Back Into Your Arms

Chapter 33

Life without Mel

After being rejected so many times, I finally stopped going to the hospital.
Julie would call me to let me know how she was doing but one day the calls stopped. My number had been blocked too.
I felt stuck, frustrated, angry.

I wouldn’t eat, I hardy slept at night. I just wanted to see her, to hold her, to make sure she was alright. I wondered if her broken bones were healing, I wonder if her scars were disappearing, if her memory was coming back to her.

My parents were miserable, they didn’t know how to help me, or what to say to me. My younger brothers were sad too, I wasn’t paying much attention to them.

My friends were concerned for me, they would come over and try to comfort me but nothing was working. Nothing was working until they brought the instruments over.

“C’mon, here’s your guitar, if you won’t talk to us about what you are feeling that’s okay, but express it somehow otherwise it’s going to eat you up” Garett said handing me my guitar. I couldn’t deny it, I had missed the guitar dearly.

“We’ll see” I told them setting the guitar down and they nodded saying they would be back tomorrow.

At first I just looked at the guitar there, but before the sun had set, it was already in my hands.
The songwriting began and it didn’t stop, songs just pouring out, melodies coming out of my mouth.
I didn’t want to write about her, I didn’t feel it would be right. I’d be writing about things she wouldn’t be able to remember.

So instead, I discreetly wrote things about her in my songs.
The guys began to come over more often and we began to see our songs coming to life.

Writing music distracted me for a while from Melody but at the end of the night, when everyone was gone, she would come back to mind.

We hadn’t broken up, we had been broken apart.
It was harder to get over someone in that situation, I was forced to get over her, it wasn’t something I wanted to do.
The months went on, and on.

Our band got discovered. We got a record deal too.
We were ecstatic, Fearless Records was a big deal.

I stopped thinking about Melody.

She was gone and there was nothing I could do about it, I tried meeting other girls and got into relationships with girls I would later regret dating, I did this all to try and forgot Melody.

We released an EP and then the writing for the full-length album began.

It was then, that Melody creeped into my head again.
I had a talk with the producer.

“I want to write about my ex-girlfriend”

“Then?”

“We had a very difficult parting, I don’t think songs about that will fit into the record”

“Well…write about the happy moments. I’m sure you had plenty”

“That’s true…”

“Go on, write some songs and come show them to me, I’ll tell you if they are good enough for the album’s theme”

I remember going straight home and pouring out my soul.
I called the guys over, and played them the songs.
Pat wasn’t in tears, but he had gotten emotional.

“I don’t know about the rest of the guys but, they were great, they have to go on the album”

I looked over at the rest of the guys.

Jared nodded.

“I couldn’t agree more, let’s start working on them”

“I think you’re doing her justice with these songs” Kennedy nodded.

Garett just remained quiet.

“I miss her” he finally spitted out. I remember giving him a sad smile.

Who didn’t miss her, she was sunlight.

I played the songs to the producer and he was impressed.

“I really like them, I think one of these can even be your first single actually”

“Which one?”

“Into Your Arms, thought I don’t see how you both were in bars” he said and chuckled.

“I changed the lyrics to make them more easy to relate to by the older crowd, I didn’t think people would relate to the whole meeting in high school setting” I said feeling a bit shy, I had also changed the lyrics so that if she were able to remember me one day, she would have a hard time trying to figure out if the song was about her.
He clapped his hands together.

“That was a brilliant idea! The rest of the songs are excellent too, we should get started!”
And so, we did.

Into Your Arms was a hit and so were the other songs, we began touring, we had fans, we had other friends from other bands. I had a new girl, life had completely changed and I was beginning to feel good again and my life continued liked that for a long while.

The band was my main priority, writing music was all I did on my free time.

We released our second album.

It had already been almost 4 years since I had last seen Mel. I wondered about her sometimes.

I would catch myself sometimes telling jokes she used to make.

Everything was fine until stress overcame me.

I started drinking a bit too much. My mom worried over me.

We released our third album.

It was before our 4th album that I fell into depression.
Life had just become this stressful, pointless thing.
I had started hanging out with the wrong crowd, more drinking, more sadness.

Loneliness had become my friend.
I couldn’t even pinpoint when it had started.
I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling so down.
I thought life was never going to resolve.
Even music wasn’t worth it.

I tried taking my life then.

We were staying at a hotel, we had played a show in Europe.
I remember everyone was going out to eat and have some drinks.

“You’re staying?” I remember Kennedy asking me.

I nodded explaining to him that I wasn’t hungry. He seemed a bit concerned but he nodded and left out the door with the rest of them.

I was alone.

Alone in this huge building, up on 24th floor.
The silence was eerie. I began to feel anxious, pacing back and forth. I quickly turned the TV on so that it would kill the silence, but even the TV didn’t help. I felt the anxiety crushing against my chest, I couldn’t breathe. I quickly walked over to the door and slid it open to the balcony.

I ran over to the rail, trying to catch my breath, trying to breathe but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t do this anymore and for a moment, I thought about jumping off.

I thought about how great it would feel to just stop, for my thoughts to simply just stop. I thought about how it could all just end here, tonight.

I looked up and saw the beautiful night sky, and looked down and saw the whole world going on without me. No one knew what was happening up to me at that moment, no one knew about what I wanted to do.

My family right away came to mind.

My mom, my dad, Shane and Ross.

They would be in so much pain.
I closed my eyes, stepping away from the rail.

It was then that I saw her, I hadn’t thought about her in such a long time but there she was, clear in my mind.

If I died tonight, so would our memories. I was the only one who had those memories left. If I died tonight, she would never see me again.

I imagined what she would tell me if she saw me in this position.

“Breathe O’Callaghan”
And so, I did.

“Tonight, is not the night”

“Will it even matter?” I fought back.

“Everything matters John, every moment is important in our lives, even the difficult moments, regardless of how pleasant and painful they may be, even what happened between us is important, you wouldn’t the man you are today if it hadn’t happened”

Even the Melody in my mind was making more sense than me.

“Please, you don’t want to die tonight” she said to me, her voice so delicate and soft, it was almost as if she were there with me, how could her voice sound so real? I remember bursting into tears and going back inside the room.

When the guys came back I told them everything. We talked it out, we cried it out, I started going to therapy and it the matter of time I had finally overcome that time in my life.

I remember telling the Psychiatrist how Mel had saved my life, I remember her smiling, and I remember she asked if I had thought about looking for her.

I told her it was pointless but she shook her head.

“She inspired the words you thought of that night, she had such a huge influence in you, you should thank her for that"

I hadn’t fully explained to her that Melody had forgotten about me, I thanked my psychiatrist for the idea and went on my way.
But her idea sparked a fire in me.

I looked for her everywhere I went.

It was on the second day of January of 2015 that I spotted Julie.

“I think I just saw Julie” I said to the guys. We were all eating dinner, and I simply jumped out of the chair and ran.

It was Julie and I was sure of it. I ran until I caught up to her, pulling her back. She jumped startled.

“Can I help you?” she said and then her eyes went wide recognizing me.

“Oh my gosh” she wheezed out.

“Julie, it is you, I knew it”

“John”

“Do you still talk to Mel?”

“Melody? Uh, no” she said looking around anxiously, almost as if Mel was going to come out of nowhere.

“Where is she now? Does she live here?”

“I really have to go, I’m in a big hurry right now, but it was nice seeing you again” she said and quickly began walking away from me.

“Julie wait!” I yelled after her but she pretended not to hear me. Garett had walked out of the restaurant.

“What happened was it her?”

“It was her for sure, but she wouldn’t tell me about Melody”

“That’s pretty harsh of her”

“Yeah, but I think she still talks to Mel”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“I never looked Julie up online”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Garret said taking out his phone, looking up Julie on Facebook.

“Found her” he said handing me over his phone.

“Are you serious? It was that easy to find Julie?”

“Yup”

We went back to the restaurant and I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled and there wasn’t much.

It was then that I noticed she was advertising her friends cooking school.

Mel always wanted a cooking school.

I clicked on it without hesitation, quickly went on the about section and it was then that I saw the first picture of Mel as a 20 something year old woman.

“I found a picture of Mel” I said to the guys, they quickly crowded around me.

She was smiling sweetly in her photo, it looked like the photo had been taken outside because you could see the New York skyline in the background.

She was wearing minimal makeup, she looked older but so full of life.

“Wow” I heard Pat whisper.

“Dude it says there that her school is here in New York City, it even gives you the freaking address” Garett pointed out.

“I’m already looking for it” I heard Kennedy add.

“It’s 15 minutes away”

My stomach began to turn.

“No, no, we are not going to go look for her”

“Why the hell not?” Jared complained.

“I’m not ready”

“It’s been 8 years; don’t you at least want to see her?”

“Look at me!” I complained. My hair was long, since I had decided to grow it out.

“Hey it was your decision to grow out your hair” Garret said and laughed.

“I have a freaking mustache, I bet that’s why Julie ran away”

The guys laughed.

“Then go cut your hair and go see Melody”

“I just don’t think it’s the right time quite yet”

“Fine, whatever you say” Pat said a bit disappointed.

I wanted to see Melody so badly, but I wanted her to meet me when I was doing better in life. We were just finishing our 5th album and then would go on tour, I wanted to be in a better place when she saw me.

“I will look for her next year” I promised myself and I spent the rest of that year anxiously waiting, replaying in my head over and over how glorious that day would be.
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Hope you guys enjoyed his little insight on what John was up to these past 10 years! Thank you to everyone who has been commenting, keep them coming! Subscribe and much love to you all!