Page 121 of Gabriel's Album

Brendan has met Sebastian a few times because he sat in on a couple of my earlier Skype sessions while we were still on tour. It allowed him to give Brendan a third-party perspective of how I was doing at the time.

“How soon will you be recording the album?” he asks.

“We’ll be going into the studio next month. I’m really excited to record.” I hesitate for a second and then sigh before confessing, “I am worried about how I’ll cope when the album is released and everyone is giving their opinion on it. It’s so close to my heart; I know that it’s going to be difficult.”

“No doubt, but let’s deal with that when the time comes. Take it one step at a time, and don’t waste energy now worrying about something you can worry about when the time comes.” Brendan grins at me.

“Very wise words,” I laugh.

“I’m bound to get it right every now and again.” Brendan laughs as well. “Well, our time is up for today, but it sounds like things are going very well. I look forward to hearing the songs when the album is released.”

“You’ll be one of the first people I give a copy to; you don’t have to wait for release day,” I promise.

“That’s very generous of you, thank you,” he smiles at me.

Brendan stands, and I take that as my cue to stand as well. I wish him goodbye and leave the office, excited and nervous about recordingHeart Wide Open.

20

The Concert

I’m standingin the middle of the stage in Chicago during the first night of theHeart Wide Opentour. I’m panting for breath and pouring with sweat. We’ve been performing for over an hour, and I’m nervous about what comes next.

“Thanks for being such a great audience, Chicago,” I say into my mic, and wait for the screams to die down before I continue. “I’m sure that you’re wondering why we haven’t performed anything fromHeart Wide Open.”

I hear a few screams of ‘yes’ from the audience near the front of the stage, and I smile at the crowd.

“This album is very special to me. It has a lot of personal meaning, so we decided that, on this tour, we’ll perform the entire album from start to finish each night. I hope that’s okay with you guys.” I grin at the audience as they go wild.

I launch into the first song on the album, and I can’t help but wonder if Ariana is here tonight. It’s been over a year and a half since she left me, but I still hear her voice in my head sometimes.

I changed my number at the beginning of the year, so I know she can’t call me anymore. I’ve almost called her a few times, but I remind myself that I promised her I wouldn’t contact her. It was almost a year before I changed my number, too. So, she had plenty of time to call me, and she didn’t.

Every now and again, I still look at pictures of her, though. My phone helpfully identified her face in all the photos of her and made a photo album for me. My Ariana photo album is my secret shame. I look through it when I’m feeling down, and I force myself to remember how happy we were.

Doing promotion whenHeart Wide Openwas released was incredibly difficult. We haven’t categorically stated that I wrote the album about her, but everyone knows I wrote the songs, and they’ve put two and two together. There’s a lot of speculation online about ‘Ariel’ being the inspiration for my songwriting.

The performance of the album goes off without a hitch, but I’m surprised by how hard I find singing the last few songs. Eventually, I stand in front of the audience before the performance of the final song on the album.

I worked out an amusing way of introducing this song with Sebastian, but now I’m standing in front of an audience in Chicago that could very well contain Ariana, and I don’t know if I can do it.

I look over at him, and he nods at me. Okay, well, here goes. It’s not like she ever tried to call me, anyway.

“I hope everyone’s had a great night. The final song onHeart Wide Openwas written with a certain person in mind. I hope that person is out there tonight, and if you are, I hope that you hear this song and I hope that it”—as I start to yell the song title, the audience joins me in yelling it, which makes me grin—“Hurts Like Hell!”

It’s only partially a lie. I still hurt a lot, and a huge part of me hopes that Ariana went through even a tenth of the pain I felt. Even with therapy, I’m still bitter about the way she left, and not getting the opportunity to talk to her again. Writing and recording this album has helped me to work through it, but in some ways, it feels like screaming my feelings into the void.

* * *

I’m sittingin my tour bus as we travel to the next city. We’ve reached the back end of the tour now, and it’s been a very different experience fromCards Have Been Dealt. We don’t have to share tour buses anymore—we each get our own. Heather isn’t with us, either. She’s started her own fashion design company. She flies to whatever city we’re in, bosses us all about, and then leaves again. I’m looking forward to seeing her when we get to Los Angeles in a few weeks.

I pick up my guitar and start playing “Beloved Secret.” Ariana’s song is something I play a lot in these hours alone on my bus. I announce “Hurts Like Hell” at every concert the same way I did that first night in Chicago. After that concert, the fans were talking online about the way it was announced, so I did it the same way for the second concert. It turned into something of a running joke with everyone. Even though I spend each night wishing Ariana was hurting like hell, I don’t feel the same anger towards her that I did in the beginning.

I stop playing her song and think about how I really feel now. At peace, is the answer. I think I have finally come to terms with it. I know I’ll always love her, but I’ve known for a long time that she’s not coming back. Without a doubt, though, I do know that if I saw her tomorrow, I would want her back just as intensely as I always have.

I put my guitar aside and pull a sheet of paper toward myself. I start writing some lyrics about how I feel. It’s the opposite of “Hurts Like Hell.” I talk about forgiveness, say that I don’t hate her, and that I never really did. I write about how I would do anything for her love, but that I hope she has found peace without me.

I drop the pen and wipe a tear from my eye. The song will need work, but it’s what I needed, I think. I know that I won’t truly be able to close this chapter of my life until this tour ends, but I also know I’m on the final pages of it.

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