Reasons to Live - a collection of flash fiction stories

Into The Night

Everything is still. The night hushes every sound. It feels as though the whole world is gone and I am the lone survivor, just me and my thoughts. Trespassing on the past is always unwise. Even if there were DO NOT ENTER signs, some nights I can't help but tread on broken glass.

I didn't realise I was in the same hotel you and I had spent our last moments together, until the bellboy handed me the room key. Thoughts of getting my manager to switch hotels crossed my mind as I smiled though gritted teeth, handed him a two tens and told myself everything would be all right.

The penthouse suit is full of ghosts, of days gone by when it was me and the band. Us. Now, I'm on my own. My days as a solo artist may be filled with screaming fans and pleading photographers, but even amongst them all I feel a pang of loneliness. My days have turned bitter. The blades of reality have come to slice up the strings that once tied me to him. He is no longer by my side.

* * *

"You knew that one day I would eventually marry him!" I screamed so hard I thought my chest would burst.

"And you choose him over me"' His hands trembled. In his black over-coat he looked dark and terrifying. People that didn't know him well always thought he was an unusual man, someone rough and brass. To me, he'd always been perfect, even with his ten million flaws.

We had known each other for a decade. Part of the same rock band, we worked and toured for the better half of those ten years. He had become my best friend. What happened behind closed doors was kept a secret. He went on to marry, have two pretty little girls, but I remained by his side. With him next to me I felt invincible.

Then I met Quin, and the world I knew shattered.

"I am not choosing," I tried to tame my anger; how many times since Quin had come into my life had we had this fight?

"Yes you are!" He spat back at me like an angry child.

"You've got Helena, what's the bloody difference"' No matter how many times I had stated that he, too, had someone else in his life he would still get pissed off at me and condemn me for sharing my love.

"That's different!" His hands balled. He looked like he was about to punch something...someone, but he just spun on his heal. His coat-tails fluttered behind him like dark wings.

I ran after him and grabbed him by the shoulders. He swore at me and tried to push me away."You're breaking my heart!" I yelled. Lord only knows who else in the hotel was listening to our fight. It didn't matter that we were in the penthouse room, our angry voices carried to the city below.

 He pushed me, then pinned me against the wall so hard it took my breath away."Chose."

"What?"

"We can't go on like this, Ren. All the fighting, all the hostility. Look at what it's doing to the band. We're on edge, and it shows when we're playing. This is going to destroy us. Choose. Him or the band."

"You know I can't leave him." With whatever strength I had in me I pushed him away, "I won't." I prayed he would come to his senses and see what he was making me do was wrong. But things don't happen that way.

"Then I guess this is goodbye." He grabbed his cigarettes from the table and jammed them into the pocket of his coat.

"Goodbye."

I watched him slip out of the room. A feeling of grief filled my chest, the pain was over-whelming. 

* * *

I look around the room. Phantoms mocked me, whispering in melancholy tones that it was the bitter end. I took a deep breath and moved to the luggage by the door. The taxi was waiting for me.

There was a pair of drumsticks in my grasp, the pair he had used in our last gig together. For some reason I'd taken them from him and kept them. Maybe deep inside I knew it was going to end. I promised myself I would no longer cry.

Just one more time.

Setting the luggage down, I step over to the bedroom. The window ushers ribbons of moonlight inside. Streams of midnight brush against me. Night-time is a melody, you are the back-beat keeping time to the rhythm of my heart. I keep singing to your song. I could still feel you here, your form spread out before me, breathless and spent.

Letting go is the hardest thing I will ever have to do. Back home a man waits for me, one who's only made me shed tears of joy, yet here I am, the eternal fool, wishing we were still as we had been. Missing you is tearing me apart.

I move to the bed and place the drumsticks on the covers. With a whispered good-bye I walk out the door and step into the night.

© Christine Bottas. All rights reserved 2015-2016.