True to You

Blur the Lines

1999

Well England sucked. Okay so that might have been a bit harsh but it wasn't all sunshine and roses. You'd think a girl from Seattle would be able to deal with a damp climate and grey skies but it was different. Different in some imperceptible way Elliot couldn't quite put her finger on. Manchester felt small. It made her cringe and feel like the stereotype of an ugly American when she thought of it that way because Manchester wasn't a small town, it was a city but the Manchester Ship Canal and Salford Quays weren't Puget Sound and nor were they, more importantly, the Pacific Ocean off Huntington Beach. The lower legal drinking age of eighteen may have meant she could hang out in one of the many pubs or bars but without the one friend she wanted to share it with the thrill was somewhat limited. She was lucky to have become friendly with one of the other girls in her photography course who had welcomed her into her circle of friends, it helped to alleviate her loneliness somewhat but even so nothing about England felt the way she'd imagined things in her head.

She couldn't help but wonder if she'd have felt differently if she'd never spent her summer in California and if she'd never met Jimmy. She could remember being so excited about spending a year in England but the thrill had faded and now, two months after she'd last seen Jimmy, as the days grew shorter and colder more often than not she wanted to curl up in her bed and stay there.

The longer she was away from him the more she began to doubt that he'd wait. After all why should he? He was a live in the moment kind of guy – it was one of the things she loved about him. She'd seen all of the girls who hung around Matt's place, even Val's glares hadn't been able to drive them all away. Hell, Zacky and bass Matt had a harem of girl's just waiting to lure them off into a secluded corner, or closet or even a not so secluded sofa in the middle of a party. And as for Brian, he seemed to be determined to write the definitive womaniser's manual. Why the hell would Jimmy wait around for the first girl he'd ever slept with when there were all those girls just hanging around waiting for a hook-up? Jimmy was going to be a star and she'd be lucky to get a job taking baby photos at the mall. If she was lucky she might get to shoot the occasional wedding. Why the hell would a guy on a sure fire path to success hang around and wait for a girl who was going to be the one thing worse than a has been – a never was? He was probably already regretting that he didn't have her number so he could call her and tell her it was over.

Fortunately for her concerned parents her new friend Gemma refused to permit hibernation as an option. She would drag Elliot off for a coffee or a drink and she had even introduced her to the sticky floored glory of Rockworld. The sign above the door proclaimed it as Jilly's Rockworld but almost everyone simply referred to it as Rockworld. At Gemma's insistence she'd brush her hair, put on her lip gloss and force herself out the front door.

So there she was on a Friday night chewing distastefully on the end of a straw dipped in vodka and orange juice. She'd almost spat out her first sip thinking the orange juice was off but Gemma had taken a sip and assured her that everything was fine. The uneasy feeling in her stomach she was trying to ignore had nothing to do with her drink. It had more to do with her suspicion that there was more wrong with her than just homesickness and heartbreak. She grimaced as she sucked back another mouthful. Nope, she couldn't drink any more no matter how much she tried to force it. She set her glass down on the table beside her and turned to Gemma trying to screw up the courage to ask her to be moral support for the task she'd have to undertake the following morning. One she couldn't put off any longer.

"Will you just look at him?" Gemma breathed in admiration. "He is such a superstar."

Elliot followed her new friend's gaze to the middle of the small room. Personally she was more in the mood for the heavier music in the main room than the seventies rock in this smaller secondary space but Gemma had a strange fascination for the guy currently strutting his stuff on the illuminated seventies style dance floor. His long dirty blonde hair flowed around his shirtless torso as he grooved and gyrated to Led Zeppelin, the sheen of sweat on his skin glistened under the lights. He was intriguing but she had a suspicion that her fascination was of a very different kind to Gemma's.