The Draw (A Bastille fanfic)

51. Dan

I stood staring down at the grave in front of me. Although I had been here often throughout the years, it always hurt seeing it. It was almost like a mark of how real it was.

I looked to the side of me to see my daughter gripping tightly onto my hand. I knew that each time we came here she got scared because of the gravestones but I wanted her to know about her aunt, even if she didn’t ever get the chance to meet her.

“Daddy there’s those other flowers here again.” My 4 year old commented. 5 years on and he still came. The flowers that were placed by the grave looked about a week old; he had come for the anniversary.

Although things were very different between myself and Kyle now, I would always love and respect him and I knew that he truly loved my sister. He was devastated when the crash happened. She was on the way to his house after he surprised her by coming home from tour for one day to see her. Everything was perfect between them two and their bond was stronger than ever, it’s horrible that he had to go through losing someone he had fallen in love with before really getting to spend much time with her.

After her death he distanced himself from me completely despite my hardest efforts to keep him sane. We never once did a show as Bastille again. Will, Woody and I had discussed finding a new member to take his place but in the end it just didn’t feel right. It was a shame that it had to end, but we all knew that the crazy lifestyle that we lived for those three years would never last. These days I did more producing for other people rather than creating my own music. I was happy with my job but I did miss the thrill that I got when I stood on stage in front of thousands of people, which was something I had somehow got comfortable with. But realistically, touring the world with a child wasn’t exactly possible anyway.

I had called my daughter Taylor, in memory of my sister. Cassie had put up a fuss about it but she ended up really liking the name and she decided to go along with my choice. We did, of course, have to have Cassandra as our daughter’s middle name though, with Cassie not wanting to give up completely. I had taken my sisters advice when it came to Cassie and I ended it with her when I realised that I wasn’t with her for any of the right reasons. At first she hadn’t taken it well, claiming that I would never see my unborn daughter, but through my persistence she realised that we just weren’t compatible. I constantly scolded myself for ever seeing anything in her. She was difficult, rude, irresponsible and generally a bad mother to Taylor, always putting herself first. When Taylor was 6 months old I managed to get full custody of her but Cassie still saw her on some occasions, usually when she chose though. I hated that Taylor didn’t have the stability of a mother and I was constantly trying to make up for that fact. I took pride in myself at my skills as a father and my friends always commented on what a great child my daughter was. And she was. She made me so happy and I loved her with all of my heart. I was just sad that my sister never got the chance to meet her niece.

My sister crossed my mind almost every day. I was completely heartbroken when she died, although I was thankful that we had been able to resolve our issues and come together as a family and spend the last year of her short life together. I still to this day get nervous getting in a car, knowing that it was in a car that both my parents and my sister had died. It was tragic, but just two fluke incidents that by chance happened to the same family.

We had been at the grave for just 5 minutes before Taylor was starting to get irritable. I could feel her itching to run to the park which was in view of the graveyard that we always went to after we had visited her aunt. “One moment sweetie.” I said to my daughter before doing what I always did before I left my sister.

I scrolled through the pictures on my phone to find the screenshot of a text that I had received 5 years ago.  I tried to bite back my tears as I found the picture and began to read.

“Dannnn the mannn! Hope touring is going good, if it’s anything like last time I know you will be having amazing fun. Hope you are looking after yourself as well as Kyle. I mean it about Kyle; please look after him, I love him too much for anything bad to happen to him and I know he can hardly look after himself. Love you too big bro, I’m so glad we’re back in each other’s lives. Before I saw you again I had this thing that was always pulling me back and you got me out of that, so thank you. Shit now I’ve gone mushy… Uh you’re a twat? That levels out my niceness! Oh and by the way, Cassie bitch has been making excuses to come around all the time. Would you kindly tell her to fuck off? She keeps getting in my way and she’s creeping me out. I don’t wanna say get rid, but… Get rid? Please and thank you. Love you bro, see you soon x”

I felt a single tear roll down my cheek and I let it fall onto my shirt. No matter how many times I read that, it always affected me in the same way. I let out a deep breath that I didn’t even realise that I was holding and began to hum the song that I had written about one line in that very text, ‘The Draw.’ I always felt such emotion when I replayed the recording of that song. She always had something pulling her back and I had helped her, which is something I would always be happy about. Who knows, if she wouldn’t have come back into contact with me maybe she would have died a year before she had done. I took another deep breath in and let it out slowly to compose myself before putting my phone away and forgetting about the sadness.

I looked down at my daughter who was staring up at me with expectant eyes as I sighed and gave in to her, letting her lead the way towards the park.

And then I saw him again, for the first time in over three years. Kyle. He was right there in front of me.