A Melody from the Heart

The time we had been avoiding and dreading was finally here. Our record was going to be released, and that same day, the boys and I were returning to California. We didn’t really get to spend much time together on my last night in New York, and it didn’t help with how we ended things at all. If you didn’t learn this already, most things in life never go the way you plan. Almost nothing goes smoothly, and you should always expect the worst. It may sound like I’m being cynical, but I’m just being realistic.

If there’s one thing Audrey taught me, it was that you have to look at a situation with a clear mind. You can’t dance around the hard decisions because if you look at them with starry eyes and clouded vision, it’s just going to blow up in your face at some point down the road. We had avoided talking about the serious things and we never even wanted to think about what would happen to us when the time came for us to be separated. We were each other’s escape from the real and unfortunate, but as our time together came to a close, we realized it couldn’t last like that forever. Maybe she was just a little more in tune with what was realistic, but I never expected our goodbye to happen the way it did, or maybe she was just looking for a way out because she was afraid…

“Are you alright?” Matt asked as he and Audrey made their way into the crowded hotel suite. Since he had picked her up at her apartment, Audrey just didn’t look the way she used to. She looked tired, frail, and sick.

“I’m fine,” she answered, but there was the distinctive sound of fatigue in her voice. “I mean, I don’t really feel one hundred percent, but I think I’m just catching a cold.”

“When you said you didn’t want to go, you should have told me you didn’t feel good,” he said, stopping so he could look at her when they talked. “You really look like you don’t feel good, so I would have understood.”

“Well, you made me feel bad for saying I didn’t want to go, so it’s fine,” Audrey said. “Honestly, I’m just a little tired, but I’ll be fine when I go home later. It is your last your last night here, though, and it’s the party for your record release, so I can suck it up for one night. If you didn’t know already, I can handle myself.”

“Trust me, I know you can handle yourself,” Matt replied with a laugh as he wrapped an arm around Audrey and brought her into his side.

There were so many people at the party, and it was so crowded. It was about midnight, but it was easy to see that some people had started their own personal parties way before the actual one had started. Needless to say, Audrey was definitely out of her element in a hotel suite that was well on its way to being trashed, around people who were loud and knew how to party, and girls who would do anything to do spend just a little bit of alone time with any member of the featured band.

The looks that Matt received from a large portion of the ladies in the room did not go unnoticed with Audrey. It was a little bit odd and surreal to see Matt in his actual environment. Almost every time she saw him, it was just the two of them spending time together, and she was starting to realize how different their lives really were. They were kind of in a fantasy relationship together, as he wasn’t in his usual environment in New York.

Audrey wasn’t one to worry about something like a few slutty girls who liked to be a little too friendly and flirty, but she couldn’t fight the nagging thought in the back of her mind that this was what Matt liked. Maybe he always went for those types of girls, and she was just something he was testing out because she was different.

She had no way of knowing though, so she tried to push those insecurities away. Audrey was never one who would allow a man to make her worry or second guess herself, and if they did, she dropped them like a bad habit. There was something different about Matt though, and it scared her to death. He made her second guess herself, and she hated it. She was starting to feel attached to him, and she hated that too. It was new and different for her to feel this way, and she realized it was because she was feeling vulnerability, an emotion she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in over ten years.

Shrugging off these feelings and trying to forget about them for the present moment, Audrey sighed as she saw Zacky making his way over to them with one girl on each arm. She was trying to convince herself she was being stupid for feeling this way, but seeing Zacky with those girls made her question once again if Matt had done the same thing in the past.

“Hey you guys!” Zacky yelled. It was loud in the room, and his voice was a little bit slurred, telling Audrey he had started his own personal party way before this one had started. “I’m glad you’re finally here and that you could make it, Audrey. Matt told me you weren’t feeling too well. Anyway, let me just tell you, everyone loves the song Afterlife. Most people are picking it as their favorite on the album, and some of that credit goes to you, my dear. I thought you might like to hear that.”

Audrey smiled and accepted the comment graciously, relieved that the guys at least thought more of her than they did of most of the girls in the room. Zacky then switched over to talking to Matt, asking him something about their flight in the morning. Audrey drowned their voices out and instead turned her attention to the girl on Zacky’s right. She was standing right across from Matt, and Audrey noticed she was sending him suggestive looks, hoping he would glance her way.

Luckily, Matt was too engrossed his conversation with his band mate to notice this girl shamelessly throwing herself at him, hoping she might have a chance with him instead of Zacky. Audrey was thinking this girl had to have pretty big balls to try and mentally undress Matt while he had his arm around another girl, and especially if that girl was herself.

Audrey and Matt never really gave a label to their relationship, but she was sure what they had was more than just any old fling. Despite the fact that Audrey wasn’t feeling totally herself that night, it didn’t mean she would have a problem with clawing a bitch’s eyes out.

“Hey Zacky, you don’t mind if I steal Matt away from you, do you?” Audrey asked when a pause in their conversation came up.

“No, he’s all yours,” Zacky replied with a smile. “I see that face every day, so it won’t hurt to get away from it for a little bit.”

“Great,” she said, standing on her toes to give Matt a slow, sensual kiss. “I’ll have him back to you in a little bit.”

Matt had already turned to walk away, his hand in hers, gently pulling her away. Audrey paused for a second, making sure she was able to look over her shoulder and send a wink in the direction of the girl who had been hoping she could get into Matt’s pants. If anything, Audrey would never be the kind of girl who let others step all over her.

Once they reached a quieter corner of the room, Matt quickly pulled her in to give her a giant hug and a wet peck on the cheek. “You did this to get me away from that girl Zacky was with, didn’t you?” Matt whispered into her ear, chuckling at the fact that Audrey was probably experiencing just a touch of jealousy.

Audrey couldn’t help but laugh as Matt’s lips were tickling her neck. “You may have caught me,” she admitted with a mischievous sparkle in her eye. “But I just couldn’t have that girl eyeing you up like you were a piece of meat.”

“I keep forgetting that you’re not used to things like this at all. You don’t have to worry about girls like that,” he said with a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry we had to spend my last night in New York here.”

“No, it’s okay, this is a big day for you,” Audrey said with a sigh. She was starting to feel bad because she was beginning to think she was giving off the vibe that she hated being at this party. It was true that she didn’t want to be there, but it wasn’t her intention to seem like she got an attitude every time she didn’t get her way. She may have been a hard ass and a little bit of a bitch sometimes, but she was not a spoiled princess. “And are you telling me that girls throw themselves at you like that all of the time?”

“Well,” Matt stammered. His face was turning a little bit red, and Audrey could tell he thought he had just weaved his way into a dangerous conversation. “It tends to happen often. I guess we have a large female fan base. They’re all obsessed with tattoos and muscles.”

“You don’t have to get all nervous on me,” Audrey said. “I don’t care that you have groupies that follow you across the country. Actually, I think it’s quite flattering, and it shows me I succeeded in snagging a well sought after rock star. It does bother me when your groupies think they’re going to steal you from right under my nose, especially if you have your arm around me right in front of them.”

“So you were jealous,” Matt teased. He smirked and raised a playful eyebrow. “I should have known you would be the jealous type.”

Audrey tried to think of a good comeback, as she seemed to be the queen of insults, but she was stumped at this one. She was horrified at the fact that she couldn’t think of a witty comeback. Matt realized this as well, but he was also thinking about how he had yet to get lucky in New York City. He knew if he celebrated his tiny victory over her, the probability of him going home alone tonight would increase greatly.

They both knew Matt had to socialize more, which meant they eventually found themselves sitting on a couch surrounded by people. Jimmy was there, along with a few of their friends who had come out for the release party. And Brian was also sitting in a chair right next to Audrey, which she found rather unfortunate. He didn’t bother her, though, which was really normal behavior since Brian didn’t usually talk to her at all unless it was absolutely necessary.

In the time they were sitting there, Audrey really wasn’t paying attention to the conversations around her. She was zoning them out and concentrating on trying not to fall asleep. She really wasn’t lying when she said she wasn’t feeling good, but she had been trying not to think about it so Matt wouldn’t feel so bad about making her come with him. On top of not feeling good, Audrey was also exhausted, and it was taking all of her effort to keep her eyelids open.

“I’m going to get a drink and I’ll be right back,” Matt said as he pushed off of the couch into a standing position. “Do you want anything?”

Audrey just barely shook her head as she straightened up. If she allowed herself to get any more comfortable, she knew she was going to fall right asleep. She barely stifled a yawn and rubbed her eyes, hoping it would help make her feel a little more awake. As she brought her hand down to her side again, she noticed that Brian was carefully studying her from his position on the chair. It made Audrey painfully aware of the fact that they were basically alone.

“You haven’t talked about it yet, have you?” he asked quietly. It took Audrey a few moments to register that he was actually talking to her.

“Excuse me?” she asked. She wasn’t trying to be rude, but she was way too exhausted to play his mind games right now.

“You haven’t talked about what’s going to happen with you two when we go back to California,” he said. The fact that he said it as a statement rather than a question annoyed the living Hell out of her.

“Not that I think it’s any of your business, but no we haven’t,” Audrey replied shortly. “Why are you concerned about our relationship, anyway?”

“I’m not,” he answered with a condescending smile, like he was above worrying about what events went on in her life. “I’m just wondering if you’re thinking a relationship between the two of you is realistic.”

“Like I said before, I don’t think it’s any of your business to know what’s going on inside of my head. I’m not really the biggest fan of repeating myself.”

“You two know you live in such different worlds, not to mention the fact that you live countless states and thousands of miles from him,” Brian said. “He’s on tour for more months than he’s actually home, and has he even told you anything about his past?”

For the second time that night, Audrey was left without knowing what to say next. She hated Brian for butting into her business, but she couldn’t deny the fact that these same exact thoughts had been circling around in her mind for the past week.

There were so many things circling around in her mind and it was becoming so overwhelming and making her feel worse than she already was. Audrey started to feel like she couldn’t breathe all of a sudden, like the room was caving in and suffocating her. Everything was pressing down on her chest, making it hard to take a breath, the people, her thoughts, and the words that Brian said that confirmed her fears were more than just something silly.

She pushed herself off of the couch and made a beeline for the exit, leaving Brian by himself. She couldn’t take being in there anymore, she had to be by herself. There were just so many things crashing down on her at once, and it was causing Audrey to temporarily lose her mind.

She made her way all the way to the bottom floor before she heard Matt calling after her. In her rush to get out of there, she had completely forgotten about telling him she was leaving. She wanted to escape from her problems, not call attention to them.

The winter air made her feel like she was being dropped into a bath filled with freezing cold water, but it was refreshing. Audrey’s cheeks felt like they were on fire, and the coolness soothed them, just as fresh air rushed into her lungs once again.

“Audrey, are you alright?” Matt called out as he finally caught up to her. She was leaning on the wall of the hotel for support, trying to catch her breath once again.

“I’m fine,” she replied, holding a hand to her chest, which was rising and falling shakily. “I just had to get out of there. I just started thinking about everything too much, and then all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe.”

“What were you thinking about that could have caused that?” he asked really having no clue at all of what was going on. Really he didn’t have a reason to know why Audrey had almost just suffered through a panic attack, but it made her angry that he was totally clueless. He had to have known that in just a few hours, everything between them would change forever, but he was acting like nothing major was about to happen.

“Do you really have no clue, whatsoever?” she asked in an exasperated voice. They had avoided being serious with each other for way too long, and now Audrey knew it was the time where that choice was going to come back to haunt them. She was going to come off as the enemy, but she had to do it. “You’ve been acting all day like nothing is going to change, like you’re not going to leave tomorrow. And then Brian chooses this time out of all the other chances he’s had to tell me you’re keeping something in your past from me.”

“Don’t listen to Brian, he’s just trying to cause trouble,” Matt said softly. He was beginning to look upset at the things she had just said, and it made her want to take everything back. She couldn’t, though. She couldn’t be selfish and keep him to herself. It would be easier for both of them this way. Audrey knew what was about to come, and there was no way they would be able to survive it together.

He was the only person who had made her expose parts of her soul to the world again, and it was starting to make her feel bare. Audrey felt like she would be hurt if she left her true self out in the open any longer, and she wasn’t willing to risk that. For her, it was easier to feel nothing and to be emotionless. Matt was making her actually feel again for the first time since she was a child, and she didn’t like the feeling of being so prone to hurt. She didn’t like to feel vulnerable.

“We had to have this talk sooner or later, Matt,” Audrey said softly. It would be easier to make a clean break, but this time she wanted to keep his feelings in mind. She did care about him, she realized, more than she had felt for anyone before. “Were we just going to wait until the moment you left for the airport to decide where this was going, or to decide if it had a future?”

“I don’t understand where all of this is coming from, Audrey!” Matt said with a little frustration. Their voices were starting to get louder and they were beginning to gain the attention of a few passerby.

“It’s been coming all along! It was nice pretending there weren’t any problems in the world, or that we never went through anything bad before we met each other, but we can’t live like that forever. We knew the time would come when you went back to California and I stayed here,” Audrey said. She was losing speed as she went, and now she only felt numb and a little sick to her stomach over what she was doing. “How realistic of a relationship is it if we live in opposite corners of the country and you’re travelling around the world for nine months out of the year? We’ve known each other for a month maybe? It’s nowhere near long enough for you to feel like you have a commitment to me.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Matt said, his voice low. He felt like she was giving him any excuse she could think of so she wouldn’t have to work hard to make this last. “No, we’re not even close to loving each other yet, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t love each other somewhere in the future. I can see myself loving you. Can’t you see yourself loving me?”

Audrey looked at her feet, having trouble breathing again. She couldn’t look at Matt’s face any longer because it was breaking her heart. If she thought she was physically able to cry, this was where she would of, but ever since she was fourteen, she had convinced herself that she just didn’t possess the ability to cry her heart out.

Of course she could see herself loving Matt, and that was what scared her most out of everything. She wasn’t worried about the little things like cheating or being apart, but she was worried what would happen if she actually allowed herself to fall in love.

It might not make sense to anyone, and especially not to Matt, but they were better off if they didn’t stay together. He would probably hate Audrey and never want to speak to her again, and it broke her heart to know that. In the future, he would understand though. Matt would understand she did what she was about to do because she could see herself falling in love with him, too.

Audrey started to shake her head slowly because it was too unbearable to speak the words since they were so far from the truth. “No,” she answered weakly when she was finally able to gather up the courage moments later.

The look on Matt’s face said it all. He was shocked, hurt, and betrayed. She knew he must have felt like he wasted all his time, effort, and feelings on her for nothing. Audrey never wanted to hurt him, and she never wanted him to think this way of her, but she really did have no other choice. She could only hope he would understand why she did it sometime in the future.

“What?” he asked, barely audible. Audrey almost thought Matt might have started to cry for a few moments, which would only have made her heart explode into a thousand tiny pieces.

“I can’t see myself falling in love with you,” she lied. Each word hung on the tip of her tongue before it left her mouth. It was so hard for her to form the words since they were the farthest thing from the truth. “I never could see us ending up together, even if we did try.”

“So this is it, then?” Matt asked. The look on his face changed from heartbreak to cold indifference, and it made her feel that much worse. Audrey knew he was already beginning to hate her, and it was so much harder to deal with that than she had originally thought. “This is how you’re going to end things after all the time we spent together?”

“I’m sorry,” Audrey said weakly. She knew it wasn’t anywhere near a good response or explanation to the way she had just brought their relationship down in flames.

“And that’s all you have to say? You can’t even dignify me with a decent response?” Matt replied, throwing his hands up in frustration. “I can’t believe all this time I was thinking you were different, but in reality you were just as stone cold as you looked on the outside.”

Those were the last words he spoke to her before walking away, leaving her standing alone and feeling like the biggest piece of shit in the world. Audrey watched his back retreat as he disappeared in the crowd. She didn’t know it at that time, but her heart broke for the first time as she thought about how this was the last time she was ever going to see him again.

She wanted more than anything to run after him and explain everything, to take all of the words she had said back, but she kept herself glued to the spot. It was one of the hardest things a person could watch, seeing the person you cared most about in the world walk slowly and painfully out of your life.

Matt’s words had cut the parts of her she had opened to him so deeply. Audrey didn’t want him to think she was a stone hearted bitch, but it was too late.

Audrey stood there on a New York City sidewalk, all alone. She clung to the idea that what had just happened really was for the best. That thought was the only thing that prevented the soul scarring wounds Matt’s words had made, and the pain and emptiness that came from losing him, from breaking Audrey down completely and making her world come crumbling down all around her.