Ten months later, Tara and I were going strong in our relationship. We spent nearly every night together, but we both still had our separate apartments. Some nights we spend at Tara's and some nights at mine, it just depended on what we were doing. Tara never asked for her key back either.
We hung out with her mates quite a bit and Alex even started coming to bowling with us.
We had things that we did on a regular basis, but we were by no means stuck in a routine. We did quite a bit of traveling, and it would always be totally random, like this one time Tara asked what I wanted for dinner and I said I felt like something Asian, then I said that I have an idea, next minute we were dinning in Singapore. But I've always loved random shit like that.
So, like I said, it had been about ten months since our trip to New Zealand and I was gearing up for our first anniversary. I had everything all planned out, I was totally going to sweep Tara off her feet.
But first Out of Exile had it's first major gig: opening for Them Crooked Vultures on Saturday night at one of the big sports stadiums in the city. I was very excited as I sat back stage with Kane and the other band members and we worked on our final song choice for the set.
"I want you to sing Shadow On The Sun," Kane said suddenly, when there was about ten minutes before show time.
"What? No, I'm not doing that song, are you crazy? Tara's in the crowd tonight," I went off at him.
"But you know as well as I do that the crowd goes crazy when you sing that song," Kane tried to plead his case.
"I don't care, I'm not singing that damn song!" I retorted.
"Oh yup, because it could have a negative effect on your relationship you're not going to sing it?" Kane queried, sounding just as heated as I was getting.
"Damn straight," I said my final piece and walked out the door, bass in hand, out of the dressing room, heading straight for the stage. I couldn't be around Kane when he was being like that, and I really didn't want to sing that song. I didn't like the place it took me anymore.
A few minutes later I was joined by the rest of the band and we walked onto the stage together. We kicked things off with our name sake: Out of Exile. We played a few more songs, Sound of a Gun, Moth, Show Me How to Live, Heaven's Dead. Then Kane did something I didn't think he'd have the balls to do. He started playing Shadow on the Sun. I glared at him, but when I saw his cocky little smile I knew that I had no choice but to start playing and step up to the mic.
And the lyrics took me right back to that place I didn't want to go, the place that I didn't want Tara to see me go.
'Shapes of every size, move behind my eyes, doors inside my head, bolted from within, every drop of flame lights a candle in memory of the one who lived inside my skin.'
We played a few more songs after that, but I went into auto pilot and can't even remember what we played. We could have played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for all I cared. And as soon as we finished the last song I was out of there, back to the dressing room to pack up my things.
"I told you that song would go off!" Kane entered the dressing room sounding so happy with himself.
"That's it Kane, I quit, you can find a new damn bassist!" I stressed at him in the heat of the moment.
"But why?" Kane asked quietly, sounding as though he didn't quite believe what he was hearing. By that stage I'd finished packing away my things, so I just picked up my case and walked out of the dressing room.
"Good luck," I said as I passed the rest of the band on their way back to the dressing room. They just looked at me, but didn't say anything. And I didn't give them a chance to either as I rushed away from them. I walked out into the cool night air and just started pacing, I didn't know what to do, I was so wound up.
