The Vine

by C. A Ellis

  Unfortunately for him, he is right to prepare himself for my reaction, as he already knows me too well. I won’t shoot him down, but I will let him down gently. I won’t be cruel or harsh, as he certainly doesn’t deserve that, but I do need for him to understand it can never happen between us, but also it’s not just him. It will never happen between me and anyone, and it’s not just due to my protective wall; it’s because I love and always will love someone else, and the fact that my love is not here in this lifetime anymore doesn’t stop me from loving and missing every damn gorgeous thing about him, every minute of every day.

  Neither of us says anything for a while, so I decide to lighten the mood further. “So to recap: you are attracted to me, you care for me, you want to protect me, you respect me and you admire me?”

  Luca smiles his award-winning smile at me. “In a nutshell, yes. Oh, and I’m pretty sure given time, I could easily fall head-over-heels in love with you, if that helps my case at all.”

  “Well,” I sigh, “all that would be very hard for a normal girl to turn down, Luca—all that, along with the fact that you’re tall, dark, incredibly handsome, caring and sweet.”

  “And rich,” Luca adds, smirking. I smile sadly back at his boyish, grinning, hopeful face, and in this moment, he looks so damn cute I almost want to ruffle his hair, but I don’t. As I look at him, my smile fades, and so does his with a sigh, so I know he is all too aware of what’s coming.

  “The problem we have here, Luca, is I am not a normal girl.” That statement alone from me says it all. I see his face fall and his demeanour completely crumble; he removes his hands from my face and places them on the wall on either side of my head as he looks down to the ground. “Luca,” I say softly. He looks back up to my face, but there is no hope there now. “I want you in my life; I want you to be my friend. Can we please be friends?” I ask hopefully.

  “Of course,” he answers, but there’s no emotion in his tone. I lean forward and kiss him tenderly on the lips. I pull back quickly though, in case he decides to deepen the friendly gesture.

  “Friends?” I ask again.

  “Friends,” he agrees. “For now,” he adds with a smirk.

  I don’t think anything I say will make him ever completely give up the hope something will eventually happen between us, but I know it won’t, and sooner or later he will have to come to terms with that too. I pull him out of the alleyway, and we walk along quietly back to the hotel. I do know I care about this man, but my heart will always be in London with Luke.

  We get back to the hotel, and I wave goodbye to Luca and head back to my room. I lay on my bed and think about my day. I feel calm—not happy, because having experienced happiness… real, true, floating-on-air happiness with Luke, I know I’ll never be there again—but I have a couple of good friends here now, a job and the relatively quiet life I wanted when I fled London. I say my life is relatively quiet—as having Stefano in my life is anything but quiet, but then I smile as I think I wouldn’t have him any other way.

  I think of Luca as my friend, as I know he is dependable and would do anything for me, and after today’s conversation, although I think he will always hold a torch for me and always wonder what we could have been, I think deep down he now understands that for me, it will only ever be a friendship.

  I head to the shower with my thoughts, and set about washing the day away before I pull on my joggers and a T-shirt, jump into bed and relax with my Kindle for the evening. I may even be in a place where I can start one of the love stories I used to enjoy—a tale of a couple who will go to hell and back, but in the end, their love will conquer all…and where happily ever afters do happen.

  Just not for me.

  Chapter Twenty-four – Lizzy

  I am on a break at the café the next day, when Stefano pops his head around the door. “Hey, baby girl, how you doin’?” he says in his best Joey-from-Friends voice. I nod, trying not to laugh, and unable to speak due to the massive piece of cake I had just stuffed in my mouth. I hold my finger up in indication for Stefano to wait one minute while I wash my cake down with coffee.

  “In your own time,” Stefano retorts sarcastically and I laugh, nearly spitting my coffee out all over him.

  When my mouth is clear, I stand and give him a big hug, saying, “I’m good honey, how are you?”

  “I’m great as always, sweet cheeks, although I’m a little bit tired, as I got a call from Luca last night to go out for a drink and had to put up with him drowning his sorrows after seeing you yesterday. The more he drank, the more he whined on about the unfairness of it all, and how heartbroken he is.”

  “Oh,” is all I say.

  “Hey, Cherub,” Stefano consoles, “don’t look so sad about it. He’ll get over it, and it’s about time that hot piece of arse found out what it feels like to have his heart broken. It might even make him a better man—if that’s possible.”

  I laugh. “Anyway,” Stefano continues, “that’s not why I’m here. What I came to say is there is a band on at the club tonight, and I wondered if you fancied it?”

  I can see he is raising his eyebrows at me, probably waiting for the knock back I normally give him. “Yes, that’ll be great,” I state.

  The look of shock on Stefano’s face is priceless and makes me giggle. It normally takes a lot to shock this man; am I really so surprising? “I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty,” he says, still stunned. He probably had a whole speech prepared to convince me to go if I turned him down.

  “Great,” I say smirking, “now get out of here before I change my mind. I could, you know; after all, I am working tomorrow, so I don’t want to drink too much, or have too much of a late night.” I laugh then, as the door has already slammed shut; Stefano obviously hadn’t wanted me to change my mind.

  He picks me up at seven-thirty on the dot, and we head straight out to meet his gang for a drink before going to the club. I mingle with Stefano’s friends, and chat and laugh with them easily. I even wave over to Luca when I see him raise his glass to me. I can see he wants to come over and talk to me, but he’s obviously playing it cool after our talk yesterday, and I am grateful to him for that.

  I relax myself for our night out with a couple of tequila shots, as I still feel a bit nervous and shaky about these kinds of gatherings. After a while, we all bundle out of the bar and make the short walk to the club to see the band, and I realise I’m actually looking forward to it.

  We are laughing and chatting as we approach the club, and it’s then I notice the queue to the club looks about a mile long. Stefano says it normally has a bit of a queue because it’s one of the best clubs in the area, but he’s never seen anything like this. As we’re with Luca, we don’t have to wait, and we thankfully head straight for the entrance. I can overhear Luca saying the same as Stefano had, that he’s never seen a line this long for this place, so the band must be brilliant to attract all these people and to create such a buzz. This only adds to my excitement; I love a good band. And he’s right; the buzz from the crowd is electric.

  All of a sudden, I can’t hear Luca, and all I can hear is Stefano’s loud, cockney, dulcet tones, and it makes me chuckle that I can hear him above everything, even the queuing crowd getting noisier by the second. In typical Stefano style, he’s wittering on about some hottie. I can hear he has taken a shine to one of the band members, and he’s getting on his high horse, saying the tour posters don’t do the vocalist justice. I start laughing, because now Stefano and his friends are practically threatening someone in the most non-scary, flamboyant way because they disagree on the said band member’s level of hotness.

  “Get Ella; she’ll know! Ella, Ella, sweetie,” I hear Stefano shouting for me, and before I realise what is happening, he has obviously found me, and is pulling me through the crowd. I am laughing hard as he pulls me to the front of our group to the poster and says, “Come on, back me up here, girl. Is he hot, or is he hot,” and points his chubby finger to the lead singer.

  I
feel like I’ve lost my natural instinct to breath, my laughter abruptly stops and I can’t stop the smile I was wearing just a moment ago instantly dissolve from my face as I’m met with a familiar handsome face, a mop of dirty blond hair and two full-sleeves of glorious artwork. His hands are in his jeans’ front pockets, and I can’t see his eyes clearly, as he is looking down, but he looks like he is chuckling in the photograph, and that boyish, cheeky grin unmistakably belongs to Jett. I would know his face anywhere, even without the word Jetson scrawled across the top of the poster. We grew up together, for goodness sake. It’s only then I can faintly hear someone calling me. When I don’t respond, it gets louder. “Ella, Ella honey, are you okay?”

  I feel an arm come around me as his voice starts to bring me out of the stunned trance I must have been in. A nod is my only response to him as in this moment it’s all I can muster. “You’ve gone as white as a sheet,” I hear the male voice say, and I now realise it’s Stefano.

  I quickly shake my head to get myself out of the numbness cocooned around me. “I’m fine,” I whisper, and as I make eye contact with Stefano, I say louder, “Honestly, I’m fine.” I start to laugh. “He’s just really hot,” I say, pointing my finger at Jett, but inside I am panicking. Everyone laughs at my joke and proceeds to enter the club, except for Stefano, who is still staring seriously at me.

  “What the hell was that, Ella? You frightened the bloody life out of me. I thought you were having a funny turn or something,” he scolds.

  “I’m fine; I just went a bit dizzy and felt a bit faint is all,” I smile convincingly enough, “but I’m okay now. I swear. I just need to go to the ladies room and powder my nose.”

  Stefano doesn’t look convinced. “Well, I’ll come with you and wait outside then, and don’t be longer than five minutes or I’m coming in to get you. Don’t think I won’t,” he threatens.

  “Fine,” I say, pretending to sulk, “I’ll be out in less than five,” and I stomp off into the ladies.

  When I’m safely inside a cubicle, I let my act slip. I put the toilet lid down and I sit on it, putting my hands over my face. What the fuck am I going to do? If Jett recognises me, everyone here will find out who I really am, and as much as I would love to talk to him, he would have sang at Luke’s funeral, for God’s sake, and he’ll know all about what’s happened from Katy. I’d be too ashamed. Just seeing Jett’s face has brought back so many happy and sad memories from my past—memories I’ve been trying to forget for fear they’ll have me running back to London and back to Katy, who I miss so damn much.

  Just as I’m about so spiral into a complete state of panic, I reason with myself—talk myself down off the ledge, as it were. After my performance outside, if I tell Stefano I’m not feeling great and I want to go home, he would totally go for it, so that’s my out. But a sick part of me wants to stick around and see Jett at the top of his game, and when I look at how crowded this place is going to be, he would never pick me out of a crowd, especially with the reinvention of myself and this really short hair. I could totally get away with it.

  I unlock the door and walk out to the basins; I wash my hands and apply a bit more rose-coloured gloss to my lips. I look at myself for a moment and study how different I look. No, Jett would never recognise me in a crowd, especially unexpectedly and in another country. So with that thought, I decide to stay, and I march out of the restroom much more confidently to an awaiting Stefano.

  I can see instantly my change in demeanour has satisfied Stefano, so as I reach him, I link my arm through his and pull him along, saying, “Come on, Stef, what are you waiting for? Let’s go and rock out, dude.” I throw my head back laughing at the look on Stefano’s face; he’s now looking at me like I have completely lost the plot.

  The place is heaving, and we eventually make it over to our group. They hand us our drinks and I look around; they have picked a great spot to stand. We have got a great view of the stage, and therefore the band, but we are also in the shade of some overhead balconies, so that’s exactly where I’ll stand—in the shadows, totally unnoticed by anyone. Unnoticed, that is, except for Stefano, who keeps checking on me to see if I’m okay, and Luca, who I keep catching staring at me when he thinks I’m not looking. What with me hiding in the shadows, going to secretly watch one of my oldest friends perform on stage…could this night get any stranger?

  Chapter Twenty-five – Katy

  As we enter the penthouse we are staying in, I’m having a go at Lucas, because quite frankly, I’ve had enough of his moaning. “Lucas, stop getting so angry all the time. We will find her; we have only just started looking. It’s not going to be as easy as us stepping off of the aeroplane and saying ‘Wow, fancy that! Look, there’s Lizzy!’” I say, losing it with him a little.

  “I know that, but we have been to quite a few hotels already, and nothing. Verona is not that big, Katy,” he states curtly.

  We are both frustrated and becoming short with one another. I then hear Lucas’s tone soften as he says, “It shouldn’t be this hard,” and I know now he’s calming down. He turns and walks away from me; he looks defeated, but I know he’ll come back fighting. I feel guilty, but I had to have a go at him and put him in his place a bit; he’s been driving me crazy. All morning, he has been moaning and groaning and biting my head off at every little thing I do or say that he doesn’t agree with.

  God knows how Lizzy puts up with him, but I know he is never like this with her. It’s her not being with him that’s making him this crazy. Well, with him being in this mood, he sure isn’t going to like what I’m about to say next.

  I walk through the penthouse, rolling my eyes and wondering why on earth we need somewhere this big to stay, and I knock lightly on the door to Lucas’s bedroom. I hear a grunt and take it as my cue to enter. I walk in slowly, wondering how much more I can take if he continues with this shitty attitude of his, or moans because I’ve not left him alone long enough or for not giving him even five minutes to get his head together.

  When I walk in though, I am not met with the ferocious monster I’m expecting; the man in front of me has lost the fight he had in him earlier, and now looks crushed and beaten. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, his elbows are on his knees and his head is down, and he is gripping his hair with his hands so hard, I’m actually worried he’s going to pull some out. I kneel down in front of him, coming down to his level like they tell you to do when you’re talking to a child, and this time I don’t raise my voice; I just say calmly, “Lucas, please don’t do this. You are the strongest man I know. If you go to pieces, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t handle this on my own.”

  I go silent and drop my own head, and then I feel it again… something that has been completely alien to me, up until recently. I feel wetness in my eyes, then on my cheeks, and I realise I’m crying. I didn’t feel like I was going to cry; it’s just crept up on me. Lucas knows how fucked up I am, and how unloved I feel. We had a heart-to-heart on the aeroplane. Don’t get me wrong—I know that I’m beautiful and confident on the outside, but a lot of the confidence Lizzy’s always envied me for is just bravado.

  Clearly, my own mum and dad never cared about me. I know I was a mistake, and how they wished I’d never been born because I ruined their lives for a time. I know all this because they told me. Yes, that’s right; the bastards told me they regretted every goddamn minute of my life, and as soon as I was old enough that they could just fuck off and leave me at home, they did. Lizzy’s mum and dad were more parents to me than mine ever were.

  I look back up at Lucas, tears now running down my face and dripping off of my chin. He has looked up, but he is rubbing his face with his hands, and when he moves them out of the way, he says, “Look at the state of us, Katy. For Christ’s sake, we’re a mess.” I nod; I can’t actually talk. Wow, this crying lark is hard. “How are we going to find our girl like this, being weak?” he asks.

  At this, I wipe my eyes with the backs of my hands and stand up so I�
��m now looking down at him, my inner strength returning. “We all need a moment of weakness, Lucas; it makes us stronger for the fight ahead, and this was ours. But no more—we can’t afford to have any more.”

  He nods at me, a slight smile playing on his lips, and he stands up and puts his arms around me. I don’t cuddle him back though; I know I should put my arms around him, but my arms are ramrod straight by my side. This is yet another thing I find very hard to handle—men giving me any form of comfort. They can fuck me, but I don’t do the emotional crap…yet another scar my so-called parents left me with.

  I’ve certainly had my fair share of men over the years, but I’m always the one in control. I don’t do romance and flowers; I play hard and I fuck well, really well so I’ve been told and that’s one of the things that men like about me, apart from my obvious hotness. I think they find it a refreshing change from having one date with a girl and then she expects marriage.

  Lucas must feel my discomfort, as he pulls back and I’m grateful. “Right,” I say, trying to change the solemn, defeatist mood we’re in, “tonight we are going out.”

  “That sounded like a statement, Katy, rather than a question, and quite frankly, I’m not in the mood for socialising,” Lucas retorts in his typical, abrupt manner. Clearly, our emotional moment is now over on both sides.

  “It is a statement. I have seen flyers up everywhere that Jetson is in town playing on the European leg of their tour, and I would love to see them on their road to making it big. I might even get a chance to talk to Jett. I only spoke to him briefly when he called on Lizzy’s request.” I’m babbling; I know.

  “Oh, yeah,” Lucas says in thought, “when he called you to find out what had happened, and when and where my funeral was taking place so he could come pay his respects, sing me a song and hopefully snag my grieving girlfriend on his way out.”