Emerald Eyes

40 - Forever

As Martijn closed the door of our hotel room behind us, we finally had a moment all to ourselves. We both sat down on the huge bed and admired the view of the Las Vegas Strip outside of the window. All these gigantic hotels, all these crowds of people enjoying themselves under the last rays of the bright desert sun. Martijn let himself fall into all of the cushions and said: "It's crazy. Every time I'm here, it just feels like I'm in an alternate reality. It just feels like I am dreaming."  I cuddled up in his arms and gave him a kiss: "You deserve it all so much, Tijn. I can't wait to see you play tomorrow night." "And I can't wait for you to be in the crowd. Your support means the world to me.", he answered with a smile. We kissed for a while, before Martijn sat up again: "Baby, I have a surprise for you. It's finished." "What is finished?", I asked and sat up as well. Martijn got up and grabbed his laptop. He scrolled through his music library and chose a track: "Here. It's your track. Have a listen. I finished it on the flight today." "Are you for real?", I asked and Martijn nodded proudly. He handed me his favorite pair of headphones and asked me again to take a listen. As I finished listening to the track, Martijn carefully took the headphones from my ears and said: "It's called 'Forever'. I... I hope you like it. I have never written a track dedicated to another person before. It's for you." I was speechless for a moment and a tear started to roll down my cheek. I got up from the bed and walked a few steps towards the big windows. The colorful Las Vegas lights started to blend in with dark of the night. Martijn got up to follow me, put his arms around my waist and asked: "What's up? Why are you crying baby? Don't you like it?" "It's incredibly beautiful.", I said silently, "It's just... It's such a beautiful and meaningful gift. Nobody else did something like this for me ever before. And also... it reminds me of how we were sitting at my mum's grave... I just miss her so much. She would have loved your music." Then I started sobbing. Martijn held me close and was just there for me. After a while, I asked: "Why did you call it 'Forever'?" He remained silent for a while, trying to figure out what he wanted to say. Then he said: "There's two inspirations behind it. I wanted to call it 'Forever' for you and your mum, because parental love never stops making an impact on our life. Wherever she might be, she's still a part of your life and I'm 100% sure she would be proud of you. And the second inspiration was my love for you, honey. I just feel like you're turning my whole world upside down, you're pointing out all these details to my life that I would miss if it wasn't for you. I just put all of that into music and I felt the word 'Forever' would do all these feelings justice." Martijn hugged me from behind and we were now both staring out into the night, our thoughts still lingering in the room. "May I play it for the crowd tomorrow night at the show?", he asked me after a few minutes of silence have passed." "Of course you may. I can't wait for your beautiful music to be out in the world. Maybe you can affect more people like me out there. That must be like the most beautiful thing as a musician, isn't it?", I answered. Even though I couldn't see his face, I just knew that he was smiling: "Absolutely. Music is such a powerful thing, it enables you to create something that wasn't there before. Music puts you in the position to be a part of someone else's story. You can be a part of the memories they make. Thinking about that, it's just insane. That is definitely the best part. You know, it makes it all worth it. All the pressure, the hectic schedules and all that – it's nothing against the magic you can create." "You have such a beautiful gift in being able to inspire so many people out there.", I said, "It's something not many people have the ability to do. You should treasure that. And I know you do." "You know, when I was still in school, I was always looking for a purpose. Cause I believe there is a purpose in everything you do, in every person that you meet and also just for every one of us to be alive. I was struggling quite a lot during these times, not knowing my own purpose was so hard for me to accept. I was overthinking so many things, it's something you wouldn't really expect from me today. But it all just didn't make sense to me, until music came along. That has probably saved me from doing stupid shit.", Martijn explained. "Promise me not to do stupid shit in the future?", I asked, "Cause I need you. More than anything else at the moment." "I'll give my very best.", Martijn said. "No, I want you to promise it.", I replied. It was something so meaningful and even though I might have risked sounding childish, a promise just felt a little more safe than a "I'll give my very best." You don't just go and break a promise easily. Martijn grabbed my hand, twirled me around so he would face me and said: "Okay baby. I promise." It was as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. "And remember, I don't break my promises.", he added.