Christopher's words ring in your head as you stand in the shower. He needs you. God, why did everything have to be so hard? Yesterday, things had been perfect. Now you were running away again
You towel off and put on your nightgown, letting your hair dry into messy waves while you repaint your nails and drink a glass of wine. Christopher had disappeared, leaving you to yourself for a while. He was never very good at hard conversations, but he loved you. Maybe he was right. Did Lindsey need you? He certainly didn't have anyone else waiting for him when he got home from a day at the hospital.
No, you're doing the right thing. You call Karen and tell her you're coming back, and have her make arrangements for tomorrow morning. The band had gone back to London to wait for Lindsey, and she'd meet them there tomorrow. You wander into the kitchen while you talk, helping yourself to whatever's in the fridge. You've only been gone a couple days, but somehow listening to Karen talks makes you feel like you're catching up on a year's worth of work.
"What time's your flight?" Christopher startles you a little as he enters.
"I leave at 7am."
"That means I have to leave here at 5am, which means I don't have to go to sleep tonight."
"Yeah, you've got your system. I'll take you to the airport."
"I can call a car, Chris."
"No, it's okay. If you're sure you want to go, I'll take you."
"What am I going to do here?" He gives you a look and you ignore him. "Thank you. I left almost everything on the road so I don't have anything by those carry-ons."
"Okay. Well, some of us aren't vampires and we like to sleep when it's dark out, so I'm going to crash for a while before we head to the airport."
"We don't have to go all the way to LAX - she got me a plane out of the Santa Monica airport."
"Nice. That drive sucks. Wake me up when we need to leave."
"Thanks, Christopher." He kisses you on the cheek and leaves you alone, shoveling pasta into your mouth as you lean against the counter. Your diet starts again tomorrow.
You relax a little as you focus on getting back to London with the band and ignoring everything in California. You even left your dog with Karen. You never do that. This is good. Space is good. The next time you see him, he'll be yours. No wife. No more secrets, no more sharing.
TV occupies you until it's time to leave, and Christopher dutifully drops you off, leaving you in the hands of security. You haven't flown by yourself in ages, and it feels strange to board a completely empty plane. As soon as you set down your bags you hear the obnoxiously loud ringtone Karen set on your phone, so you'd actually answer it in the rare event that some needed you directly.
You can't see the screen without your reading glasses, so you fumble for a second and answer blindly, unsure who you're saying hello to.
"Stevie, get off the damn plane."
You freeze when you hear his voice and almost hang up, but you don't. "No."
"Please. I need you here. Don't leave."
"I have to."
"Get off the fucking plane!" He's still talking, but you know if you keep listening you'll get weak. You hang the phone up and turn it off as pilot closes the door, signaling that he's ready to take off. You tell yourself one more time that going back to work is the right thing, and you fasten your seatbelt for takeoff.
The sounds of his voice haunts you, and you don't sleep at all. You have visions of him never speaking to you again, and wonder if that would really be a bad thing. Of course it's a bad thing. You need him like you need air. What are you doing? It's too late now. You're somewhere over the Midwestern United States and you can't turn back.
The co-pilot takes a short break and comes to chat with you, which is a welcome distraction. Anything to keep you out of your own head for a while is welcome. Once he's gone, you start watching movies, knowing that you're never going to get to sleep.
When you get to London you have a million voicemails and texts from Lindsey, but can't bring yourself to read them. Fortunately it's 5am in London, and you can go straight your room and try to sleep without any questions. Karen dutifully greets you, looking about as put together as you are, handing off Sulamith.
"I'm waking you at one and we have a million things to do and you're not going to fight me," she says seriously, watching the bellman unload your things. Everything else had been delivered to your room earlier. You don't even bother protesting, nodding blankly before you shed your sweater and collapse onto the couch. "Do you need anything else?"
"No. Go back to sleep, Karen. I'm fine."
"That's bullshit but I'm too tired to drag it out of you. Just know Lori and I are tag teaming you tomorrow. So get sleep. Take a pill if you need to."
She tosses you your bag full of medicine and leaves you to yourself. Exhaustion finally wins and you don't even change before crawling into bed with the dog and passing out.
The next thing you're aware of is Karen banging on your door. "Stephanie Lynn Nicks, if you don't answer your goddamn phone I'm going to kill you."
"It's not on," you say, still waking up, dragging yourself out of bed. "You said I could sleep until 1."
"That was before Lindsey decided to start calling me when he realized you were ignoring him. If you don't talk to him I'm going to kill both of you," she says shoving your phone into your hand. "I'm going back to sleep and I'm turning off my phone so you'd better hope no one important calls you."
She leaves and you stare at the dark screen. It's 7am in London, which means it's only 11pm in Los Angeles. It could be more of a desire to get back to sleep than anything, but you reluctantly obey Karen's instructions, tapping Lindsey's name in your contact list and letting it ring. He answers immediately.
"You really went." He's had a 36 hours or so to be angry at you now, and you can hear the fury in his voice.
"I told you I was going! I'm sleep deprived and I'm really not in a good place Lindsey so you'd better have..."
"Shut up, Stevie. I called to talk, not to listen. You fucking left! And not just to calm down or think for a while. You left me on the other side of the world by myself. I need you right now, Stevie, and you're fucking gone." He's been drinking. He only sounded this emotional when he was drinking.
"I told you I was going..." you say lamely. As if that made it better.
"And you also told me that signing those papers didn't mean I had to lose you!"
"Did you sign them?"
"Yes." You hear him moving around, and neither one of you say anything for a minute. "Stevie, she accepted my original terms."
"What?"
"My lawyer reminded her why I filed in the first place. She didn't want to go to court knowing what was going to come out. I told you it would be fixed. You were too busy freaking out to listen to me."
"You're single. And you have your kids," you repeat, slightly in shock.
"Both of those things are true." You start to cry, not really able to say anything else to him. "And you're in fucking London." He sounds so hurt. You can't apologize over the phone. Not well. Damn it, you can be so stupid.
"When can you come back?"
"Not until Stella is released. A few more days. Then I'll come finish the UK dates."
"I can't get back in enough time to..." your mind is already racing with a million apologies and plans and you're desperately trying to figure out how you can see him.
"Just stay there."
"I love you," you say. This time, he doesn't return it. Your chest aches as you realize how badly you may have just fucked things up.
