me in this crowded stadium, in the whole world, the entire universe.

I can’t believe he’s baring himself to the world like this.

Exposing us.

This isn’t Jake. He’s private. And I don’t want this. This is exactly what I don’t want.

Then it’s all too much, and I’m moving before I realise. Turning, I push past Stuart and Simone, and run off stage.

I have no idea where I’m going, I just have to get away.

Away from his pain, from my pain. Just far away from this complete agony that he’s inflicting upon me.

I hear my name being called from behind, but I can’t stop.

I’m running past people, god knows how in these heels, tears blurring my vision.

The next thing I know Jake is grabbing hold of me from behind, pulling me around to face him.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he pants, breathless. There are tears in his eyes. Mine are dripping off my chin, down onto my lovely dress.

There are people everywhere, watching us.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” I pull myself free from his hold and step back down a corridor out of everyone’s view.

Jake follows me.

I wipe my face dry with my hands. “You shouldn’t have sung that song.”

“What am I supposed to do? You won’t talk to me. You won’t listen. You’ve just cut me off dry.” His face crumples. “I knew the only way I could get you to finally hear me was through music. And that song, what we talked about that night…” He steps close to me, cupping my cheek with his hand.

I almost break at the feel of his skin on mine after been so long without him, so bereft without him.

“You’re my life, Tru. My everything. And you always will be. I need you to know that, and I need you to believe me when I tell you I didn’t have sex with that girl.”

I swallow past my salty tears. “I know Jake. Stuart just got a call saying the girl is withdrawing her story. She’s admitted it was all a lie.”

“She has?” His words come out in a breath. I see a myriad of emotions pass over his face – shock, but mainly relief. Complete and utter relief. “So you know it’s the truth.”

I gulp down hard against the words I know I have to say.

“Jake, I believed that you’ve been telling the truth for a while now. I didn’t at first … seeing you there with her, it was so horrific...” I wince at the memory. “But I do now. I believed you long before she decided to tell the truth. Hearing her admit it is of course a relief, but it doesn’t change anything. We still can’t be together.”

I watch as a dozen emotions scroll across his face.

“Why not?” he asks hurt.

“Because I’m not cut out for this life with you. I’m not strong enough to handle the stuff that comes with it – with you. Deep down I already knew, but this past week with what happened, and the constant press attention it brought, details of our private life becoming reading material for people has just proven to me what I already knew. I thought I could live with it – live my life so publicly if it meant having you, but … I can’t.”

I leave his stare, casting my eyes down, the pain in his face almost too much to bear. Fresh tears break free down my cheeks.

“I’ll give it all up,” his tone is suddenly fixed, serious.

I’ve only heard him sound like this once before – when he was going to cancel the PR for the tour and come to me in the London.

“I’ll leave it all behind – the band, the label, everything,” he adds resolute.

My eyes flick back up to his. “No, Jake, you can’t do that for me.”

“I can, and I will,” he says steadily. “I’ll give everything up without a second thought if it means being with you. We can move away from everyone just like we talked about that time. You remember on the phone? When we talked about building a house on an island. It doesn’t just have to be a pipe dream, we can really do that. Just me and you. We can have a house built wherever you want, away from all of this.”

“Jake…” I shake my head. “It wouldn’t work because it’s not who you are. This is what you live for – the music, the performing. It’s who you are, and if you gave it up for me, after a time you’d start to resent me.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Yes you would. And even if by some miracle you didn’t, it still wouldn’t make a difference … because they’re not ready to let you go.” I gesture in the direction of the chanting crowd out beyond in the stadium, the ones calling out his name. “The world, your fans, they love you too. And they’re not ready to let go of Jake Wethers – not yet … maybe not ever.”

His eyebrows pull in. “And I’m not ready to let go of you, and I never will be.”

Briefly closing my eyes, I say, “I’m not enough for you, Jake, that’s why you turned back to the drugs after the news story broke about your dad. I don’t know what is enough for you, but it’s not me. I’m not enough to keep you straight like you once said I was.”

“You can’t honestly believe that? Jesus Christ, Tru!” His tone is so forceful, it yanks my eyes back to him.

His eyes are as fiercely determined as his voice.

“I was just being a weak fuckin’ idiot! It was about me and him – my demons that I never exorcised, never about you or us. And I promise you I will never go back there again. Losing you because of what I did – because of the drugs, was the single worst thing that has ever happened to me. If I was ever going to need to keep using it was this last week losing you. But I stopped, Tru. I haven’t touched a thing since that night, and I won’t ever again.”

“When I drowned that night in LA, nearly dying like that, I thought it was enough to stop me, but it wasn’t … because I didn’t know the meaning of the word dying until you left me. This last week without you…” He pulls in a sharp breath, briefly closing his eyes. “I’m nothing without you Tru, nothing.”

His words on some fundamental level are reaching me, touching me, because I know exactly how he feels. I’ve felt so lost, so adrift … so dead inside without him.

But how can we be together with all these problems we have sitting between us? I know I can’t deal with the life that accompanies him.

I shake my head. “I just don’t know, Jake.”

“I do.” He tightens his hold on me, clinging to my face desperately with his hand, tangling his fingers into my hair.

My emotions are rising to epic proportions, so I clench my teeth forbidding anymore tears to fall.