Page 6 of Your Chorus
“Cole, we can’t...”
Her voice cracks. I can picture her squeezing her eyes shut the way she does when she’s about to say something she doesn’t want to say. Every word she speaks is painted with pain, and I’m a sick bastard for finding some kind of hope in that, but I do. If she’s hurting, it means she hasn’t left me behind yet. It means we still havesomethingto hold onto.
“Cole, we can’t keep doing this. These phone calls. They’re not good for us.” She sounds steadier now, harder. “Your tour manager called me today, and I told him there must be a mistake because my contract was supposed to be terminated months ago. Therewasa mistake, right? That’s not what this is about?”
I really should have planned what to say.
“Cole, please tell me you got me off the tour.”
“I will,” I admit. She practically growls into the phone. “I will get you off the tour, if you want me to.”
“IfI want you to? I wanted you to get me off the tour five months ago!”
“Yeah,” I agree, “five months ago...”
“Cole,” she stresses, “you can’t keep living like we’re going to get back together again. We’re not. We can’t.”
There she goes again with the ‘we can’t’ thing, like this isn’t a choice. At the end of the day, that’s all it is: one damnchoiceto be with each other, to face all the shit that comes our way together rather than apart, but she acts like there’s some sort of secret law of the universe meant to keep us from one another. I’m supposed to be doing the band a solid right now and getting her back on the tour, but I can’t make myself lie down and take this.
“History’s working against you on that one, Roxanne,” I retort. “Sorry for not taking ourfifthbreakup seriously.”
“History will always be working againstus, Cole,” she seethes, “and if you’re too blind to see it, then I guess it falls on me to look out for us both. Don’t call me again, and get me off that tour.”
The line clicks, and the dial tone blares in my ear.
