Time After Time

“I have a feeling that you’re actually the one who deserved this trip, Gab.”

“Yes…and no.”

Summer was coming and North Wollongong Beach was filled with people. Some were sunbathing, some surfing, some other just wanted to lie lazily under the sun like Gabriella and Rose. Gabriella’s boyfriend, Dan, was surfing with some of his band mates so the girls were in charge of attending their stuffs. Gab was lying on her stomach, reading some music magazine with band members on its cover, while Rose was just sitting, watching the beach as if she was never going back to Australia after this.

“I mean, Rose,” the lying girl turned another page from her magazine. “There’s a very big chance that you will meet Young Guns’ friends—and by friends, I mean, another bands, which is really cool.”

Rose nodded slowly. She felt like she should study their faces, their names, and what kind of song they make, their album names, and so much more, just so she wouldn’t offend them by not knowing who they are.

“It’s cool—except that I don’t know them,” she sighed.

Gabriella chuckled, “Yeah, you don’t. I’ll give you the list, though, so you know when you hear their names, you can go, ‘Ohhh, my best friend is your biggest fan! Can you please sign this and write her name, please?’.”

Rose laughed, “You know I’d do that for you.”

“Don’t forget to tell me how they act in their natural habitat,” Gabriella nodded.

Rose laughed a little louder.

“I just feel a little stupid for not learning about this kind of thing when I have time,” she said, half jokingly.

Gabriella huffed, “That’s because the almighty Mr Michael—and pretty much all old, gross men you somehow dated—always brought you to fancy schmancy music show where you need to dress to watch them in luxury place like…oh, I don’t know…Sydney Opera House?”

Rose shoved Gabriella on the shoulder (“He’s only eight years older!” Rose argued) and they both laughed.

“Don’t worry about that, Rosey. You’re just different. Maybe that’s why you’re so interesting—and clueless, really, when it comes to this,” Gabriella had finished reading the magazine and taking another one (Rose never knew where she got the money to buy extensive numbers of music magazines). “I mean, you know, do you remember when I found out that your new neighbour is Gus and that he was in your house only on his short?”

The red-haired girl nodded, “You screamed so loud I thought Gilbert from next door would think I just slaughter you with a fork.”

Gabriella chuckled, “Well, what do you say? That was the last thing I’d expect from you—having the bloke I’m very well acquainted to see in a rock magazine standing half-naked in your corridor. Sure, you date weird guy all the time and you have this old woman vibe, so I kind of understand why you were with this lawyer dude whose now in Victoria—then Michael, a surgeon and a totally awesome as a person only that I can only think of him as a father, only that he was dating you and it's totally weird. But then…Gustav Wood? Of Young Guns? Rock star is a little different from lawyer or surgeon, I must say, but somehow you get along very well with him anyway.”

Rose smiled shyly, “I don’t know, Gab. I didn’t mean any of this to happen.”

“Of course you don’t,” Gabriella sat next to her best friend and smirked. “Hey, hear me out, okay?” Rose stared at the girl next to her and nodded. “You, Rose Lette, have to take a good care of yourself once you fly on that plane. You’ll meet a lot of awesome people—and most importantly, Rose, you’re going to get their signatures for me.”

Rose laughed but then Gabriella continued.

“And…” she took a little sigh. “Just follow your heart for once, okay? I know you for a very long time and I know, don’t even try to deny it, that all you do is trying to help other people—you please them and you almost always take yourself out of the equation. You moved out so you won’t bother Angela, you don’t contact me very often because you know I have things going on with me—work, Dan, just life in general, and I know that you probably go to England for their sake. But, Rose, darling, think of this life as the only chance you have to do things not only for others, but also for yourself. It’s a long life. Anyone says life is short is silly—living is the longest thing anyone will ever do. If you feel like staying with him would make you happy, you don’t have to go back for the sake of me—of Angela, of people you know here.”

The redhead girl nodded reluctantly.

“But I like you,” Rose finally muttered and Gabriella laughed.

“I know that, Rosey,” she was still chuckling. “I like you too. I really like you—you’re the greatest friend I could ever ask even though anyone can see that we’re pretty different. Which is why because I like you, I want you to be happy, even if that means we can’t see each other too often.”

Rose nodded once again and Gabriella gave her a hug, which Rose replied very tightly. They pulled back, smiled at each other, and Gabriella took one of her music magazine and showed Rose the cover, where some guys stood in front of dark background and behind letters about what’s inside the magazine.

“Now this…” Gabriella gestured to the cover while Rose stared at it intensively. “You’re going to meet them and I know that you will because I saw Gustav’s photo with the vocalist, which is right here in the front—make sure you get his signature for me—and his name is…”



Five days before the flight to London, Rose had finished most of her to-do list before leave. She visited Angela; packed all the clothes she needed; and contacted her workplace. Coming home from her workplace for the last time before the flight, Rose made herself lunch. Young Guns was busy with their own business to be done before they leave as well, mostly contacting people in England and arranging the process of surgery and what would they do afterward, like start writing song, recording session, and so on. After Rose finished her lunch, she went out to visit a place and happened to meet Gustav who was sitting on Gilbert’s house porch, doing nothing but sit and watch the sky.

“You guys done?” she asked as she moved toward him.

Gustav smiled upon seeing her and he nodded. “Hey,” he grinned, patting the space next to where he currently sat. Rose spoke, “Oh, I’m going somewhere. I just thought I could check you guys a little.”

“Oh,” Gustav responded, eyebrows furrowed. “Where are you going?”

“It’s…a place down under. My parents used to live there for a while before I was born and I lived near the place for a while with a relative before I started to get moved around so…I thought I pay a visit or something,” she answered. Rose didn’t know why, but there was something in Gustav’s expression as he heard that.

He looked down a for a while and when he finally looked up upon her once again, he said, “Can I come with you?”



“So, Gustav, how are you feeling?”

Rose was driving down farther to South when she asked Gustav the question that made the Young Guns’ front man shuffled in discomfort a little bit. He smiled but it was clear that he was worried. “It’s…okay, I guess,” he took a deep breath. “I mean, I’m nervous. I’m very nervous, but I’m excited and happy as well. I guess everyone would be nervous if they were about to get their throat sliced, so…” he shrugged.

Rose smiled in sympathy and after making sure that the street was pretty much empty, she patted Gustav in the shoulder gently.

“It will be okay, Gustav. I’m going to stay with you all the way through it.”

He squeezed Rose’s hand and nodded, “Thank you, Rose. It means a lot to me.”

The car took a right turn and they arrived in a little street with shops in aged building on their sides. The place looked like an old little town with people who doesn’t even bothered to renovate their building massively or simply change the architecture style. Rose drove a little further until they reached smaller streets where she stopped the car. The street looked like any normal street with houses, some trees, cars parked in front of them, and more stuffs upon the yellowing grass on the yard, but Gustav knew that this place was just not any other place for Rose.

They walked to a house boarded with wood planks.

“My uncle used to live here,” she mumbled. “He had one kid on his own. He was also the one who sold my family’s house right away once he got me.” Rose stood still and didn’t move closer to the house. Gustav felt like this house probably keeps a lot of unhappy memory for her.

Nodding, he said, “So…where was your parents’ house?”

Rose turned and pointed at the end of the road. But there was nothing there.

“It used to be there,” she whispered and Gustav felt like she wasn’t there anymore. She was somewhere in the past.

Rose walked there and he followed her, rather worrying whether it was okay for her to get back here. When they got there, she just stood there for almost full five minutes before she smiled and looked at him, as if Rose just realised that Gustav was there all along. What made him surprised was the she looked like she was about to cry.

“The first thing I remember happened here,” she said, voice hoarse. “I was probably four or five. I remember my uncle’s daughter, Lily. She was angry with me because I wore her coat. The thing she didn’t know was that my uncle gave the coat to me as an apology because he sold the house and he was about to give me away to another relative.”

Rose chuckled, but her eyes were wet.

“I remember Lily’s anger. I remember that I feel scared. I remember she was trying to take the coat away from me and I resisted. Winter was coming and I had lost my wardrobe—I had lost everything, my parents, my house…everything.”

Now she was smiling, biting her low lip in order to prevent herself from crying.

“I resisted and I swore to God I had never been so scared or so angry or so lonely. The next thing was that she was after me. She was six or seven so she was bigger than me. She was crying but I was crying too. I felt like she doesn’t understand me—no one ever would. That was the first time I realise that I was alone that people would always throw me away without ever consider how I feel about it.”

Rose gulped. She didn’t cry. She watched the planked house and proceeded.

“I ran. Lily was behind me. I ran and I cried and I remember I was running here, calling my parents—calling my father and my mother. I remember people were watching. I remember calling them until my throat was burning and my voice was shaking. I screamed their name even though it was hurt. I remember trying to desperately having them around even though I had already knew that…they would never hear me.

“They are dead and they are not coming back, no matter how desperately I called them.

“I called them anyway, running here. In the end, my uncle got me and dragged me to his house and practically locked me until my distant aunt came to take me next morning. I don’t remember much about anything else around that age. But I remember the loneliness. I was alone for a very long time—but then I found people.”

Rose didn’t happen to cry. She stroked her eyes rather harshly and she smiled a big, happy smile afterward.

“I was so unfortunate. But now…I’m the happiest person in the world. I’m about to go to England. I have wonderful mother, great friends, a house, job…” she looked up to stare at Gustav, who suddenly felt like the one who wanted to cry. “…And I have you.”

She hugged him for a short period—tiny, chuckling Rose Lette—and then stared back at him again.

“I want to go back to my the place where my life was crumbling into a pit so I can appreciate how beautiful it feels like to be up there, happy and content,” she explained, and then stepped back. “I hope you understand that you’re making me very happy, Gustav Wood, and I would give the world to you for that.”

He was stoned.

“I…yeah,” was the only thing he managed to say to her for the rest of the day.

They went home afterward. Gustav said almost nothing and trying to act like everything was normal once he was back with his best friends, but when he was alone again in bed at night, before he drifted to sleep, he thought about his little runaway of his who was about to come to an end. He was never very lucky, but he had his moment. Losing his ability to sing was probably the unluckiest moment in his life, but even when that happened, he still had his friends and family, not to forget fans that supported him and didn’t look at him differently just because he was no longer useful. He was never alone in his pit of darkness where life had thrown him.

But Rose was.

Little Rose was.

He closed his eyes and he saw little Rose, running away from a faceless, mean little girl named Lily. She was crying and she was calling for her parents—her dead parents, the only thing she had in the world.

Gustav never felt that alone. He would never know how does it feel to be really alone in this world. But there was one thing he knew.

He would never let her feel that way ever again in the rest of her life.