I'd Kiss You Goodbye If I Thought It Would Make You Stay

“What if it was you? You that I needed all along? I felt like a fool, thinking we were completely wrong. It had to be you…I knew it was you.” – Motion City Soundtrack

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I’m sitting in my newly decorated living room after furniture shopping with Mike and Butcher.

I’d be hanging out with William, but he has a double date with Sisky and their girlfriends tonight and they’re probably upstairs in Bill’s apartment, getting ready. I’m not sure what everyone else is up to, but I don’t want to seem lame or lonely, so I just watch movies by myself, which probably makes me seem even more lame and lonely, in retrospect.

I’m watching the rooftop scene at the end of Across the Universe when a knock on my door comes.

“All you need is love…”

I immediately pause the movie and get up to answer it after checking the clock.

It’s only five.

Maybe Bill and Sisky’s girlfriends cancelled and they came to hang out instead?

I pull the door open, surprised to see Michael standing in front of me.

I instinctively step aside to let him in and close the door behind him.

“Rae…” he says, and I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. He just steps closer to me and I wait patiently. His left hand moves to rest on my waist and his right reaches up to caress my cheek, thumb brushing my skin and making me shiver.

He leans in so close that our breathing is mixing together in the air.

His lips draw closer and I feel the spark of his mouth on mine, but I’m hesitating, backing away as his lips just barely brush mine, because it scares me to death.

I’m unreasonably scared that he’ll leave again, that he doesn’t actually want me anymore, and there are so many other things I’m feeling that I can’t even name. It’s overwhelming and my brain freezes.

He backs away as well, sensing my reluctance.

“Rae, I’d do anything for you.” He sighs. “Even if it means I have to give you up to make you happy. I just want you to be happy, Rae. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

I don’t know what to say to that and it’s not quite clear to me what he’s saying, either, because that stupid, stubborn, sensible part of me is reasoning that if he really loved me, he would have never left.

“I’d kiss you goodbye if I thought it would make you stay,” I whisper faintly.

I feel him freeze, thinking like he always does when I quote my lyrics to him.

I look up at him, and my brain’s fuzzy, as it usually is when he’s this close to me.

I reach up to run my hand through his messy hair, and I just like how it feels between my fingers. He stares back at me, biting his lip, the look in his eyes a blue-green mixture of confusion and something else I’m not sure of. Then I take my hand back and walk off down the hall without waiting for his reaction, and the truth is, I’m on autopilot and I don’t even really know what I’m doing or what I meant or what he thinks I mean.

I hear him leave quietly as pangs of regret fill my chest and threaten to smother me with my own stubborn stupidity and self-loathing.

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I’m still at my apartment, still watching movies and still feeling very alone, wishing that Michael hadn’t left, although I surely don’t deserve him after that.

I let him leave.

Why had I let him leave?

This is all my fault.

My jumbled thoughts confuse me, and then I’m not sure if I’m thinking about how he left last summer or just a few hours ago.

Then it all makes sense, like those stupid Sudoku puzzles Suzie and I do when we’re bored on tour. I can never figure them out; I get impatient and frustrated and cast them aside. In the end, I always go back to finish them, because I can’t stand to see them incomplete, and I eventually work it out and it all makes sense again.

I finally realize that Michael never really wanted to leave me and I feel idiotic for not understanding his intentions sooner. He was only thinking about what was best for me and my career at the time. Even though he’s been saying it all this time, it’s barely just making sense to me now.

He was completely right. I probably would have talked my band into postponing the record just so I could go back to Australia with him after Warped last year like I had wanted.

Sure, he could have talked to me about it, or handled it better rather than leaving me, but in the end, I was the one coming out on top.

But he loved me enough to give me up, and isn’t that the kind of person everyone should have? Someone that loves you enough give up what they care about most?

I said I’d do anything for him, but could I really bring myself to do what he did for me?

I’d never find anyone as cute, sweet, smart, or funny as Michael, in my eyes at least, so what the hell am I doing pretending that I don’twant need him anymore?

Stupid, stupid me.

I scramble to find my car keys and my phone, then I can’t find the remote to turn the tv off, and I’m so busy looking for it that I forget I can walk up to the set and press the power button. By now I’m feeling incredibly moronic, but I don’t let it stop me and I grab some shoes. I’m pulling the door open when my phone rings.

“Hello?” I ask hurriedly.

“Rae,” I hear from the other end. It’s Bill, but I don’t really have time for him right now, because I have to go get Michael back before it’s too late, and I have this crazy thought that he won’t love me anymore by the time I get to see him again.

“Can I call you back, Bill? I’m kind of in a rush,” I inform him.

“Rae,” he says again. “Can you come to the hospital? Michael’s been in an accident.”