41
The letter that’s tormented me for weeks is clutched tightly in my hands as I make my way across the cemetery.The grass glistens, whether from morning dew or a sprinkler system it’s hard to tell.When I get to his gravestone, I stand there for a long time staring at the words engraved on the granite.
Robert Michael Nolan
Beloved Husband, Son, Friend
Ever since I read his letter, I’ve been thinking about what I’d say to him if I could.I’ve cycled through every memory of our childhood, our adolescence, and when he introduced me to Jolie acting like I’d never met her when he knew I had.All the months and years that came after.Wondering if there were other lies or secrets he held back from me.He was my best friend, and with one confession, he’d tainted our entire history.
But he wasn’t the only one who needed to confess.
“There were some days I hated you,” I say out loud.There’s no one around, and I need to put this into the air on the off chance there is somewhere we go when we die and he can hear me.“I couldn’t admit it to myself for a long time because I loved you more than I hated you, and I’ll be honest now that it was mostly a jealous hate.You had the one thing I wanted most with the woman I wanted the most.You were a lucky fucking bastard, Robbie, and I was so jealous that you asked her out first.”
I hold up the letter.“I was angry when I read this.Okay, maybe angry is putting it mildly.I felt betrayed.You have no idea what it meant to me that I gave her up for you.I thought you needed her, but the truth was I needed her too.You weren’t the only one who lost a parent or who someday wanted a big love.”I’d lost both my parents, but that wasn’t something to brag about and it didn’t change the facts.“All those times I helped you out with her—the birthdays you forgot because you got distracted by something else, giving you the gifts I carefully picked out for her because yours were too generic.That whole time you knew what you were asking of me and you pretended you didn’t.You took advantage of my love for both of you.And as much as I want to be furious with you, I can’t blame you for it either because she’s the best fucking person in the world, and I can’t fault anyone for wanting her, not even when you betrayed me to do it.”
I think back over the past week and a half, the stricken and ashamed look on Jolie’s face when Lily walked up to us.Her pulling her hand away.The sadness and shame in her eyes the last time I looked in her face.
She was ashamed to be with me.
“Except I know now that wasn’t really the case, because when it comes down to it, she chose you.It was never me she wanted.It was never going to be me.”I choke out the last bit, fighting back my own tears.
I drop down to my knees and give in to the emotions that have been bubbling up for days.“I miss you.It should’ve been me, not you.She would’ve been happier that way.She doesn’t want—” I can’t even choke out the words.I don’t know who I’m grieving anymore—Robbie or Jolie—but my heart feels obliterated and everything hurts so much.
Finally, because I have to get it out, I tell him, “She doesn't want me.She wants you—she always wanted you.I was never enough.But now that I've had her…man, I'm ruined.I'm fucking ruined because I know what perfect feels like.Before, I could love her from afar and it ached, but I could pretend it didn’t.But now that I’ve touched her, tasted her, made love to her, woken up next to her, I can't go back.I can't.I don’t know how I’m going to pretend on tour, or for the rest of my life, because I know she was it.I know you told me not to waste my chance, but she doesn’t want me and fuck, it hurts so bad.And I can't make it stop hurting."
I stay there until closing, spilling my guts to my best friend because I don’t know what else to do.If I shared all this with any of the guys, I’m afraid they’d fire Jolie as our tour photographer and band social media manager.Regardless of how much she’s broken my heart, I can’t do that to her.So once again, I’ll go back to burying my feelings and hiding them from everyone I love.Trent will eventually see right through it like he always has, but hopefully it’ll be after the tour and he’ll see I can handle it—just like I always have.Even if I know deep down it’ll break me.There’s already a deep, hollow ache I know will never be filled.
On the drive home I start to wonder if this is what my mom felt when my dad left her.I haven't thought about her in a long time—I try not to think of her much at all—but this pain is unbearable, and I can kind of understand why she wanted to drown herself in booze and drugs to make it go away.
Unlike her, I'm not going to mute my pain.Not at the cost of my family.Which means I'm forced to feel it—every horrible, aching bit of it.
The next day, I head to Trent’s house for band practice.
“We’re only about four months away from tour, and I think things are really coming together, but we need to tighten up on a couple of songs,” Trent says.
We discuss areas where we think we need to improve, both on an individual level and as a group.For the first time in a long time, it feels like things are back to normal.Kasen is back to being an active participant, even if he’s not quite up to the playful demeanor he always had before.Miles is still chill as can be while he taps his drumsticks on his knee to a song only he hears.Trent is the ever-composed papa bear.And I’m back to being the quiet playboy, minus the playboy part.I have four months before I need to act the part fully, and in the meantime I’m trying to think of different ways I could make the press think I’m still the playboy they’ve always loved without actually having sex with any of the women.
So far, I’ve got a whole lot of nothing.
“I have a concern about our set list,” Trent shares, almost reluctantly.I frown.I helped him put that list together.The transitions are smooth and the pacing is perfect.I have no idea what he could suddenly have issue with.
“I think we should skip ‘Second Best,’” he says, referring to a song I wrote years ago but didn’t share until we were putting together this album.Decker asked me to share my soul, so I gave him a few songs that exposed way more than I was comfortable with, and he ate them up like they were gold.Trent even admitted to me after we heard the final product that he thought they were some of the best songs we’ve ever recorded.
“Second Best” was about Jolie choosing Robbie and how I’d be willing to be second best.Of course no names were mentioned, and I obscured enough of the lyrics so it wouldn’t be obvious to anyone close to me who it was about.I did that with a lot of my songs.Knowing Robbie knew all along makes me feel like an even bigger fool.I thought I’d buried my hurt when I spilled my guts to him yesterday, but maybe there are some wounds that don’t heal all the way.
I didn’t notice we haven’t been practicing that particular song on our set list.I’ve admittedly been in my head and basically only doing what Trent tells me to.
“Why?”I ask, although I suspect I already know the answer.
“You know why.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Because I don’t see any point in forcing you to bleed onstage,” Trent says, clearly frustrated I made him say it.“I know what it’s like to go through a tour when you’ve lost the woman you’re in love with.I’d like to cut out the unnecessary reminders since it’ll be hard enough with her there.”
He’d have to cut all our songs for that to work.I don’t say that though.Instead, I appeal to his need to impress Decker.
“It was one of Decker’s favorite songs on the album.The label too.They’ve already decided it’ll be the next single we release.We can’t exclude it from the set list.The fans will be expecting it.”