The Show Must Go On | Randy

6 | Safety in Sunrises

If anything, pretending I didn't want Andy only made me want him more. My chest got tighter with every passing day I spent in that auditorium, having to stuff my heart into a cage- a task that only grew more difficult each time I tried to make it fit.

The sunrises were my only solace. I rarely slept, sleep refusing to hold me for long even after the long rehearsal days, and so each and every morning I was there to meet the sun as its light brimmed over the horizon. The time it took to reach its peak in the sky was the only time I felt free to sit peacefully with the feelings that overwhelmed me, before I had to wrestle once again to contain them. It had only been a few days since my talk with Jack, yet I was sure that without my morning outlet I would already have been driven mad.

I had spent my life craving love, yet I was slowly growing to resent it, none of my fantasies having mentioned the pain that comes along with loving someone who doesn't want to be loved. 

It was Friday now, and I was exhausted both creatively and emotionally. Andy was lounging in some of the front row seats of the auditorium, resting a while as Jack rehearsed a scene with Mikey. I, as usual, played piano onstage. My eyes wandered of their own accord over to rest on Andy, too weak to resist the pull of his beauty. My fingers continued to play automatically whilst my attention was very much elsewhere. Andy's eyes flicked up to meet mine, his sapphire gaze instantly twisting my insides in painful ways as the butterflies in my stomach begged to spread their wings. But I wouldn't allow them, for once being the one to wrench my eyes from his.

I caught Andy's frown before I turned away completely, questioning it immediately afterwards in my mind. I supposed he was so used to rejecting me by now that he found it disconcerting when he suddenly didn't have to.

When Andy's turn came to perform again, he took the stage with more sourness than I was accustomed to seeing from him. After all, performing seemed to be where he was most at home, always preferring the stage to our gregarious socialising (which was definitely Mikey's favourite part of the whole thing). Yet this time, Andy didn't light up as he usually did when he began to play out the scene with Jack, passion missing from his every line. 

That was, until he kissed Jack.

It was a scripted kiss, of course, the two of them having run the scene enough times that they generally just marked the moment with a brief peck to remind themselves where the kiss should be, rather than going for it full tilt every time. Yet this time Andy grabbed Jack by the neck and smashed their lips together, Jack clearly taken aback slightly before he responded, the force of it not matching the energy level to which they had been running the scene.

I couldn't say what possessed Andy to chose this moment to put his all into, his artistic methods being as much a mystery to me as I was certain mine were to him. What I could say with some certainty, was that I was jealous.

It was irrational, of course, but in my mental state I'd been battling the green itch all week. I'd watched Andy kiss Jack over and over, jealous of my best friend for how easy and uncomplicated it was for him to continuously touch the person I wanted nothing more than to touch myself. And now that feeling grew stronger as I watch Andy's lips lock with Jack's with unnecessary passion, the envy no longer merely tickling me but digging its claws deep into my back.

"I need a break," I announced, getting up unceremoniously from the piano. I swore I caught a smirk on Andy's lips as I stormed past him, heading for the stage door.

I climbed up a ladder to the roof of The Sapphire, an instinct as I had always found refuge in high places. I lit a cigarette when I reached the spot I came to every morning to watch the sunrise, watching miserably as my favourite daily ritual happened in reverse.