The Moment I Knew

Epilogue

February 14, 2013 – A Dive Bar, Huntington Beach, California

Friendly clapping cheered me on as I made my way to the stage. I took my seat on the stool they had set up behind the microphone and draped my guitar across my lap.

"Hello everyone, it's uh, it's been a few weeks since I've been up here..."

I had been home for four days. So far I had stayed sober and had thrown myself into writing songs as soon as I got home.

"I recently lost one of the most important people in my life. I fucked things up really bad and uh, this song has been the aftermath of it..." I explained feeling my throat tightening as I spoke of Austin.

I began to play the intro of the song to keep myself from losing it on the tiny stage in the dive bar. I wondered if Austin had found the note I had left on his pillow before I left the bus.

"Long handwritten note deep in your pocket
Words, how little they mean when you're a little too late
I stood right by the tracks, your face in a locket
Good girls, hopeful they'll be and lonely will wait"

I looked up into the audience and noticed a familiar patch of red hair pushing through the crowd. I should have known Alan would have come here. He was dragging Maddie along with him. And Austin. I felt my heart jump to my throat at the sight of him. I was going to kill Alan later.

"We had a beautiful magic love there
What a sad beautiful tragic love affair

In dreams I meet you in warm conversation
We both wake in lonely beds different cities
And time is taking its sweet time erasing you
And you've got your demons, and, darling, they all look like me

'Cause we had a beautiful magic love there
What a sad beautiful tragic love affair

Distance, timing, breakdown, fighting
Silence, this train runs off its tracks
Kiss me, try to fix it, could you just try to listen?
Hang up, give up, for the life of us we can't get back

A beautiful magic love there
What a sad beautiful tragic, beautiful tragic, beautiful

What we had ‒ a beautiful magic love there
What a sad beautiful tragic love affair

We had a beautiful magic love there
What a sad beautiful tragic love affair"

The crowd erupted into easy applause and cheers. I, however; couldn't help but stare at Austin's retreating back as he made his way out of the bar, pissed that Alan had brought him here.

"So then what happened?"

My eyes snapped up and met the blue ones staring at me and pulling me from my memories.

"Can we end here today?" I asked feeling an urgency to leave the room.

"Miss Jones, I really think we're on the verge of a break through here."

"I really don't want to talk anymore." I said standing up.

"Miss Jones, please take a seat."

I stared down at the therapist in the cream colored suit whom I had spent the last three weeks retelling the last year of my life to.

"I'm sorry, I need to go..." I said yanking open her office door and making my way down the pristine white hallway with the shitty artwork on the walls.

"Miss Jones!" I heard her voice call after me. But my footsteps were the only thing I could hear as they echoed around me and bounced off the walls matching my heartbeat.

I made my way to the emergency exit, opened the door causing the alarm to sound, and took off at a full sprint across the perfectly manicured lawn.