I Hate You Rock Stars

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I Hate You Rock Stars Page 9

by Brie Kraus


  Ignoring the sting of Becca’s betrayal, Emma spat back, “I have other friends!”

  “Of course you have other friends, but not ones who care enough to call you the entire time you were missing from the country!”

  Emma didn’t answer; she just stared at him. His eyes were silver again. She hated that she was doing this, that she angered him, and hated that what he said was correct. “What do you want me to say?”

  Jules looked at her for a long moment, knowing that she wasn’t this stupid, or this cowardly, to just give in and go home. He couldn’t understand what she was running away from. “I want you to tell me the truth,” he said, trying not to shout, “I want you to tell me why you’re really leaving.”

  Emma’s voice was still quiet, “I told you—”

  “No!” Jules shot back. “That’s not the reason you’re going. Just tell me the truth, Emma! Why are you leaving? Why would—”

  “Because I love you!”

  Emma hadn’t meant to say it; hadn’t even known it was true until it burst from her mouth, but the moment it happened, she felt as though a giant weight had been taken off her chest. The thing next to her heart quivered with joy and she could no longer lie to herself about what she knew was true.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  Jules stood completely still; the only thing which showed any signs of life were his silver eyes which burned more than ever.

  Suddenly, Emma’s relief dissipated and her previous fears spewed to the top. “I love you and—and I’m scared! More scared than I’ve ever been in my life because I can’t stop it! I can’t not love you and—it kills me!”

  She looked at him. She wanted to kiss him, like she always wanted to kiss him, but Emma couldn’t move; she needed to hear him say it back. She needed it like her whole life rested on those words; she needed it, but waited, instead, for her heart to be broken.

  Jules swallowed and his eyes asked the silent question of her leaving him.

  “Just say that you love me,” Emma pleaded. “Say you love me, and I’ll stay. Nothing would take me away from you then. Just—just say that you love me, Julian.”

  They stood looking at each other, overwhelmed by what had happened as. Emma offered herself to him—more than her body, more than her surrender; she offered her soul to him, forever; all he had to do was say that he wanted her too.

  Jules’ fists clenched at his side, released, and he opened his mouth to speak before closing it. Julian looked away, then back at her, before jerking away again shaking his head.

  Emma hadn’t realized that she’d been holding one of her hands out to him, but she let it drop to her side. She looked at her hands hanging like dead weights as she stared at him in a daze. “You don’t love me, do you?”

  Emma looked up in time to see the edges of a frown and his one solemn nod. She remained frozen to the floor as the cool tracks of tears ran down her cheeks. “Goodbye, Julian.”

  Emma left, her deadened legs scraped through the hall until she reached the outside and ran.

  She never stopped.

  Chapter 29

  Sitting against the window in her home in New York, watching the snowflakes gather on the sills and wishing she had enough energy to get up and put on a sweater, Emma felt as though nothing had changed, while at the same time, everything had changed. She had visited her old friends, some of whom Emma knew hadn’t even realized that she had been gone. She slept in her old bed, had gone to the deli that she used to love eating at, and nothing had changed.

  But she had.

  Sometimes Emma wondered if she would ever smile again. Sure she smiled at the easy routine that she had fallen back into, but there was always something unspoken behind it, some kind of effort that there hadn’t been before. She found it difficult to be happy these days.

  Sometimes, just when Emma thought she could move on, or forget, something would happen to bring her straight back to Jules, back to those days in London, which she dreaded revisiting because she knew that they would only make her see how hollow her life was.

  Emma would see someone from behind who was tall, or broad shouldered, and her heart skipped a beat. When she walked in the park one day, a stranger smiled at her and Emma was reminded how inferior his smile was to Jules’.

  It wasn’t fair.

  He was the one who didn’t love her after all—it wasn’t fair that, that little thing next to her heart was still there and beating strong, reminding her of her feelings for him. She shouldn’t be the one having to suffer while he lived it up in London, going to parties and doing interviews with a new, and beautiful girl on his arm. Emma hadn’t seen any of them, afraid that she might break down in tears, but it seemed like every time she looked at a magazine, or turned on the TV, there he was in all of his perfect glory put right in front of her just to torture her—to make it impossible to forget him.

  So she didn’t; she couldn’t. He had been burned into her memory like a vicious type of static; you could try and drown it out, try and distract yourself from focusing on it, but it was always there, buzzing away in the background.

  Emma pressed her face into the cold glass, watching the steam from her breath pool and contract. Her grief this time wasn’t loud or resentful; it was a world away from what she’d felt about Luke. Instead of shouting to the world about her pain, she just wanted to disappear; she didn’t want the pain to go because that would mean that Jules would go too, but she just—she just wanted it to stop.

  While Emma wallowed in her grief, she remained unaware that back in London, Jules suffered from heartache as well, wondering how could he have thought that one interview would make a difference. Jules walked through the snow, his publicist at his elbow, prattling on about damage control, but he didn’t hear any of it. He tired of people talking to him. There was only one voice he wanted, and it was gone.

  Jules ungloved hand reached up to rub the back of his neck as anger boiled beneath the surface, like he was trying to scratch away the skin.

  His publicist slapped away his hand. “What have I told you about doing that?” she hissed.

  His new habit was so frequent now that Jules didn’t even notice it anymore; but other people did, and found the expression on his face when he rubbed at his skin a little too tormented to be marketable. Well, Jules thought, they can go suck it!

  He didn’t give a damn what they thought looked good or not, but still, he didn’t say anything; he hadn’t the energy to fight, or speak; he barely had the energy to breathe anymore for Christ’s sake! Sometimes Jules thought he was being dramatic, but then he would remember something; like how she smelled of roasted coffee, even though she didn’t drink it, or how he had never said things like “Christ’s sake” before she came along, and he thought that nothing he did would be too dramatic.

  For the first day or so, he hadn’t realized that he missed her. He thought he had just felt guilty about the way things had ended between them, but when the ache refused to leave, kind of grew until it gnawed at him, Jules realized this wasn’t normal. It was as though he had lost part of himself, and he almost felt like kicking his own arse for how long it took him to figure it out.

  He loved her and he was the biggest jackass in the world.

  He made her leave all because he couldn’t pull his own head out of his ass long enough to realize what was right in front of him. Now, he could have shouted it to the sky that he loved her. HE LOVED HER!

  As he reached up to rub at his jaw, Jules stopped himself halfway. “I have to do something,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.

  With that declaration, he spun around and got in the first taxi he saw.

  Chapter 30

  Emma sat on her couch, a matted afghan cocooned around her, and about three days of left over makeup still on her face when her father walked in. Things had been improved between them. After leaving London, he had obeyed her no speaking, referring, or alluding to anything to do with Julian decree. He even brought Emma the essen
tials for the silent pity parties she held in her room every night: Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a never ending supply of kids movies, which Emma had found were the only movies that were entertaining without focusing on love. She had been in Richie Rich heaven for the past week.

  The real bonding moment, which had made Emma truly forgive her father, happened when Luke had managed to force his way inside to see her. It had not been pretty. Luke’s version of a tantrum made a nuclear warhead look like a fire cracker, but amid Luke’s demanding, bragging, and gloating over Emma and Jules’ breakup, something truly amazing had happened: her father had looked at Emma’s tearful eyes, walked across the room, and punched Luke in the face.

  While the punch of a 55 year old man was only enough to make Luke stumble a little, it had the benefit of waking Emma up, bringing her back to life, enough for her to storm across the room and punch Luke herself. Not only did he fall, he crashed into the coffee table.

  Though the relationship between her and her father was back on track, Emma was too much of an emotional zombie to even be happy about it. In fact, if she really had become a zombie it wouldn’t surprise her. At least, it would explain why, when he walked in, it took Emma about three minutes to realize he was even there, standing over her.

  “Um, sorry, what did you say?” she asked, trying not to sound like the undead.

  Her father sighed but tried to hide it. “I asked what you were doing.”

  Emma looked around for something to distract her from what she had really doing, slowly becoming comatose, and settled on the shiny screen in front of her. “I was just about to watch some TV.” she said with a smile, picking up the remote and flicking it on.

  Her eyes only had time to focus for a second on the gorgeous, gleefully smiling face which already haunted her before she slammed the off button. Recovering quickly, Emma pulled the blanket off herself and stood up. “Actually, I think I’ll just go have a nap.”

  Emma had little time to feel the new wave of despair wash over her before her father barked her name; followed by a rare demand.

  “Come back here.”

  Emma went to him, her eyes downcast, hating for him to see the pain consuming her. To her surprise he didn’t try to talk to her; he just grabbed her shoulders and pushed her down so she sat on the couch. Her father reached around her, rewrapping the blanket tightly, so her whole upper body was bound, and with one hand he held the ends.

  “What are you doing?” Emma demanded, so dumbfounded that she forgot her pain for a moment.

  “Keeping you still,” her father replied.

  “Why?”

  “Because,” he said, picking up the remote, “I’m not letting you run away anymore.”

  He turned the TV on.

  Emma flinched away from the screen, averting her face, while trying to get up, but the blanket held her firm. She caught a glimpse of a gray eye and jerked wildly. “Turn it off!” Emma shouted. “I don’t want to watch.”

  “Amanda,” her father said, “watch the screen.”

  Emma turned her face, choking back a sob as Julian’s entire god-like figure filled the screen.

  He sat on a red couch; his legs slightly spread apart, a hand resting on each knee, and just as he shook his head to whatever question he was just asked, Emma realized that he looked more tense than she’d ever seen him in any interview. Julian opened his mouth and from the first words Emma was fixed; she couldn’t have moved now if she wanted to. She was hypnotized. She wanted to press her face to the screen.

  The camera flicked over to the host and Emma recognized him as British. It took a minute for the buzzing in Emma’s head to clear before she actually heard their conversation.

  “Julian. Julian, it’s like you were designed to make the rest of us look bad,” said the host.

  Jules smiled and shook his head.

  “No, come on,” the host persisted, “not only have you had an absolute orgy of hits yourself, which are, I’m the first to admit, surprisingly not horrendous, but now, your record label Playground is responsible for some of the finest musicians around. You’ve got to be a little impressed with yourself.”

  Jules bit his lip and Emma groaned into her mouth.

  “I’m absolutely thrilled and so proud of the artists that Playground are releasing at the moment. They are all so amazing and somehow, completely one of a kind, each of them. So, yeah, I’m proud as punch of Playground, but I’m, definitely not impressed with myself,” Jules finished with a little grin which tried, but didn’t quite soften the words.

  “Oh come on, don’t go emo on me now, Julian.”

  He laughed, but like Emma’s, there was an edge to it now.

  “Oh, shoot me if I become emo, Dave. I guess I just meant, I can’t see a reason to be proud of myself at the moment.”

  The host’s eyes widened like he’d just struck gold.

  “Really? And why is that, Julian?”

  Emma saw his hand stretch up and scratch at the side of his face. She wanted to grab it and make him stop.

  “I—I was stupid. I did something stupid. I suppose that maybe I always was just this stupid, little prick who never thought about anything other than myself; but it took losing something, someone, for me to realize it.”

  The host’s eyes popped out of his skull for one second before he nodded and went into journalist mode. “Am I right in assuming, then, that this someone could be Emma Corzeica?”

  Jules didn’t answer; he just smiled in that sad way and scratched his jaw again.

  Emma watched as the host’s eyes darkened into something more genuine. “Being in love is the worst wake-up call of all.”

  Julian’s grin was genuine this time. “You’ve got that right.”

  Emma didn’t even notice that the blanket had gone slack around her. She couldn’t have moved even if she wanted to.

  “And I believe that you are going to make all the ladies in the world fall even more in love with you now by singing us a song?”

  Jules looked relieved that the host had lightened the tone. “Yeah, that’s right. This is a new one too, never been heard before.”

  “A world first!”

  Jules smiled and picked up an acoustic guitar. His husky voice in the microphone sent a shiver through Emma. “This is called Ten Days.”

  Jules started humming quietly alone with the melody, as though urging himself to sing.

  So we’ve put an end to it this time.

  I’m no longer yours and you’re no longer mine.

  You said this hill looks far too steep

  But I’m sure that its you, I wanna keep.

  And it’s been ten days without you in my reach,

  And the only time I’ve touched you is in my sleep.

  But time has changed nothing at all.

  You’re still the only one that feels like home.

  I’ve tried cutting the ropes and

  I let you go; but you’re still the only one

  That feels like hope.

  You won’t talk me into it next time,

  If I’m going away your hearts coming too.

  “Cuz, I miss your hands; I miss your face.

  When we get back let’s disappear without a trace.

  Cuz, its been ten days without you in my reach,

  And the only time I’ve touched you is in my sleep.

  But time has changed nothing at all.

  You’re still the only one that feels like home.

  I’ve tried cutting the ropes,

  Tried letting go, but you’re still the only one

  That feels like hope.

  So tell me, did you really think...

  Oh tell me, did you really think

  I had gone, when you couldn’t see me anymore?

  When you couldn’t...

  “Cuz, baby, time has changed nothing at all

  You’re still the only one that feels like home.

  And I’ve tried cutting the ropes.

  I let you go; but you’re stil
l the only one

  That feels like hope, yeah,

  You’re still the only one that feels like hope,

  You’re still the only one I’ve gonna love.

  Oh yeah...

  You’re still the only one I’ll ever love…

  The last notes were followed by a banging applause from the live audience, but everything was muffled to Emma.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she never wiped them away, and her father had long since left the couch, but she wouldn’t have known.

  He loved her .He loved her .He loved her, and because she’d been acting like such a self-centered, emotional wreck, she hadn’t known it until now. Emma would have kicked herself if she hadn’t thought that would only waste more time.

  Somehow, in her hysteria, Emma managed to grab her passport and a credit card, but other than that, everything was a maddening blur until she leapt out of the still moving cab at the airport. Emma thought that there would never be a more welcome sight than the departure gate that she threw herself towards. Stuck in a horde of fat vacationers, making their slow way back from their Christmas holidays, Emma felt as though she was drowning in a sea of smiling, pointless faces as they ambled along.

  She stopped, her passport and boarding pass hanging by her side as she recognized one face in particular.

  Emma had always thought that it was ridiculous when people described those moments that made time still, but at that moment, she thought that there was nothing moving, nothing breathing, but their two faces in the crowd. Just midnight and gray eyes captivated by a single moment, a moment none, but them, would understand..

  While Emma looked at Jules’ perfect face and froze, he stared at her and took one, very deep breath before throwing his bag to the ground and sweeping her into his comforting arms.

 

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