Even After Everything

I catch up with William, just as he begins to walk through a black door.

‘The weirdest thing just happened,’ I say, following him through. He turns to look at me so I continue. ‘You known that girl in the reception? She thought she knew me, but I haven’t met her before in my life.’

He appears to think for a moment. ‘Maybe you met her at the concert you forgot,’ he teases.

‘Oh shush,’ I say as he inserts a disc into a CD player in the corner of the room, contemplating the idea. It was possible, I suppose.

A song starts to play, and I recognise it as Saltwater Room, even though it’s being played by The Academy Is… .

‘This is really amazing,’ I say honestly. It sounds as though they might as well have written it themselves - the guitars and drums fit perfectly in with the mood of it, and it’s been sped up a little too.

‘Thanks,’ he grins. ‘But Mike’s the real genius behind it. He wrote out all the scores and everything. I’ll start it again and not sing, and you come in when you think.’

He flicks the back button on the player and I sing his part in my head, counting through the brief instrumental and then letting it all out.

‘Time together is just never quite enough….’ I sing his next line in my head, and then mine out loud again. ‘What will it take to make or break this hint of love-’

I break off sharply and freeze as I feel William stand behind me and close the gap between us, placing both his hands on my stomach.

‘You’re forgetting to breathe properly,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘Try and push my hands out with your stomach every time you take a breath.’

‘O-Okay,’ I stammer, waiting for my next line and breathing as he told me to, trying to ignore the worry that he’ll think I’m a complete fatty.

Professionals do this, I think to myself. This is what professionals do.

Taking a deep breath and pushing on the pressure from his hands, I belt out my next line, doing the same over and over until the song finishes.

As the room falls quiet, he turns me round to face him and places both his hands on my cheeks.

‘That,’ he murmurs, looking into my eyes. ‘Was so almost perfect. Keep that up and we’re sorted.’

He walks back over to the CD player as I try to catch my breath, and starts the song again, this time breaking into his lines with the perfection he delivers into every song. He returns back to my back, though not so close [so as not to deafen me, I think to myself], and replaces his hands where they were.

We practice like this, for the best part of an hour and a half, before he finally walks away to switch off the CD, me sighing from the loss of contact. He walks back over and looks at me.

‘You’re voice is amazing, and you’re really getting the hang of the song, but I need to make it come alive. I want to bring you back out to Birmingham the day after tomorrow, and not for practice. Do you trust me?’

I look at him, puzzled. How could he possibly make the song come alive with a simple trip back to Birmingham? I nod slowly.

‘I’m going to book a hotel to stay in, so you’ll need over night stuff.’

This strikes me as a little odd. Why should we need to stay over night? But despite my suspicions, I find that I do trust him, and nod again.

‘Okay…well, I’ll pick you up at say, ten? And please be dressed by then?’ He pokes his tongue out at me jokingly, and I assure him I will, walking back out to the car and casting one last look at the girl from reception.

Where did I know her from?

I find myself relaxing with William somewhat on the drive back. Before, we had been awkwardly making conversation, business like, as if we had to, but now it was…easy. Swapping stories and favourite songs, laughing and talking.

‘So what’s your favourite Academy song then?’ he asks, curious.

I rack my brains. Seed had been my number one beforehand, but now, after the recital, Everything We Had had taken it’s place. I repeat the name to William, and he looks at me in this odd way.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘I wrote that about a girl,’ he murmured. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Part of me is disappointed, though the reference was obvious, but part of me is still curious.

‘Who?’

‘Just a girl,’ he sighs. ‘We’d only known each other for a matter of days, but I’d felt this way towards her that I’d never felt about anyone before. Or after even.’

‘What happened?’ The question is tentative, unsure if I’m probing too far.

‘I don’t really know. We had an argument about something, but the things she threw at me were about other things. It sounded as though it had been bothering her the whole time. I realised that despite how I felt, I hadn’t really know her at all. She left, and I couldn’t cope for a long time.’

I don’t want to hear the rest of the story, I decide, so I don’t ask any more questions. It begins to make me feel uncomfortable, to have him talking about a girl like that when I clearly felt something for him, however tiny a celebrity crush it may be.

An hour later, we finally pull up on my drive, and I whisper a small ‘thank you’, pecking him on the cheek and climbing out of the car. I walk over to my door and as I fumble for my keys, I flick a look back at the old Ford. William is still sting in the drivers seat, looking down, with a hand pressed to the side of his face.

Was the peck a bit much?

I unlock my door and step inside, turning back to wave at him but stopping. He’s still looking down, and wouldn’t have seen me. I close the front door and walk through the hall to the kitchen, dropping my keys onto the worktop and heading upstairs.

For a moment I debate calling Sana, but I really cannot be bothered to try and make conversation at the moment. I satisfy myself instead with picking up the the Sharpie marker from my dresser, and taking off the lid, scribbling hearts onto on a piece of paper and then screwing it up, repeating the process over and over.

I don’t know how long I sit like that, but every time I look down at my bin, the pile of waste paper inside it grows until I’m just throwing paper aimlessly at the floor.