As the water follows the moon

4 (English version)

Why don't you go, if you want to live your life?

And then it happened. Julia broke up with Teddy and what was more – without an explanation. Thus the poor guy didn't even suspect that he might consider himself free of any responsibility. After almost a year of relations Julia didn't come to meet him and ignored Teddy's phone calls. He was surprised and a little scared (what if something bad happened to his girlfriend?) and decided to come to her himself but nobody opened a door for him.

After two days of anxiety and waiting in vain Teddy went to Mira for explanations. She informed him that Julia was tired and went away to improve her physical and moral health which had been hurt during the long communication with "the self-loving jerk Teddy Reily".

- She said it, - Mira added in a hurry noticing how Teddy's face changed and feeling that she was too hard on him giving Julia's farewell speech word for word.

- But why doesn't she return my calls? – he looked puzzled. – She could've told that herself!

- You didn't always returned her calls either, - Mira answered but that didn't conceive Teddy.

- If I'd decide to break up with her, I would tell it straight to her face! – he cried with indignation. – She's just a coward! Knew that she couldn't leave me, that's why she's run away...

Nevertheless Mira didn't tell him where Julia went and Teddy had to gather all his patience (and it wasn't his strong side) and wait (he hated it!). At last Julia came back to town but didn't agree to come back to Teddy. While she was away he had produced a great plan, but just one look at the girl made it clear that this plan wouldn't work. Julia looked at him differently now. She didn't love him any more and it was so obvious that Teddy felt very uneasy because there in his heart feelings were just burning. Then at least he demanded explanations.

- I'm just sick and tired of these empty and non-committal relations, - Julia confessed.

- But what did you want? – Teddy asked, feeling himself absolutely helpless as floundering in the water and unable to swim seal. – To get married?

The girl gave him a look full of scorn.

- It doesn't matter any more.

- But why? – Teddy cried, understanding with fear that he was losing that girl who had always meant much more to him than he'd ever shown. – I gotta know what I've done wrong! Tell me!

- There were many things you've done wrong, - she answered. – I don't wanna analyze it now. I was just wrong about you, - she said drilling him with her piercing dark eyes. – You can not take serious decisions! You're a self-sufficient boy and I need a grown-up man.

- I could change! I can do anything for you! – he objected with heat. – Please, give me one more chance!

- But I don't wanna be with you any more, - she said with killing coldness.

- But I love you! – desperately said Teddy feeling as if a black abyss was opening before him.

The girl only grinned.

- You haven't said that before, - she observed. – And now it's too late. Good bye, Teddy Reily!

But he couldn't accept this loss. He kept on hoping that Julia would change her mind and come back. Even finding out that she was seeing another guy, Teddy still counted on something. He watched by her house until she moved away. He called her, presented tons of flowers and begged her to forgive him and give him one more chance. He dedicated her wonderful songs but all was in vain. Julia didn't hear anything.

Teddy never thought that love could bring so much trouble. This was that painful kind of love which squeezes all the juices from a human soul and leaves it dried up like a desert without life-giving moisture. It was like a disease without a medicine for it and the guy pined away as if of an evil virus.

Besides after parting with Julia Teddy's brain behaved strangely. Now he made illogical decisions and accomplished inadequate acts. Thus it occurred to him that he'd always looked too smoothed for the audience. He had always been a handsome and happy boy who neither drank nor smoked and set only a positive example to his fans. All the scandals in his life were connected with his participation in anti-war demonstrations. He kept remembering how he got arrested couple of times for his excitable behavior but this didn't add any scandalousness to Teddy Reily's image.

He should live and be glad that no dirt ever stuck to him but wasn't it too boring? It was too much for Teddy and he decided to spoil his own biography a little bit.

At first he went to the grocery where he bought a bottle of whisky and a box of cigarettes and made paparazzi happy letting them to shoot him from different angles. He began drinking and smoking in the street but as Teddy wasn't good at drinking, he came home hardly standing on his legs. But when one of his body-guards tried kindly to advice him drop it, Teddy just abused him. He no longer needed any advice.

They said that liquor made people merry but Teddy felt more miserable. Then he wanted to chase his anguish in a night club where he went without his body-guards. (He drove himself and he hurried so much that several times cops tried to stop him but he ignored everything).

His visit to a night club created a furor. Paparazzi endlessly snapped their cameras anticipating greatest profits after selling the pictures of Teddy Reily having a time of his life. Sensation! The guy turned out to be not so saint as people thought! And how did he manage to hide his pernicious habits for so long?..

And Teddy really was having the time of his life that night. E ndlessly he kept on pouring booze in his throat, dancing with the girls and feeling happy because there were no thoughts left in his brain over-filled with alcohol.

Then Teddy could hardly remember how he got home. (It was a wonder that he came home at all but didn't go anywhere else looking for adventures - what seemed very possible in his new mood). He regained consciousness with the terrible head-ache tearing his temples apart. He vomited badly half of a day and his soul felt even more disgusting then before he cast prudence to the winds.

Thus Teddy understood that this way of life didn't fit him and this discovery actually didn't bring him joy. That meant that he couldn't even drown his troubles at the bottom of a bottle like any other young men. What was wrong with him?

His brothers and sisters didn't approve this freak behavior. They openly blamed him and Teddy stopped telling truth about his feelings even to Gabe. Now it seemed to him that nobody in the whole world could understand him. So he shut himself.

He ended up with sitting all days long in his room and didn't even go on a tour with the band. He stopped taking a shower and shaving and nothing in the world interested him. He didn't even felt any fear for the returned depression (he was almost ready for it) because now he didn't feel much at all. Everything around him became grey and lifeless as though the world was covered with dust at once. Teddy understood that his longing for Julia had worked as a key factor for his blues. Together with it all his fixed ideas about the meaningless existence came back. They came back and fulfilled him forcing out any emotion and feelings. Each day he drowned deeper in that mire. In the morning he didn't want to get up or even look out of the window. One simplest thought kept coming to him again and again: this useless life should be stopped.