Not unless I want to lose it.
Yet, random women don’t make the cut anymore. I don’t feel like I’m forgetting or moving on. The so-called rock star lifestyle doesn’t make me as happy as it once did. It doesn’t feel as fun and satisfying. Yes, it’s nice to have sold-out stadiums and fans screaming my name, it’s awesome to know that the world is singing the lyrics to my songs, yet I’m not fulfilled. The rest of the band are, they fucking love all of this. It’s the dream for them, but for me it isn’t. It should be, this is what I always thought that I wanted, but it doesn’t feel like it should.
But what the hell else am I supposed to do with my musical talents? This is the pinnacle of a music career; I don’t have anything else. I have to keep going with this until it ends and I need to find a way to be grateful as well. Many people would kill to be in my shoes, including teenage me, so I need to make myself happy. That shouldn’t be hard. I mean, I have enough money to last forever, enough people around me to always have company, enough thrills in my life to keep me going… I should be over joyed.
I will be, I tell myself determinedly. I was once before and I will be again.
“Morning you.” The redhead flicks her hair out of the way and she smirks at me. Even with her make up smeared and a look of a hangover that matches mine, she has a sultry look. I’m sure she was a sex goddess last night which is how she ended up in my hotel bed, but today I’m not in the mood. There isn’t any stirring in any part of my body. I just need her gone. “Why don’t you come over here?”
“I erm… I just need to… you know…”
I scuttle out of the bed quickly and move over to the wi
ndow. She reaches for her phone and my instincts snap into place. She wants a picture of me, a memento of our night together, and a naked one will earn her notoriety online. She might even make money from it if she’s lucky. I’ve had that done to me before. So, I grab my sweat pants and I slip backwards into the bathroom before she can get what she wants.
She’s insatiable, but they usually are. Our fans have to be the craziest women in the world.
“Fucking hell.” I shake my head sadly. “What am I doing?”
As I dress in the sloppiest outfit, I can find which will stop any pictures from looking good, I wonder why I’m so trapped. It doesn’t matter which way I look there isn’t a way out. I’m stuck here. Stuck in this emotionally draining shit show.
I grab my cell phone off the side of the bathroom sink, where thankfully I must have left it, and I fire off a text to Billy, my manager, who is great at getting me out of this sort of situation. He should be by now, he’s been doing it for me and the rest of us for six long years.
Jace: Billy, I need the call. Thanks!
Only a split second later, the call comes through. I step out of the bathroom so the maximum effect can be heard. The redhead is on top of the sheets now, her naked body fully on display. She is gorgeous, there’s no denying that, but still I don’t feel a damn thing.
“Hello, Billy, what’s going on?”
“Jace, where the fuck are you?” he barks angrily. “We need you, you’re supposed to be here…”
“Oh shit, of course.” I clap my palm to my forehead hard. “I forgot. I’m coming.”
“We need you here now. This isn’t a game; you know?”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry, Billy.”
I hang up the phone and give the redhead an apologetic look. She is already grabbing her clothes, knowing that I’m needed somewhere else. I start on with my excuse, but she nods understandingly. She gets it, she knows who I am, that I’m needed, that she has to share me with the rest of the world.
She kisses me lightly and slips me a piece of paper with her phone number on, as if I’m ever going to call her, and exits the room quickly and quietly, thankfully leaving me all by myself.
I breathe out a sigh of relief and lean my back against the door so no one else can come inside. I am needed for band stuff, but not until later on so I have all the morning to do whatever the hell I want. I could go out, go for coffee, eat some cake, shop, do whatever the fuck normal people do on a daily basis when they have some free time, or I could hide out here and head back to sleep in a bed in a locked anonymous room where I can’t be mobbed.
The answer is obvious; I don’t know why I’m acting like I have a choice. I’m stuck here until the tour bus is here to pick us all up and to take us to the next city. So, I flop onto the bed with my cell phone still clutched between my fingers. I alternate between staring at the screen and that damn crack in the ceiling until I know what I have to do. I don’t have any choice anymore; I have to go back to her.
This isn’t healthy, I scold myself as I type in her name. This isn’t right.
The problem is it’s been six years and I cannot let her go. I blame the Internet for that. I can’t escape her. If this had happened a few years ago, I would have been able to move on and forget about her easily, but she’s always there at a touch of a button. I just have to type in her name and I can find out what she’s up to these days, who she’s spending time with, what became of her. It’s a nightmare, but I’m addicted.
“Oh, Addie.” I stroke my finger down her face on my screen, my heart shattering all over again. She’s changed a little in the last six years, she’s grown more into herself, she somehow manages to look even more beautiful than ever before. There’s a confidence to her that wasn’t there in college, she’s more of an adult. I wish I knew more about the person she’s become. I bet she’s amazing. “I miss you too much.”
I click onto her page and run my eyes quickly over everything. It seems that she’s still a managing editor for a newspaper, which isn’t much of a surprise, she’s smart and ambitious, I always knew that she’d go far, and there still isn’t any mention of a boyfriend, which is more of a relief than it should be.
“There might be a man in her life,” I mutter to myself. “She just might not plaster it over the Internet.”
But I can’t imagine her with a man, or more I don’t want to. It’s selfish, I know, since I have been with lots of women, but I want her to remain pure for me. Even though it’s been six years and I can’t see us ever finding a way back to one another. It just isn’t possible. Especially since I don’t even know why it ended. One day, things were amazing, the best they could have been, I was happy and I thought that she was too. I assumed that we would last forever, making it through thick and thin and everything in between.
But then she was gone, and I had nothing left. I was an empty void who would do anything to fill it… I guess a part of that is more true than I care to ever admit.