Miss Americana and The Hearbreak Princess

Chapter Fifty - Ready For It?

"Continue? Is this- this is the third beginning?" Mei asked, eyes lighting up with excitement.

Waving a hand as her face crumpled with amusement, Becca laughed, "no, no, no. This isn't it. I told you - it's not all in line with our breakups and reunions. This was just... something. A continuation."

"So you didn't get back together?"

Lips twitching with a faint smile, Becca shook her head, a wisp of a sigh falling from her mouth as she leant back in her chair, tipping her head back and gripping the arms of the chair.

"No, we didn't. And we weren't exactly friends either. It was just sort of a... moving on point. We both acknowledged the pain we caused each other and the fact that, no matter how hard we tried, we kept coming back to each other. It was like some inevitable doomed dance, and we couldn't stop it, so we just... we played it by ear. That was in May... I went on the next legs of the tour in North America and Europe. I played all the way through to the end of June, back to back shows with barely a day off the whole time. We never talked, we didn't see each other... but I felt... content."

She faltered for a moment as a look of fondness softened her face, a gentle warmth to the curl of her mouth and the cracks spider-webbing from the corners of her eyes. Shaking her head once more, Becca let out a quiet chuckle.

"I still dreamt of her every night though. I couldn't stop thinking about her. Couldn't stop wondering when we'd next bump into each other. What I'd say, what we'd do. Honestly, I did delude myself into thinking that we were going to get back together. When she said continue... I thought that was it. We'd go back to normal. It was a bitter blow to realise the truth, but I took what I could get."

The first leg of the North American tour wrapped up in Philadelphia mid-June before Becca was whisked away to Germany to kick off the small European leg.

She itched to play more shows there, to spend more time in London in between, immerse herself in the crowded cities of old countries where the glamour and glitz of Hollywood were reduced.

London was where she was recognised the most often outside of the States, and Becca wished she could walk the streets of Prague or Barcelona, taking her time to visit museums and tourist attractions like she used to. Instead, she went to Germany and the Netherlands, and back to England for a few shows throughout the UK and two in Ireland.

It was Ireland that brought the most relief, although it had been a weight off her shoulders to check in on Rawee. Dublin was like a breath of fresh air, familiar and comforting, from the street corners that she'd used to stand on and perform with a guitar, to the accents that made her homesick.

She spent two days at her family's estate in Wexford, drinking in the stretch of green countryside and summer flowers, wandering the halls of the house she'd grown up in with a sense of melancholy, thinking of the girl she'd been, riding horses and hating Catholic school.

She'd been quick to laugh, fingers always stained with ink as she scribbled down songs, happy and free, without the burning gaze of a magnifying glass over everything she did.

The short break at her home sustained her through the rest of the exhaustion that came with touring and her life. July crept in, and with it, her annual party for the fourth at her home in Rhode Island.

She flew Rawee back with her, her mother looking thin and grey, always tired and exasperated by Becca's worried hovering. It was all she could do to enjoy herself at her home, drinking too much with friends that had flown in for it.

She'd considered inviting Freen for a brief moment, with so many of their mutual friends being there, but decided against it, leaving her to spend the whole time thinking about her anyway, while Irin plied her with drinks. And then it was back to touring again, the second leg of her North American tour taking over the East Coast.