Page 8 of Conviction
Jet bursts through the bathroom door, his eyes are wide as he looks me over. I look up at him from where I’m on my knees in front of the toilet.
“You okay, dude?” I nod. I’m still breathing deeply and unable to speak. “I’ve shut the music down and sent them all home.” He smiles his wonky smile at me and his blue eyes sparkle like the naughty kid that’s usually lurking just below the surface of Jet’s persona. He’s too pretty for his own good. Women can’t decide if they want to mother or fuck him, and blokes want to either fuck him or fuck him over, but he’s a lot tougher than he looks. He’s been a good mate to me and I love him like a brother. “Everyone except Lara, she’s waiting in my bed.”
I smile and shake my head. “Sorry, if I spoilt your night man. I’ve got this now, go back and have some fun.” His eyes look me over as I stand up straight.
“I can send her away and stay with you if you want.” I shake my head no as I walk past him and grab a bottle of water from the fridge in the bedroom.
“I’m just gonna watch some telly and try and get some sleep.” He turns around to face me but remains standing in the doorway to the en-suite bathroom, his arms spread apart as he holds onto each side of the door frame.
“Reed, you know I’d send her home in a heartbeat and stay in here with you if you need me to.” I keep my back to him as I walk over to the window and look out at the city lights below me.
“Jet, let’s not do this, please mate, not tonight.”
“I just wish you’d give us a try, Reed.”
“Jet, I love you like a brother man, but that’s it that’s as far as it goes. I don’t fancy men, I’m not gay. I’m not even bi.”
“I’m not gay either. I… I don’t know how to explain it, but if I were with you, there’d be no one else, man or woman. I love you Reed. I want to be with you. I want us to be a couple and to make a life together. I’d happily give up all of this. We could just fuck off, disappear somewhere and live our lives in peace and quiet.” I’ve heard this so many times. I feel bad because I don’t want to hurt him, but I just don’t feel what he does. I turn away from the window and face him.
“Jet, I can’t force myself to be something I’m not. You’re my mate, my best mate, but I don’t find you sexually attractive. I don’t have any desire to fuck you or any other bloke. I like women, I like to fuck women.”
He takes a step toward me, his arm out. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of jeans that hang loosely from his skinny frame. His dark curly hair’s a mess and hangs over one eye. He looks like a mixture of Jim Morrison and Michael Hutchence, and if I were gay, if I did have a thing for men, I’m sure I’d find him attractive but I’m not, and I don’t.
“But you don’t even do that, do you Reed?” He puts his hands on his hips, and that’s when I know this is going to end in an argument. I’m mentally and physically drained. All I want to do is crawl into my lonely bed and dream abouther. The only time I get peace, absolute peace, is when I dream of her. The sensation of her lips, her taste, the feel of her small hands on me, her smell. When I dream, it’s all so real and that’s where I want to be right now. Not standing here, having this argument with Jet,again.
Every time we’re due to spend time apart he does this. Whenever we end a tour or have a break from recording and I’m heading back to England, he asks me again. Every time I say no, and it ends in an argument.
“Youdon’tfuck them though do you? Not really. Not their bodies at least. You just like to fuck with their heads, same way you like to fuck with mine.”
That comment right there pisses me off. “When have I ever fucked with your head? I’ve never been anything but up front and honest with my feelings for you. Never have I. . .”
Jet’s lost it now, not even listening to what I’m saying as he talks over me. . .
“You sit back and watch, while you dish out your orders and touch yourself, but you hardly ever let them touchyou.You never letmetouchyou. And even with everyone else, it’s usually their mouth you fuck, or you jack yourself off all over them. Why can’ttheytouch you? Why can’t I touch you? Why can’t anyone touch you? What are you so fucking scared of Reed?”
I take a swig from the bottle of water in my hand and breathe deeply through my nose. I have to loosen my jaw before I can even speak to him, he’s got me wound up so tight.
“Jet, fuck off back to your own room. I’m not getting into this with you right now. My answer’s the same as it is every other fucking time you start with this shit. No. Are you listening? No, I don’t wanna ride off into the sunset with you, you’renotmy knight in shining armour,notmy fairytale ending. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is. Now fuck off and leave me in peace.” He takes another step closer. “Just a chance, Reed, just one chance? I know we could be so good together. I just want a chance.”
“No,” I shout, “No, my answer’s no now, and it’ll always be no. I’ll walk away, Jet. If you keep this up, I’ll walk away from it all, you, the band, all of it. I’m not working with this hanging over us. You either get your head around the fact that it’s never gonna happen or I’m fucking off for good, and I mean it this time. My life’s fucked up enough. I don’t need your shit adding to it.” His shoulders slump as he stands in front of me. I feel bad, but I’m still pissed off, and I mean what I’ve said. I’m thirty-three-years-old, and I’m so sick of this life that I’m leading. I love the band and the music, but everything outside of that is seriously fucked. The sex, the women, the parties, all of it means nothing. It’s all superficial bullshit, and I hateit, and the people that are part ofit. I just want to go home to my family and step away from all of it, and the last thing I need is Jet and his ‘let’s have a relationship’ drama going on while I’m at home. I don’t need his phone calls and texts, begging me to just let us try. I want to sleep, and I want to dream, and right now, I just need him to go.
“One day, one day you’ll understand,” he says through gritted teeth. “You’ll love someone so fucking much that it’s painful and then you’ll get it.”
“No, no I won’t. Not again, I won’t. See, I’ve been there. I know what a lying, spiteful, deceitful little cunt love is and I won’t ever go there again. So you just need to make up your mind, you either stop with all this bollocks and we come back in September, or we leave tomorrow and announce the end of the band, ‘cause I’m done this time. I’m seriously done.”
“But I love you, I fucking love you, Reed.”
I’m done, I can’t do this anymore. “Get out! Get out of my room and stay out of my life. I’ll sort out a separate flight back to London tomorrow. I don’t want you to call, text or email me. I want no contact with you, whatsoever. I’m done Jet, I just want some peace. Now, get out of my room and stay out of my fucking life.”
He looks at me for a few seconds, and I have no idea what the look in his eyes means. He starts to nod his head. “Your call Reed, just remember that this was your call.” He turns and leaves the room without looking back. I screw the cap on the water bottle and launch it at the door as he shuts it behind him. Fucking drama queen. I love him, but he does my fucking head in sometimes. I lock the bedroom door, pick up my bottle of water and climb into bed. I turn on the telly with the remote control and flick through the channels. Notting Hill is playing on one of the film channels, and that’s all it takes for my mind to drift toher.
We went to see this film together. I moaned, but she reminded me that I’d promised to go with her and she would come with me to see the Green Mile. I didn’t end up hating Notting Hill quite as much as I thought I would, but we never did get to watch the Green Mile together when it came out the following year. I leave the film on, I don’t usually, any other night it’d be off… gone. I go out of my way to avoid anything, music, films, places, anything and anywhere that might remind me of her, or take me back to that night. But after everything else that’s happened tonight so far, it seems a bit pointless.
I pile my pillows on top of each other, turn off the lights, lay back and attempt to watch the film. It takes all of twenty seconds before my mind starts to wander back toher. December the thirtieth, nineteen ninety-nine was the last time I’d seen her in person. I left her at the end of her drive. We’d spent the night making love in the back of my brother’s car. We had a spot in the local woods where we’d park, climb into the back seat and worship each other’s bodies the best we could through our clothes. I loved the rare occasions that we were able to share a bed, and I could get her completely naked. Five times, that’s all it had happened. I’ve worshipped and fantasised about this girl for most of my life and I’d only seen her completely naked five times. I’d only gotten to fall asleep and wake up with her in my arms twice, and yet all these years on, I was still desperate to have that experience again. Despite what she did, despite what her actions caused, I was still in love with her.
Her family had categorically forbidden her from seeing me. According to them, I was from a rough and undesirable family. The fact we lived on the local council estate didn’t meet with their approval either. So we’d spent a year sneaking around, seeing each other behind their backs. My brothers were good, Ty and Jordan both had their own places and let us borrow a bedroom for a few hours, and we even stayed over at Ty’s twice, but it wasn’t enough. We wanted more. We wanted to be together all the time, every day, so we set our plan in motion. I was at college studying music, but we needed to get some money together so we could try to get away. Tyler gave me a job as a labourer with his building firm, and I played the local pubs and bars in the evenings and on a Sunday afternoon. Meebs was still at school but was already sixteen. We wouldn’t be breaking the law, but we knew they’d come after us just the same. She had a part-time job in a clothing shop at the local shopping centre, where she worked two evenings and every weekend. We both saved every penny we earned.
The plan was for Miles to drop us at Guildford Station that night and we were going to get the train to Cornwall from there. We chose Cornwall as we’d both always wanted to learn to surf. We loved the beach, and we thought, hoped, that it’d be the last place her parents and arsehole of a brother would ever think to look for us. She was going to leave a note, telling them that we’d gone to London. We planned to lie low in Cornwall for a while, see if we could pick up some work and then once the fuss had died down, we could head over to Europe and backpack our way around. Meebs would do bar work, I’d do whatever I could pick up, but was hoping that music would be a part of whatever I did.
