The Show Must Go On | Randy

11 | Shadows For Company

I had a shadow from that day on. A very large, bald, beefy shadow. Blair followed me to and from rehearsals, always lurking unpleasantly somewhere on the edge of my vision. Andy had been right about not wasting the time we had- I couldn't get within ten feet of him without seeing Blair's hand hover over his hip.

It wasn't easy because I wanted Andy, needed him, missed him, all the more terribly so after having had him. His body was simply perfect and that short moment where we had become one had been nothing short of magical. I simply couldn't bear every second I wasn't in his company. But, for his own protection, I kept my distance.

"You always walk me home yet you've never once offered to kiss me goodnight," I scolded Blair once we reached my room one night, smirking at the furious expression in his eyes that my words caused.

"One day we'll catch you out, Beaumont. I am very much looking forward to that day."

"Goodnight darling!" I called out cheerily to his retreating frame. "Pig," I huffed as I entered my apartment.

Winter was coming on and the hole in my roof was steadily becoming more chilly than sentimental. It only made me wish even more for the presence of another warm body beside my own, but all I could do was stare at the moon and imagine that he was looking out of his window in some high tower of The Sapphire staring at it too.

The loneliness had me writing a rather somber song into the late hours of the evening. Hitherto I'd hardly considered myself a night owl, but these days the lonelier hours suited me far better. It was not only love, I was missing, but friendship, Jack having been cold ever since Brook's narrow escape. And although we still spent our days making art, it all felt awfully commercial, everything tied up in business deals and placating that damned duke- in my eyes the opposite of the Bohemian ideals I had sought out upon travelling to Paris. So the song I wrote at night, was not for the show, but for Andy. Or perhaps, for myself, a promise to return to what I had come here for in the first place.

"I follow the night

Can't stand the light

When will I begin

My life again?"

I tinkered a light simple piano melody with my right hand as I softly sung. As the lyrics poured out, I lost track of whether I was singing from my own or Andy's point of view; either way I was surprised by their unnaturally pessimistic overtone.

"One day I'll fly away

Leave your love to yesterday

What more can your love do for me?

When will love be through with me?

Why live life from dream to dream

And dread the day when dreaming ends?

I stopped abruptly, the sight of my own teardrops upon the keys stilling me into silence. I could understand how a lifetime of this world would mar Andy's view of love. There was no love where transactions were involved.

***

"I haven't heard that one before." The sound of Andy's soft voice broke my train of thought as I lifted my fingers from the keys. He rarely spoke to me during rehearsals these days. I met his blue eyed gaze with a sad smile.

"I hadn't realised I was playing it. It's not for the show."

"What's it for then?"

"Just for the sake of it," I shrugged.

"Do you have lyrics yet?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Teach me it."