Maybe It's Been You All Along - Alex Turner

53

  "Matt she took her stuff, she's gone. She's gone Matt. She's taken everything of hers. She left. She left...I didn't even get to see her go. She's gone," Alex sobbed into his phone. He was an absolute mess that night. He was hyperventilating. Panicking as reality set in. There was nothing left for him to remember her by. Only her scent embedded into her pillow that lingered as a sickening reminder in his nose of what he'd done to them.

It was hopeless trying to calm him down. Alex hadn't slept all night at the fact that Rosanna was actually gone, she'd moved out and left him, haunting him like a ghost in the backseat of his car. He'd drunk himself blind to rational decision. He knew the last thing Rosanna would want was for him to become a drunk again like he was after Alexa, but just the thought of having lost her and disappointing her seemed to be a wound only the numbness of alcohol could subdue.

"You need to stop calling her Alex," Matt sighed. It was twelve in the morning.

"Is she there?" Alex asked hopefully, his heart racing and head aching from how much he had been crying.

"Leave her alone Alex," Matt said, "she needs time."

"Can I talk to her?" Alex begged weakly. "Please can I just speak to her Matt? Please. I just need to apologise to her."

Matt sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Not when you're in a state like this. You need to stop drinking."

"Please Matt let me talk to her. She won't answer me calls, please I just need to tell her I love her and that I'm sorry," Alex sobbed. He just needed to apologise to her and explain himself like he failed to the night before. He needed her to know he still loved her because he knew she didn't believe he did anymore.

"Alex..." Matt started. "Give her space. Stop calling her over and over you're just breaking her even more. Do you know how hard it is for her to hang up on you every time? You've hurt her so much Alex the least you could do is give her some time to process what you did to her. And stop acting like an idiot and pull yourself together."

"Please Matt...I just wanna hear her voice again, I just wanna make things right," Alex begged. He was sitting on the floor of their home studio, papers sprawled around him, all containing lyrics to the song Rosanna was writing him while he was out cheating on her with another woman.

That was all he had left of her. Her scribbled handwriting on a few sheets of paper that she'd torn out of her notebook. He found them stacked in a small pile where her guitar used to be. An almost provocative move because Rosanna knew he was going to find them. She didn't want them anymore. Not after what he'd done. What made it so much worse were the lyrics. They were so raw and passionate, outlining how much she loved Alex that it brought him to tears as he read them. She loved him so much and he'd just taken that love for granted. And now he was never going to have it again.

She'd broken him with her words. Her words that defined how much she loved him. Defined what he let go because of a stupid mistake. He wanted to dissolve like salt in water. You can keep the fucking songs I wrote you, she'd told him, but he didn't want them. He didn't want to be reminded of what he'd lost. He didn't think he deserved to hear how much love she had for him.

  Matt refused to let Alex talk to Rosanna on his phone, telling him: "if you have any respect for her, you'll give her the space she needs" so Alex stopped calling her. It took everything out of him not to message her over and over, apologising for what he'd done. He missed her so much already.

  Alex found himself writing a letter to her. Four pages of raw confession. The pen bleeding due to the droplets that fell down his cheeks onto the paper. He reiterated over and over that he didn't sleep with another woman because he was unsatisfied with Rosanna and that from the deepest truth within him, he could not provide an explanation as to why he did it because he himself did not know.