S A R A

Ch 32

32

As soon as it happened, my hands started shaking and I just knew that I'd be arrested for some form of domestic abuse. I had no idea what came over me. The silver lining is that it snapped me out of my bitchy state and I melted at the thought of what I had done.

"Oh my god, baby? Baby are you okay?" I ran to the car, because, well, Haden was sitting in the car when it happened. "Shit I'm so sorry."

I opened the drivers door, and thankfully he was okay, except that he was blinking a little bit extra, likE we were both in shock. And there were some shards of glass stuck in his hair. But nothing serious.

This is how we got to be in the emergency room together, on that sunny afternoon. I had to drive him, and I think that at that point he was so confused that he just kind of let me.

Halfway through the drive he just started to laugh.

"What should we tell them?" He asked me.

"About how I threw it at your car?"

"You know I could sue, right?" He said, only I wasn't sure if he was joking. But then he started laughing again.

Eventually, I realized how stupid the whole situation was and I laughed along with him.

It felt strange, to be bound together again considering the circumstance.

At least some things never change, seeing as the people surrounding us still react at the mere sight of him.

Like when the young nurse took his blood pressure, he seemed oblivious to the fact that she was blushing right in front of him and I felt a slight tug of that familiar jealousy that I often felt whenever I was with him and others got involved.

How beautiful it was to see him in front of me, In real time in flesh and blood again. So many good things, but again, so much baggage. But seeing him again, and being so close, its almost like all those months of self contemplation just went out the window.

I was still guarded, and I think I had good reason to be.

"You do know I have an album coming out tomorrow night, right? My manager won't be happy about this..." He said again, examining his wrapped up arm as we were back in my car, sitting in my driveway.

The little glass pieces only got caught in his arm, the rest were easily removed by handpicking for his hair. He was lucky, I was foolish.

"I am so, so sorry. I don't even know where to begin. If you want to press charges, I understand." I began to say apologetically.

"Woah, I'm not going to throw you into jail." He chuckled. "Just promise me you won't do...that again?"

"I promise," I said looking up to meet his eyes as if it was the most obvious thing on the planet for me.

"It's settled then. I'll get Bruce to help with the car and you just come to my show Saturday and we'll call it even."

I gulped, all of a sudden feeling like there wasn't enough air in the little vehicle. Him mentioning Bruce's name brought back happy memories, and him inviting me to his show , the concept of that seemed to be too much.

"I guess you need my number..." I said slowly, trying not to let the guilt of cutting him off show through completely.

"That would help." He smiled.

I fished in the car for a pen, but I couldn't find a paper to save my life.

"What's wrong?" He asked after a few moments of me searching desperately.

"I don't have a paper," I said slowly, "do you have your phone on you?" Trying not to make this any more strange than it had to be.

"Write on this," he grinned as he stuck out his arm.

I hesitated, but thought it was the least I could do after causing sever damage to his white Mustang. I sighed as if I had no other choice. Did I ever with him?

I wrote my number on his arm band as if we were in grade three, and it began all over again.

——

That night, I was all worked out, fed and showered but I was staying up. I was staying up for no noble reason, other than that at midnight, his album would drop.

Streamable and purchasable on all platforms.

And exactly one year ago, I saw him last. Excluding last night of course. Our conversations dissipated a few months ago, but the last time I saw him was on the evening of November 29.

My head was starting to hurt slightly, and I should have been sleeping as tomorrow was going to be a busy day, but I had this underlying feeling which I could not get rid.

I knew, I knew I should have been the calm, cool and collected ex-girlfriend of the past, but it has just been so damn hard. It was alright over the summer. I don't even think I thought about it that much. But having to go back to the city in the fall, brought with it a whole new flood of memories that I was not prepared for. He touched this whole city now I couldn't even walk through it.

Only a week ago I started feeling okay, and I stopped dreaming about him.

But it was only a month ago that I would wake up crying.

There was another, more vain part of me which wondered without rest if perhaps any part of me - of us - mattered to him enough to put it into a song. God knows he's been in mine, except my songs don't live outside of my bedroom walls. His are broadcasted over the seven seas. Will I be in his?

It was all very confusing. How long it takes to move on, is 'moving on' a true concept at all?

All that time, I still had this hopeless and foolish hope, stemming from some sort of denial, that how he will just come back. That, just like that, I will be walking down the street and I will see him. It is a sick obsession over this fantasy. We would hug, and be cordial and friendly and enough time would have gone by for us to not be at odds yet we would still have history but one which would even out to a nice glow. We'd go and get coffee and talk about our lives, do the whole catching up....

Then I would think, if I got to choose him twice, how I would do everything right this time. How I would spend time proving him instead of myself, and how I would believe in my own worth.

But, then I'd realize that, as jarring as the thought may be, what if I have already seen him for the last time?

So here I am, desperately grasping on to any piece of information trying to understand. Desperately throwing myself at strangers trying to find pieces of him in them.

35 more minutes...

I guess, in living all alone for some time I had a lot of time to think about things and I realized how terribly I have been treated (though I loved him). So in trying to make it right, I decide to cut off all communication what so ever (because I loved him) and I knew that this halfway way of talking would not help me get over him.

But I still found myself wondering about where he was, what he was doing, if he was ever coming back...

And then, just like that, he does. Come back into my life. And what do I do? Do I hug him or catch up over coffee? No. I throw a glass pan at his car.

So as December clocked into my life at midnight, so did his songs. Our songs.

That summer song, it was about me.

There I was, hunched over the blue light of my laptop in the midnight dark, with headphones connecting me and the music.

Desperately searching the lyrics of every song to see if there was something, anything, that I recognized.

It was, quite frankly, a spiritual experience. It's like this floodgate of memories opened. That whole year, in one whole album. I had no idea what to say.

I knew I would be by is his side at his show.

I knew I would be by his side forever.

I couldn't believe it was finally here. Its like this was the album I was waiting for all my life. This was no longer innocence. This was experience.