Page 25 of Got to be You

“Can’t change that now.” I sigh heavily as I swig back some more drink. “Just have to keep going forward. Forward into whatever the fucking puppetmasters have planned for us.”

I hate that it isn’t about the music. Really, I don’t even like a lot of our songs. It’s just about the money. We’re money making machines for everyone else. Sure, we might reap the benefits of that as well. I have more money in the bank and stuff by my side than ever before, but it feels hollow. Meaningless. Empty.

Knock, knock.Urgh, the knocking at my door. I don’t give a shit who it is, I don’t want to know.Knock, knock.I turn over onto my side and block the noise out, but it doesn’t stop.Knock, knock, knock.

“Jax, it’s Keira. I know you’re in there. Let me in already, will you?”

Oh, fuck. Even more reason to keep my mouth shut now. Keira is someone I let into my bed in the early days when I was trying to embrace being a wild man. But she has gotten too attached and won’t let me go. Even all this time later, even knowing that she’s just a notch on my bedpost, she won’t let go.

“Jax, I know you’re in there drinking by yourself. Just let me in. It’s sad to see the decline that you’re in. I want to help you.”I hear her slump drunkenly up against my bedroom door as if she’s capable of helping anyone. “Let me just, like, be a friend to you or whatever. Don’t be by yourself.”

But I continue to ignore her because I like being alone now. It’s where I’m safest. I know she’ll give up soon enough and I can go back to being my usual miserable, lonely self. At least until the morning when someone is going to need something from me again. I don’t know what and I don’t care. I’ll be told just before and I can prepare then. What does it matter when my life isn’t my own, anyway, when I signed my life away to become a freaking puppet? I’ll just keep on doing whatever I’m told until life implodes around me and everything changes. If that ever happens. Who the hell knows? Who the hell cares?

18

LILLY

What a day. What a long and stressful day. Week, actually. I’m very glad that it’s over and I’m also glad that it’s the first Friday of the month because it means it’s Anna night, and I always have an awesome time with her. The older we get, the more we seem to connect, and I’m very happy about that.

I’m glad I didn’t let my situation with Jax get in the way of our friendship. I would be emptier now without her in my life. Funny, really, since we only roomed together for one semester, much shorter than I shared a room with Katie, yet I feel more connected with her. Maybe because Katie moved away.

“Anna!” I cry out in delight as soon as I see her. “Wow, you’re looking amazing. How are things with you?” I take a seat beside her and a glug of the drink that she has purchased for me. “Good week?”

“Stressful week.” She rolls her eyes. “My boss is back to being an asshole. Honestly, it makes me regret sleeping with him. Again and again. When will I learn not to have sex with someone at work?”

I nod, not sure what to say about her complicated love life. She doesn’t seem to have learned since her nightmare with Adam which stretched all the way through the rest of college, and she’s found herself in yet another mess that she really shouldn’t be involved with. But I don’t feel like I’m in any position to be giving out advice on something that I know nothing about. All I can do is listen and hope that one day, she makes the choice to walk away from that asshole and to find someone who is good for her.

“Andthen,” she continues with a deep huff, “to make it worse, I get a message online from Adam. Can you believe that?” Uh-oh, this doesn’t bode well. “After nearly two years he suddenly pops up again. Just when I’m forgetting about him. Typical asshole. Anyway, turns out he’s back in town. His job clearly didn’t work out as well as he was hoping, so he’s going to try and start a business here.”

“He told you all of this?” I ask curiously. “That seems random. Why is he creeping around now?”

“Well, becauseLionHeartare playing a gig nearby and apparently, a bunch of people from college are going to go.” I don’t think Anna knows how breathless she has left me by mentioningLionHeartbecause she carries on talking like nothing has happened. “He wants to invite me. Both of us, actually. I suppose it’s for us to support someone that we all have so many memories with. We’re all a part of his success, in a weird way, so it’s kind of a reunion. Could be a bit of a laugh, all of us together.”

Jax. I can’t catch my breath, I can’t speak. All I can do is take another drink. The memories of Jax are one thing, but knowing that he’s going to be nearby is almost too much to bear.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking, Lilly. You’re worried that I’m going to fall back into things with Adam if I go for a night out with him, but I won’t. I can’t. I already have a messy situation with my boss. I’m in the middle of my mixed up feelings with him. I don’t want to go back to the past. No way.”

“Y–yeah,” I stammer back. “That would be bad, wouldn’t it? None of us want to go back.”

She narrows her eyes at me, examining me closely, before Anna comes to a realization. “Oh, shit, I didn’t think about things. I forgot about the whole you and Jax thing. Well, not forgot.” She shakes her head hard. “I didn’t mean that. Of course I didn’t forget it because it made you leave the college, but I forgot how traumatic it was. You probably don’t want to go and see his stupid band, do you? Well, neither do I.”

I let out a little laugh because of her support. She’s always been a good friend like that. “No, I don’t want you to miss out on the chance to have a reunion because of me. You should definitely go.”

“But you don’t want to.” She pouts out her bottom lip. “I don’t want to go without you, but at the same time, I don’t want it to be painful for you. I don’t want you to struggle with feelings from the past. I’m already dealing with that. I don’t want you to go through the same thing as well.”

I stare at Anna, realizing that we have both been so focused on the future that we haven’t mentioned the past at all. She hasn’t really mentioned Adam, and I haven’t talked about Jax, either. We haven’t discussed the fact that we’re both struggling to move past what happened back in college. It’s a shame, really. We could have helped one another more. But is talking about it really going to change things?

“I don’t know.” I shrug a couple of times. “I don’t know what I want to do, to be honest.”

“Well, there is still time. We can still think about it. There is still time to make a decision,” Anna reassures me. “I’m sorry. I was being selfish and just thinking about myself and my mess. I wasn’t thinking about yours. God, what a fuck up. How did we manage to make such a mess of everything?”

“I want to argue that we’re doing better now.” I laugh. “But I don’t know if we are, really. Not in the love life department, anyway. I don’t have anything to talk about, no romance at all.”

“And I’m deep in a mess with my fucking boss. What a state to be in.”

I clink my glass against Anna’s and take another drink. I think I’m going to have to have a few more drinks tonight to try and forget about what happened with Jax. I really don’t know how I’m going to handle his being in the same area as me again. It’ll be too much. Knowing that he’s miles and miles away helps everything. It means that I can’t get too deep into my feelings, but now… well now, who knows?

“It’s late, isn’t it?” Anna slurs as she blinks a few times at her watch. “We’ve been out for alongtime tonight. Not that I’m complaining, it’s been bloody awesome. But we’re going to suffer tomorrow.”

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