Heaven Help Us

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I came back the next week to tell him more of the story.

I had decided that I wouldn’t have a name for Rain in the story, as anything close to Rain was far too detectable.

“How was your day at your aunt and uncle’s?”

“Uncle Jinxx and Aunt Sammi aren’t my blood aunt and uncle, right?” He asked curiously.

“Well, no, not technically. But they’re still family.”

“I know, but it’s like Aunt Ella and Uncle Jake aren’t my real aunt and uncle either, but uncle Raven is my real uncle because he’s Mommy’s brother. Right?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, it’s like that.”

“Okay, good.”

I raised my eyebrow at him. “Why?”

His face went red. “No reason. Keep going with the story, Dad.”

I grinned at him, pretty sure I knew what that conversation was about, and then started talking.

 “Before the concert started, he texted the girl to see if she was going to come take the tour of his bus. So she went down to the bus area and found theirs. Andrew let her inside and showed her around some. His band had made him wait to do his hair and makeup, but he was alright with that. It meant that he had more time to talk to the girl. He saw that she had a ticket to LA, dated for that night. This got Andrew thinking. His band’s ultimate destination was to get home to LA, right?”

“Right!” Jepha supplied cheerily.

“Her ultimate destination was LA, as well. Andrew’s band mates took over talking to the girl as Andrew got ready for the concert. He had a plan brewing. Later that night, right before his band went on stage, they all agreed on something. Andrew went out onto the stage with his band and performed for a bit, before pausing to ask if she wanted to finish off the tour with them.”

“Did she say yes?”

“She did. After the show, her friend got a ride home with some dude she’d just met, and the girl met up with someone to sell her car. Andrew had some of the roadies take her equipment and put it with his band’s, and then he showed her back to the tour bus. They gave her a bunk and everything. Andrew really liked her, but still in love with Juliet, he kept pushing anything he started to feel other than a friendly feeling away. The day after she joined them on tour, they decided it might be good to take her shopping. As they were shopping, they both went to grab the same Batman item.”

“She likes Batman?!” Jeph asked, eyes wide and mouth open in pleasant surprise.

“Yeah, and so does Andrew. After the show that night, she and Andrew sat down to have a Batman marathon. After a few drinks and about nine episodes, the girl fell asleep. Shortly after that, Andrew was out too. The next morning caused a lot of confliction in his mind. He woke up with his arms around the girl-“

“But what about Juliet?”

“We’re getting there!” I laughed. “He woke up with his arms around the girl, but his internal battle started when he felt reluctant to remove his arms from around her. He decided to do what he thought would help, and call Juliet. The only thing was that that call made his confliction worse. For the next month, the girl and Andrew got closer. They talked about Batman, music, life, everything pretty much. Andrew was so caught up in everything that he didn’t have time to catch himself before he fell. Hard. I think that by the end of that first month, he knew deep down, really deep down, that Juliet didn’t really have his heart anymore, no matter how hard he tried to keep loving her. She had become distant lately and hardly called. Just texted. The band mate who had been kind of off at the beginning of tour became much stranger. He kept mostly to himself, and at that point, Andrew couldn’t really blame it on missing home anymore. He didn’t know what to think. One hotel night, Andrew couldn’t sleep. His mind was racing with all of these thoughts and feelings. This girl was affecting him so much, and he had only known her for a month. His heart raced when she smiled at him and it brought a smile to his face when she’d laugh, especially if it was at something that he had said. His heart ached when she talked about how much she had liked her ex boyfriend and how sad she was that she had had to say goodbye to him. He didn’t want to feel these things. So he sat there for a few minutes and decided that he wanted to listen to music. His music collection was in the bus in the hotel parking lot, and he went down there to get it. But when he entered, he heard the sounds of a guitar. It was beautiful. He thought that perhaps one of his guitarists had come down to play. But then she started singing. It was the girl. Do you know your Aunt Sammi’s band My Satellite’s song, Mirrors?”

“Yes, I do! I love that song.” He smiled. “Was that what the girl was singing?”

“It was. He carefully peeked into the room to look at her, and his breath caught when he did. She looked so beautiful sitting there, bent over a guitar with moonlight casting an angelic glow on her. Her voice was mesmerizing. He slid down on the side of the door, out of her line of view so as not to be caught, and just listened with his eyes closed. She left after she finished the song, but Andrew sat there for a few more hours, his head trying to grasp how amazing what he’d heard was. Her voice was swimming through his head. When he saw the sun was rising, he hurried back up to his room to give in to dreams of the girl. The next morning, she woke him up around 11, offering to spend time with him. Andrew, still wanting to push back everything he felt for her, but not wanting to be away from her, agreed. He went to shower while she went to go get pancakes. He offered her some, but she declined. After a few minutes of silence, though, she leaned forward. Andrew thought that…maybe, she was going to kiss him. His heart stopped for a moment in anticipation. In that moment, that was all he wanted. He wanted her to lean forward just that extra couple of inches and kiss him.”

“What about Juliet?” He asked again.

“We’ll get to the next part next week, okay?” I said, having an internal debate about telling him the things that happened next.

“Alright, I guess. Are you staying here again tonight?”

I’d been staying with them every couple of days, and Jepha, Rain, Dante, Raven and Asher all seemed to enjoy when I was still there the next morning at breakfast.

“I might. Sleep well, kiddo. I love you.”

“I love you too, Daddy.” He smiled into his pillow as I gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the head.

I thought to myself, maybe I would stay again tonight…Maybe I could keep pretending that I lived here and that we were one large happy family. Of course, Rain didn’t know that secretly I liked to pretend that when I stayed over that I lived here and that it was this happy rock and roll family in my head. She also didn’t know that I shared her anxiety about Jepha going to school and making friends and being sick…I wasn’t sure when I would be able to form the words to tell her that that was exactly what I wanted.

I wanted to live with them and be married to her, and I wanted everybody to know that Jepharee Andrew Moore is my son and maybe if it was okay with her, we could change his last name to Biersack and I could sign the birth certificate…

And maybe we could go on more tours together and when we weren’t together on tour, I could stay here at home and take care of Jepha and vice versa. I wanted to wake up every morning with Rain by my side and fall asleep every night knowing that I was right next to the love of my life and that my son was just a hallway away. No distance, no doubts, no reason to be scared that everything might fall apart and I might not see my son or Rain again.

In my mind there was no other word for this. It was simply: home. I wanted a home.

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