by Robinne Lee
“Is that something you wrote?”
For a moment he did not answer, and then: “Something I’m writing.”
“What’s it called?”
“‘S.’” He said it plainly, no eye contact, no break in the music.
“Just ‘S’? Are there words?”
“Not that I’m ready to share.”
I sat there numb while he played for a minute more in silence. Then, very abruptly, he stopped.
“I think we should probably go upstairs now.”
“I think so, too.”
* * *
As the days passed, I was increasingly aware that our emotions were scattered. We went from laughing to crying and back again so frequently it became our new normal. On Sunday afternoon, we went shopping in the Omotesandō-Aoyama area. We’d started at Céline, where I found a classic box bag in gray. I decided to treat myself, and when I asked the saleswoman to ring it up, Hayes proffered his credit card.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m going to get it for you.”
“No, you’re not.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t be silly.”
“Hayes, you’re not.”
“You’re really not going to let me buy it for you?”
“I’m not going to let you buy it for me.”
He stood there, looking at me for a long time, a bewildered expression on his face. “Oh-kay,” he said eventually.
I watched the saleswoman package the box, tying it all up with a bow, just so. When I turned back to Hayes, his eyes were brimming.
“What?”
“You make it so fucking hard not to love you,” he said, soft. He lifted the neck of his T-shirt to wipe his cheek, and it seemed like something a young boy would do. His abdomen bared for a split second: the faint line of hair descending below his belly button, the crease traversing his groin. There was nothing about his body that I did not know, and that both comforted me and made me profoundly sad.
I wrapped my arms around his middle and held him close. “You, too.”
We followed Desmond over to Alexander McQueen, just a little ways down. Hayes had on his sunglasses, but no hat, and although he turned several heads, only two people stopped him for selfies.
I trailed him through the sleek new store, pristine white marble and gloss, as he picked up two scarves and a shirt. We were upstairs toward the back, in the men’s section, when Desmond approached us.
“We ’ave a bit of a problem.”
I could not recall ever having heard him say those words, and it alarmed me. He walked us to the front side of the store, where through the floor-to-ceiling windows we could see a swarm of girls gathering below, at least fifty. The second they saw Hayes’s face, their screams pierced the air.
“Shit. Where the bloody hell did they come from?”
“I’ve no idea. I’m going to get the driver to come around, but they’re multiplying fast.”
I could hear a commotion below on the first floor and feared some of them had already forced their way in, like locusts.
“Stay away from the glass,” Desmond said. “I’m going to check with security and make sure they lock the doors.”
There were a handful of other customers on the upper level, and I could feel them eyeing us, curious. One salesgirl, perhaps realizing who Hayes was, approached and bowed.
“Um, I’m probably going to have to leave in a bit of a rush,” he said to her, sweetly. “Could you ring these up for me, please? O-negai shimasu.”
“Hai.” She bowed and took his credit card.
“It’s like a tour bus just deposited them, out of nowhere. Are you freaking out? Don’t freak out.” Hayes reached to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. “We’re safe in here.”
He had no sooner said it than a dozen girls came running up the marble staircase, camera phones at the ready, squealing, “Hayes!” Their behavior on seeing him was so oddly not Western. There was none of the grabbing or pawing that I’d become used to, but more of a delighted jumping and respect of his space. They did not physically have to touch him; it was enough to be near.
Desmond had called in for backup, and we waited another twenty minutes or so before Fergus arrived with two additional guards.
Outside was chaos. The crowd had grown to terrifying proportions. Girls in all manner of Harajuku dress, Minnie Mouse bows, and schoolgirl knee-highs. Fanboys with purple-dyed hair. I did not see how we were going to reach our car without being trampled. But the guards sandwiched us, and we moved through the throng like salmon swimming in the wrong direction. Perhaps it was because I did not understand anything they were saying besides “HayesHayesHayesHayesHayes,” but their voices were so high-pitched and cacophonous, it sounded to me like cats mewling. Cats in heat, grating, earsplitting. And I would hear it in my dreams for a long time to come.
“Don’t fall,” Hayes said to me, as if it were something I was considering.
There was shoving and pushing and pulling and the feeling of the world closing in on me, the fear of asphyxiation. And then finally we made it into the car. And still I did not feel safe. Our driver was yelling, “Sagattute! Sagattute! Move back!” They were banging on the windows, hard.
Hayes hugged me close, and buried my face in his chest.
“You’re okay,” he said. “We’re okay.”
But I was not.
* * *
We did not talk about it when we got back to the hotel. We lay side by side in our room with the view of Mount Fuji and simply held each other.
* * *
On Monday morning, the day of their last concert in Tokyo, the day before I was leaving, Hayes worked out with Joss, their trainer. When he returned, I was in the living room answering emails, finalizing arrangements for Frieze New York. Without saying a word, he showered, got dressed, and then sat down before me.
“I don’t know how to say this,” he said, soft. “I don’t know where to begin. But I love you so completely and the idea of you leaving is fucking breaking my heart. And I know … I understand every reason why you’re doing it, but it still doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t make sense that we can’t make it work.”
“Hayes … I’m sorry…”
He’d begun to cry. “Why? Why can’t it work? What if we’re just quiet about it? What if we just go back to not saying anything?”
“We’ve never said anything,” I said. “We’ve never said anything and look what they’ve done to us. I don’t want to hide, Hayes. I don’t want to feel like everything’s a secret. I just want to live my life. And I can’t do that with you right now without it destroying Isabelle.”
“You said you wouldn’t leave, Solène. You said you wouldn’t leave.”
“When? When did I say that?”
“At Bestia. At my birthday dinner…”
I was wracking my brain to remember. God, how he locked everything away.
“What if I quit the band?”
“You’re not going to quit the band, Hayes. It’s such a huge part of who you are. At your core. It’s this extraordinary part of you. It’s this gift. And you’re good at it and you love it. People spend their whole lives searching for something like that.
“You have to be true to yourself. You can’t just do this for me. Otherwise it will eat away at you and destroy you and you’ll resent me. And I don’t think either one of us wants that.”
He was staring at me, his eyes wide, but I couldn’t be certain anything was registering.
“And this is not going to last forever. Boy bands don’t last forever, so enjoy it. Because eventually you outgrow it. You move on. And someone will quit. And someone will get someone pregnant. And someone will go solo. And someone will come out. And someone will marry a questionable blonde and get a reality show. And it will be over. And you’ll never get this time back. So enjoy it.”
He sat there, quiet for a minute, the tears spilling, his nose running. “So that’s it … You’re not even going to fight for us … You’re ju
st giving up…”
“I’m not giving up, Hayes. But … we’re in such different phases of our lives. And I can’t do this. I can’t do this to Isabelle. I can’t do this to myself. I can’t follow you around the world. I’m not twenty. I have a career and I have a kid and I have responsibilities. And I have other people who need me—”
“I need you.” There was a desperation in his voice that startled me. “I need you, Solène. I need you.”
I could feel it then, his heart breaking. And something inside of me unexpectedly shattered. Something I was not even aware existed. And I did not know what hurt more: my pain, or knowing that I’d caused his.
“You can’t fucking leave,” he cried. “You can’t fucking leave.”
I moved to wrap my arms around him then, and I held on to him, as tight as I could, for a very long time.
When he’d stopped sobbing, I wiped his face, pushing his hair back from his forehead. His beautiful forehead. There was nothing about him that I did not love.
“You are going to be okay,” I said. “I know it hurts, but you are going to be okay. You have to know that. You have to believe that. I am not the only person you’re going to love.”
He nodded, slow. His eyes swollen, red. What damage I had done.
“How did we get here?” I heard myself say. “This was only supposed to be lunch, remember? This was only ever supposed to be lunch.”
“You,” he said, his voice frayed, foreign.
“Me?”
“You. You let me unfold you.”
home
It hurt.
Those first few weeks, when I was trying to hold it together and occupy my time and my mind and convince myself that I could return to functioning normally. But I could not. And it would hit me at the oddest of times: on the off ramp at La Cienega, or picking up birth control pills at the pharmacy, or struggling to click in my shoes on my bike in spin class, and I would feel it in my gut—his absence—and I would start to cry.
When he went from calling and texting me several times a day to not at all, I assumed he’d moved on. That he was having too much fun in Bali or Jakarta or wherever he was. That he was living his life and enjoying his youth, like I’d told him to. And I had only myself to blame. I felt it then, my insides coming undone.
* * *
The last Saturday in April, I skipped the annual fund-raiser for Isabelle’s school, which was a first. But I could not go out and socialize and pretend that everything was fine when my heart was bleeding. I lied and told her I was coming down with something, and retired early. Yet sometime in the middle of the night, when I had assumed she was sleeping, she came into my room and climbed into my bed. Her arm wrapping around me, her breath warm at the back of my neck.
“Mommy? Are you crying?”
I was.
“Because of Hayes?”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She held me and allowed me to sob until it seemed there were no more tears to shed. And I marveled at how this had happened, how we had traded places.
When I had calmed somewhat, I rolled over and turned toward her, and I could see it on her face: the mess I must have been. Hollowed and swollen and wan. And not like her mother. She had never seen me like this. Not even during the worst of Daniel. I had hid it so well.
She was quiet, reaching out to trace her hand along my cheekbone; over the road map of broken capillaries, I imagined. “I’m sorry that you hurt.”
“It’s okay, Izz. I’m okay.”
She nodded. And then just as quickly she shook her head and began to cry. “You’re not. I know you’re not.”
It was unexpected, her declaration. “I will be.”
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t ignore it,” she said, her voice quaking. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough … For you. For him.”
“Oh, Isabelle.” I reached for her hand, lacing my fingers between hers. “It’s not your fault. This is not your fault. There are a thousand reasons why we wouldn’t have worked…”
She stilled then, biting her lip. Her very French mouth. “Did Hayes know that?”
“I think he did. I think deep down he did.”
“Do you think he’s hurting this much, too?”
I nodded. “Yeah … I do. But he’s going to be okay.
“Love is this very precious thing, Izz. It’s this precious, magical thing. But it’s not finite. There’s not a limited amount of it out there. You just have to be open to allowing it to find you. Allowing it to happen.” I was not entirely sure that I believed this, but I needed her to.
“And for a long time I closed myself off to it, because it was easier and safe … But I wasn’t necessarily happy.
“And Hayes is young. He has many, many years ahead of him. And he’s going to fall in love again. And again. Even if he doesn’t realize that right now, he will. Hayes is going to be okay. Promise.”
She was quiet for a long time, her breaths deep, even. “What about you?”
I managed to smile. Despite the tears, and the thrumming in my head and the wrenching in my chest, I managed to smile. “I’m going to be okay, too.”
* * *
It was late the following Thursday when I heard from him again. Out of nowhere, shortly after midnight, he texted.
Open your door.
I thought it might have been a prank. They were supposed to be in Europe. But sure enough, he was there, on my doorstep. His eyes were swollen, and my first thought was that he’d been in another fight with Oliver. And then I realized he’d been crying.
“What are you doing here? What are you doing here, Hayes?”
“I had to see you.” His voice raspy, low, brought back every sweet memory. My happiness, my love.
“What about the tour? You just left?”
He was looking beyond me, into the house; lost, it seemed. “We have three days off.”
“So you flew here? Hayes, I can’t … You can’t be here.”
“Please let me in. Please, Solène.” His eyes were brimming. He looked to me at once young and old. His tortured face a harsh reminder that I’d destroyed us. I’d done this. I’d done this.
I stepped aside and shut the door behind him. “Isabelle is here. She’s sleeping.”
“I won’t wake her. I promise.”
“Hayes, we can’t do this…”
He wasn’t listening to me. His hands were in my hair, at my neck, caressing the sides of my face as he inhaled me, and kissed me, thoroughly, passionately, completely.
“What are you doing? We can’t do this.” Even as I said it, I was aware my body was communicating otherwise. Melting into him. His hand beneath my T-shirt. The feel of his skin on mine. His mouth. Hayes Campbell. Like a fucking drug.
“I love you. I fucking love you so much. You cannot leave,” he whispered. “Tell me you don’t feel this, Solène. Tell me you don’t want this…”
I shushed him. My finger on his lips. “You’re going to wake Isabelle.”
He stopped, his eyes peering into mine in the half-light. Pleading. And before I’d registered what I was doing I had taken his hand and led him down the hall.
* * *
It happened fast, the first time.
I did not regret it. Not feeling his weight on top of me, and his hips between my thighs, and smelling him—familiar. His mouth moving over mine, and his fingers gripping my hair, and his dick … filling me. Fulfilling me.
We came quickly, and at the same time. And we might have been both laughing and crying when I said, “This is not setting a precedent.”
“It’s not.” He smiled, shaking his head.
“I’m serious, Hayes. We can’t do this again…”
“We can in two more minutes.” He curled himself up beside me with his head on my chest, his fingers interlaced with mine, and I felt it: happy. “I missed you, so fucking much,” he said, soft.
“I missed you, too. But I’m serious: this can’t become
a habit. I don’t care how far you’ve flown, or how long it’s been—we can’t do this again. Do you understand that?”
He did not respond.
“Hayes?”
“I heard you.”
My hand was in his hair, his coveted hair. “If you keep coming back like this, you’re never going to move on, and you have to move on.”
We were both quiet. His phone vibrated on the nightstand, and he ignored it.
He propped himself on one elbow, gazing down at me, his fingers tracing my eyebrows, my cheek.
“Why? Why do I have to move on?”
“Because I can’t be your girlfriend. And I’m not going to be one of your friends you fuck…”
“Do you think I could ever think of you that way?”
“I don’t know.”
His fingers were outlining my lips, trailing down over my chin, my neck. “I could never think of you that way, Solène. I didn’t think of you that way in the beginning, I’m certainly not thinking of you that way now.”
I was quiet. His phone was vibrating again, unanswered. His hand was descending across my clavicle, my breast. The tip of his middle finger drawing circles around my nipple.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m just loving you for a few more minutes before you kick me out.” His voice cracked and I realized he was crying. Again.
“I’m not kicking you out just yet, Hayes.”
He nodded. A tear fell onto the side of my face and he kissed it away. “Sorry.”
His phone vibrated once more, and he reached over to silence it.
“You’re quite popular tonight.”
Whether or not he’d registered what I’d said, he did not respond. His fingers had returned to my chest, descending, traveling over my belly to my navel and back up again.
I stilled his hand then with my own and, without saying a word, guided it down between my legs.
For a second, he resisted. “You said no.”
“Now I’m saying yes.”
“You’re very confusing. You realize that, don’t you?”
I nodded. God, his fingers. “You’re already here.”
“So if I’m already here, it’s fine. But if I’m not already here, I can’t come back?”
“Exactly.”