I put my bow on the ground and run my fingers through my hair, I’m sweating all over.
My body is so full of adrenaline it’s excruciating to have to just sit here, with no outer stimulation. Something about the darkness makes me crawl inside my own brain, hide there. Images I don’t want to be seeing are projecting in front of my eyes like slides. Of Noemie, over and over. The first time we met, when I saw her at the hospital the first time, our first kiss, when she held me as I broke down in the bath tub, the look on her face as we ran down to the aisle to get married, when she told me I hadn’t trusted her, hadn’t fought for her. When she’d told me to forget her.
And it occurs to me, this doesn’t mean anything without her here. Without her, I probably wouldn’t even be here.
There’s not a chance I’m moving on. I’ve got to go find her.
And I’ve got to make her realize, she’s meant to be with me.
“Seb,” I whisper into the dark, “I gotta go!”
“Stop joking around! They’ll have the lights on in a minute.”
“No! I’m serious, I’ve gotta go! I’ve gotta go find her. NOW! I can’t believe I’ve left it this long.”
He sighs, and I can feel him move around in the dark, looking for my arm. Once he does, he squeezes it. “Buddy, she’s… look, let’s just get through the concert alright? Then… then I’ll help you with whatever you need.”
“But I need to go, now!” The urgency builds every second I spend thinking about how stupid I have been to let so much time pass.
“Jez… one more night isn’t going to make a difference, okay? Soon as it’s over, we’re out of here. But please, stay, for us.” His voice is desperate, I’ve rarely heard something sound so important to him before.
I want to leave, I want to leave so much my skin is crawling, disobeying me, wanting to escape, cell by cell. But I know I owe it to my boys. Tonight, is about them, not me.
I sigh. “Would you forgive me if I couldn’t stay?” There’s a pause, and a sigh.
“We’re brothers. Always and forever.”
I reach out, and my hand finds his shoulder and I hug him. My chest filling with love for my best friend.
“I’ll finish this song, okay? Then I’ll find some way to go, without making too much of a fuss.”
“You’re on. I hope you get her, man. I really hope you do. So, look, we might as well decide what we’re going to do when they get it up and going again.”
“Marius, Brad can you hear us?”
“Yeah. Jez, can you take it from the chorus?” Marius suggests.
“Yeah, good. How ’bout from… da da da da da.” I sing.
“From where?”
“From da da da da da…” I repeat, singing the bridge from Noemie’s composition.
“No, I think I’ll take it right from the top,” says a voice I don’t expect.
A voice I never thought I’d hear again.
And as if on cue, a spotlight appears right on stage, right beside me.
It grows from a small circle, bigger and bigger, until it lights up her whole body.
Noemie .
She’s here and holding a ukulele. Smiling at me.
She gives me a wink and starts to strum her ukulele.
It’s my song.
I’d never heard her play it before. Our interpretation was just that, ours.
But hers… is perfection.
Her fingers press down, making the notes as she grins at me. And then she starts to sing.
And it takes my breath away.
But now’s not the time to asphyxiate. I pick up my cello and she watches me, still playing, the crowd confused but slowly gaining in sound, getting into the performance. I lift my bow, perpendicular to the strings and I pull. And we’re in it together.
I never take my eyes off hers, as our instruments dance to the end of the song.
Her gentle strumming, note by note, against the deep, resonant tone of my cello.
We end at the same time. And there’s silence.
I drop my bow onto the ground as she lets her arm fall, her ukulele clattering to the stage floor.
“I was… I was coming to find you,” I tell her, though it all sounds redundant.
“I know. I heard,” she smiles.
“What are you doing here?”
“I had something to return to you,” she says, nodding toward the stage wings.
Someone comes running out and hands her a jacket.
Oh my god.
She holds it out to me. “I think this is yours. Actually, I know it is.”
It’s my jacket, the leather jacket I’d given her that night to keep warm.
I’d forgotten about that. But she remembers.
“You know?”
“Yes. I know. I know it all. I remember it all, Jez.”
I reach out, like a zombie, taking the jacket from her, as a million thoughts flood my brain, none of them making traction.
All I can think is, she’s here.
“I know that you saved my phone from a urinary death. I know that you saved me from being stomped on by a thousand drunken bar goers. I know you are a cake thief. I know you know why I love the word Autumn. I know I didn’t tell you where I work and you must’ve cared enough to find out to come looking for me. I know that more than anything, I wanted you to kiss me that night. I know that I was wrong to push you away. But if I hadn’t, I might not know what I know now.”
“And what is that?” I hold my breath, in case I accidentally exhale too hard and blow this whisper of a dream away.
“That nobody knows me like you know me. And nobody ever will.” Why is she smiling like that? So big and bright, it’s making it hard for me to think.
I fidget with the jacket. I might’ve been ready to run out of here to find her, but I knew I had some time to think about what I wanted to say. Right now, it’s all still a jumble of thoughts. Everything but that one thought. That three-word phrase.
“And what about how I feel about you? What do you know about that?”
“That that is something you need to tell me, Jez. Right here, right now. Not in writing, not in song. Just to me, face to face.”
I turn around, taking in everything around me.
My three best friends, grinning so hard I’m afraid their faces might split clear in two. The fucking bastards. They knew. They knew this was going to happen all along.
I look out into the cheering, shouting, stomping crowd, who has no idea what’s going on, just that they’re glad to be a part of it.
And her.
The only one who I would’ve given it all up for.
Who never asked for anything but that I trust and believe her.
Who never gave me anything but the best of her.
I reach out for her hand, and she gives it to me. I squeeze it, and I see a flicker of surprise on her face. It’s the first time I’ve held her hand, without feeling some pain.
Anywhere, not just in my hand.
“Emmie, ask me again,” I finally say.
“Ask you what?”
“To tell you something about me nobody knows.”