'Til You're Mine

Four

"No I never really wondered why

I was just trying to pass some time

I ain't crying, I'm just fine"

– Alexandra Savior

Alex goes radio silent after Finland. I should have expected it– after the way he was vulnerable with me, saying he needed a break, and that he wished I was his girlfriend. I should have guessed he would drop off the face of the planet again. Because that's what he does; he disappears when you get too close, evaporates into smoke the minute you touch him.

Maybe it's why I'm feeling moody and angry the following week, banging away ineloquently on my guitar, and then my piano, drinking wine, alone. I play Nina Simone. I would write my own song– a nice, melodic 'fuck you' to him– but my frustration is just getting in the way. And it's my own fault, really. I knew I shouldn't have forgiven him, shouldn't have let him back in after what happened three years ago.

In fact, my own stupidity makes me hot with shame, the memory of thinking about him while having sex with Jeremy turning my stomach with disgust now. It makes my frustration mount, makes me rip off my sweater, scrape my hair into a messy bun, feeling hot and suffocated. I sit in my living room, in my tank top and leggings, wishing to some higher being for a creative release of my own. But it's been days of trying to write something about my frustration with Alex, and nothing has happened. So while Dani is in Malibu for the weekend, and Jeremy is at some launch party I refused to join him for, I sit with Nina and get tipsy on cheap cab.

Putting my guitar aside, I light a cigarette and sit back against the couch, brooding. It makes my stomach hurt– how I feel just like that stupid, wide-eyed girl that showed up on Alex Turner's doorstep five years ago and let herself get sucked into his world– into the world where I was one step behind him and below, his doe-eyed, female prodigy, the little Lolita in his shadow. It's like I haven't learned anything. How naive was I to let myself sit on his couch and think he was flirting with me? How childish to let myself even begin to think of him as anything but a musical mentor, with a slightly toxic, controlling personality? And here I am again, buying his "wish you were me girlfriend" bullshit.

When my phone rings I feel like I've been sitting in a trance, my cigarette has burned down to almost nothing, and I'm shocked to see Alex's name lighting up my screen.

I probably shouldn't answer, but my thoughts aren't straight enough for me to stop myself.

"Hello?" I at least have the fortitude to make myself sound annoyed, blasé.

"You still live near Echo Park?"

"What?"

"In that brown house, near Echo Park."

"Yeah?" I wish my voice sounded angrier, less petulant, but I can't help it. What is his problem? He goes nearly a week without speaking to me, and then this?

Half a beat goes by before I hear a knock at my door, and it makes my heart leap into my throat.

"You gonna let me in then, love," he practically purrs into the phone. "Or am I gonna 'ave to find an open window?"

The physical reaction I have to his presence– to knowing he's right there– is overwhelming, and I hate it. But I get up anyway, hanging up on him without a word, before I take my time unlocking and opening the door. I have enough time to compose myself, to look unbothered and calm, before he sees me, and it feels like I really could dissolve on the spot.