Page 57 of Rewrite the Stars
For lost love, for regret, and for the aching I have right now in my heart and the confusion in my head.
I feel perspiration soaking the back of my neck and I’m finding it hard to breathe. I look around me quickly to see that Jack, Sophie and Harry are thankfully way too excited as finally the sound of the big song they’ve been waiting on, ‘Move Into Me’, makes the set list next, so they aren’t noticing my build-up of anxiety. I manage to excuse myself, pretending I desperately need the loo, and I interrupt the entire row to get out past them.
‘You all right, love?’ Jack calls after me, craning his neck as I shuffle past the others in our row.
‘I’m fine!’ I say, giving him a smile and a thumbs up. ‘Just need the loo!’
I hate telling lies, especially to Jack. I hate everything about this, except the song. I love the song. Is that wrong? The lyrics and melody are stuck like a carousel in my mind.
Oh how I wish I could stop
Thinking about you
I climb the steep steps that take me into the cool light of the tunnel-like corridor that runs around the arena, thankful to be out of the heat of the sticky crowd.
Again and again, I swear blind
That I’ve let you go …
But that’s never been the truth
I need water. I need to calm down. I need time to myself to digest that I’m in the same vicinity once again as Tom Farley, that a song he wrote is actually about me and that he has no idea I’m even here.
He hopes I’m happy. He’s met someone he wants to spend his future with at long last. In another world, in another life, that could have been me. I could have been another me.
I think I’m going to faint.
Chapter Nineteen
‘That was out of this world! Just incredible!’ says Sophie as we make our way out of our row of seats and shuffle along in the crowd to exit the arena over an hour later. Below our tiered seating, a crew of techies come crawling out from every angle of the stage. Dressed in black T-shirts and combat shorts, they start dismantling the instruments, sound equipment and lighting that made up the Blind Generation show. And what a show it was.
Tom was on fire and never dipped in energy once as he sang hit after hit. He even threw in a cover version of The Pogues ‘Dirty Old Town’ which had everyone bouncing and singing along as a grand finale.
I did my best to show some enthusiasm, to pretend that I was as indifferent and as intrigued as everyone around me, but inside my stomach was sick. I couldn’t wait to get away from it all so I could just think and digest all I’d seen and heard.
Part of me still longs for him, or for the idea of him at least. I can’t deny it and I’m angry at myself for feeling that way when my own husband is by my side, so oblivious to the crazy map of my mind. I feel like I’m cheating on him with the goings-on in my head.
‘I think I’m in love with Tom Farley,’ I hear a voice behind me say as we take baby steps to get through the crowd. ‘I can’t believe he lived here in Dublin!’
‘Me neither,’ says another voice. ‘I wonder who the girl who broke his heart was. I bet she’s kicking herself now. I would be!’
They laugh and change the subject but I’m sure they aren’t the only ones thinking that way and wondering who the girl he left behind was.
‘Did you see his new girlfriend?’ I overhear another fan say. ‘I heard she was in the bar across the road earlier with some of his family. She’s the Swedish supermodel, Ana Andersson. Lucky girl!’
‘His fiancée, you mean,’ said her friend. ‘They’re getting married in December. I follow her on Instagram.’
Jack puts his arm around me protectively as we follow like a herd of sheep, out towards the door, past a huge merchandise stand where revellers are still queuing up to buy souvenirs of Blind Generation, until at last we step outside into the cool of the September night.
I don’t think I’ve spoken much since we left our seats. I can’t. Even though I can’t wait to escape, I strangely feel like I’ve left a part of me inside the arena and that part of me doesn’t want to go home yet. I was hoping for closure, but instead I’ve ripped open a gaping wound inside me that I thought was tightly sewn up and well healed. Maybe if I’d seen him properly it would have helped? Or if I’d spoken to him?
I look back at the arena as we drive away into the night, across the hum of the city and onto the motorway on our way home.
It was the song. I was doing really well until he sang the song.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t mention before that the singer was in Matthew’s band?’ says Jack as he slows down on approach to a toll bridge. ‘That’s pretty awesome! Does Matthew know one of his guys made it so big? I’ve never heard him mention it. Strange that he wouldn’t.’
I search in my purse for loose change and hand it to Jack, who gives it to the cashier and drives on through the toll. A Blind Generation song comes on the radio and I quickly change the channel. Too quickly, perhaps.
