Faded Memories (A Jon Bon Jovi story)

~ Fall 2002 ~

Mid October and a new album is soon to be released and Jon is feeling sentimental. Before the rush of promoting the album starts, he sets about cleaning a room in his house.  Not just any room; this room held the mementos he collected over the years.

A few hours later, he is sweaty and already a bit tired, but his eyes catch a glimpse of something...an oak trunk. He walks over and brushes the dust off the top. His hand lingers over the engraving that he feels beneath his fingerprints. The initials M.K.R. underneath a butterfly.

He looks for a chair and pulls over a blue director's style chair left over from one of his movies, and sits in front of the box. With a sigh, he opens the lid and it is almost like the world stands still.

He closes his eyes, and he remembers the day he gave her this trunk. It was just something he picked up, somewhere, he doesn't remember exactly where, but he remembers the day he gave it to her, her birthday, in November 1996. With a sigh, he opens his eyes, and looks inside.

The first things he sees are some t-shirts. Blinking, he does a double take and realizes these are his shirts...the ones he was POSITIVE he threw out. She must have saved them! He chuckles at the thought of her trying to save these shirts from their impending doom.

Moving the shirts aside he finds an assortment of buttons, pins, etc. Souvenirs he picked up over the years, for her from the various cities he visited while on tour with the group, or while promoting his solo music and movies. Silly little trinkets he says to himself.

His heart stops briefly at the next item. A blue 8x10 photo album. He immediately recognizes it as "theirs". Picking it up and removing it, he decides to take it into the living room where the light is better.

Stopping only for a beer, Jon reclines on the couch and opens the album up. There on the front page is a picture of him reclining against an open top jeep. He has on cut-off shorts and a white wife-beater. It is captioned "Spring Break, 1995". He remembers the picture. It was taken the weekend they met. The band was relaxing at a beach house on the Jersey Shore and Michele was there on spring break with her college friends.

As he flips the pages he sees many candid shots of him, some he just knows the fans would love to see circulating on the internet. He doesn't remember these being taken, but he does remember she had a camera with her quite often during their relationship.

She loved being with him, and no, it wasn't because he was THE Jon Bon Jovi, it was because she liked him for the person no one else saw. The real Jon Bongiovi. She never tried to flaunt their relationship to the world but she was also very comfortable in the limelight with him.

Flipping a few more pages he sees they are still mostly him, and the band, but then he stops. There on the right side is a 5x7 of them both. They are facing each other, staring with smiles on their faces. Now this is one picture he remembers. Richie had taken it their first Christmas together. They had spent the day at Jon's house, in front of the fireplace, and Jon had decided that he was going to proclaim his love for her. He forewarned Richie, so the camera could be ready, as he knew she would want this moment captured. And captured it was

He turns the page and time stood still. There she was her long brown hair over her shoulders, that warm smile and the sparkling brown eyes that danced when he looked at her. He reached out to touch her cheeks, and closing his eyes he could remember how she felt, how she looked, and even how she smelled. He could imagine the way their bodies felt together, when they would dance, and even, make love. How when he held her close, his hand fit perfectly in the small of her back and how she would lay her head on his chest when he would hold her.

He brushed a tear off his cheek. He hadn't thought of her in a while...at least a year. But it was now a little more than 5 years since they broke up, or to be more exact, since she had walked out on him. Sure they had their hard times. What relationship didn't? And, he thinks to himself, that maybe he didn't give as much to the relationship as she did, especially near the end.

Opening his eyes, he shakes off the memory, and skims through the rest of the pictures. Mostly her and them now...very few of just him, then mostly her again...it was almost as if he wasnt around. Oh, wait, he wasn't. He was always off somewhere during that last year, and she was preparing for graduation so couldn't travel much with him. His hand lingers over the last picture in the book. It is her on the stage receiving her diploma. Her college graduation. The graduation he missed. He looks at her eyes, and sees the sadness there. It was a month later that she left. She said she could never compete with his one true love, and didn't think she could try anymore. He truly felt bad over that, but never got the chance to apologize. She wouldn't listen.

The pages are all empty from there on. He can't believe she left all this behind but then again, she wanted to start all over. Have a fresh life. But all he can think about is what might have been. He had been planning to propose. This book should be full of wedding pictures and pictures of their babies, and eventually their grandkids. That thought alone makes him smile. They would have had such beautiful kids!

He closed the book, downs the beer and looks for the phone book. Skimming through the pages he finds the name he is looking for and dials the number.

"Hello Jillian, this is Jon, remember me? I was wondering if we could have lunch tomorrow. I was cleaning the house today and found some things that belong to Michele. It got me thinking, and maybe, well, do you think she would mind if I got in touch with her?

~~The End~~