“I should have been there to help him. I should have seen the signs, but I didn’t because I’m selfish.”
I don’t know what to say to that so I don’t reply. Rockstars by breed are selfish individuals, they have to be to get to the top. He exhales loudly and scoots out of the bench seat of the tiny table. He stands and walks to the back of the bus, I assume he wants to be alone so I don’t move. He comes back moments later with a shoebox and a notepad. The box is tattered, the cardboard fibers exposed in the corners, and the lid looks like it’s been smooshed about a hundred times.
Andrew grabs a pen from the little cup on the table and flips the page on the notepad. The blank page sits in front of us, and he uses the pen to write the title of the song above the first line.
“The Last Goodbye” is written in his bold scratchy handwriting.
“Let’s finish it.” He hands me the pen and grabs the shoebox sitting next to us. He holds it against his chest like it’s sacred, and I immediately know whatever is in the box is going to crush me.
Chapter 30 Rhyit
I hold the shoebox against my chest like a toddler with a security blanket. I don’t want to let it go, but if we’re going to finish the song, she needs to see them, needs to feel the way I’m feeling right now. My chest tightens as I pull the box away from me, setting it down in between the two of us. Bristol looks at me skeptically, she’s probably wondering if I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t, but it feels like I’ve lost a limb.
Her confession hit harder than I thought it would. She was there to see me, on her wedding day, because of a promise and a song. I want to tell her that I didn’t actually have sex with that girl, we fooled around, but I left the condoms on the bus so we didn’t make it all the way to home plate. That’s a confession for another time though. Right now, we need to write this song while our hearts are still bleeding, emotions raked over the coals.
“I’m going to write my verses, and then I want you to write yours, okay?” I say, my hand firmly on the lid of the box sitting on the table in front of us.
“Okay.” She answers, her eyes firmly trained on the box.
“Okay.” I say with a deep exhale as I lift the lid of the box and dump the contents on the table in front of us. A loud gasp leaves her as picture after picture hits the table. The box full, almost to the brim, now sits empty and almost a decade’s worth of memories sits between us. Bristol’s hand trembles as she picks up a Polaroid of the four of us standing outside Paperweight Records the day we signed our first contract. She inspects the picture and pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. She sets the picture down next to her and grabs another one from the pile, this one of Alex and I playing our guitars. We stand close together, our knuckles almost brushing, and my head is tilted back in a laugh. A choked laugh leaves Bristol as she runs her thumb across the shiny paper. I need her to remember, and I unfortunately need her to hurt to get this song on paper with me. She sets the picture down beside her on top of the other and grabs another from the enormous pile sitting in front of us.
“Okay, give me the pad.” She says. I have no idea what picture she has in her hand, but from the sadness on her face, I can tell it has to be one that cut her deep. I slide the pad over to her, and she scribbles furiously. She grabs picture after picture, setting them in the pile beside her. Tears coat her cheeks as her hand moves across the paper. We said it would go verse by verse, but I’m not going to interrupt her now. She’s bleeding into the paper, all the emotions we’ve kept bottled up for weeks, and I wait anxiously to see what she’s written. She cries a little harder with every picture she picks up as more memories flood her. I’ve looked at these pictures a thousand times, and I can almost tell which one she grabs just by looking at the back of it.
“I lied.” She says out of nowhere, her voice breaking the silence between us outside of the scribbling and the movement of pictures.
“About what?” I ask. I know she lied about her history with Alex, but I rack my brain for anything else she could have lied about, and I come up empty.
Fresh tears fill her eyes, and her face screws up in agony, and it takes everything I have not to reach over the table and pull her into me. She holds a picture in her hand as her bottom teeth bite against her top lip. She pulls her lip in between her teeth, and the tears spill over again against her cheeks
“That night in the treehouse.” She finally says. “I lied about not loving you anymore.”
“I know.” I whisper, my voice choked. “I know you did.”
“I really thought I didn’t. Love you anymore, I mean, but love isn’t a light switch you get to turn off and on, it’s there, like a lighthouse, always showing you the way home. You’re home to me Andrew, and I didn’t realize that someone could be your home until you were already gone. I thought home was a place, but for me, it’s a person. I’m so fucking sorry it took me so long to come home, babe.” She sniffles, and her teeth chatter as a broken cry leaves her chest. I stand from the small table, reaching down and pulling her out of her seat. Her face hits my chest as a low sob breaks free, and I hold her against me, my arms wrapped around her tightly.
“I’ll always be your lighthouse, baby.” I croak as a wall of emotion hits me too. “I’ll be your safe haven, forever.”
“Promise?” She asks, her voice muffled against my chest.
“I promise, babe.” I whisper into her hair; I kiss her crown and keep her body flush against mine. The picture in her hand comes into view when she goes to wrap her arms around me. The Polaroid is beat up from the amount of time I’ve looked at it, but the picture is still visible. It’s a snapshot of her playing the drums, her hair flying over her face like an action shot, and I stand in front of her with my guitar, but I’m not playing, I’m watching her, and the love and adoration you see on my face can be felt through the picture. It’s funny that out of the hundreds of pictures on the table, she picked this one. The one I looked at more times than I can count, when I missed her the most.
Her face tilts up when both of her arms settle behind my neck, and she looks at me the way she used to, the way she did before…everything. Her arms pull my neck forward, and I allow her to pull my face into hers. Her lips meet mine halfway, and while she wasn’t my first kiss, she was the only kiss that ever mattered. Her lips move against mine slowly, like she is savoring every second. I realize in that moment that as long as she would let me, her lips would be the only ones mine would ever touch. She pulled away first, her mouth pulling away from mine hesitantly, like she didn’t want to leave but had to.
“Let’s finish the song, then we can finish this.” She murmurs against my lips. My dick outright refuses. With her tits pressed against my abdomen and her tight warm body wrapped in my arms, my dick pouts as she pulls away.
“You’re right,” I sighed, adjusting myself as inconspicuously as possible. We sit back down at the table, both of our faces flushed from the kiss and the emotional onslaught.
“Here’s what I’ve got.” Bristol turns the pad around to me, her handwriting much better than mine. Her lyrics are heartfelt, and they take in mine and Boston’s too. I read through them again, and then once more, the music coming to me with each read through.
“These are incredible.” I finally say after most of the music comes to me.
“Yeah?” She asks, her face lighting up from the praise.
“Brilliant.” I say, hopping up from the table to grab a guitar. All the instruments are stored on the roadies bus, but I like to keep mine and Boston’s here in the event inspiration strikes. I grab my Fender from the case on the bottom bunk and rip the curtain open to the top bunk. Boston’s eyes are open when the curtain is pulled all the way back. He stares at me with a smirk, and I jump back.
“I’ll be your lighthouse, baby.” He laughs, and I punch him in the arm. He laughs harder as his palm rubs over the shoulder I just clocked.
“You’re a dick.” I laugh. “Come on, we’ve got a song to write.” I start to walk away, but Boston stops me as he hops down from the top bunk.