Troubled Youth

“What are you thinking about?” He was watching her intently, he knew she was upset.
“We don’t normally talk here.” Her tone was short.
They were sitting out on the beach early in the morning watching the sunrise like they had done every morning since they arrived in India.
“I don’t care. This is different, what are you thinking about?” He leaned in to grab her chin and turn her face towards his.
“Jared, just shut up.” She jerked her head away from his hand like his touch hurt.
She hadn’t even looked him in the eyes yet. She was just sitting there with legs folded under herself smoking a cigarette. He didn’t know she had picked the habit back up. He hadn’t seen her smoke in years, not since they both quit together. He didn’t even know when or where she had gotten the cigarettes.
There was something wrong here and he couldn’t relax with her like usual because of it. If he tried to out in this remote, beautiful place with no reception then there would be something wrong; something would happen that would upset the world as he knew it. This place would change for them, it would mean something different. Every morning they had watched the sun rise and all the pictures they had drawn in the sand wouldn’t mean the same things. India wouldn’t be as special.
“Babe.” He reached out to brush her cheek.
“Don’t call me that.”
Still, she wouldn’t look at him. She just let the smoke curl up around her from between her fingers where the source was. It wasn’t even about smoking now, it was just about the smell. The smell alone was enough to calm her down, to make everything alright for her. Today was the hardest day of the year for the both of them.
Jared leaned over to pull the cigarette carton from his flannel that she was wearing. They had crawled out of bed after only sleeping a couple hours and pulled on the clothes lying from the floor. She had just happened to pick up his flannel instead of her shirt. She started to protest as he reached into the pocket saying he couldn’t smoke because that would break their pact but he just stared at her as if she had said something insane before lighting up. He took a drag feeling the nicotine hit his lungs. God he’d missed it.
This wasn’t something they talked about. Not on this day. Every once in awhile it would come up in a fight but not on the day it happened. Never in January. Jared kissed the side of Ella’s head but she moved away from him. He wouldn’t take that and put his arms around her pulling her tight to his chest. She fought it but he wouldn’t let her go. Eventually she went limp against him and closed her eyes. This was better than not being held. Really she did want to be held, she just hated admitting it.
Today was the day they lost their daughter. Today was the first and the last day they had ever seen her before she was passed off to another couple. Six years ago today they had given her the only few kisses they ever would and then lost her. This day was always the hardest. January 23rd.

When they arrived back home to the Hollywood Hills Ella was still a little standoffish. Then again, when wasn’t she? Ella spent more time in her apartment working on paintings leaving Jared on his own. He’d take hikes with his friends through the hills and try to recover from the two years he’d spent on the road. His body was tired but not only that, his soul was. He wanted to settle before he figured out what he was doing next. He missed her presence but was glad of the emotional break her absence gave him.
The songs he’d been working on took a break on the back burners of his mind. He left his acoustic guitar sitting in the vocal booth of the studio. Jamie was still around and would work on some of the things Jared had recorded on tour. Jared sometimes would come in and listen but he would give no input or suggest things. As far as he was concerned Jamie was just playing.
Of course he only relaxed about as long as it took Jamie to start making the things he’d recorded sound great. By the end of February Jared was actively back in the studio. Shannon was gone touring with Antoine Becks and their electronic side project. Tomo was traveling with Vicki making up for the honeymoon they never had.
All Jared had was the lab and Jamie.
He worked and worked. It didn’t matter what he worked on; the live tour film, Artifact, new songs, his companies, ideas for broadcasts on his baby company VyRT. The few weeks he did relax were gone. He’d felt wrong. Relaxing was more of a foreign country than spending a month in India for his birthday was. He felt at home again.
Slowly Ella started coming around. She’d sit in the studio and watch Jared play songs in the vocal booth for hours on end. He was mesmerizing with how passionate he had become. Jared was always passionate but when he didn’t have to worry about touring and playing the songs they’d already put out he could channel all his energy into new songs. There were some bits that had been floating around for years that he brought out again and played. Some were so new he didn’t sing the words so much as hum them with only one or two decipherable words when he got loud.
Other times Ella would leave Jared and Jamie down in the studio to go see everyone else who was working. There was Stephanie and Daniel who were often upstairs in what used to be her old bedroom. They were working on Artifact and getting it ready. Jared had mentioned that he wanted to get it out this year, maybe to a film festival as a premier so that was going full speed.
There were hard drives and hard drives full of material to go through. Sometimes they’d set Ella up with a laptop and let her go through things telling her to pull anything that fit into the outline they’d written down on a large white board. Most of the film was done but they still were finding ways to add other material and form a more coherent story line.
Jared and Ella started up another pattern. That seemed to be the only way they knew how to exist anymore, patterns. In India it was waking up to watch the sun rise. In Africa it was staying up late to look at the stars and kiss. For a little the last year it was getting into a tub on Sundays and enjoying being near one another. Now it was taking walking in the hills together and holding hands.
The time varied because Jared would start working before she came over and work late or she would be there in the morning and they’d go out before Jamie got into the studio. One particular evening they were on a hike. Ella had been smoking but Jared took the cigarette from her to finish it. She didn’t have another so when that one was gone they forgot about it and continued walking silently.
Several times since they had started this pattern pictures of them walking together had shown up in various places. Jared wasn’t so sure how he felt about that. He was being asked very personal questions by people he didn’t know and the ones who did know him gave him words of caution. Even his own brother started up again with the cautionary speeches while he was countries and oceans away.
This whole problem was solved when they went off the path well known to everyone. Jared took Ella off the path that evening and without a word she knew where they were going. For only a little while longer they walked stepping carefully through the uneven terrain until they came to a tree with branches low to the ground. Jared let Ella climb into it first watching to make sure she had a firm grip before following her up.
There was a place halfway up where they could both sit on the same branch and lean back against another. This tree was really the only place Jared felt like he could talk about anything and it wouldn’t make it out of the world they were in. No one else was around to hear them and Ella wasn’t known for her talking. Jared had not picked this place on accident; this place was where they had made a decision that changed their lives so much more than they could have ever imagined.
“What’s the second biggest regret you have?” She asked quietly.
“Second?” He sounded surprised and confused.
“I know what your first is, it’s mine too.”
There were no tears in her eyes but he could see a huge well of pain there. He bit his bottom lip and looked away scratching at his beard. She never initiated this kind of conversation. It made him deeply nervous about what she might have to say.
“Not always keeping you from pain.” He said looking down at his feet.
“That’s impossible and a stupid regret.” She said flatly.
He shrugged and looked at her. “I want the impossible things.”
She nodded agreeing with him.
“We’ve been through so much.” Jared said quietly as he put his hand on her thigh. “So much.”
“How long have we known each other?” She slipped her hand over his.
Her question was more rhetorical but Jared answered her anyways. He wanted to keep her talking. He knew she was working towards something, something he wasn’t going to like. His body was telling him to flee for his life. Something in her body language was warning his subconscious but being the so deadly curious being he was he couldn’t leave. He just answered her questions and hid his waning fear.
“Since college.” He smiled. “Figure Painting One. You weren’t actually taking the class, just getting paid to be there.”
“And you saw something you liked.” She laughed. “Well you saw everything.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t think I was creepy for chatting you up after a few sessions. It wasn’t just your body I liked.”
“Keep telling yourself that. You were a horny teenager just discovering a world without parental guidance and I was the first girl you’d ever painted naked.”
He smiled. “You were the same way. That’s why you let me talk to you.”
“Well, I’d seen better paintings of me but you were cuter than anyone else in the class.”
“Since then... since then we’ve been inseparable really. When I went to New York you followed right after me. Just dropped everything to be with your best friend.”
“The best friend that I was fucking the hell out of.” She half smirked at the memory.
“Friends with benefits.” He laughed, cocking an eyebrow he asked, “Remember how that started?”
“You’d seen me naked, I wanted to see you naked.” She shrugged. “People said a friends with benefits would never work and we’re the kind of people when told something can’t work, we test it.”
“And here we are two decades later and it still works.”
Ella shrugged, it only kind of worked now. “You sound almost proud of that.”
“I am.”
“Despite the breaks between sleeping together I’m still pretty proud of it. We remained friends through so much shit. Girlfriends, boyfriends, fiancées, a husband... none of it mattered once it was over because we’d just get back into bed. It was more a coping mechanism for pain with me. Fucking you is so therapeutic.” She smiled at the last sentence.
Jared nodded. They fell silent. Jared looked at Ella’s face seeing lines of worry and care that weren’t there when they’d first met. Her thirty-eight years had been rough but he still thought she was the most beautiful thing on the planet.
“I’m sorry.” He sighed.
He was filling the silence hoping that whatever she was thinking, whatever she was planning on saying would be placated by his apology.
“For what?” She asked caught off guard.
“I feel like I’ve limited you with what we have. I’ve always taken you with me. I’ve always pulled you along behind me and kept you around. Even when you didn’t want to be my friend anymore I forced you back into my life. I’ve never asked if you had wanted something different, to be on your own out there.”
“Do you really think if I hadn’t wanted to go with you I would have?” She asked reaching over to turn his face towards hers. “Do you really think anything you did forced me to spend time with you?”
She left her hand on his cheek; he could smell the residual sent from the cigarette there and it was perfect. He turned his face into her hand kissing her palm. She smiled as a tingling sensation shot up her arm from his lips. The smile seemed hollow though, her eyes missed it. He tried to ignore that. He knew what it meant when she was distant from him.
“Here we are, forty and thirty-eight,” she sighed, “unattached to anyone.”
“God, forty.” He shook his head. “I’m so old.”
“You are not because if you are then I am too.”
He leaned over and kissed her. She kept him there a second longer by grabbing his shirt collar and pushing their lips together harder. He pulled out of the kiss and rested his forehead against hers fighting the thought that threatened this was a goodbye. They sat letting their breath mingle holding on to one another.
“She’s six now.” Jared said quietly, an audible shake in his voice.
“She is.” Ella’s voice was very controlled, she had a lot of practice hiding her emotions.
“I’m so sorry.” He apologized screwing up his face to fight the tears threatening to fall.
Six years old and somewhere far away from them. That was all he could think of lately. The biggest regret they both shared. He buried his face in his hands trying not to cry but it was all building up behind his lids now. She pulled him into her arms and instead of his hands he pushed his face to her chest. She laid her head on top of his as all of her own regret well up. She fought back the tears by holding Jared tighter.
“I’m so sorry.” He sobbed against her.
“It’s okay. It was right. We had to do it, she’s happy now somewhere else.” She ran her hands through his hair hoping to quiet him down.
“I should have talked us out of it. We should have kept her and tried to be a family. She should be ours.”
“We wouldn’t have been able to.” She said quietly, her voice too cool and even as she repeated her reasons. “We were on tour all the time, always moving. It wouldn’t have been a place for a baby. We were a mess ever since we found out about her, fighting and upset. It wouldn’t have worked. Everything would be a bigger mess now.”
“No.” He shook his head as he looked up at her. “No, I wouldn’t have let it. I would have fixed it.”
“We did fix it, the only way we could have.” She caressed his cheek wiping away his tears.
“It shouldn’t have been closed. We should still be able to see her, to know where our daughter is.” He looked down at her now tear stained shirt. “If she’s happy.”
“Jared, she’s perfect where she is.”
“How do you know?” He looked up at her with his eyes as wide and questioning as they could be.
“I know.” Her eyes were as honest as he’d seen them in his conversation.
He nodded like he was agreeing with her. Intuition. They might be far from her but they would have felt it if something was wrong.
“Six years old.” He breathed.
This was where they had decided to give up their daughter for adoption. This was where their lives changed, tying them together forever. Whether or not they had remained friends there was a human being out there that tied them together.
“I believe you.” She said after a while.
“About what?”
“When you said you would have fixed it if we had kept her, I believe you.”
Jared sighed, she hadn’t moved any closer to him like she normally did when this conversation came up. “My second biggest regret isn’t really keeping you from pain. At least not the full regret.”
“Then what is it?” She asked looking over at him.
“It’s causing you pain that I could have kept from you. After what happened... I should’ve never been in a relationship with anyone else. It should have always been you and me just like it should have since we met.”
“It was fine. You were totally free to be with someone else. We didn’t have anything.”
“Yes we did. We do now. We’re not young and naive anymore.”
“I dated other people after that too. I was even married for almost three years.”
“And I was insanely jealous.” He rolled his eyes to look down at her. “You can’t even begin to understand how jealous I was.”
“I’m sorry.” She kissed him gently.
Jared sighed when she pulled back. “What’s wrong with us then?”
“Nothing is wrong, we’re both two normal people.”
“No, I mean with us. What’s wrong with the idea of us.”
Ella bit her lip and looked away from him. He’d cut to the heart of why they were out here. Normally this conversation took a different route. No doubt he was waiting for her usual response but she was holding back something worse.
She’d been seeing it for months now. Maybe even a year but she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit she’d let this go on that long. It had become the most apparent to her after Tomo and Vicki’s wedding. He changed his behavior towards her since that night they spent together after the long day of celebration for their friends. Ella felt she was being cruel and needed to stop what was going on. She just needed to find the courage to change it; to find the courage to actually deal with the one problem that mattered the most, Jared’s feelings for her.
“I can’t Jared.”
“Can’t what?” He asked. “Have this conversation again?”
“Yes.”
“Then we won’t. Just say yes to me.”
“No. I can’t. I...” She paused, her breath caught in her throat, “I need to leave.”
“We can go to Malibu.” Jared offered.
“I mean I need to leave everything.” Ella said shifting her eyes to his hoping he’d see she was sorry to be saying this. “I need to get away from you.”
He took a sharp breath and looked away from her.
“Why?” Jared’s voice was pained and sounded even more so because he wouldn’t look at her.
“It’s not fair for you. It never was. I’ve got to do what you can’t. I have to leave.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know.” Ella admitted quietly. “I’ve got enough money to start over anywhere. Give you a chance to have a life before it’s too late.”
“The only life I’ve ever had is the one with you in it.” He said looking back at her. “How could you think there would be anything else for me?”
“Not anything, Jared. No, not anything but someone. There’s someone out there for you and you’ll never find her so long as I’m around.”
“I’ll never find her if you’re gone.” He countered. “You’d be taking her away.”
Ella shook her head. “I don’t know what you see in me.”
Jared pulled her close catching her off guard. He wrapped his arms around her and his breathing hitched. This is what he had been fearing.
“I see everything in you. Everything I need and want. You are the sun to me. I need you to survive. Ella... Ella... I can’t live by myself. I can’t be without you. Not now. No especially not now.” He was shaking his head. “Please.”
Ella pushed back from his chest gently. “Jared I need to do this for the both of us.”
“Why can’t you just stay? Just leave everything how it is.” He was begging her, trying to pull her back into his arms but she wouldn’t let him. “I won’t complain. I won’t ask for more. Just please stay by my side. Please.”
“Don’t beg me.”
“Why? I need you.”
“Because if you beg I will stay and I can’t do that anymore. I can’t look at you and not regret what I’ve done to you. I remember you in college.” She wiped under her eyes. “I remember you were so sweet, almost innocent. You were so awkward about sex and women in general.”
“Sometimes I wish we could go back.”
“I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I would stay away from you if I could do it all over.”
He knew she didn’t mean to hurt him, but those words cut like a knife. She was surrendering. He let out a broken sob and covered his face.
“Please don’t do this to me.”
“Jared.”
“Ella, please don’t. I can’t do this. I can’t be without you. Please. No. Please.”
“I look at you now and I see a broken man. You might not look that way to everyone else but you’re good at hiding it. I think you learned that from me, the master of holding back. I broke you. I broke you by sleeping with you that first time.”
“Carrots.”
“What?”
“Our safe word.” He said quietly. “Carrots.”
She gave a tug at the corner of her mouth like she was almost going to smile. “Why do you bring that up?”
“I want you to stop.” He said honestly, he looked so small. “Carrots. Please.”
“I can’t stop this.” She shook her head and moved her hand away from his. “I can’t help but feel like I messed you up. You approach sex so much differently now. You know how to use your body to get what you want from anyone. You learned that from me because I used it on you all the time. I dragged you through the dirt and then made it worse. After Soleil you were black. I couldn’t get you anymore dark. I’m not good for you Jared. I’m the one holding you back, not the other way around. Please see that. Please see I’m setting you free because I love you.”
He shook his head with indignation. “You can’t say that.”
“It’s what I feel Jared. What I feel when I look at you. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”
“How long?”
He almost didn’t want to know.
“India.”
Another sharp intake of breath. Since India? He thought things were much better after India. He thought she was warming up to him again and they’d have a chance soon. Now he realizes she’d been acting the whole time. How could she fake that so well? No, he wouldn’t believe it. She loved him. She had to. There was no way she could want to leave him.
“Ella.” All he could manage was her name.
“I’m sorry, I have to go.”
“Where?” He grabbed her arm sensing she was about to leave.
“I can’t tell you.”
He let her arm go and she jumped from the tree. He missed the days when she was too scared to jump. Now he was afraid to. He was afraid of what she might resort to saying if he followed her. Jared was pretty sure Ella would say just about anything to put him in the place she wanted him to be in. He didn’t want to hear what she might come up with so he sat in the tree tracing his fingers of something she had carved in the bark unable to do anything else.
As soon as Ella had service on her phone she was calling Tomo. She knew he and Vicki were home from their travels for a while and she could get a hold of them. He answered surprised to hear from her in the middle of the day but when he heard the shaking in her voice he knew this wasn’t just a call to see what he was up to. This had happened before and he could well guess why she was upset. He didn’t know what Ella had just done.
Tomo took her back to his place where Vicki took over comforting their friend. Tomo went into the kitchen pulling ingredients to make her favorite cookies just to cheer her up. Vicki settled Ella into the guest bedroom and got her to stop crying. From there she fell asleep clutching a pillow.
Vicki came out into the kitchen where Tomo was slipping a baking sheet into the oven. They exchanged a look before he pulled his wife into his arms. Tomo kissed the top of her head.
“It makes me so sad when this happens.” Vicki sighed into Tomo’s chest. “They... they’re so perfect for one another but they’ll never work and I don’t understand it.”
“You know what the end of January was though, don’t you?” Tomo asked quietly.
“Six years.” Vicki answered. “I can’t even imagine.”
Tomo’s phone started to vibrate on the counter and he saw the caller ID was Shannon. Tomo hadn’t even known Shannon was home from his tour with Antoine. Tomo picked up the phone already knowing what the call was about.
“Jared’s outside breaking shit and this time it’s really scaring me.” Shannon said without so much as a hello.
“Just try and stop him Shan.”
“Where is Ella?” Shannon asked peeking out the window to watch his younger brother.
“Here, asleep in the guest bedroom. We’ll keep her here tonight and however long she wants to stay.”
“He’s scaring me.” Shannon said still looking in the backyard where his younger brother was.
“Stop him before he hurts himself please.”
“I’m afraid to go out there.”
“He’s your brother Shannon.”
“I’ll call later and let you know how it went.”
Tomo hung up and pulled Vicki closer. He was so thankful to have her when days like this happened. She always knew how to handle it and get everything as close to normal again as possible. He let go of her only to get another sheet of cookies into the oven and then pulled her close again kissing her face and telling her how much he loved her, how glad he was to have her.
The cookies were finished before Ella was awake. Tomo put a few on a plate and covered them before placing them on the nightstand so when she woke up they were waiting for her. He and Vicki continued on about their evening just waiting for her to wake up.
When Ella did wander out she was holding the empty plate and looked disheveled. Vicki got her a pair of sweatpants and a tank top so she could shower and put on some clean clothes. Tomo was finishing dinner for three when Ella came back out again and they sat down for a meal together. The conversation was light and steered clear of anything Leto related. Tomo had found that even mentioning Shannon in these situations was a bad idea.
Ella and Vicki curled up on the couch to watch one reality show or another and Tomo went into the garage to play with his guitar. Really he knew that Shannon would be calling and he didn’t want Ella to know about it and risk upsetting her again. It was better to let them have girl time.
It got later and later with no call from Shannon. Tomo knew he’d have to go in soon or Vicki would come get him so he picked up his phone and called Shannon. The phone kept ringing and ringing without answer. He tried the house number and Shannon picked up that time.
“Hello?”
“Is everything alright?” Tomo asked.
“Oh, hey.”
“He’s in the room?” Tomo asked.
“Yeah, just taking a rest.” Shannon was being vague but trying to sound like he was talking about himself so Jared’s suspicions didn’t raise.
“I called your cell, you didn’t answer. Call me back from that so you can go in the other room. I want to know what happened.”
“Yeah.”
“Talk to you in a few.”
Tomo hung up and waited fingering a quick melody on his guitar. His phone buzzed and he answered it after the first ring.
“Sorry it took me a second. I have a bag of peas on my face.” Shannon said.
“He hit you?”
“We had a row in the backyard.” Shannon shrugged.
“About what?”
“Nothing really. He didn’t want to stop. I got in the way of his fist, he got in the way of mine.”
“Are you both okay?”
“We’ve both been in worse fights. It stopped pretty quickly after I got him on the ground.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“TV.”
“That’s what Vicki and Ella are doing too.” Tomo laughed.
“Look, I can’t be gone too long or he’ll figure out what I’m actually doing.”
“Go back then, I just wanted to make sure everything was alright.”
“Just a possible black eye. Don’t worry about it.” Something in Shannon’s voice told Tomo there was a missing piece to this puzzle. Tomo began to suspect something more more serious was up than just a fight.
“Call if you need anything.”
“Same goes for you.”
“Night.”
“Night, Tomo.”

Jared had walked past the guest bedroom and for the last three days he had been disappointed. He didn’t know what he was thinking. She’d told him she had to leave. She was probably gone already if he knew her as well as he thought he did. He was debating going to find her, he knew where she had been last. Shannon’s secret attempts to talk to Tomo weren’t really secret to the younger Leto but he let Shannon think they were.
Each day she was gone things felt more and more fucked up. Jared’s work ethic evaporated. He’d sit in the studio with Jamie and be unable to find some kind of comment. He didn’t even want to pick up his guitar and record unless it were the more painful songs he’d been writing about his relationship with Ella. If it was those songs he’d leave the vocal booth with red rimmed eyes and hide out in his room for a while not wanting anyone to see him.
By the fifth day he had retreated to the house he was renting in Malibu and refused to leave his bed or let anyone into the house. He didn’t want contact with the outside world. Normally someone else was there even if they were in the guest house a few hundred feet away behind some trees but this time he was utterly alone spending most of his time gazing out at the ocean wondering where in the wide world Ella had gone to.

Jared sat staring out at the horizon line from the couch in his backyard. He remembered back to Africa when they were together. He remembered when he’d told her he would live on the beach one day and Ella had said she’d live with him. This could very well have been that house. He had rented it with the intention of buying it when the lease was up if they found it comfortable enough.
Now where was she? It had been a week. The phone calls between Shannon and Tomo had stopped. Jared knew that meant Ella had left. No one had caught on yet. Hell, they probably all figured she was with him in this house making up for lost time. What he wouldn’t give to be upstairs tangled in the sheets with her.
Six years old and so far away.
Shannon had picked up on checking the downstairs bedroom at the house in the hills but Ella was never there. That was where she would go and wait for him to come find her.
On the ninth day Shannon went into Jared’s house in Malibu and let himself in. He didn’t tell Jared he was coming and didn’t need to because he knew the gate code. He got into the house easy enough with the spare key Jared had left him.
Shannon was expecting to find Jared and Ella in some sort of compromising position, he even grinned a little thinking of the new fodder he’d had for teasing his older brother. He scanned the first floor and found nothing. The second floor was clear until he found the master bedroom and any semblance of a smile faded from his face.
He sat on the bed in the master room cross legged looking down at Jared. He was just lying in abject silence on his side staring out the glass walls, half covered by blankets so disheveled he had to have abused them.
Shannon pushed Jared’s shoulder but go not response, not even a push back.
“There’ve been people calling about our plans you know. I’m trying my best to keep the VyRT in order and tell everyone you’re just really busy but I don’t have all the answers. They want to make an announcement about it soon.” Shannon was speaking quietly wondering if the limp form of his brother even heard him at all. “I need you back buddy.”
“Fuck VyRT.” He mumbled. “Fuck music. Fuck questions. Fuck me. Fuck everything.”
“J, you’ve gotta get out of this funk. You’ve been on your own here a week.”
He said nothing.
“Ella will come back, she always does J. You know this. She just needs some time.”
“It’s been nine days Shan. Nine days.”
The way Jared spoke, the way his voice sounded, it broke Shannon’s heart. All the pain and regret his little brother was experiencing had infiltrated those two sentences and broke Shannon’s heart. He put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and squeezed. Shannon started to sense there was something else going on.
“She’s not coming back.” Jared said quietly.
“Yes she will.”
“No. This is it. I’m so fucking stupid.” Finally he rolled onto his back and looked up at Shannon. “It’s all my fault Shan. She’s not coming back because of me and now all I’m left with is a handful of regrets.”
“She’ll come back.” Shannon said quietly. He couldn’t believe she would leave Jared like this.
“I should have told her, I should have said something. God knows I’ve tried Shannon. It just doesn’t work. It won’t ever work and I don’t know why.”
“What didn’t you tell her?”
Jared shook his head and looked out the window again. What was the point of talking about it anymore? He looked back at the concern written all over his older brother’s face and figured he deserved an explanation.
“That I love her. I mean I’ve told her that before but not how I want to. I can’t express it right. Everything is fucked up without her. I’m broken if she’s not around me. I’d rather have every bone in my body broken than lay here like this without her. I’ve felt like this since... since...” He couldn’t say it.
“Since your little girl.” Shannon finished for him.
Jared nodded. “Since then. I feel like I broke her when I gave in and decided to give her up. I destroyed something in her and that’s why we can’t work. She doesn’t forgive me for it. I feel like she had wanted me to try but was so scared to admit it. I should have seen it then, should have known that we should have given it a shot and not taken the easy route. The easy route that’s so much harder now. I was so fucking stupid Shan. I shouldn’t be a father without my child.”
“You both did the right thing.” Shannon said rubbing Jared’s arm. “It was right no matter how it feels now.”
“No it wasn’t.” Jared shook his head and sat up before leveling his eyes with Shannon’s. “She left me.”
The gravity of his younger brother’s words sunk in. He couldn’t say anything. This hadn’t been a normal fight. Ella had finally ended it.
“She’s gone Shan. She told me she was done.” He sobbed leaning forward into his brother’s chest. “Told me she couldn’t bear to be around me anymore and left.”
Shannon pulled Jared tight to his chest and let the sobs rack his little brother. He held him so tight like he was trying to keep him from falling apart. The truth was Jared had fallen apart a long time ago, no one had seen it until Ella left. Shannon felt tears in his eyes for his brother’s pain, for Ella’s absence, for his own anger.
How could she leave like that? Leave his little brother a mess like this and not say goodbye to anyone else. Why would she be that cold? Shannon knew Ella had a hard time expressing emotions but this was something else. Something had changed in Ella that Shannon couldn’t recognize.

Jared was functioning again but that was it. He only had a mind for work. Emma was worried out of her mind for him but she said nothing. Once she had asked him if he was alright and he burst into tears in a room full of people. Tomo had to pick him up under the arms and carry him out of the room. Emma didn’t want to ever see him like that again so she never asked how he was feeling. It was worse than seeing him break things in the backyard. He was so helpless and no one could do anything.
The amount of work that got done was astonishing despite Jared’s unstable mental state. Jared plotted and planned his way to April and got a second VyRT going where they showcased new music, almost set the house on fire, and answered questions. It was scary how well he pretended he was perfectly fine.
If Jared wasn’t working -which was extremely rare- he was at the house in Malibu. Babu was staying in the guest house because Jared had offered it to him but really he was there to keep and eye on Jared. Everyone around the man was worried for his mental health. He refused to stop working, refused to sleep, refused to talk about anything other than work. The only thing that existed for him, the only thing that kept him going was the knowledge that other people depended on him. He couldn’t lie down and wait for Ella to come back to him like he wanted to do. He had to keep moving forward, he had to be a shell if nothing else.

“Why isn’t Jared answering his phone. Why are you answering his phone?” Terry sounded confused.
“Jared’s asleep. He hasn’t slept for I don’t know how long. I took his phone.” Shannon explained. “What’s up?”
“I needed to talk to him.”
“He’s asleep.” Shannon reiterated. “What was it about?”
“Ella.”
Shannon froze. That name hadn’t been said in months around the house. His mouth went dry. “Hang on.”
Emma looked curiously at Shannon as he got up and walked out of the room. Shannon went out the front of the house and climbed into one of his cars. He shut the door and locked it just as a precaution. “What about her?”
“She’s with me.”
“How long has she been in New York?”
“I don’t know. She won’t talk about it. She only showed up Tuesday last week. I haven’t had a moment to call.”
“And you were going to tell him this?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad I got the call.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t need to know this.”
“But she’s here. We can get them together again. We can fix him.” Terry sounded like his dream was being crushed.
“She has to want it. If you had told him where she was he’d be there in a matter of hours. Ella would run from him. I would have to collect what was left of my little brother from the floor. I can’t do that.”
Terry was silent.
“I can’t let him lose anymore of himself.” Shannon had tears in his eyes. “I worry about him when I leave. Emma’s here of course, but I worry. He won’t talk to me about her anymore. I used to be able to get him to sometimes. He only talks about work now and only when there’s a group of people. He doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore. He’s scared.”
“Is he catatonic?”
“No, he still functions.” Shannon took a deep breath. “He might even be getting better. I just wish he’d talk about his pain. It’s hardening him. I don’t want him to become a bitter old man.”
“He won’t. Not as long as you’re there for him.”
“Has she mentioned him?”
“No.”
“Ask her about him. At the risk of her disappearing from us again, ask her. She might have come back because she’s looking for a way to get back to Jared. Maybe...”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to scare her off.”
“Terry, how would it make anything any different? She’s been off the maps for three months. Jared’s busy with the band’s ten year anniversary event and he won’t ever know if she came so close as to talk to you. Hell, we could just pass this off as a dream if she ran.”
Terry was thinking.
“She’s not there is she?”
“No, I was thinking.”
“Talk to her. Please.”
“I’ll try it.”

Jared froze when he saw her. Everything in his body went on high alert. His pupils dilated, muscles tensed, nostrils flared. He wasn’t sure if he was going to cry or shout. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or angry. She’d left him bereft for eight months. For eight months he suffered in pain and he was only just starting to feel himself again. Now she was standing awkwardly in front of him in a grocery store.
He put down the apples he’d just selected and watched her carefully to see if she was going to run. He could tell from her expression this was an accident. He had come in to buy a few apples as a snack and head back to Terry’s apartment after. What were the chances that they would meet in this grocery store when she could have been anywhere in the world?
“Ella.” His voice was raw.
“Jared.”
He swallowed. “Nice to see you.”
“The same.”
They stood awkwardly.
“You don’t normally eat red apples.” She said quietly.
“I wanted something bitter.” He responded picking one back up and then flickering his eyes to her.
“You’ve had enough bitter in your life.” Her voice was still quiet.
Jared’s mouth twitched but he said nothing. Ella walked away from him and he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. What was he feeling? He wanted to curl up on the floor and cry but then he wanted to punch a wall. The conflict in emotions caused him to walk too quietly and calmly back to Terry’s. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He sat down forgetting about the apples he’d bought and stared out over the skyline thinking. He didn’t notice it get dark. He didn’t notice Terry come in, take a shower, and come back out to check on him.
“Are you okay?” Terry asked.
“I saw Ella.”
“Oh.”
“She was in the grocery down the street.”
Terry said nothing.
“Did you know she was here?”
“I thought she’d left.” Terry said sidestepping the question.
“I did too.”
“Your apples have gone bad.” Terry said pointing to the now browning apples.
Jared gave them a cursory glance before looking towards the now black window. His reflection was there rather than the skyline but he didn’t see it.
“Do you have a number for her?”
“You never tried her cell phone?”
“Does it still work?”
“I... I don’t know.” Terry didn’t want to answer Jared. He didn’t want Jared to know they’d been keeping the knowledge of Ella’s whereabouts a secret from him.
“I never tried it after she left. Never thought of it.” He said taking out his phone.
He scrolled through his contacts and found her name. Terry left when he saw Jared hit the call button.

They were sitting in a small cafe corner on a bright California day. This was one of several talks they’d had. All the things they had to go over were so heavy it couldn’t be done in one sitting. Ella was back in California for the time being. She’d been staying in a hotel for the last few days so she and Jared could meet for about an hour a day and talk. They were getting through the last of their issues with one another. Jared’s list much longer than Ella’s.
“So we can’t ever be friends again then?” Jared asked tentatively.
“Odds are no.” She said quietly.
“But you’re moving back here?”
“Yes.”
“And we’ll see each other more?”
“Yes.”
“So are we friends?”
“No.”
“Will we be?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re still the sun to me.”
“I know. And you’re mine.”
“That’s why we can’t be friends?”
“Yes.”
“But we’ll try.” This wasn’t a question.
Ella nodded.