And then the stage lights flickered to black.
* * *
The next night was Reagan’s night.
Her name lit up the stage in neon pink lights. A sea of people traveled down the hill, a clamor of shrills pierced the night air. I couldn’t tell you how many people were in front of her stage, but I wouldn’t be shocked if she drew in around seventy-five to one hundred thousand, like Taz Jones did about an hour after our performance. I could hear the audience enjoying themselves all the way from our bus where Miles, Corbin, and I sat on chairs outside, drinking Cokes and listening to the distant, thunderous crowd.
Before we weaved in and out of Reagan’s crowd as much as we could to get closer, Miles and I overheard a group of four girls talking about how their friend had been waiting for four hours in her spot up against the metal railings, making sure she was front row for the show. Four hours for us was two shows and a nap ago, and now we stood all the way in the back, far enough that her band was the size of ants.
Since darkness hung in the air, no one recognized us mingled with the rest of the crowd with their hands in the air, ready for Reagan Moore. As one of the three headliners, she drew in practically the whole festival. Or what seemed to be the whole festival. People pushed to get closer once the lights flickered off, and a wave of roaring quickly crept from the front of the stage to where we stood like a tidal wave, and all the fans circling us nudged us. I loved when fans nudged each other when I was on stage, but when I fucked something up and had to subject myself to the far back of a general admission crowd, no, I hated the nudging. The music poured through the giant speakers, and the stage lights flipped on, and when Reagan walked onto the stage, the jumbo screen behind her projected her beauty and her smile all the way back to us, the crowd of seventy-five thousand created a concert sonic boom just as strong as the one we heard at Gillette Stadium.
Watching her beauty on the screen created this optical illusion that I was much closer to her than I was. For a second, I thought her eyes were on me, that the smile brightening her summer-soaked face was for me. Three months had passed, and her smile still found a way to tangle up my insides. A nice reminder of everything I lost so easily. Her smile was so bright, her eyes sparkling with the same kind of excitement and energy she always had before shows; she almost fooled me into thinking she just didn’t go through a breakup a few months back.
A few songs into her hour-and-a-half-long performance, I was already feeling like a pile of crap. Everyone around me bobbed their heads to the beat, singing every lyric. Even Miles. His wide grin matched the ones all around us. Why did I torture myself, insisting on watching her performance, knowing exactly how it would pan out? I waited for her response to my letter because I knew she got it. I didn’t even use the postal service, so the letter wasn’t lost. Finn handed it to her, knowing that it was my olive branch, and he texted me when he gave it to her. No other details followed. Details like if she was happy or sad, if she ripped open the letter, if she had any lingering hope in her eyes. I didn’t hear if she heard my performance. All was quiet on the Benmoore front.
Now, I was unworthy to even catch her eyes from up close. I was pushed so far back that her face blurred into the complexion of her summer tan.
“I’m gonna head back to the bus,” I said over the cheering and singing.
“What? Come on. She sounds great!” Miles said, still beaming.
“Yeah, but this is my ex-girlfriend we’re talking about.”
He turned to me with a frown. “But I thought you wanted to come.”
“I did, but I realized it’s a bad idea. A very bad idea.”
Standing in the crowd really put all my progress to the test, and if I learned anything from my recovery meetings it was that I needed to escape whatever was prompting me to have the urge. And that situation was the anxiety that came with zero closure with Reagan. I practically sent her my heart in the form of my journal and sang her a love song to a whole music festival. Knowing that I hadn’t seen her in months filled me with dread, as if all these overwhelming feelings I didn’t want to feel would take hold of me. Usually, this kind of anxiety would make me drink, but there was no way I wanted to backtrack. Three months was a long time, a painfully long time, and one sip would erase all of that. No matter how tempting it was. So, I channeled Gramps and bought myself a banjo so that anytime I had the urge to drink, I’d learn more of the banjo. The urge to drink broke out in a burning itch on my skin again. I was no stranger to this after rehab, and the feeling ate at my skin so many times, I played enough banjo to distract my thoughts that I could play the dueling banjos scene from Deliverance before it got really fast. Now I was ready to hide from Reagan and cure the immense craving I had for alcohol by perfecting the fast sixteenth note part I’d been avoiding. That was a better way to spend the rest of my night rather than torturing myself by looking at my beautiful, smiley ex-girlfriend.
“Can we go after this song?” Miles asked.
I rolled my eyes and faced the stage. I didn’t want to walk back to the bus by myself, so it was worth the wait just in case I got chased. After the song ended, the crowd applauded. I turned to Miles, and he motioned for me to go ahead.
“You guys don’t mind if I play a new song, do you?” Reagan asked the crowd. I stopped dead in my tracks and snapped my attention back to her. All the people encouraged her with applause and hands held high to show their enthusiasm, which drew a full smile from Reagan. “I knew you guys wouldn’t mind. This is a song I’ve been wanting to share with you for a while now. You’ll let me know after if you like it?”
She strapped on her black acoustic-electric guitar. It was a nice sight to see someone of her fame opt for something as simple as a guitar. Since becoming a superstar, she started incorporating more theatrics like dancing and wardrobe changes, but had originally started out on just piano and guitar. Even on tour when she did play, she still had some theatrics added, whether it was dancers, backup vocalists, or a stunning stage display.
Her band came in, and synthesizers hummed a slow tune, the bassist plucking a deep eighties bass line. A few measures in, Reagan strummed rhythm chords, and my mind traveled back to when I was lucky enough to see her before the shows, close enough to smell her perfume and her hair and the sage scenting her skin.
Now, all I could smell was weed, beer, and stale sweaty outdoors sticking to everyone around me. The stage lights of blue, white, and red highlighted the sweat glistening on her face as her eyes searched the audience. A dull burn brewed inside me, wondering if she was searching for me or someone else.
The melody of the opening measures froze me in my spot.
“In the sun she floats away
As I try to pull her down
She’s got a thousand worlds to locate
Spinning me tirelessly around
No two minutes are the same
With a thrill of unknown things
She locks her heart and her mind
Maybe because she’s a Gemini.”
Miles and I exchanged glances at the same time. Eyes rounded. Eyebrows halfway up our foreheads. My gut hollowed out. I had no idea if Zeke Fowler or Jessie Byrd were Geminis, but I definitely was one. I snatched my phone out of my pocket to do a quick internet search, clenching my teeth, hoping that all the people around me wouldn’t hinder my research. But then I got something. Zeke Fowler was born on July twenty-seventh, which meant he was a Leo, and Jessie Byrd was born on November fourth, which meant she was a Scorpio.
I lowered my phone and looked back at Miles, still waiting for an answer.
The brunette in front of me with a tie-dyed bandana tapped her blond friend’s arm. “You know this is about Blair Bennett, right?”
The blonde’s mouth dropped. “You think?”
“Oh totally. She’s probably singing it because Blair Bennett sang that new song last night. The one that was totally about Reagan Moore.”
“Oh my God, you’re right. But I thought she was back toget
her with Jessie Byrd?”
The brunette shook her head. “I don’t know. We haven’t seen anything since the tour. Maybe it was just a one-time thing.”
I gulped at the same time a warmth spread across my face, and I hoped that those girls didn’t turn around and recognize me underneath my black floppy hat.
“Soften soundly in my bed
The only time she’s pinned down
All the secrets in her head
She’ll keep that part to herself
Your face she’ll have memorized
Like the wonders of the world
You’ll be the reason she’s confined
All because she’s your Gemini.”
Her band brought on the intensity. Her drummer ditched the muted high hat cymbal and banged on the crash cymbal while his other hand pounded beats into the floor tom and bass drum. The muted guitars that strummed in the background burst open in heavy electric strums on the rhythm guitar and modest riffs on the lead guitar. Reagan stepped away from the mic and got lost in the strumming of her acoustic, which I could barely hear over the drums, electric guitars, and the vibrant synths still adding a mysterious hum to the song. As the climax of the song came alive, the lights on stage swirled upward to the night sky, and the audience roared as they felt the emotion Reagan, the band, and the melody emanated into the crowd. It was powerful enough that my skin broke out in goose bumps, and after a few measures, Reagan stepped back to the mic to sing the climax.
“You see her in the way
She dreams she could see herself
She’ll try to save you from her doubts
She doesn’t think she’s enough
She’s a diamond in the rough
But underneath it all she’s soft
It’s just part of her disguise
All because she’s a Gemini.
In the past, you’d run away
As she walks on the razor’s edge
But it’s something about her air
That coaxes you to come along
She paints your world in colors
When you used to hide in grays
She’s made you feel the most alive
And that’s why you love that Gemini.”
She held out the last note an octave higher, repeating it for several measures with the same climatic intensity. And then the band dropped to the muted hush from the beginning of the song, and she repeated the last line somberly, “And that’s why you love that Gemini,” four more times until the song faded into nothing.
Was she really in love with me? Because I was really in love with her.
The field cheered, the people all around us raised their hands in the air and clapped, sending their “Woos” to the stage. I stood there with my mouth halfway to the grass, tears stinging my eyes as I watched Reagan take in the loudness of the crowd and the emotion from the power-rock ballad still hanging in the air like the humidity. Her eyes sparkled, and I could see how her body still felt all the words she just sang. I felt it too.
I fucked up so badly, I wasn’t sure if I would even take me back if things were reversed. I knew she heard my song because this song had to have been a response to mine—or my letter.
But either way, she was thinking about me.
* * *
I hid in our bus as my heart raced, still pumping adrenaline but also mixed with some fear. I had no idea what to do. Did I go find Reagan’s bus? Did I call her? Did I text her? Was the ball in my court? Was it in hers? I knew I needed to do something, I just had no idea what.
I turned to the banjo and plucked the strings to the fast part of the Deliverance scene over and over as Miles sat across from me, texting Ethan so we could all arrange to meet up for the silent disco in the woods after he was done dismantling Reagan’s stuff on the main stage.
“You need a new song,” Miles said when he looked up from his phone. “I’m getting really sick of this.”
“Well, fuck off then.”
He gave me a smile. “Wanna sit here and analyze it?”
I stopped playing as I looked at him. “What should I do? If this happened a few months ago, I’d drink to forget about it.”
“First, how about you breathe and then recognize that she wrote you a song. That’s hopeful, right?”
“I guess.” I paused and took a couple deep breaths. “I should go to her bus. Can you get the info from Ethan?”
“Haven’t heard from him in ten minutes. I can snoop around for some details about Reagan’s whereabouts.”
I started playing the banjo again. “Okay. Do that.”
About a half hour later, after plotting with Miles on how I could polish up my sweet-talking skills to charm her bodyguards into allowing me to get to her, something from the corner of my eye pulled my gaze.
Reagan stood outside with her eyes on the ground. She flinched toward the door and then backed away. For a second, I thought she would run away, but then she looked up and caught my stare. I’d only been thinking about her nonstop since I left the tour. Getting back together with her was one of the beacons that led me out of the darkness. But then her lips thinned, giving me as much of a cordial smile as an ex-girlfriend without any closure could give, but that was enough for me to open the door. She cautiously took a step inside with my journal in her hands. I backed to my couch, resuming my safe space as the air in the bus wafted out before the door closed behind her.
My heart thudded as hard and loud as a bass drum, and my nerves spiraled inside me. Three months without seeing her or looking at her or talking to her or having anything to do with her. I thought she’d written me out of her life until she sang about me. And here she was standing feet in front of me. Looking at me. Standing so uncomfortably in the entryway as if she was crossing enemy lines.
“Hey,” she mumbled as she struggled to make eye contact.
I had no idea what to say, especially since she wore the sexiest black tank top that accentuated the curves of her breasts, almost as if to torture me. I thought of so many things to tell her if this scenario ever played out in real life, but now that she stood in front of me, perfect copper legs, the dip of her shirt, and the curves of her worried eyebrows, I had nothing. It was as if my mind took a leave of absence with no warning sign. Or maybe all the words tried rushing out of me at once so they clogged all up.
“Hi,” I said, still holding my breath in my rapidly tightening chest.
“And that’s my cue,” Miles said as he got off the couch. “I need to go find your guitar tech. You guys say and do the right things,” he said with an orderly stare to both of us before he left us alone.
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one with warmth spreading across my cheeks after his comment.
“I, um, I read your journal.” She spoke softly as she glanced down at it in her hands.
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
A silence passed between us. I could hear my heart keeping a beat in my ears while my breaths shortened. I hated the tandem silence. I hated the space. How come she was right in front of me, enclosed in the same four walls, yet she felt as far away as when I was lost in the sea of her fans? I hated how I couldn’t just follow my instinct and kiss her. I hated so much how it took all my strength to keep myself on the couch and not focus on her lips.
“I heard your song,” she said softly.
“I heard yours.”
“Good.”
Her response landed in my stomach. The song really was for me. All those lyrics were for me.
She took a step into the bus and held the journal out for me to take. I stood and accepted it, closing in on the large space that held all of our awkwardness.
She looked at me differently than the last time we saw each other. I hoped her observing stare was because she saw a transformed woman in front of her instead of the broken mess who left her. I hoped that I didn’t stain all of our memories. They weren’t stained for me.
“I read it from the beginning,” she muttered.
&nb
sp; I swallowed hard. “And?”
“You wrote about me for about thirty-three pages.”
“That’s it? Seems like it would be more,” I said. “Look, I know I fucked up, and I know I hurt you.”
“You did hurt me. A lot. You broke my trust, and you made me feel like an idiot—”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
“You were such an asshole to Finn.”
“I know.”
“And Miles. And me.”
“I know. That was probably the worst time of my life because I had so many good things to lose at the same time, I felt like I had no control of my life. And then my dad just shows up and that was it. I was done. I completely lost the very little grip I had. If I could take it back, trust me, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“I felt like nothing I did or said made you feel happier.”
“But that’s not even true, Reagan. You were the only thing that made me feel better. At night, I just wanted to fast-forward to the morning so I could wake up next to you and talk to you and experience this rush and thrill of seeing you. That’s all you had to do to make me happy. Just being there.”
“Then why wasn’t it enough? You still got drunk every night. You still walked off this tour without even saying anything.”
“I thought leaving the tour was the best thing for both of us. Also, you replaced me with your ex-girlfriend. If you wanted to win the breakup, you did by doing that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Blair, I didn’t want to win the breakup. I asked Jessie to come on because I knew she had the next three months off, and I needed a fast replacement. You might think I did it to get back at you, but I don’t do things to purposely fuck with people. I thought about you the whole goddamn time. Every day. Even when she tried coming onto my bus and flirting with me, I pushed her away because I only wanted you.”
“She tried getting on your bus?”
She crossed her arms. “That’s really the only thing you picked up on? Yes, she tried getting on my bus. She’s like a sixteen-year-old boy.”
Hammers, Strings, and Beautiful Things Page 25