Tracks (Rock Bottom) (35 page)

I let my hand fly fast through the air,
coming in contact with his face. The slap is almost deafening throughout my house. After I feel the sting of his skin on my hand, I clasp it over my mouth, backing away. Jeremy stumbles backwards, grabbing his face. I see blood trickling out from under it.

“Oh m
y God,” I say, my voice shaky.

Jeremy wipes the blood away from under his nose. He glances at his hand, and looks up at me, his eyes calm. “It’s okay, baby,” he comforts me, wiping the new bl
ood that falls. “I’m alright.”

“No!” I mumble under my hand. “I hurt you.
You’re bleeding!” I say, hating myself.

He comes towards me but
I back away. I don’t want him to come near me; I’m scared of hurting him again. He pauses.

“Dylan, I hurt you too. It’s okay. I would have been angry, too. I understand
. I’ve put you through a lot.”

I look at him, my eyes wide. “Jeremy, this is not okay! This is not normal. This is not healthy…”

The blood from his nose luckily slows, but it does nothing to quell my guilt. He walks over to me again, and this time I allow it. He wraps me in a hug.

“I don’t trust you,” I whisper, the sad truth leaving my mou
th. Tears stream down my face.

I feel him shake his head. “I know you don’t. I know. It t
akes time, Dylan. I gave up the drugs for you. I won’t get back on them with you here with me.”

I remember the conversation Scott had with me at the bar. I sigh. “Jeremy, I don’
t want you to not use for me.”

Jeremy takes a step back, looking down at me in humor. “What?” he says, laughing. He moves a
strand of hair out of my face.

“I want you to not use for you. I feel like until that time, you won’t be clean. What if we have a fight and you go out and use? Do you
know what that will do to me?”

His face turns serious and he looks into
my eyes. “That won’t happen.”

“But you didn’t stop because you wanted to, only under the threat of me leaving. Maybe you need to take time to think about why you started in the first place, and f
ix those things in your mind.”

I see panic hit his eyes. “I am, Dylan. I am doing those thin
gs. My mom…that’s why I went.”

My chest is tight. I try to keep my breathing even. “I know, Jeremy. But until you deal with those demons, I don’t think you can promise me you’ll be clean. I mean, you’re going back on tour, seeing all the same people and places. I can’t sit here worrying you’ll turn to dr
ugs again. I’ll blame myself.”

He opens his mouth to interrupt me but I continue. “I have things to deal with, too. Things in my past. Plus I have school I need to concentrate on. This is my dream, Jeremy.
”

He looks at me silently for a moment. Tears spill over his cheeks. “What are you saying, Dylan?” his hands caress my back.

I sigh, my heart so heavy I can barely stand. “I’m saying…that we need to let each other go.”

He shakes his h
ead, “No!” he cries out. “No.”

“Just for now,” I add, the tears spilling again. “We can’t keep doing this. We need to deal with our issues and come together as two healthy people. I need to see you stay clean for yourself, and I need to deal with my trust issues and anger problems.”

He looks down at me, his eyes red and pleading. Tears continue down his cheeks. “Dylan, we can do those together. And we’ll grow and become closer.”

I run my hand down his cheek. “It doesn’t work that way. Jeremy, we’ll just continue to hurt each other. And you have a year
-long tour you’ll be on. How can we deal with it together if you’re gone?”

“I’ll cancel. I will. I won’t leave.
I gave up everything for you. I changed completely for you.”

I know he means it, which makes me fe
el even worse. “You can’t cancel. And you shouldn’t have changed for me, that’s the point. That’s not healthy.”

He’s hyperventilating now. He drops to his knees in front of me. “Don’t, Dylan. Oh my God. Don’t, please.” He releases one of his hands from my legs and clutches his chest. Alarmed,
I kneel down in front of him.

I can see he’s alright, just in emotional pain.
“I’m hurting too, Jeremy. I am.”

He
sobs, his face towards the floor. “That woman…” he chokes out. “I got my grandmother’s ring from my mom. The woman in the picture…she’s a jeweler. She’s going to size the ring. A wedding ring. I didn’t want to cause a frenzy walking into a jewelry store.”

Oh God. Oh no.

A wedding ring. For me. He was going to ask me to marry him.

“Oh, Jeremy,” I sob, crying as hard as him now.

We sob loudly for a few moments, holding each other. He puts his head on my shoulder and cradles me in his arms. “You’re my wife, Dylan. No one…no one else.”

Over his shoulder, I see blood splatters on the floor from his nose. My resolve hardens.
“I know, but still…”

He si
ghs. “You’ll come back to me?”

I nod. “Yes, when we’ve dealt with our issues and you’ve stayed clean. Then we’ll know it’s meant
to be.”

He tries to calm his breathing. We’re still grasping each other. “Do you know what I thought when I saw your face in the crowd? That first moment I laid my eyes o
n you?” he whispers in my ear.

I
smile, my chest hurting. “I’d often wondered. I thought I saw you continue to look at me during the show, but then I thought I was just nuts.”

He nods his head on my shoulder. “I did. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. When I saw you, it was like the world stopped. Time stopped. It took everything in me to remember what notes to play and what lyrics to sing. I knew, right in that moment, I was staring at my wife. You’ve always been my wife, since the moment I saw you.
You’re the woman I’ll spend the rest of my life with.”

I squeeze him tighter. “My husband,” I whisper to him.
One day, if not in reality, then always in my heart.

   
 
“Yes!” I shriek, throwing my fist in the air. Straight A’s for the semester. Straight A’s for my first semester at Harvard.

A strong arm smacks me on the shoulder. “Great work, Dyl!” Scott congratulates me as we look at my laptop computer screen.
He kisses me on the cheek and I hug him around the neck. “Text Jeremy,” he reminds me. “He’ll be so proud of you.”

I try to remember
where he’ll be. I don’t want to text him if it’s too early. I forget, he’s always somewhere different, but I know he always likes to hear from me no matter what.

Me: Jeremy, straight A’s!

Jeremy: Babe, that’s wonderful. Knew you could do it. Keep it up.
Call you later.

I smile. Even Scott smiles. Scott’s been a lot more accepting since Jeremy and I broke up.

The night of the break-up, after Jeremy packed his stuff and left, it was really hard. It was a dark time for me, and I’m sure for him. We had agreed it would be better to not speak for a while, and he had left for his tour a week later.

We had just started speaking again, but the pain of hearing his voice is still very raw. I know he’s still in more pain then he lets on, and Rich fills me in on his depression over e-mail from time to time. So we agreed to talk over text message and call each other only twice a week. I still love him and still see myself being with him, but I’m glad he’s now one of my best friends, too.

I’ve been working with a therapist of my own, just as Jeremy’s therapist has followed him on tour. I’m finally dealing with what I saw with
my Dad, what happened with my Mom, and my anger issues. My Dad even flew out to have a session with me, and I told him everything that happened with Jeremy. Talking about it helps.

Scott looks over at me, pride in his eyes, and wraps his arm tightly around my shoulder. Scott makes me feel so centered and normal. He gives me strength to get through all of this therapy crap. He was my sa
ving grace when I left Jeremy.

But between therapy, school, work, and planning Theresa’s wedding and bridal shower and bachelorette party with her, I’m way too busy to date. Being
a maid of honor is hard work.

I think of Jeremy constantly, all the time. Every day that passes, it gets easier to be without him. But it doesn’t make me want him any less.
I hear him often on the radio when they play the new track “Drowning In You.” That’s both amazing and excruciating.

Sometimes I’ll catch him on the news, or see him in an article, and so far it’s all been good things. I’m surprised he’s kept himself out of trouble. Maybe this me
ans we will get back together.

Just yesterday, news blew up about him doing something to his famous guitar. At first, I was scared he had smashed it, but when I noticed my name mentioned in the
article, I was confused. Since Jeremy left months ago, I hadn’t been bothered or mentioned almost at all by the reporters.

They showed a picture of him performing, back in
his  prime- arm in the air, back arched, his graceful body out towards the audience. I smiled, seeing a glimpse once more of the man I fell in love with, back from the dead. The article showed a closer up shot of his guitar underneath the picture, and in green letters engraved on the bottom, the name “Dylan” is written in beautiful calligraphy.

It took everything in me at that moment to not call him and beg for him back. I know he would have come back to me, too. But now that I sit here, in my normal house with n
o reporters or drugs or anxiety or stress, looking at my perfect grades- I know I did the right thing.

But I still hope that one day, it won’t be so complicated.
Maybe one day, it will be as easy as it is now with Scott- with Jeremy wrapped around my shoulders, congratulating me on my grades. But right now, it’s not that way and can’t be, so we’re living our lives the best we can without each other.

Scott squeezes my shoulders once again. “Come on,” I say,
staring into his eyes, purposely flirting with him. He raises an eyebrow at me. “You’re taking me out to celebrate!”

Look for book two in the Rock Bottom Series: Trials.

Coming soon!