Chasing Alys

by Morgana Bevan

  Ryan: Are you okay?

  Monday.

  Ryan: How’s the production going?

  Ryan: No kids on this one, right?

  Ryan: And you’re not reading my texts. Well, that’s just great, Red. How am I meant to make up for leaving if you won’t answer me????

  Tuesday.

  Ryan: Missing you today. X

  Wednesday.

  Ryan: Emily told Jared she’d come to Glasgow. Will you?

  Thursday.

  Ryan: It’s rude to ignore people, Red. :( X

  Guilt twinged in my gut as I read his last text. It was rude, but I wasn’t ready for this shift. Four days ago, he was just gone, and that hurt. Packing those feelings away wasn’t as easy as flipping a switch. And frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to shake them off.

  I was at my desk the next day when another message pinged my phone, and this one turned my blood cold.

  Ryan: Would it help if I wrote you a song? X

  I hit send on a reply before my brain could process the implications.

  Alys: No.

  And if he planned to share that song with other people, I’d upgrade my answer to “good God no.” All those people, all over the globe, listening to his private thoughts about me? I shivered.

  Ryan: She speaks!

  I pressed my lips together and frowned at the phone. Why had I done that? He was slowing down, giving up. I could have closed the lid on the entire thing and gotten on with my life.

  Ryan: Don’t stop.

  Ryan: Seriously. Red. Talk. I’ve missed you.

  Alys: Then maybe you shouldn’t have snuck out.

  Ryan: I AM really sorry about that. You looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to wake you.

  Alys: Why am I reading a “for once” in that?

  Ryan: Your words. Not mine. :D

  Ryan: But seriously, if I could do it again, I’d wake you. Please talk to me? I’ve been kicking myself for days.

  His grovelling messages took the decision out of my hands. Ignoring him took too much effort, and I couldn’t keep fighting this need for him. Letting it go felt like the only acceptable option. That didn’t mean I had to make it easy for him, and it didn’t mean I had to let him any further into my life.

  Alys: Okay, consider yourself forgiven, Friend.

  Ryan: *groans* Friend. Okay.

  A couple of days ago, I’d have agreed to more than friendship. Now I needed every defence I could muster. And since he’d mentioned we could be friends before, I wanted to play safe.

  Alys: Deal.

  Ryan: How about an album to go with our friendship? That’s something friends would do, right?

  “Please don’t,” I muttered to the phone, horror colouring my tone.

  “Please don’t what?” Gemma asked, her narrowed eyes focused on me across a mountain of receipts.

  “It’s nothing.”

  Alys: Stop. I’m working.

  Ryan: Ok, talk later. *whistling* I’ll get back to writing. X

  Alys: Do not write a song about me!

  Alys: Ryan!

  Left with that disconcerting threat, the afternoon crawled by. What the hell would he even write? I felt something for this girl once, she refused me and she refused me some more? Because that would make a good song.

  I opened the front door and breathed in the delicious fragrance of Indian spices. My stomach immediately grumbled. I’d skipped lunch again – there weren’t enough hours in the day otherwise.

  “Did you order in?” I shouted to Emily as I ran up the steps. “It smells amazing.”

  I found her in our kitchen staring at a mountain of takeaway containers and wearing a perplexed expression.

  “Would it have killed him to send Mexican too?” she muttered, transferring her ire to me.

  I held up my hands. “I’m not following you.”

  “Your boyfriend couldn’t send an assortment of food choices rather than three days’ worth of Indian leftovers?”

  That word froze me to the spot. A sick feeling settled in my stomach as I considered the food. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “He’s acting like it.” She grabbed a container of samosas and shoved them in my direction. “With the gifts and the food and the constant texts checking up on you.”

  “Constant texts?”

  “Yes. Please talk to the man before he crosses a line. I’m not sure I could continue to support the band if he starts asking for proof-of-life pictures.”

  I choked on the samosa I’d shoved into my mouth. “He asked for what?”

  “He hasn’t – yet.”

  “Good. If he starts, we’re moving.”

  We grabbed the food and set ourselves up in the living room for a sedate Friday night of films. Halfway through Life As We Know It, she gave up biting her lip.

  “What did he do?” Emily asked, her words a notch above a whisper.

  I sighed. I’d been avoiding talking about it with her for days. Having a psychologist for a best friend was hard. If I talked, she wouldn’t have let me stay upset and angry. I needed it. The anger kept me sensible.

  “He didn’t do anything.” It was technically the truth and I was sticking with it.

  She glanced at me, disbelief plain on her face. “You’ve been cagey since he left. He must have done something.”

  “It was more a matter of how I felt than anything he’d done.” I stabbed at the chunks of butternut squash curry on my plate – anything not to meet her assessing gaze. “I’ve started checking my phone every ten minutes, searching for a message from him and getting annoyed if one doesn’t come.”

  I peeked at her, expecting her to scoff at my ridiculousness. Instead, she regarded me with sympathy, and for the first time since Ryan left, it didn’t fill me with rage.

  “I don’t want to expect things from him, Em. That’s how I get hurt.”

  I hadn’t and didn’t want the complication of a long-distance relationship. I reminded myself of it every couple of hours. It didn’t help. Nothing did – not copious amounts of wine or flirting with good-looking men in the office kitchen or The Maine on repeat. Not even mint thins and ice cream.

  “Or you could get everything you want.” Her eyes dropped to her own plate.

  “That’s unlikely.”

  “But—”

  “Shelve it, Emily, please?”

  “Then why talk about it?”

  “I just didn’t want you thinking he purposely hurt me. The problem is all mine, okay? He didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “He thinks he did,” she whispered, her face softening. No doubt expecting me to gasp and open the floodgates.

  “We were up front with each other that night. I didn’t put long term on the table.”

  Emily grimaced, sadness clouding her face. “Do you think he would have jumped at the chance if you’d offered?”

  “He hasn’t been in the country for a week.” Whether he would have jumped or not wasn’t up for debate. “You know what that would have done to me if we’d been starting a new relationship.”

  She sighed.

  “Let’s just finish the film, okay? I’ll deal with Ryan eventually.”

  That weekend, Emily left to go on a trip – “With friends,” she insisted, though I had my doubts. Regardless, I had an entire two days to myself, which seemed glorious but turned out to be not as relaxing as I’d hoped.

  While driving in to work on Tuesday, I found myself listening to Platinum Rock radio station when Ryan’s voice took me by surprise. I’d thankfully been stopped at a traffic light when his familiar tones blared from my speakers, serenading me and half the UK’s female population in surround sound.

  My eyes went wide as I recognised the lyrics from some of his texts.

  Of course, reading them and hearing them were two different things. Reading them, I could overlook their meaning. Listening, on the other hand, I had a hard time ignoring the meaning beneath the music.

  The lyrics explicitly spoke about meeting the one,
listening to your heart and it telling you that you were meant to be together. The tone was incredibly optimistic, and for a moment, I forgot I was sitting in my car in the middle of Cardiff rush-hour traffic at 9AM on a Tuesday morning. The traffic vanished and Ryan was singing directly to me.

  I hadn’t listened to their new album. It could be an old track for all I know and not about us. But I wasn’t gullible enough to believe that.

  “That was ‘Listen to Your Heart’ from Rhiannon’s new album,” the radio host said before sighing. “I don’t know about you ladies, but I’m feeling a bit hot after that one.”

  Heat scorched my cheeks while the calm voice in my head tried to reason with me. The album was released before we met. The song could be about anyone Ryan had met in the last couple years. He was texting me the lyrics because they seemed relevant and romantic.

  By the time I pulled into the car park down the street from the office, I felt a lot calmer. It was a coincidence. Nothing more.

  And then I picked up my phone and texted Ryan. I’m not sure what possessed me, but the message was out in the ether before I properly considered whether I wanted him to know I’d heard it.

  Alys: Just heard the new song. The lyrics are the same ones you sent me last week.

  Ryan: Manager said it was going out. What did you think?

  My fingers hovered over the keys while I warred with myself. I could pull it back. I didn’t want a definitive answer.

  If it was about some other girl, would I be hurt? Probably. A reaction I knew was unjustified. Ryan had had a life before he started pursuing me.

  My brain told me it was a terrible idea, but my fingers flew over the keys anyway.

  Alys: Why did you send me lyrics from a song you’d written about someone else?

  Hello, holy grenade.

  Minutes ticked by on the car dash. The radio continued to play, but I was oblivious to it. All around me people arrived, paid their parking and vanished into the office building. My phone sat next to me, the screen dark. The moment it lit up, I snatched it off the seat and read the preview.

  Ryan: I didn’t. That song is about you.

  Grumbling under my breath, I unlocked the phone and fired off a reply.

  Alys: But the album was out when we met.

  I needed to stop. I needed to go into the office and deal with today’s fires.

  Ryan’s reply was instant, like he’d expected my comment.

  Ryan: I told you you had a big impact on me this summer.

  I sucked in air through my teeth.

  Alys: Okay so it’s just one song?

  Ryan: No.

  Alys: Explain.

  Ryan: Maybe we should have this conversation over the phone?

  I chewed my lip. Why is he dodging?

  Alys: Answer the question please.

  Ryan: Fine. You inspired at least half the album.

  The blood drained from my face and I pressed my head against the steering wheel.

  Half the album. Hundreds – maybe millions – of people were going to be listening to and singing songs about me.

  Groaning, I pressed the button to lower the car windows and let the cool sea air take away some of the heat.

  No one would know they were about me. They would just be about some mystery woman as long as the band didn’t start talking about their influences. As long as Ryan and I weren’t involved, I would be anonymous and only I would know the truth.

  Emily was waiting for me with a bottle of red and a plate of macaroons when I got home that night. For a therapist, she had a terrible poker face sometimes. Who knew? Maybe it was all an act and she chose to give herself away.

  She handed me a glass and took a seat at the kitchen table.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, her expression patient and open.

  I hadn’t been able to make myself explain it to Gemma. I didn’t understand how I felt, so how could I explain? Emily’s understanding face was my undoing. I wanted to talk about it, even if it turned into nothing but rambling nonsense.

  “I don’t know how to process strangers listening to stories – songs – about me.” I took a seat and downed half the glass.

  Emily nodded. “It’s definitely not something the everyday woman has to worry about.”

  “And also, couldn’t he have given me a heads up?”

  “Would it have changed how you feel right now?”

  I paused, considering her question before shaking my head. I would have still felt beyond embarrassed, only with warning I would have been walking about for weeks hyper aware of people’s reactions.

  “Okay, so how do you feel?”

  “Embarrassed mostly. And sad.”

  “Why sad?”

  I covered my face. “I was right to push him away. I know I was. So why do I feel so conflicted?” I bit my lip and dropped my hands. Staring at Emily, I grappled with my confused feelings. “I don’t know how I could ever have an honest relationship with someone who might take my private moments and share them with the world.”

  Emily nodded. “Understandable. Can I offer an alternative outlook?” I gestured for her to go ahead. “I know attention is an issue for you, but all of the songs are positive. With one distant event, you inspired Ryan. Maybe at the time he was writing about a fantasy born from that moment, but the meaning behind a song changes when it goes to the fans. It morphs into whatever they need it to be.”

  She sipped her wine, watching me over the rim. “You hear the man you’re interested in telling the world he thinks he’s found his other half. The fans hear a man they idolise telling them to be open and trust themselves.”

  I twirled my wineglass while I studied her in a new light. Had she taken meaning from a Rhiannon song and that was why she followed them? With the conviction behind her argument, I could tell she’d spent time thinking about it. I’d hazard a guess that the answer was yes.

  “It’s possible those songs will help someone, make their lives better. Isn’t that worth a couple moments of embarrassment? Knowing you’ve inadvertently had a positive impact on a stranger’s life?”

  The thought of it struck me because it wasn’t like I didn’t do it daily, connect with a random song and have it change me in some way. I could listen to a track I’d played multiple times over years and it would hit me in a particular moment and shift my entire understanding of the lyrics.

  I could believe that happened for Rhiannon songs. I could believe it would happen for these tracks. I just wasn’t certain I could accept my involvement in the process. Or more likely, I wasn’t ready to accept it. Down that rabbit hole lay a future I wasn’t prepared for. I’d grown up with my parents writing about me in one capacity or another. Did I really want to spend the rest of my life living under the same microscope?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Where are we going?” I asked for the fifth time.

  It had been exactly one hour since Emily had barrelled into my room at the ungodly hour of 7AM. Ungodly for a weekend. She’d shouted about going on an adventure and then proceeded to pull my carry-on suitcase out from under my bed.

  I’d watched, vaguely amused, from the safety of my warm, soft cocoon as she ripped clothes off hangers and rifled through my drawers. All of the essentials, and some total nonessentials, like hair straighteners, went into the suitcase.

  Zipping it up, she’d shouted at me some more about getting a move on. Again, I ignored her and it seemed to work fine. She rolled my suitcase out into the hall and I assumed she’d tired herself out.

  Naive, I know.

  My duvet vanished, and then she shoved me out of bed. Ever fallen on a hardwood floor with any kind of momentum? Yeah, it hurt.

  Emily wasn’t feeling particularly patient or delicate. Which is how I found myself forcibly seated and buckled into her car by 8AM, on a road trip to who knows where with a best friend clearly suffering from some kind of psychotic break.

  Rather than answer me, she turned the music up.

&nbs
p; I tried to draw clues from the signs, but Emily seemed to take great pleasure getting us lost down back roads. We were heading north, I knew that much.

  When the M5 transitioned to the M6 hours later, I couldn’t avoid the truth. My best friend was driving me to Glasgow. My stomach bottomed out. I’d been ignoring Ryan for three days. With my job ramping up to the final shoots, it was easy to do despite the flurry of texts he’d send after every show. It was for the better.

  Emily grinned at my sharp look and cranked the music louder. She clicked a button on her steering wheel, and Ryan’s voice blared from the speakers.

  “Do I need a new best friend?” I was only partially joking.

  Emily peeked at me from the corner of her eye, biting her lip. Whatever she saw on my face made her turn Ryan up. Ignoring my protests, she continued to weave in and out of the light morning traffic, grinning like a demented Furby.

  “Pull over!”

  “Can’t. Motorway,” she shouted back, switching lanes again.

  “How far to the next services?”

  “Like 10 miles.”

  My eyes fixed on the blue sign racing towards us. Four miles to the next service station.

  Emily’s grin faltered and she pressed her lips together. Her eyes flicked between me and the road with a sheepish expression.

  I turned the music right down. “Pull off there.”

  Sighing, she put her foot down, eating up the distance in minutes. We sat in silence, our eyes fixed on the approaching sign.

  Ryan’s voice still trickled out of the speakers. I couldn’t bring myself to turn it off. It produced the strangest ache in my chest.

  Emily signalled, weaving the car back to the outside lane and the fast-approaching exit slip road. I grabbed the door handle for dear life as she took the bend. If she touched the brake, I didn’t feel it.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when she slowed, pulling into the service station car park. She squeezed the car into the first space she spotted. The massive BMW on my side was parked almost on the line, and the SUV on Emily’s side had been designed for another, more super-sized country. Thankfully, ours was a small car and I didn’t have to get out.