How (Not) to Start a Year

“Jeordie, please pick up. I know this is your current number. You may not be talking to me, but you’re talking to John. Bet you didn’t know that I’m still talking to him, did you? Anyway, he gave me this number and-” The beep signaled the end of the message. I sighed. I had wanted to say a lot more. But I was getting tired of trying. This was my fifth call in three days. If Jeordie wanted to talk to me, he would’ve returned one of my calls by now.
“Still shutting you out?” John was standing in the doorway. He came over a lot, these days. Now that he wasn’t in the band, we were getting along a lot better.
I nodded. “It’s been so many years. How can he still hold a grudge?”
John’s eyes said it all. Without words, I knew exactly what he was thinking. If I hadn’t been such a selfish, arrogant, unbelievable creep to him, he would still be in the band. He would still be my best friend.
“I miss him so much.”
“I know you do.”
“Do you think he misses me at all?”
John seemed to think. I could tell by the way he avoided my eyes that he knew a lot more than he was going to admit on this topic. He took his cell phone out of his pocket. “Here. Call him with my phone. He’ll probably hate me, but you deserve the chance to at least get to hear his voice.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. You’re a good friend to him. I don’t want to disrupt that.”
“Okay. How about if I call him on speakerphone?”
“You’d do that?”
“Sure.” John closed the door to my apartment, and sat down next to me on the couch. He dialed a number, turned on the speakerphone, and sat the phone down on the coffee table in front of us.
“Hello, John.”
My heart fluttered wildly against my ribcage. It had been so long since I’d heard his beautiful voice.
“Hi, Twigs. Er, Jeordie.”
There was amused laughter on the other end of the line. “It’s okay. I guess Twiggy will always be a part of me.”
“How are you?”
“The same. You?”
“Doing great. Are you sure you don’t want to come in for that audition with Rob? He really wants you.”
“Yeah. I don’t think I could do it. I mean, musically, sure, but emotionally…”
“Okay. No pressure.”
“It was nice of you to suggest me, though.”
“Sure. So…I was talking to Marilyn…”
“Please don’t.”
“But, Jeordie-”
“No. He keeps calling me, John. Calling and calling. He won’t stop. Can’t you make him stop? I can’t take much more. I’m going to have to change my number. I can’t believe you gave it to him, after everything we talked about.”
“I thought he deserved a chance to make peace.”
“There’s never going to be peace. He broke my heart, John. I told you that. I don’t want to ever see him or talk to him again. You have no idea how much it still hurts. It’s been years, and still, it feels like a fresh wound. He was the biggest part of my life, and then…” I could tell that he was getting choked up. John held his hand over my mouth, as he could sense that I was about to blow my cover.
“It’s okay. I’ll tell him to stop.”
“Thank you.”
“So…what are you doing?”
“Talking to you.”
“Besides that.”
“Uh…looking through the photo album. Again.”
“Jeordie, why? You know it depresses you. You’re not going to start doing drugs again, are you? You know how hard rehab was the first time.”
I was shocked. I’d had no idea. In my narrow mind, Jeordie hadn’t had a drug problem. Of course, I guess, upon thinking about it, he had. So had I.
“No. I just don’t want to forget everything good, you know? When he keeps calling me, it depresses me. I need to have fonder memories, I guess.”
“Well, I’m having a New Year’s party. It’s kind of short notice, but I didn’t really plan this ahead of time. Do you think you might come?”
“Who else did you invite?”
“Oh, just some friends. And their friends.”
“Will Brian be there?”
“I didn’t invite him.”
That sounded like a cover up if ever I’d heard one. As soon as he hung up the phone, he was going to invite me. I could tell by the way he was looking at me.
“Okay. Sure. I haven’t been out in awhile. What time?”
“You can come anytime. We can just hang out. But the party will start around nine.”
“Nine. Got it. Talk to you later, 5.”
John hung up and switched off the speakerphone. “So, you want to come to this party? I’m kind of having it for the two of you. It’s been almost six years. In two days, it will be.”
“Yes. Of course. Thank you, John. Thank you so much. I promise, I won’t waste this opportunity.”
“I know you won’t. But remember, I’m doing this for both of you. That’s important.”
I nodded, though I didn’t really understand. I was suddenly struck with a question that had been on my mind for several minutes. “You knew that Jeordie went to rehab?”
“Yeah. He kind of asked me not to tell anyone.”
“Are you the only one who knows?”
“Not exactly. I told Kenny.”
“But it’s just the two of you that know?”
“I’m honestly not sure. Does it matter?”
“I suppose not. I just can’t believe he went though that alone.”
“It’s what he wanted. He said that it was his chance to start over clean, with a clean slate. He did it before he joined A Perfect Circle.”
“I figured.”
“Back to the party…can you help me? I don’t have anything. And there’s no guest list.”
“Sure. We can totally do this.”
Two hours later, we had lists of what we’d need to buy, what we’d need to do, and who we wanted to invite. John started with the invitations while I gathered up whatever snacks I had squirreled away that we could use.
Another two hours later, and we had sixteen people coming to the party. Not so many that you’d be lost in a crowd, but enough that I wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb the minute Jeordie walked in, giving him a reason to bolt before I’d had a chance to say my piece.
As a thank you, I took John out to dinner. I really couldn’t do enough to thank him for even the chance to see Jeordie again. I’d begun to give up hope, and now, it was renewed. I had a chance to get him back.
The next evening, John had me come over to help him set up around six. We were just finishing up around eight when the doorbell rang. John looked out of the peephole, and flashed me a thumbs up. Luckily, we had planned this all out in advance. I went into John’s room, waiting to ambush my former best friend. It was rather mean, but the only way to be sure I actually had a chance to talk to him.
I could hear voices in the other room. I sat down on the edge of the bed. Even though a door, I could recognize Jeordie’s voice. God, he was so close. Too close to lose him now.
Footsteps approached the closed door. Jeordie’s boots. He still wore combat boots. I wondered, briefly, if he still wore a dress sometimes, too.
“But, John, why are the party hats in your bedroom?”
“Just get them, will you? There’s a big bag on the floor of my closet.”
As the doorknob turned, my heart hammered in my chest. This was it. My one and only chance.
The minute Jeordie had stepped into the room, before he could even turn on the light, John slammed and locked the door from the outside.
“John! What are you doing?! I don’t like this! Let me out!”
“Nothing doing. Now, talk.”
“Talk? To your closet?”
“Hardly. Turn on the light and turn around.”
“John Lowery, what are you doing to me?”
“Just do it, Twiggy. I’m not going to let you out.”
Bewildered, my former bassist turned on the light, and turned to face me.
Just the sight of him was enough to make me melt completely. I felt myself tearing up. Damn it, I didn’t want to cry. I never cried. Well…not in a long time. Except for when it came to Jeordie. He was just about the only thing that could reduce me to tears.
“Brian.” He said my name as if it were a bitter pill he was being forced to swallow.
“Hello, Jeordie.”
“What is this? I wouldn’t talk to you, so you talked John into tricking me into seeing you?”
“No. No tricks. This was John’s idea.”
“What? Why?”
“He feels sorry for us. Both of us.”
“Not me. I’m happy. I’m so much better off without you. I never think about you. Not in years. Everything of yours, or ours, I burned long ago. You’re nothing to me. You will never be anything to me again. I thought that I made that clear the day I got on the plane.”
I bowed my head. “I’m so sorry, Jeordie. I know that I can’t take back all of the awful things I said to you the night before you left, but I didn’t mean them. I never meant them. You were my best friend. I loved you. I still do.”
“You know what? I loved you, too. Right up until you called me all of those horrible things. All I ever did was try to please you, but I was never good enough. You had your chance with me.”
The tears that had been threatening to fall were starting to work their way down my cheeks. “I don’t know why I wanted this so badly. You have no intention of forgiving me, do you?”
“No.”
“Nothing I could do or say would change that, would it?”
“No.”
I sighed, wiping away my tears. “This was never what I wanted. I thought we would be together forever. I believe you promised me that, many years ago. Didn’t you once say that you would never leave me?”
“Perhaps.”
“Not perhaps. You said the words, Jeordie. You made me believe that you were different, that you would be the one person who stayed in my life for always. And then, just like everyone else, the minute things got uncomfortable, you bailed.”
“I stayed so much longer than I should have.”
“Yes, you did. You stayed long enough to get me so attached to you that it broke me into tiny little fractured pieces when you walked away. You broke my heart, Jeordie White.”
His pale face softened. He ran a hand through his shoulder length black hair. “You broke mine, too.”
“Can’t we heal each other? It’s been almost six years. I miss you so much. I want you back in my life more than I actually want to live.”
Jeordie gave the tiniest hint of a smile. His beautiful dark eyes were glittering with little gold flecks, a sign of his happiness.
“Please be my best friend again. Come back to me. Come back to the band.”
“That’s a lot to ask.”
“I know. Consider it, at least?”
He sat down on the bed next to me, and gently patted my arm. “So, you finally figured out that the band sucks without me, huh?”
I laughed, and nodded.
Jeordie leaned his head over onto my shoulder. I hadn’t expected him to be affectionate, but I wasn’t about to tell him that it was probably inappropriate behavior. Instead, I tilted my head so that I could rest my cheek against the top of his head.
“Shall I ask John to let us out now?”
“Maybe we could have some fun with him, first. You know, it was pretty optimistic of him to assume that I’d forgive you.”
“I think he kind of figured that you would. He told me that he was doing this for both of us. He wanted me to know that you missed me as much as I missed you. You’re just twice as stubborn about it.”
“I don’t want to be hurt again.”
“I won’t hurt you ever again. I promise.”
“And I won’t leave you ever again, I promise.”
We hugged, and then, we came up with a plan for Jeordie to get even with John for locking him in the bedroom with me. As with writing music, it didn’t take us long. The guests hadn’t even started arriving by the time we’d hatched our plot.
Jeordie picked up a lamp and threw it at the door. “DIE! I HATE YOU! YOU DESTROYED MY LIFE!” He screamed the words, though his eyes were smiling. He was a very convincing actor. He always had been.
I handed him a candlestick. There was no telling why John had that in his room.
He threw that at the door, too. “DOES THAT HURT? DID I BREAK YOUR FACE? HUH? ARE YOU GONNA BACK OFF?”
I smiled, covering my mouth in case I started to laugh.
He found a bowling ball in the corner of the room. Since when did John bowl? He rolled it across the floor. “TAKE THAT! AHAHAHA! NOW YOU’RE AS UGLY ON THE OUTSIDE AS YOU ARE ON THE INSIDE!”
After throwing a few more items at the door and shouting crueler and crueler things, John finally opened the door, a panicked look on his face as it flew open. He was clearing expecting to find me either dead or close to it.
Laughing, Jeordie sat back down beside me, and gave me a high five.
“Sorry, Johnny, but you deserved it,” he grinned.
John growled a reply, and then, smiled. “So, you worked it out?”
“You could say that,” I replied, putting an arm around my friend.
“Well, let’s go have a party, then.”
We went back to the living room, and mingled with the arriving guests. It was actually a lot of fun. Even though people had clearly noticed that Jeordie and I were on speaking terms again.
Before we knew it, it was two minutes until midnight. Everyone was starting to pair up for their New Year’s kiss. Too bad I hadn’t thought to invite someone. Anyone. This was going to be embarrassing.
“All alone, cutie?”
I spun around to face Jeordie, who had finally come back from the bathroom. During his visit, he had changed out of the black jeans and purple shirt he’d had on, and was now wearing a silver sequined dress, gold lame tights, and the perfect amount of eye makeup.
“Don’t look so surprised. You said that you wanted Twiggy back. Well, here I am.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “You brought all of that stuff with you?”
“Sure. I was planning this long before I knew for sure that you’d be here.”
I raised an eyebrow. Well, what resembled one that had been drawn on with pencil, that is. “What do you mean ‘before you knew for sure that I’d be here’?”
“Well, I wasn’t as blindsided as I let on. I kind of figured when John said that he hadn’t invited you, you’d be here.”
“You’re pretty smart for a guy in a dress.”
Jeordie playfully slapped me. Everyone was counting down to midnight.
“So, Twigs…”
Jeordie put his arms around my neck and leaned in close enough for me to feel his warm breath. “Yes?”
“It’s almost midnight.”
“So, it is.”
“Twenty seconds.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Ten seconds.”
“Yep.”
“Five seconds.”
At that point, Jeordie placed a hand on either cheek, and pressed his lips to my own. He kissed just the way I remembered. Warm and sweet. He always tasted like candy, though I rarely ever saw him eat any.
Standing there with him at midnight, I couldn’t have been happier. It wasn’t the kiss that mattered to me. That was simply a trivial gesture. What was important was that I had my best friend back. This time, we were going to stick together forever. We would be the unstoppable force that would one day rule the world.