“I don’t know any more. Maybe I never knew.”
“Jez! No… please, you DO know me. You do. You DO know me.” I run to him, holding his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me. “Look at me. Look into my eyes, you know me. You know me more than anyone’s ever known me, than I know myself. Please give me a chance to make this all up to you.”
He stares at me like I’m just any other stranger, and pulls my hands from his face.
“It’s too late. All this happened too late. It was over before it even happened. We just didn’t know it yet. I can’t… I can’t ever forgive you for this, for being this person.” He grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me out of his way.
“Jez!”
He stops before he steps out the door.
“Go back to forgetting me, Noemie. I’ll be spending the rest of my life trying to forget you.”
I fall to my knees, hoping that he’ll turn back one last time before he walks through the door. But he doesn’t. Not even once.
He’s already started to forget me.
JEZ
Everyone is on the plane waiting for me when I get there.
I can hear their chatter as I cross the tarmac, but as soon as I appear at the door of the plane, they fall silent.
The music from our one of our practice sessions playing in the background is the only sound as I walk to an empty seat, sinking into the soft, white leather of the recliner and buckle my seat belt.
Dennis gets up from his seat and pushes apart the curtain that leads to the cockpit and I hear him tell the pilot that we’re ready to go.
Then he comes back and sits in the seat next to me, reaching over to squeeze my knee as the flight attendant prepares the plane for take-off.
“Ready?”
I nod, pulling down my sunglasses even though it’s pitch-black out.
And not another word is uttered until we land in L. A.
***
The limo takes us to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I’m a little surprised; I wasn’t sure if Dennis was going to make me go back to the hospital or not, considering I was never really checked out properly. But when I open my eyes after falling asleep in the car, we are parked outside the hotel.
“Come on,” Dennis says, and I follow him up to a hotel suite. It’s filled with our equipment and instruments and pictures of loved ones on the piano and mantle. It only just occurs to me that this is where the band has been staying while I was in the hospital. I never really thought about where they were living. I just… I was too preoccupied with myself, I guess.
While I was feeling sorry for myself, for not being able to play, they were here, choosing not to… in a show of solidarity for me. And I never gave them a second thought about it.
I drop onto the couch in the middle of the huge suite and watch as they all join me, saying nothing.
It’s so quiet I can almost hear the sound of traffic on the roads all the way down on the ground level. After a while, the silence becomes deafening and I spring up to my feet and swing around, looking at them one by one.
“What the fuck happened?”
They all look at each other and then turn to Sebastian. He rolls his eyes, but accepts the job of spokesperson. “What do you mean?”
“A few hours ago… I was about to get married.”
“And now… you’re not,” Seb says, like he’s trying to make sure I’m aware of the circumstances.
“No, I’m bloody, fucking not married.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
I don’t know what to say, so I just shrug. “Guess it just wasn’t meant to happen.”
Marius sighs and says, “Jez, it’s okay to f-…”
“If you fucking dare say ‘feel’ or anything that alludes to emotions, I swear to God I’m going to shove your bow down your fucking throat and pull it out your ass.” He squirms, as if imagining it and closes his mouth.
“But…”
“That goes for all of you, I’m fucking serious,” I growl.
I walk over to the drink’s tray and pour a Scotch.
I lift it to my mouth and the scent makes me instantly dry retch, thinking of her that night standing at the bar nursing her drink and now knowing that she willingly climbed behind the steering wheel almost killing us both in the process. Not to mention her best friend and, on an unluckier day, who knows how many other people.
“Goddamn fuck it to hell!!!” I yell and fling the glass across the room and it smashing against the wall and into a thousand pieces, scattering across the floor. “Why?!!” I shout out against the cold glass of the window.
There’s no answer from anyone.
“Jez. Come on, come get some rest, you’ve had a really long day,” Dennis says softly, tapping me gently on the arm.
“No.” I say, pulling away. “I don’t need rest. Fuck rest! I’ve done nothing BUT rest for three months, I’m sick of bloody resting.”
“Well, what DO you want to do then?” Brad asks, looking at the other guys, hopeless as to how to help me.
I walk over to the row of instruments lined up against bar. I put my hand on my favorite cello, the one I bought with our very first check from the sales of our first album. I haven’t seen her for three months.
It’s time I return to the one thing that’s never let me down.
The guys see me pulling on the latch of the case and get up from the couch, joining me, reaching for their own instruments.
“You sure?” Sebastian questions me.
“What have I got to lose?” I reply.
And in his eyes, I can see he knows I’m thinking, “Nothing. There’s nothing left but this.”
NOEMIE
Time is ruthless.
It doesn’t give a damn about anything, just the relentless pursuit of moving forward.
Never slower, never speeding. Just forward. And it doesn’t give a fuck what you want. What you need.
I needed time.
No, I needed time to stop. To give me a chance to process what had happened. One minute I was happier than I ever thought I could be. Next moment it was all ripped away from me. Over something I don’t even remember doing. Something I can’t even imagine myself doing.
But it didn’t stop. So I ask time to move backward.
To a moment when it didn’t hurt. When it didn’t sting to breathe. To think, to feel. To remember.
And it ignored me and kept ticking away, leaving me to mend my wounds with empty cold comfort and empty platitudes.