Page 29 of All My Love

The drive is quiet for the most part, with Stella lost in her head, and I’m lost in mine.

I wish I could say I don’t know what came over me, what made me lose my fucking mind when I saw that fuckwad’s hands on Stell, but that would be a lie.

I clocked her as soon as she walked in the doors of Atlas, my wife standing too close to that fucker for my liking but not close enough to signify any kind of real relationship.

Then my eyes saw her face, the utter pain there, the understanding and the memories that flooded her.

It might have been seven years since she confided in me, but I can still read Stella Hart like a book, even from across a crowded bar.

I wondered if she has seen live music since she left or if she avoids it altogether. At the first show we played when I knew she wasn’t there, when I looked out to the wings and saw them empty, I thought I was going to vomit on the stage.

That was the first night of my true spiral, a spiral that lasted two years and ended only with the cold dump of water that was my father dying and a DUI. It’s interesting seeing my father fall apart when my mother died, the pain and suffering he put himself through, the way he drowned it in beer and liquor, and then understanding I was doing the same fucking thing. Stella was gone, and I was filling that void with everything—anything–I could.

I watched her from the moment she arrived, watched her start to relax and enjoy herself, fall victim to the bug that is live music, and then, I don’t know why, I turned to Reed and told him I wanted to play a song.

I wish I could say I don’t know what came over me, but I knew. I wanted to remind her of who we are. Who we should be. Who we’ve always been.

So I played the first single the band ever released, something of a hardcore fan favorite, at this point, not something the top 40 radio fans would ever know. The first song Stell and I wrote together under the stars, the song that changed everything. When I look back, I think that was the day I decided my best friend would one day be mine in every sense of the word.

Only to fuck it up so badly just a few years later.

As I played, my eyes never left hers.

It was a dick move, and I knew it the second I saw the panic take over her, when I saw her breathing quicken even from the stage, when I saw her eyes go wide.

We climbed off the stage, shaking hands with the owner of the Atlas who once gave us a chance when no one else wanted to, then with the members of the Tailored Pigs, and by the time we were off, I had lost my view of her. The guys went to go get drinks and I went to pace the bar, find a place I could watch my girl from without making her uncomfortable, or at least make sure she was safe.

Then I heard her, and I lost myfucking mind.

It was a bad move. I know that for sure. I’m fully expecting a call in the morning from Lee, our publicist, ripping me a new one or maybe a blackmail call from the asshole trying to get some money from me.

I’d pay it.

It would be worth every fucking penny.

“I was surprised to see you there,” Stella’s low voice says. She always had this fucking intoxicating, gravelly, low voice, almost like she smoked her entire life. It surprised people a lot, that voice coming from the little thing she was, but it always felt like Stella. My old soul. My little star, living a million lives.

“Where?”

She hesitates, and when I glance over at her, she’s biting her lip, second-guessing speaking.

“The bar.”

“Cause I’m a drunk?” She coughs, choking on surprise, and I can’t help but laugh. It feels rusty, a sound that hasn’t been used in a while, but it feels good all the same. “They’ve got orange juice and soda at bars.” She shakes her head.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t–”

“I’m clean. Sober. All of the things,” I say.

“I know,” she whispers.

Something in me warms, the fact that she knows, that she probably searched me, that I wasn’t some unknown, distant memory over the years. She clarified and confirms.

“I, uh… I look you up. Occasionally. Make sure you’re okay; the band is okay. I spent…” There’s a pause while she tries to figure out how to say what she’s going to say or maybe if she even wants to, but she continues. “I spent a lot of my life with you guys. You were all a big part of my childhood and… later.”

“Yeah,” I whisper, afraid if I allow myself to say more, I’ll scare her off, and this is the most conversation I’ve gotten out of her since I got home.

God, it seems even seven years later, I’m still fucking things up.

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