CHAPTER 15
LIAM
I didn’t want to tell her like this because I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle the picture in front of me. Her eyes drop, she steps back and her chest starts moving in and out as she tries to catch her breath. My heart breaks at this sight, worse than the night when I broke up with her. That night I took the coward route.
“I’m glad you’re here, you must be tired.” Her hand finds mine, she tries to pull me into her dorm room but I’m not budging.
“You don’t want to come in?”
I do, but I can’t. If I go in I’ll never leave and nothing will change. My life will be the same pattern over and over again and if I don’t change it I’m going to go nuts.
I shake my head just slightly but it’s enough to peak her attention. “Something wrong, Liam?”
My throat starts to close, my heart… it feels like it’s about to burst out of my chest. I know I’m doing the right thing, but why does it feel so horrible.
“I dropped out of school.”
The first look of what is about to be a hissy fit spreads across her face. I deviated from the plan. The all-American plan where I become an NFL football player and we live in a quiet neighborhood raising our two children, a boy and a girl, and she travels to my games and never misses one because she’s my personal cheerleader.
“Okay, why?”
“I… um… I can’t—”
“Can’t what? You’re scaring me, baby. Come in and we’ll talk about it. We’ll call your coach and fix this.”
I feel a sense of relief wash over me when she says we’ll call my coach. That is exactly what I don’t want and I know I’ve made the right decision. I don’t want to play football anymore.
“I can’t be with you anymore, Josephine.” I don’t look at her when I say these words. I turn and walk away, ignoring her voice as she calls my name. I run down the hall, zigzagging through the people that just witnessed my girl and I break up.
I want to step forward and wrap her in my arms and tell her that night I made the biggest mistake of my life when I left her there. I should’ve busted in and packed her bags and taken her with me. The two day drive to Los Angeles would’ve been so much better with her curled up in my arms at night while we slept in the bed of the truck. My breakfast of Doritos and Coke would’ve been the best one I ever had because she would’ve shared it with me.
But instead I spent two days driving with tears streaking down my face because I did the most horrible thing I had ever done. I broke my own heart when I told her I was done.
“Jojo—”
She puts her hand up and I stop talking. When she looks up, it’s that night all over again. Her make-up is running down her face, black and heavy, leaving a path of pain ruining her beauty.
“What was so important that you just left me?”
I sigh. I’m not sure how to explain Betty and the day that changed my life.
“I told you, I needed something different.”
“It wasn’t me?”
“No.” I shake my head to emphasis my point. “It wasn’t you. It was never you. I hate myself for not taking you with me. I should’ve, but I didn’t think you’d go and I didn’t want you to tell me no.”
“So, you just break my heart and leave me to raise a baby by myself?”
“God damn it, Jojo. If I knew about the baby I would’ve stayed and figured something out. I would’ve married you and gone back to school.”
“But you wouldn’t have been happy?”
I can’t answer her and she knows that. My silence is enough.
Josie takes a deep breath and nods. “So you went to California and became this big-time musician. You know what the funny thing is? I didn’t think you liked the guitar that much. I know you would play while singing to me, but I thought you were always kidding. That sort of makes me a shitty girlfriend.”
“You didn’t think I was good?”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s not that. I just thought it was a joke to you, something you did to irritate your dad.”
“I always played. It made me calm and helped me express what I was feeling. When I went off to college, I played more and more. I went to an open mic night on campus and played. I loved it, loved every damn second of it and I tried to tell you, but you weren’t listening. You just wanted to talk about football and your classes and how Mason and Katelyn were doing. You wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell you my head was going to explode and that I woke up each night with my heart racing because I was so freaking lonely and hated school. My three best friends were at a different school and I was states away with no one.”
Josie leans against the counter, watching me. It’s the first time that she’s actually looked at me and not had a scowl on her face. Her tear-streaked face is beautiful. I want to wipe away her tears. I want to take the last ten years and erase them.
I want to start over.
“Look I just came here to discuss Noah, but we got a little off track and I hate to see you cry.”
“You do?” she looks up as if this is some joke for me.
I can’t help but smile at how innocent she looks. “Just because I left that night doesn’t mean things changed for me.”
Surprise rolls over her face. She stares at me, probably wondering if I’m telling the truth. I am, but that is as close as I’m going to get to admitting it.
“I have a gig down at Ralph’s, so I better get going. I’ll see ya later, Jojo.” I hesitate before turning away. I’d give anything to feel her arms around me, to hear her tell me to kick ass just one more time. To have her lips touch mine, even if it’s only for a moment. It would be enough to last me another ten years.
The parking lot is full when I arrive at Ralph’s. We ran into each other the night at the store and he asked me to do him a favor. I couldn’t really say no since he used buy our beer for us. Besides, what’s a little pub time gig amongst friends?
With my guitar strapped on my back, I throw open the door. The crowd is small and perfect. Ralph sees me and comes around the bar to encase me in his large arms.
“Thank you so much, Liam.” He pats me on the back. His grin is thanks enough.
“Anything for you, but uh, didn’t you advertise?”
“Yeah, I did,” he says scratching his head. “But everyone thought I was jerking their chains.”
I start laughing. That’s the funniest shit I’ve heard in a long time. “It’s good. We’ll have a good time.”
I follow Ralph to the bar and enjoy a few legal beers with him for the first time ever. People mill around, ignoring me and I like it. A few stop by and say hi, but they're talking to Liam Westbury, not Page.
Ralph tells me that he found himself a missus and that he’s all domesticated now. I find that hard to believe but congratulate him. He invites me over for dinner and it hits me that my time here is almost over. I tell him maybe some other time because I’ve got to head back on Monday. His face is pensive, but he tells me he understands with me being a big time musician and all.
I wish I understood.
I finally take to the small stage. Me, my guitar, a stool and a bottle of Bud. There aren’t lights shining in my face. No screaming girls throwing their underwear at me. My band is not behind me complaining about the sound and when I look off to the left of the stage there is no one standing waiting for me to put on the perfect show.
It’s just me, in a pub with a hundred people or so.
Ralph dims the lights and I see a few cameras come out. The flash blinds me, but I’m used to it.
“So, I’m Liam Page.” The crowd was quiet until I spoke. A few of the patrons cat call, others whistle and this reminds me why I get up on stage night after night. I love this feeling. I love the moment when my finger strums my guitar for the first chord on a song that I wrote and the crowd goes wild. I love looking out and seeing people sing my songs as if they were their own.
As I play, people pair off and dance. This is the first time in years that I’ve done a solo set in a pub and I remember why I like it so much. The fans are involved; they're part of the show. The longer my set, the more show up. Ralph is doing a great business tonight and is keeping me supplied with a steady amount of beer even though he’s taking away half-empty bottles.
Someone yells that she loves me; I say ‘thanks’. Never will I or have I told fans that I love them, even with something as innocent as this. I’ve only loved one person in my life and those words are saved for my girl and now my son.
Sitting up here I realize I want to be a dad to Noah. I want him to see me like this and know there's more to life than just football. He can be an artist, a musician or even live under a bridge and I’d still support his decision, if he’ll let me.
When I look up, Ralph is hugging someone and standing next to them is the red head I saw Josie with at her shop the other day. When Ralph moves back, it’s Josie that he’s hugging. She stays in the back, I can barely make her out in the darkness, but I can feel her. She lives in my skin.
“This song, I just wrote it so you guys are the first ones to hear it. I apologize if it’s a little rough.”
I look out, hoping she’ll show her face to me. I sing the first verse in her direction, my eyes trained on the last location that I saw her. My second verse rips through me, opening so many wounds.
“Arms of a stranger, a warm blooded kiss, trying to fill the void, of the one that I miss.
Perfume whispers, lashes and lace, but I can only hear your voice, I’m so out of place.
All these painkillers, that’s all they are.
Painkillers.”
I finish the last riff, unable to look at the back of the room to see if she’s still standing there. This song was for her, a way for me to tell her without having to say the words what I am without her.