I Just Wanted to be Edgy Too

Chapter Seventy-Nine

Van

I didn't make time to talk to Ellie the next day. I didn't wake up and dive into a conversation with her, the way I would have if she had been lying next to me. Instead, I slept late thanks to my nonsense from the evening before, and ran late for our next interview.

I'd opted for a message, explaining I was late and I'd call her later. But by the time later rolled around, Ellie was asleep. Her "goodnight x" message indicated that before I'd tried calling three times, and each time it went to voicemail. I'd pawned off speaking to her in exchange for speaking to journalists about the new album, posing for pictures with fans, and another meeting with the label.

I couldn't sleep. The lack of communication I'd had with Ellie heightened that. I laid in the hotel bed on my back, and counted the cars that blew their horns. I was up to sixteen, and I'd been laying here for hours.

I reached for my phone again, hoping she'd woken herself up to find my missed calls and messages, but there was nothing. She would call if she woke up because she knew I didn't sleep. I turned back to the ceiling on an exhale waiting for horn number seventeen to stain my memory, but silence was the only thing that seemed to make any noise. And it was causing quite the racket.

I couldn't do this all night.

I sat upwards and crossed the room, moving to the folders sitting on top of the dresser. The label gave us too many papers to sift through, but they came in handy when you couldn't sleep. Most people didn't read through every detail of a binding contract, but I had done just that for years. I knew every little clause and comma, every dollar amount and percentage. I knew how to make my moves so I could ride things out and get away with them. It's why I stayed silent toward the media. I didn't want to give anyone any part of me they didn't deserve, and the label didn't deserve a product of myself to portray to the media. They deserved my silence. So that's what they'd received for the last two years. A brooding lead singer who dressed in all black. A mysterious entity, a shallow grave of the person I was when they signed me five years ago.

I flipped through the pages, reading through the words I'd already scanned over ten times. There was nothing new there, nothing I hadn't seen before, but it kept me from going a bit mad. I sat on my bed and flipped through the pages meticulously, reading how my rights to songs weren't my own, but belonged instead, to the label, until the contract was null and void. I shuddered. That's what I hated the most.

My words weren't mine. My music wasn't mine. My band wasn't even mine. Even the name didn't belong to me. And to think, at one point, I wanted this. I dreamed of this. Fought for this. Ruined friendships and relationships for this. I don't know if I would've done anything differently had I known the truth. I still wanted to be a singer on a stage. I still wanted to be in a band. But I didn't know the cost.

And the cost was more than I'd bargained for.

I tossed the papers to the side, instantly feeling sick over the words I'd read, and more angry than I had been before I started reading. I picked up the phone again, not caring how many missed calls she'd find from me in the morning, and pressed her name again.

The phone rang twice before rolling into her voicemail. I pinched my nose and waited for the beep.

"Hey love...it's me. I've never been good at these things...but I'm going to try it out. And I know it's going to cut me off at some point, but until then, I'll just talk." I sighed. "I'm so much better when you're with me. When you're right I'm front of me and I can look you in the eyes. It's always been easier to talk to you in person. Even before...before you weren't his, we always got along better with each other when we were face to face. I miss you. And it's been the longest few weeks of my life. I know we've been apart longer than that, but that was before this. Before all of us. Maybe that's why my head's so messed up. Because you're all the places I'm not." I paused again, as if I expected her to respond, but the silence of the room reminded me I was basically talking to myself. "Anyway...I'm sorry I didn't call you today. I should have. There's no excuse for why I didn't. I could give you them all, but it's not going to change the fact that it shouldn't have happened. And you were probably waiting all day. Checking your phone, keeping it by you, just in case. And I didn't come through. And I'm sorry for that. I really am. And I know you're going to tell me it's alright, but it's not. This is what distance grows from, and the last thing i want is to have distance between us."

"I'll be home soon. I guess there's a positive, but then I turn around and leave for tour a few weeks later, and I'm not looking forward to leaving you like that. It's fuckin' me up a bit to be honest."

And it was. Deeply. I was nervous just thinking about saying goodbye to her. Chomping at the bit as everyone day drew nearer, and it wasn't even that close yet. The anxiety of the situation crippled me.

"I'm not sure how you're hanging in there, and I mean really hanging in there, but I hope you're alright. I hope you're not too lonely, and Bernie and Mary keep you company from time to time. I hope the house feels like a home. I can't wait to see you. Just a few more days really. And maybe I should be focusing on that. Maybe I should be thinking that way instead of being a pessimist. But you know me. You know how I get."

"I promise to talk to you later today, when you're awake. I promise not to make you wait on me again. You're the best pet of my life, El. Everything else is just filler. I hope you understand that. I hope you know how deeply I mean that-"

The phone beeped and the call ended as the message cut me off. I held it against my ear for a moment, wishing it was still going so I could tell her again how much she meant to me.

Outside, a car horn blew in the distance and I tossed the phone onto the bed as I laid down next to it.

"Seventeen." I counted as I looked back at the ceiling.