Baby, You Save Me

“It’s not a happy story.” I was still hesitating. Telling the truth meant that I was probably going to cry, and I didn’t want to open that can of worms unless Joe was prepared.

“That’s ok. Not every story has a happy ending. I’m just curious, and I promise I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to,” I looked at his face and I could tell that he was telling the truth. Well here goes nothing.

“The name in the butterflies is Daniel Miller. I met him when I was fifteen and we were inseparable. He’s about a year older than me, but we just kind of clicked. When I moved to California he stayed in Texas, but we were still super close. Like we would talk every night and take road trips to see each other all the time. He was my best friend in the whole world. He was the only one who knew everything about me. The good. The bad. He knew it all,” I could feel myself starting to choke up. I hadn’t talked about Dan in a while, because every time I do I have to deal with the pain all over again. “Then when I was sixteen he c-c-committed suicide,” I stumbled over the words but kept going, “I was looking for a way to let out the pain, and I decided to get a tattoo to remember him by.

“The butterflies symbolize a quote that I love. It says, ‘Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it turned into a butterfly’. And every so often when I’m having a really rough day, or an amazing one, I always see a butterfly that looks like the ones on my back. I know it’s Dan telling me that even though he left, he is still looking out for me.” I look up at Joe with eyes that were slightly watery.

“Oh babe, I’m so sorry,” He looked like he was in shock. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward him. I tucked my face into his neck and took gasping breaths to try to get the pain under control. It felt like someone had ripped my chest open and everything just hurt because I knew Dan wasn’t here to fix it.

Instead of giving into the pain, I fell back into the old routine of putting myself back together. I pushed the hurt down deep into a small corner of my soul and felt myself go numb. I knew from experience that my face was blank and probably looked lifeless, but this was my way of dealing with the pain. You just don’t deal with it. You push it under the surface.

I pulled myself away from Joe, and suddenly I felt so alone. “I’m sorry,” I awkwardly laughed. “I didn’t mean to dump all that on you tonight.”

“Don’t worry about it. I asked,” Joe rested his hand on my thigh. “I’m here anytime you want to talk about anything.”

“Thanks,” I knew I probably wouldn’t take him up on that offer. I don’t trust many people, so I don’t know why I even told him about Dan. “So what’s it like being a huge superstar?” I asked him trying to change the subject.

“It’s cool. I mean we get to travel the country and next year we are going on a world tour, so that will be amazing. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though. I mean you have no privacy what so ever, and every time you make a mistake it’s on the front page of every newspaper and magazine in town,” Joe explained. His hand was burning circles on my thigh. “It’s a lot of hotel rooms and not seeing the people you care about as much as you like.”

“That sounds hard. I feel like it would get really old and tiring after a while.”

“It does,” he continued. “I mean I still love the actual performing part of it. Being in front of a crowd who knows every word to every song you sing is the most incredible feeling. The traveling just takes a toll on your body though, so I have to a break from everything for a couple of months to remind myself of how much I love it.”

“It sounds lonely.”

“It can be,” he said quietly. “I mean I’m with my whole family, and a lot of our friends are singers so they come on tour with us, but Camilla is always somewhere doing her next movie. It’s hard for us to find time together, you know? And lately it feels like something is off. She just hasn’t been herself for a while, and we have been on the rocks for a while. We keep breaking up and then getting back together, and I have a feeling that it might end for good soon.” He rested his head in his hands, and this time it was my turn to comfort him.

I grabbed his hand with both of mine. My hands were so small compared to his! The two of mine could barely cover his. We sat there quietly for a little while longer. I yawned, and when Joe did too, I knew it was time to go.

“Ready to head out?” I asked.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

We stood up and made the journey back to my car. Joe directed me toward his apartment complex and I parked. We took the stairs to the second floor, and he fished around in his pockets for his keys.

“SHIT!” he yelled making me jump.

“What?”

“I left my damn keys in Kevin’s car,” he rubbed his face with his hands and ran them through his hair.

“Do you have a spare?” I asked him. Surely he has to have a spare. Everyone does.

“Yeah, but it’s at Camilla’s and she left for New York today. I guess we can go crash at Kevin’s or my parents.”

I sighed. “Don’t worry about it. I got this.” I rolled my eyes at his confused face and bent down and grabbed my pocked knife out of my cowboy boots.

I opened the thinnest of the knives, and knelt in front of the door handle. I carefully inserted the knife into the lock and gave it a few expert twists and turns. When I heard the lock click into place I stood, opened the door, and put my pocketknife back into my cowboy boots.

“How did you learn to do that?” Joe’s mouth was dropped to the floor.

“Close your mouth. It wasn’t that impressive,” I rolled my eyes again. “Are we going in or not?”

“We will when you tell me how you learned to do that,” he raised an eyebrow.

“I was a bad kid when I was younger,” I sort of snapped at him. I know I shouldn’t have because he is being nice enough to let me, a total stranger, stay at his place, but I talked enough about my past for one night.

His eyes widened at my tone, but he accepted that as the end of the conversation and let me into his apartment. His apartment was amazing! It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough and had a very masculine feel to it. The furniture was new and slightly scattered throughout the apartment.

“It’s nice. I like it,” I smiled at him, hoping he would forget my earlier comment.

I watched his posture relax and a soft smile come over his face, “Thanks. I picked everything out, but my mom helped a lot. She knows more about decorating than I do. Come one, you can borrow some of my clothes.” I followed him down a hallway to his room. As we went to his room, he gave me a quick tour.

There was a small living room and kitchen where you first entered, and down the hallway there was a second bedroom that had been converted into a music studio. We reached his bedroom and he opened some drawers while I looked around. He had a bunch of posters on the walls and a ton of pictures of him with his family, a lot with him and Camilla, and some others with people that I didn’t recognize. There was an old, beat up notebook next to the bedside table, and I instantly knew that it was full of songs and lyrics. I have one just like it in an old barn back at Serendipity.

“What do you want? I have shorts, sweats…,” he trailed off looking at me.

“Umm, just give me whatever,” I laughed. “It really doesn’t matter to me.”

He handed me a pair of basketball shorts and an old Notre Dame t-shirt.

“Notre Dame?” I asked surprised.

“I got it a few years ago when my parents were making me and Kevin look at colleges. We toured it and some others. I got a t-shirt from every college that we looked at. It’s super comfy, and I love it for just hanging out.” He grinned.

“I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

“I’m not, but my parents really wanted us to go to some sort of religious school so that we would still have Christ in our lives. To help us avoid the ‘temptations of the college atmosphere’,” Joe used air quotes. “And it’s actually a pretty good school.”

I laughed, “Gotcha. Those temptations will get you every time.” I winked at him while I pulled my jeans off. Joe’s eyes widened and his cheeks flushed scarlet while I pulled his shorts on. “You ok?” I raised my eyebrow.

“Uh.. you…” he stuttered.

I swiftly pulled my shirt over my head, and replaced it with his. He was right! It is comfy.

“Joe, you’re acting like you’ve never seen a girl before,” I joked.

“Ha ha,” he said sarcastically rolling his eyes, “I’m just not used to girls changing in front of me. Usually they go to the bathroom or something,” he rubbed the back of his neck in an embarrassed fashion. “Anyway, I only have my bed so you can take that and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No, Joe. I’m not taking your bed. You can have it. I’m fine on the couch or on the floor. I’ve slept on much worse,” I said pointedly to him.

“No, AJ. You are a guest in my apartment. You will sleep in the bed.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No!”

“Dammit, AJ, stop being stubborn!” He growled at me. I had my arms crossed over my chest. Moving deliberately slowly, I grabbed a pillow from his bed and a blanket from the back of the chair and purposely lay down on the ground. Ha! That will show him to not tell me what to do.
Joe let out and exasperated sound and angrily pulled the second pillow the blanket off his bed and lay down on the ground next to me.

“Thanks for tonight. I had fun,” Joe shifted to his side so that he was facing me as he spoke.

“I did too. I’ve never taken anyone to the Hollywood sign,” I mused quietly as I too lay on my side.

“Really? Why not?”

“It just never happened I guess. I’ve never had anyone that I thought would appreciate it the way that I do,” I yawned. “I would have taken Jack, but he would have taken a million and half pictures, and I don’t know. It just seems like it would have ruined the integrity of it a little bit. You know?” I looked at him. His eyes were closed and he nodded sleepily, but that was the only response. I closed my eyes and let myself drift off into sleep.