Page 50 of Revived

I just stared at the man who had been my best friend for almost twenty years. The answer was embarrassing. Nothing. I’d done absolutely nothing beyond sulking about it. After she shot me down, I’d just gone on with life, defeated. John shook his head at me.

“You would think that you learned your lesson with Kendra,” he told me.

“Keep your damn voice down,” I hissed at the asshole. “She’s the reason I ended up down this rabbit hole too.”

“Nah, your dumb-ass mouth, and lying to your son, is the reason you ended up here.”

“I didn’t lie to him.”

“Didn’t you?”

That was when I really started paying attention to what John was saying. It wasn’t the first time he tried to have this particular conversation with me, but for some reason, my mind – or maybe my heart – was ready to accept what he had been trying to convey to me for years. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Look, I’m not saying Kendra isn’t an absolute doll. We’ve all met her now. She’s an amazing woman, and maybe in another life, things could have worked out for the two of you. The fact is, they didn’t. I know you guys both thought you were in love, but let’s think it through. If you truly loved her, with every piece of you, would you have walked away for a chance at fame?”

“I walked away for a chance to offer her a better life.”

“I’ve met Kendra, dude. She had nothing to do with your decision. That girl would have lived in a studio apartment and made fliers for you with crayons and construction paper if she needed to. She would have helped get you there. You took the fast track and lost the girl as a result.”

“I planned to come back for her,” the fight in my head fled and the words were weak as I spoke them.

“Sure, you did, and when you heard she was on a date with someone else, when you saw her pregnant again a few months later, you never questioned it. Never approached her. Never wondered whose kid that was. Let’s be real here, Gabe. The younger you wasn’t ready for those responsibilities. You know what went down between Jade and me, so this isn’t just lip service. If she was that easy to give up, it probably wasn’t meant to be for you guys.” He chuckled. “Hell, she went on to have three more kids, with three more dudes. Yeah, you guys were each other’s first love, but it was easy enough for you to both move on to your new lives.”

“I don’t think I’d call what either of us went through, easy.”

“Nope, but neither of you worked really hard to get back what you thought was so miraculous.”

“It took me a long time to get over her,” I argued with literally no passion backing the sentiment.

“Nah,” he disagreed while shaking his head. “You used her, and the love you thought you lost, to keep other people at bay so you wouldn’t have to try.” He patted me on the back. “I love you like a brother, you know that, but until now, you weren’t ready to settle down that way. We all have our excuses for why we do the things we do. Kendra was your excuse, not your lifelong love. It’s about time you came to terms with that, and while you’re at it, let your son off the hook that you think you’ve been swinging on. He and that girl of his weren’t together for long before the accident. He feels responsible for what happened to her, not love.”

“You don’t know that.” I argued.

“Yeah, I do. Somewhere deep down, you know it too. Let the kid off the hook and do that girl a favor while you’re at it. She has been trying to move on, and he won’t let her. Maybe I’m wrong, and they’ll find their way back to one another, but what if I’m right and he’s sticking it out for all the wrong reasons? Do you think either of them will be happy in a relationship built on guilt and resentment?”

“When did you become the love guru?” I asked of my friend.

He glanced down at his feet and then back up at me. “Things change and offer a little clarity. You had your regrets leading to your decisions, and I forgot to regret the stupidity of my youth. You know what went down between Jade and me all those years ago. I wasn’t ready. She was. It took us being apart, seeing her actually moving on, for me to realize what I’d had in front of me all along. Then, everything that happened afterward…”

“Are you two doing okay now, after everything that happened in the first half of the tour?”

John nodded his head and then turned to go, but before he got too far, he glanced back and offered his parting advice. “Don’t let the past keep holding you prisoner, man. Make a plan and go after the girl you were waiting for all along.”

As John left me there, sitting in the break room of the radio station where we had just done an interview a few minutes before, I pulled my phone out and started searching. I ordered the delivery and then called security so that they’d be expecting it at the venue and could get everything to Mel without any issues. It wasn’t until I got back to the venue myself that I realized the delivery had gone off without a hitch, but the flowers I’d sent had been dumped in the trash can that was sitting outside the bus for all the empty beer bottles and cans from the parking lot party the bands and road crew seemed to be throwing.

She wouldn’t even accept flowers from me? John found me, once again. This time, I was staring at the flowers being crushed by all the other rubbish. “That was the best you could do?”

“I figured it was a start.”

John handed me his freshly opened beer. “Here. You need this more than I do.” Then he walked off laughing. I caught a few pitying glances thrown my way and a few hateful ones too. Everyone loved Mel, and they thought I was a piece of shit for ever even looking at a groupie, let alone touching one. Actually, they all thought I was a fucking idiot for thinking Mel would ever be giving Lonny a blowjob in a back room at a venue. They weren’t wrong about that. I fucking hated myself for the thought. Hell, it took months of knowing we were both attracted to one another before she would even acknowledge it, let alone act on anything. I shook my head, then drained the beer in my hands, completely disgusted with myself.

Then, a song came on that hit a chord and I knew exactly what I would do the next time I caught Mel peeking out from the wings. She didn’t think I ever saw her there, but it was one of the few times these past weeks when I would catch a glimpse of her. It was also one of the only things that still gave me hope that I might change her mind. She was still watching us perform a couple nights a week.

~*~

I had my chance, the following night. As Mel stood there, trying to hide her beautiful face behind some material that draped down the side of the stage, I stopped what we were doing. “I have a little something I need to say,” I told the audience. “Not long ago, I let my stupidity and previous experience lead me to a conclusion that was completely false. In doing so, I ended up hurting someone with my actions. She won’t allow me to apologize to her, so I’m hoping she’ll hear this, and know where it’s coming from.

My bandmates had no clue what the fuck I was doing. We hadn’t rehearsed this, at all, so I jumped in without any backup and started playing The Reason, by Hoobastank. I refused to write songs of regret about Mel the way that I had about Kendra in my early years. It seemed like a bad omen now, so instead, I used some lyrics I thought might convey what I needed her to know. It wasn’t necessarily a perfect fit, but then again, parking lot party musical inspiration rarely fit perfectly. I was mid-way through the song before I had the nerve to glance back over to where she had been hiding in the wings. It was just in time to see her walking away with shoulders slumped.

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