Sanditon Melodies

Chapter 37: Epiphanies

"Sidney... I want you..."

Her voice, her touch, her taste, the perfect contours of her body pressed against his. Was this real or was he dreaming?

"Charlotte..." He replies, clinging to her tightly, not wanting to let her go, but she pulls away.

"Why don't you want me?" She says as she drifts further away from him. He tries to follow, but he can't reach her.

"No... Charlotte, don't go..."

"Sidney." Her voice hoarse, her eyes sad and shining with tears, her cheeks flushed, her lips red and swollen. "Sidney!"

"No, come back!" He shouts.

"Sidney. Sidney." She whispers.

Sidney woke with a start, his heart pounding, his body drenched in sweat as it took him a while to decipher that he had been dreaming again... But as he became more conscious of his surroundings he also realised with a stab of pain, that the dream he'd just had was in fact his current reality. Charlotte was still not his and it was all his doing. He looked at the time: 7am. He wondered whether Charlotte would be awake. It was probably unlikely as she would have arrived in Birmingham late last night. Sidney reached for his phone. Despite expecting there would be no messages from her, it was still a disappointment. Feeling miserable, he looked through their historic WhatsApp messages which he could not yet delete. Had it really been a whole month since he'd last heard from her? And how much longer would he feel this way?

****************

They were now a month and six gigs into the tour... Exactly half way through, and whilst the ache in her heart still persisted, Charlotte was trying (and often succeeding) to enjoy herself because she was doing what she loved: performing. The feeling of walking out onto the stage in front of thousands of people still carried with it a real novelty and whilst it was nerve-wracking, it was thrilling as well and each time her set finished, she would run off the stage beaming.

There was one thing that happened, however, that was completely unexpected, and that was Charlotte's budding friendship with Georgiana who, it seemed, had decided to take Charlotte under her wing during the whole tour. Charlotte found she enjoyed her company. It was nice to have a distraction during her time of heartbreak and their escapades together did help dull the pain, although it never went away altogether.

It was the nights that were the hardest, and even more so because the dreams Charlotte had about Sidney were becoming more and more vivid: sometimes she dreamt of them being together, other times apart, but there was one in particular that kept coming back time and time again and she knew why, because it was the last memory she had of him before she left Georgiana's party. It was as if his image was burned into her mind, never to be forgotten: His dumbfounded, silent, confused expression, beautiful, yet tragic at the same time.

"OK, this was the best idea yet!" Charlotte said to Georgiana as she looked over at her new friend sat next her, a bottle of bubbly in hand whilst reclining in a chair at a hotel spa in Birmingham. They'd just had a facial each and were about to get their nails done.

"I always stay here when I'm in Birmingham." Georgiana responded, her demeanour relaxed.

"So you are a frequent customer are you?"

"Well... I come here at least once or twice a year for gigs. The Brummie fans are definitely the best."

"I don't know. The Manchurian fans were the most enthusiastic I've seen on this tour."

"Yes, they come a close second. Just you wait until tomorrow night."

"I'm looking forward to it." Charlotte replied, her eyes shining with excitement. Georgiana's phone buzzed and Charlotte noticed her frown slightly when she read it. "Everything OK?" Charlotte asked.