Just Another Reason I Could Never Forget You

I would have married you in Vegas had you given me the chance to say ‘I do’.
It had been ten whole minutes since that line and I didn’t know how to feel. He had known, we all had, that I knew exactly what he’d said that weekend. That night. We’d all known that was one of the best weekends of my life too. But what was it supposed to prove? The memory of that weekend had haunted me after I’d left, knowing that despite all the drama that had followed, we’d all had fun, we’d all enjoyed ourselves, and Alex had loved me. I wanted to be annoyed. I want to want to curse him out for it like I’d done the night before, but something about this one felt less spiteful. I didn’t know if the distance had made him less angry and more repentant about his actions, but it felt like he was remembering what we had more clearly.
My phone lit up on the table in front of me, showing John’s name and the three text messages he’d sent that I’d left unopened. I didn’t need the guilt of speaking to him while my mind was still reeling over Alex. I wasn’t even sure John still cared about me that way, nor how my feelings for him were progressing, but I still felt guilty thinking about what I’d once had with Alex while John was being John. I was the worst.
How did he worm his way into my head? Why did I let him? Surely, after all this time, I would have learned where the weakness was and plugged it up. But, no, I continued to allow him under my skin and into my head. I hated it.
He’s an asshole.
Has he upset you? Because I’ll kick his ass like I promised you.
Holly?
I glanced over John’s messages but didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m fine’? Nope, lying to John was at the bottom of my list of things to do, ever. ‘I’m upset, please kick his ass’? Nuh uh. I wasn’t upset, per se, and something in me told me that I didn’t want to see these two boys in a fight, ever.
Busy. It’s okay. Talk to you later!
I guess I wasn’t busy, but my mind was. I glanced back up at the four boys on stage and held in a sigh. They seemed like they were finishing up a song, the music winding down a little, paying enough attention to hear the words that had started all this drama a week ago. ‘Come on, Holly, would you turn me on?’ I was pissed off with myself. Why hadn’t I backed out? I could have gone to visit Jack and Marissa on my own time and I could have avoided all this bullshit. I’d roped myself in for two more weeks of this now and another week at the end of November. I was trapped in this bullshit I’d created for myself and it was dawning on me that this was all my fault. As much as I’d love to pin all the blame on Alex, I’d known going into our relationship that something would happen to fuck us up. If it hadn’t been Alex and Jodie, it would have been something else. It could have been the distance, temptations on both sides, but something would have happened. And, yet, I’d allowed myself to fall for him and I’d run away like a child because I couldn’t face up to what I’d allowed to happen.
“So, we’re going to slow it down for a little while,” Alex said, accepting the acoustic guitar offered to him and sitting on the stool that had been placed behind him, while the rest of the band filtered off the stage. He smiled softly at the screaming going on from the crowd before continuing. “This next song is about the same girl as before; the same girl from Vegas I’d been determined to marry. At eighteen, you meet a girl, you fall in love, you tell yourself for years you’re going to marry her. She leaves, without a word one Sunday morning and you have to hold yourself together.” Alex paused looking at my booth, where I was still trying to wrap my head around everything. “I wanted to call your bluff. I guess I did in the end. This is Remembering Sunday.”
He woke up from dreaming and put on his shoes. Started making his way past 2 in the morning, he hasn’t been sober for days…
My breath hitched in my throat as I watched him with awe. He sounded so sad already and I honestly felt guilty for leaving. I had to remind myself that, in fact, he had deserved me leaving, despite all his regret. I hated him, or so I told myself. What did I need to hear another sad song for? One about the damage I’d wrought, the damage I’d been determined not to know about.
Leaning now, into the breeze. Remembering Sunday, he falls to his knees. They had breakfast together but two eggs don’t last like the feeling of what he needs.
Now this place seems familiar to him. She pulled on his hand with a devilish grin. She led him upstairs, she led him upstairs, left him dying to get in…
Forgive me, I’m trying to find my calling, I’m calling at night. I don’t mean to be a bother, but have you seen this girl? She’s been running through my dreams. It’s driving me crazy it seems. I’m going to ask her to marry me.
I whimpered quietly in my booth, feeling the tears starting to leave my eyes. This had been the boy I’d been in love with. This boy who felt so deeply, despite it all, and loved me just for being me. It was no wonder I’d been unable to pinpoint exactly what I’d seen in him all those years ago; I hadn’t seen it since ’06, but here it was in front of me. I was beginning to wish I’d picked up the phone during one of the late night barrages he’d inflicted on me back then, but I knew it would have done no good. What would he have said if I had picked up? ‘I’m sorry’, ‘please come home’, ‘I love you’. He’d said it all before. It hadn’t made a difference then and it wouldn’t have made a difference if I’d heard it from his lips directly. I’d been too angry.
Even though she doesn’t believe in love, he’s determined to call her bluff. Who could deny these butterflies? They’re filling his gut.
I wiped the tears hastily. I felt so stupid for everything I’d been so firm about back then. For trying to convince everyone that I hadn’t loved him, when it was so clear to everyone but Alex that I was in over my head with him. I mean, Christ, John had seen it for the last two years. The damage he’d caused had all but crippled me and John was still picking up the pieces. It was nothing short of a miracle I still had John to lean on.
Waking the neighbours, unfamiliar faces. He pleads, oh, he tries, but he’s only denied. Now he’s dying to get inside…
Forgive me, I’m trying to find my calling, I’m calling at night. I don’t mean to be a bother, but have you seen this girl? She’s been running through my dreams, and it’s driving me crazy, it seems. I’m going to ask her to marry me.
The neighbours said she moved away. Funny how it rained all day. I didn’t think much of it then, but it’s starting to all make sense. Oh, I can see it now, that all of these clouds, are following me in my desperate endeavour to find my whoever, wherever she may be.
I couldn’t help but think back to the day he had found me. The day John answered the door to a broken boy who had been looking for a Jasey. The way I’d flung myself out of the door after him and still managed to be too late, watching the backs of a hundred cars and wondering which one he’d left me in. That had been the hardest night. He didn’t call, or text, neither did Jack or Marissa, but I’d stared at my phone, wishing for them all. The tears spilling from my eyes now were nothing compared to the tears I’d spilled that night.
I’m not coming back, I’ve done something so terrible. I’m terrified to speak, but you’d expect that from me. I’m mixed up, I’ll be blunt, now the rain is just washing you out of my hair, and out of my mind. Keeping an eye on the world, so many thousands of feet off the ground. I’m over you now, I’m at home in the clouds, towering over your head.
Well, I guess I’ll go home now. I guess I’ll go home now. I guess I’ll go home now. I guess I’ll go home…
“Hey, are you okay?” I sniffled, wiping my eyes once again as the crowd screamed for the end of the song. I looked up, seeing a girl roughly my age, looking at me concerned. “It’s a beautiful song, I know.”
“Sorry, I’ve just never heard it before,” I forced out a laugh. “It reminds me of a boy I used to date.”
“I know what you mean. It gets to you, especially when it’s live. And, oh my god, he sounded so much sadder this time than he normally does. I’ve never heard anything about who it was written for before,” the girl gushed. I smiled weakly at her, wishing I had the same problem with the song as she did. I wished I could just appreciate it for what it was, rather than the memories it brought up. “I’m Sammy.”
“Jas- Holly,” I smiled, stopping myself short as I always did when I had to introduce myself to someone new. I always wanted to call myself Jasey, and this was quite possibly the worst place to do so.
“Oh, my God! Like the song!” I laughed lightly at her words, thankful I’d managed to correct myself. If she got this excited over Holly, imagine how excited she’d be about Jasey. “Sorry, I’m really into these guys.”
“It’s okay, if you got me talking about Blink I’d never stop,” I assured her. “But, I’m distracting you. Enjoy the show, I’m just being overly sensitive.”
“It’s fine. I’m from Gettysburg, so I’ve seen them a thousand times over the last few years.” My jaw dropped lightly at her words. She’d driven for hours to be here tonight, despite how many times she’d seen them before. “What about you? Where do you come from?”
“At the minute? Tempe. I’ve been living there for a few years, hence my current job.”
“You definitely sound more Eastern than that.”
“You got me: I grew up in Baltimore.” I bit my lip as her eyes widened.
“Did you know them? I’ve met them a few times. And Maria and Kara too. They’re all so nice.”
“I was actually friends with Marissa and Jack before I moved to Arizona,” I admitted. “They’re incredible people and so perfect for each other I can’t begin to describe it. Zack, Rian and Kara too. They were always nice to me.” She looked on at me expectantly, waiting to hear something on Alex. I sighed inwardly, knowing I’d have to say something. “I was, uh, never really friends with Alex, honestly. He had a bit of a reputation around school and, I dunno, we didn’t really click that way.” Half-truths became my best friend in situations like this. Alex and I were never really classed as friends by anybody. Even in that first week, I’d never have said I was friends with Alex Gaskarth. We’d clicked in so many ways, but we’d never clicked in the ‘let’s be friends’ way, even now. Maybe that had been our downfall, but maybe it was just because of who we were as kids.
“Oh, he still has that reputation,” Sammy laughed dismissively. “He knows he’s hot and he plays on it as often as he can. We all think Meg from Meg and Dia ruined him, hence Remembering Sunday.” I tried not to choke on my own saliva at her words. What? He had had a famous girlfriend, and he was on my back about John? “But she wasn’t all that bothered, apparently. I heard he was in love with someone else in High School or something that he keeps going back to.”
“Alex didn’t have High School girlfriends,” I laughed. “And most definitely not girls he kept ‘going back to’. He was the pick them up and break them kind.”
“Oh…”
“Sorry,” I sighed, beginning to feel bad. Here I was calling him out on shit he used to do and making him out to be a damn awful person to his fans when I had no right to. He’d hurt me, he was currently being an asshole to me, but that didn’t make him a terrible person. He was a person who had made a mistake and had no idea how to react to his ex-girlfriend showing up out of nowhere. I understood that feeling at least. “He’s a nice person, under it all. He was a kid and girls really liked him. Honestly, I was no better than him way back when and I didn’t have people throwing themselves at me.”
“So, did you and he ever, uh..?” She wiggled her eyebrows at me suggestively as I took a drink from my water, this time actively choking on it. I shook my head furiously at her insinuation, doing my best to clear my airways at the same time. “My bad. I just thought it would be funny to have met someone he actually wrote a song about. I mean, everyone wants to know the story behind Jasey Rae, that’s like the holy grail, but other songs are cool too.”
“You don’t want to know the story behind Jasey Rae,” I assured her. “It’s not a tragic love story, it’s a boy who couldn’t keep it in his pants.” Her eyes brightened at my words, clearly under the impression she would be getting some sort of information from me.
“Thank you, and goodnight!” I heard Alex scream from the stage and smiled at Sammy, knowing I was about to get really busy.
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow!” She laughed. “I’ll let you get on.”
“Thanks,” I grinned. “I’ll be here tomorrow if you want a chat and you’re about.”