Echoes of the Heart

by Casey, L. A.

  “Do I need a reason other than she is my girl?”

  I shrugged. “No, but you’ve had dozens of girlfriends and never got bent outta shape over May making jokes. Mate, I’m pretty sure the last blond you dated fucked May after you kicked her from the tour bus in Vegas.”

  Angel rolled his eyes. “She wanted him from the jump. I’m just a good-enough friend to take a pass on pussy that wants to sit on my friend’s dick rather than mine.”

  May popped his head out from behind me. “I fucked a blond in Vegas? I don’t remember?”

  “Big tits Brittany,” Angel and I said in unison.

  “Oh.” May’s eyes gleamed. “I remember her.”

  Angel shook his head. “Zoey is off limits for jokes of any kind, especially innuendos, May.”

  “Why’re you singling me out?” May protested. “I’m not the only member of this band.”

  “No,” I agreed. “But you’re the biggest slut in the band, and sex and women are never far from your mind.”

  May paused for a moment then he stepped out from behind me with his hands up at his chest, palms out. “That’s fair,” he said. “I won’t talk about your missus anymore.”

  “If you do, I’m breaking your fingers.”

  Angel turned and walked towards our luggage with May hot on his heels.

  “My fingers?” he spluttered. “Of all things to break, why my fingers? I need them to play! You’d ruin the entire band and our Sinners would hate you and—”

  May’s rant was cut short when Angel grabbed one of our carry-on suitcases and shoved it into May’s gut, winding him. I looked from the pair of them to Hayes and we both chuckled in amusement.

  “I think he’s serious about that new girl of his,” Hayes mentioned. “He hasn’t so much as looked at another woman since he started dating her last month. He smiles more too. You’ve noticed it too, right?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “I have. Our boy’s all grown up. He’s in a serious relationship now just like you are.”

  Hayes grinned. “I’m married, he’s not.”

  “With Angel, I wouldn’t be surprised if he married that girl next week and had her knocked up by the year’s end.”

  “Don’t jinx us,” Hayes shuddered. “After the new album drops next month, we have one year before our next tour. This time tour is gonna be different, mate. Two hundred shows in thirty-seven countries. Can you fucking believe we make albums and go on tours? That shit still blows my head.”

  I slung my arm around Hayes’s shoulder and said, “Lad, I hope it never gets old for us.”

  “Amen, brother.”

  We looked back at May and Angel, who were now scuffling and demanding the other apologise for something they said. I shook my head, not surprised because they pulled the same shit no matter what country we were in. I looked at Hayes and grinned.

  “Home sweet motherfucking home.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FRANKIE

  For nine years, my day-to-day life could be depicted like clockwork.

  I went to work, visited my mum and Michael, stocked my cupboards with food, paid my bills, refilled my inhaler prescription at the pharmacy. I read between four and five books a week and sometimes I went to the cinema by myself if I was having a really wild night. I didn’t have any girlfriends; my co-workers were lovely, but our social circles did not cross outside of work. This worked well for me because I had a routine that I liked to follow. I knew what to expect, or at least I normally did.

  Risk Keller being back in Southwold threw a wrench into not only my day-to-day plans, but right into my entire life.

  “It’s okay,” I told myself as I walked towards the entrance of Sir John Leman High School. “This is not a big deal.”

  Trying to reassure myself had been a complete and utter disaster.

  I didn’t have social media accounts, so I couldn’t check in and see if it was actually true about the band attending Mr Jones’s retirement ceremony. I deactivated my Facebook account years ago because everyone would constantly post things about Blood Oath as they got more successful and even more famous. I understood it: three of the band’s members were from Southwold and everyone was super proud of them. I was too, I just couldn’t see or read about Risk because it hurt me too much.

  I refused to ditch the ceremony out of fear of him showing up because Mr Jones didn’t deserve that. He was a fantastic man who deserved to be celebrated for all of the work he had done for the school and the time he gave to his students over the years. For me, he was an angel after my father passed away. I spoke to him a few times a week and after each talk I felt immensely better. Nothing took away the pain of losing my dad, but Mr Jones helped me focus my pain and deal with it rather than let it consume me. I knew Risk, May and Hayes, if they were actually attending the ceremony, were going because they loved Mr Jones. He was their after-school music teacher and second biggest fan after me. He bought them their first instruments with his own money.

  He had encouraged them to reach for the stars and now they were stars.

  I wasn’t going to let the possibility of seeing Risk mess with showing my respect to Mr Jones. I was a grown woman and even though I was worried about possibly seeing him again I wasn’t letting that keep me from doing something that I wanted. It was likely that I was working myself up over nothing. Maybe I would get a little sad, but sure, who wouldn’t? I loved him desperately at one point in my life but that was the past. Risk probably didn’t even remember me, I was only his childhood girlfriend. He was a rock star now, and thanks to Anna and Hannah Porter, I knew he had been with a lot of women, some really famous ones, over the years.

  The chance of him remembering me in his living-in-the-fast-lane life were slim to none.

  I entered the school, the familiarity of it made me smile. I headed towards the school’s PE hall where the decorated signs and pictures of Mr Jones all pointed. When I entered the hall, I wasn’t surprised to see it full of people. How packed the place was made me smile. Understandably, not all of the student body could be present, there was just a couple of hundred kids taking up the first four rows of seats. Likely children who had a strong relationship with Mr Jones.

  I made my way to an empty seat in the middle of the second back row of chairs. Ideally, I would have just stood at the back of the room, but there were people ushering everyone to sit down on any seat that was available so that was what I did. I ended up being wedged between two stocky men. I was thankful when the ceremony began a couple of minutes later. The lights in the hall were suddenly dimmed and a hush spread across the room. A projector switched on and on the back wall of the room, a film began to play.

  “Hi, everyone!” A blond-haired girl wearing black-framed glasses appeared waving happily. “Thank you for coming along today to celebrate the wonderful career our dear Mr Jones has had during his forty-two years at Sir John Leman High School. My name is Sarah Marks. I’m a sixth former and I’m also the student who has been lucky enough to be selected to record and edit this short film for our lovely Mr Jones. I want to quickly thank every student, past and present, and each staff member who appears in the film because without you guys, we wouldn’t get to show just how special Mr Jones is and how happy we are for him to start the next chapter of his life. I think everyone will agree that no man deserves to put his feet up more than him. This is for you, Mr Jones.”

  Instant applause filled the hall then it died down as Dr Jones by Aqua began to lowly play in the background of the film, making everyone chuckle. A roll of clips of Mr Jones throughout the years began to play and one thing that stood out was just how happy he was and how big the smiles were on the kids’ faces around him. It wasn’t all games and laughter though; there was a clip of a boy who looked down in one of the school’s hallways and Mr Jones kneeled in front of him, talking to him before giving the student a hug and pulling a smile from him as he wiped his eyes. It showed the ups and downs that the counsellor of a school had but in the end, everything alwa
ys ended in a smile.

  I was smiling happily until my teenage face popped up onto the projected image on the wall, followed by Risk, May and Hayes as they played on their instruments in Mr Jones’s office sometime during our last year at school. Students, and some parents, whooped and cheered before being shushed. There was audio with this clip and normally I would look away or run away, but I was trapped where I was and found that once I saw Risk, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. My heart jumped when teenage Risk leaned over and kissed my cheek, my younger self smiled and looked at him like he was the only boy in the whole world as he sang his rendition of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. I could hear the teenage girls up front sigh dreamingly from my spot at the back of the hall.

  I hadn’t thought of that day since before Risk and I broke up, but watching it on film made it all come rushing back to me and I could remember it like it was yesterday. It was after school had ended, the guys and Mr Jones were waiting for the room that doubled as the music room to be cleaned by the caretakers and while they waited they sat in Mr Jones’s office. I popped in to say hello, and goodbye, because I had to go straight to work since I just landed my first job at Mary Well’s diner as a part-time waitress. Risk had asked me to wait a minute and he sang his version of the song to me. It was the best part of my day.

  As Risk finished the song, I gave him a big kiss then got up just as a younger Mr Jones said, “Ew, can you both, like, not do that in front of me? Thanks.”

  The hall burst into laughter, but I couldn’t move.

  “Is that you?”

  I jolted when the man on my right whispered his question.

  “Me?” I shook my head. “No way.”

  “Huh.” The man looked back at the projected screen. “Looks like you.”

  I said nothing further and neither did the man.

  The film switched back to Sarah Marks approaching several children and as she asked them to answer the same question. Each answer was different from the last and it made me choke up a little because each word used was exactly the word to describe Mr Jones. It made my heart happy to know that he was beloved by students now just as much as he was when I was in school.

  “Describe Mr Jones in one word . . . go!”

  “Funny.”

  “Cool.”

  “Kind.”

  “Compassionate.”

  “Happy.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Nice.”

  “Patient.”

  “Understanding.”

  “Legend!”

  The room erupted with laughter thanks to that last description from an energetic boy. The video then turned into a montage of pictures through the years with students and staff members. A bunch of staff members appeared on screen and said a few words about their colleague. Five minutes later, Sarah Marks popped back up.

  “Mr Jones, you are one of a kind, sir. We’re all so happy for you to get the break you deserve after helping so many people throughout your career, but we’d be lying if we said were weren’t sad too. You mean so much to us and we’re going to miss you every day.”

  The video zoomed out revealing hundreds and hundreds of children who all shouted. “We love you, Mr Jones!”

  The video ended and everyone clapped, the projector was turned off and the lights to the room were turned up. Mr Jones stood up from his seat on the small, makeshift stage that was put together every year for graduation. He shook hands with the principal, who was on the stage with him, then Mr Jones moved to the microphone stand.

  “Thank you for your hard work on the film, Sarah. I’ll cherish it forever.” Mr Jones smiled. “And thank you to the students and my colleagues for your lovely words. I’ll be honest, I’m trying my very best not cry right now but it’s very difficult because, from the bottom of my heart, I have loved my time at this school. I remember all of my students, past and present, and I appreciate every single one of you.”

  Everyone clapped again when he wiped under his eyes; I was right there with him wiping my own tears away. The man was an absolute gentleman and I wished nothing but the best for him. He deserved everything that was good in the world. He deserved to go on a six-month-long cruise with his wife; he had always talked about that when I was in school.

  “Now that I’ve got the tears and the thank yous out of the way, I get to the very exciting part of my day. I’ve had permission from the top gun of this school to dish out this warning.” Mr Jones rubbed his hands together, grinning. “If I see a single student rush towards this stage, or get up out of their seat, it’s an instant suspension. That goes for any parents too, if you run up on this stage, your child will take the fall for you and will live in a bubble of shame for the rest of the term.”

  Everyone laughed apart from me because I knew what was coming. There was no way Mr Jones would put out a warning, even jokingly, if anyone other than who I thought it was was going to be coming on stage.

  “Please, join me in welcoming past students and global superstars, Risk Keller, May Acton and Hayes Hurley. They’ve taken a break out of their busy schedule to come home to Southwold and attend this ceremony for my last year at Sir John Leman High School. They’ve brought along Angel Reyes too!” Mr Jones beamed. “Our very own Southwold boys are home! Give it up for Blood Oath!”

  The noise. Christ. The volume was deafening, but when the side door to the hall opened, I had to put my hands over my ears because the sheer volume actually hurt. I didn’t get to see a thing because everyone jumped to their feet while I remained seated. I seemed to be the only person who wasn’t overjoyed to see Blood Oath, but they didn’t have history with the lead singer and guitarist like I did. I remained seated, and for a solid two minutes, all that took place was screaming, cheering and clapping.

  My bum was glued to my seat the entire time.

  When the crowd finally retook their seats, I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience and that was because I saw him for the first time since I made him walk away from me nine years ago. The sight of him took my breath away and as an asthmatic, that was dangerous. I took deep breaths, but never took my eyes off him. Risk had changed, and he hadn’t at the same time. His hair was still the same white-blond it always had been, but the style was different. He was rocking that typical Viking look. His hair was shaved on the sides and braided on the top of his head right back down his neck.

  He was still gloriously tall but he wasn’t skinny anymore. He had put on weight, but from what I could see, it only seemed to be muscle. His shoulders had always been broad, but now they were muscular and looked very strong, so did his biceps . . . he had actual biceps. Even his bloody thighs looked bigger. I swallowed as I continued my visual assessment of him. It wasn’t hard to see why women, and a lot of men, lusted after him. Not only did he have a voice that sounded like a wet dream, he looked like one too.

  He was more gorgeous than ever, he looked so healthy. I had heard he had gone to rehab after an incident of some kind with drugs and it obviously had done him the world of good. He truly looked incredible.

  Risk, May and Hayes gave Mr Jones a big hug while Angel, the only non-original member of the band, shook his hand and smiled at something Mr Jones had said. I looked to May and Hayes and noted there were changes in their appearances too. May’s transformation was incredible, even down to his blood-red hair. He was no longer overweight; his body looked just as fit as Risk’s did. Hayes wasn’t as muscular as the other two, but lord, he was a handsome man. A handsome man who had married his girlfriend of two years in a shotgun wedding last year so Anna had told me.

  The three guys I once knew so well might as well have been strangers to me. The realisation of this smacked into me with the full force of a train. Yes, I had incredible difficulty getting over Risk, I was still struggling with it but seeing them made it clear to me just how stuck in the past I was. It’d been nine years since we were in each other’s lives. Nine. They were famous rock stars now while I still worked in the same old diner and still
lived in the same one-bedroom cottage near the pier. My best memories were in the past with Risk and the others, while they made new ones every day . . . this made something inside me shatter.

  I couldn’t do this. I thought I could, but I couldn’t.

  I stood up and quietly made my way across the row so I could leave. I apologised to every single person I had to step over and just as I reached the edge of the row, a kid who had walked from the front of the hall to speak to who I assumed was their parent at the back, stopped walking when she saw me. Everyone had quietened down as Mr Jones moved back to the microphone stand. The girl’s eyes locked on my face and almost instantly they widened.

  “Hey!” she gasped dramatically. “Aren’t you the girl in the video who was kissing Risk?”

  She may as well have used a megaphone because her voice carried throughout the whole hall. Everyone looked in my direction. I could have died there and then from embarrassment. I looked from the kid to the stage and my legs threatened to give out. Standing there, staring right at me, was Risk Keller. I nearly choked on air. Instead of smiling, nodding, or doing something, I turned and all but ran out of the hall.

  I made it out to the car park. After I hurriedly got into my car, I grabbed my inhaler from my bag and took a few puffs. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would explode. He saw me. Risk looked right bloody at me. I was wrong. I thought I was grown up enough to take whatever happened in that hall on the chin, but I was a chicken shit. There was no way around it, I was a complete and utter chicken shit. The man probably thought I was some crazy ex-girlfriend who came by the ceremony just to see him.

  “Jesus,” I groaned as I drove out of the car park. “God in Heaven, what’d I do to deserve that?”

  I drove all the way to work in silence as my mind kept replaying what had happened back at the school.

  He looked great.

  Better than great: he looked incredible. I’d seen glimpses of him over the years, obviously I couldn’t avoid him everywhere I went with how famous he was, but I never ever stopped and truly looked at him like I did today. All the memories I had with him were when he was a boy. He was a grown man now. Who he was as an adult, I did not know. This was unsettling for me because it was a wake-up call to just how much time had really passed since we were together.