Pirate Smile

“You have to leave, Jared.” I pressed my forehead to the door that had been slammed in my face an hour before. Holly, I knew, was slumped over in front of it on the other side.
“What?” I tried to make the situation light. “Leave the hotel? I’m paying for it.”
For a while, she didn’t say anything. The sinking, hollow feeling in my stomach told me that this might really be the end. After spending the better half of our lives together, somehow, we were saying goodbye.
“I don’t want to see you anymore.” Her voice was quiet, small—nothing like my Holly.

I blinked away any trace of emotion, my jaw tightening until my teeth ached. This was Holly Finn; the girl I pushed off the swings on the playground, who I kissed behind the magnolia tree. The girl who pushed me down in a giant mud puddle between our houses, who kissed me on the cheek before clambering into the back of her mother’s truck leaving Nashville and us Followill brothers behind. I’d been crazy about her since then.
“Will you let me in?” I tapped my fingers across the door in a rhythm that was all our own. She’d been plucking away on my bass a few years back and created a sound the band eventually tossed into one our songs. It was a subtle reminder of her presence in all of our lives.

The door opened slowly and Holly stepped out, tears streaking her face.
“Hey,” I whispered, thumbing a tear from her cheek. I was mad as hell, but I was too in love with this girl to let this minute slip through my fingers. It was a make or break moment.
“Hey.” Her shoulders relaxed and she leaned against the doorframe.
“If this is about me staying…” We spent the majority of our short time together fighting. It was our thing. “You know I can’t.”
“Of course not.” She batted my fingers away from her face and sighed heavily.
“It’s not like I can just quit, you know?” I shook my head and turned away from her. I tried to follow the script, but something about this was different.
“I think I deserve more than waiting for a show in Chicago to see you. You deserve more.”
“I’ve been here for a month this time,” I groped around the dresser for my cigarettes. “I stayed here for you.”
I looked around the hotel room that had become my home. Beer bottles littered every surface, clothes hung off of every corner. I couldn’t recall a single morning where I’d woken up and thought about making my bed.
“This time, yeah.” Holly put her hands on her hips, which meant she was taking this to the next level. “But it’s not just that. We can’t keep doing this open-relationship-because-we’re-not-really-together thing.”
“I stopped seeing that girl a long time ago, you know that.”

She was bringing up things we’d already discussed, things that we both knew were completely irrelevant. We both saw other people from time to time, to try to make our relationship easier; all it ever did was complicate our lives more. The relationship Holly and I had wasn’t even really something to call a relationship. We had a history and a serious separation issue. No matter how many guys she saw or how many women I slept with, I knew we were just killing time. Our separate dreams were obstacles to the future we wanted together. We knew what we wanted, but we had to fight hard for it. There was no easy way out.

“What about Mark?” I tried my best to throw it back in her face. “And Ryan, and Noah?”
“Well what about Ashley, and Juliana, and Groupies numbers one through twenty?”
We’d both made our invalid, insignificant points.
“I’m not accusing you of doing anything that I’m not.” Her gruff tone disappeared. “I’m just saying I’m tired of it.”
“I think you should come back to Nashville with me then.” We’d been arguing about that for a while too.
“You know I want to go back home, but I can’t right now.” She was going to school for, ironically enough, music production. I’d told her over and over she could just work with us but she said she wanted to start from the beginning.
“So because you can’t have exactly what you want right now, you’re giving up?”
Holly flinched—she didn’t like that phrase. She finished everything, absolutely everything she did—she always saw it through. That in particular made me think I was missing a piece.
“I’m just tired of doing this,”
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Jared,” She paused to rub her forehead. “I want to stop thinking about when our life is going to happen. I’m done.”
“Goddammit, Holly!” I tried to ignore the crack in my voice.

Without a second thought, I grabbed her roughly and kissed her. Whether or not I hoped that could somehow change her mind, I’m not sure. When she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me closer, I thought I had persuaded her. She smelled like lemons, always. Lemons and vanilla and fresh laundry.

“Jared.” She stopped, pressing her fingers to my lips. “Don’t do this.”

Her eyes were glassy, hard. I could fight it all I want, but this girl never wanted to see me again. Had things really been that bad? I stopped breathing, my hands gripping Holly’s shoulders to keep myself from staggering over. For the most part, I was in a thick haze. My body felt like lead as I tried to step away from her.

“Get out.”