28th December 1980
An- yeahhhh you're gonna hate me :)
And so rightly or wrongly, wether it was about to be the worst or best thing that ever happened to me, I found myself stood outside Roger's door shook with nerves.
I'd taken into account almost everything said to me regarding him... and I finally managed to find out over the course of a sleepless, long night what I wanted. I just had to hope and pray it wasn't too late, and that he hadn't already decided I was part of his past.
I knew he wanted to be with me though, at least that's what he told me. Which also meant I knew the risk of him actually sleeping with someone else was lower than I thought. I seemed to tell myself if we were together he'd find himself another lay each night, but I was more sure than anything that that was far from the truth. He'd barely slept with anyone in the duration of us even being friends.
I finally raised my hand to knock the door, a breathe releasing itself as my clenched fist fell back besides me. I of course had in my mind what I wanted to say, but it was no surprise that the truth would usually come out in a completely different way.
All I did know is that I loved Roger. I always had. And unfortunately for me I always would. That's what scared me- loosing the person I loved again. Doing it the first time was hard enough, and I wasn't gonna be able to take the second. That could've been my fault for falling the way I did so easily, but I never did stop loving him. I just learnt to not let it bring me to situations like these.
"Oh... hey." Roger peeled the door back, rubbing his eyes tiredly before they flicked up and down my frame- the one wearing of course his jumper. He was unsurprisingly in just a pair of loosely fitting joggers, a small smile creeping to his lips.
"I just... I know what I want. I wanna work this out. I want you. The good version of you. The one I have now. I just-" He pulled me into his arms, slamming the door behind him as they held me tightly. We didn't kiss, he just held my frame next to his for a moment long enough to tell me I hadn't managed to blow it all away
Hugs meant more to me with Roger than they did with the average person. He wasn't someone to toss them out like they were an average gesture. To me, they meant more than the touch of his lips did. And that's why I stayed in them so contently for so long,
"I'm sorry." He mumbled, holding my head against his chest as a smile took to my lips as I nodded slowly. "You know I'm not gonna make the same mistake Lynn... two years without you was torture. I didn't ask you to come back for no reason."
"Of course I wanna be with you- but my god I don't wanna loose you."
"Adelynn I swear I'm never gonna hurt you. I swear."
He nodded, slowly inching back with me in his hold until he did decided to kiss me. It was a swift motion that caught me by surprise at first, that was until he crashed onto the sofa with me cleverly in his lap, still kissing me desperately.
It hadn't all clicked into place entirely, there was certainly words left unsaid and conversations left behind, but in that moment it felt like it was all so close to finally locking in place. A relationship that had taken literal years to become what it was. I remember thinking to myself I could never, ever become to Roger what I was again- but that was before I found myself wishing I was more than just a friend.
"I wanna be with you." I whispered, pulling back to watch his smile beam. "I lov-"
I glanced to my left slightly, eyes shifting from his onto what I really hoped wasn't what I thought. I wriggled out of his hold, off of his lap, my eyes not leaving the red lace until Roger realised what I'd seen.
I was in disbelief. Pure and utter disbelief. I'd been kissing him like he was the only person I ever planned on kissing again seconds before, and then I was starting to realise what a mistake I'd managed to make. Again. And then I realised what the sudden pain in my chest was... it was the hurt. The hurt of it all again.
Besides our two frames on the couch, there happened to be a red lace bra, unclasped and clearly tossed across the room. Roger had no response, no words or movements that he normally would use to try and plead his false innocence. He knew he'd fucked up, which is why his eyes wouldn't break from mine as I stared at the lace.
And that's also when I realised one look was all it took. One slight glance to the side and my life had changed permanently. No one could ever imagine two seconds to change what would lead to be the every last moment you lived through. But two seconds was all it took.
"Roger... who's fucking bra is that ?" I mumbled, the anger in me so heavy and so thick it was weighing down too heavily for me to yell. He dropped his head into his hands, shaking it back and fourth as if the gesture would make what I'd seen suddenly disappear. "Who's fucking bra is that ?"
"Adelynn I was drunk... and I was trying to find a way to move on from you i didn't-" I ignored him, completely, turning on my heel and rushing up the stairs as the tears clouded my eyes desperate to unsee what they had.
Of course Roger hadn't cheated on me, but he had managed to make me feel like a prized idiot. Again. And in the moment I felt like me and him were finally after all this time gonna work out, the chance of it all happening slipped right through my grasp. He'd told my only the day prior about how he wanted me, and how he wanted to be with me and only seconds before he'd kissed me and told me he would never hurt me.
The lies were too heavy a burden to bare. They felt like chains pulling round my ankles as I stormed up the stairs, rushing down the hall to where I knew Roger's bedroom was. I didn't want to open the door, but that was the part of me that wanted to reassure myself this was all just an awful dream. The part of me that knew however used its power clearly to slowly open the door handle.
"Adeylnn don't-" Roger stood at the top of the stairs, a fear riddling his eyes as I slowly opened the door.
There she was. I didn't even learn her name, but she was certainly there. Buried beneath Roger's covers in the jumper I'd gotten him for Christmas, sleeping contently with no awareness the boy she'd slept with was currently trying to think of what he was meant to say to the shocked women who happened to be the same one in love with him.
I could only just make out her features, but I knew she was stunning. She was gorgeous, laying sprawled peacefully between the sheets with her dark hair sat in ringlets around her head as they were there to show the halo she wore.
It broke my heart. Seeing her in the jumper I'd bought him in the bed he slept him. Knowing she'd kissed the lips I just had. I thought the pieces were finally at no risk of crumbling- but then I saw how Roger had managed to try and distract himself.
I closed the door, turning to face the drummer's expression as it flooded with a guilt so high and heavy it managed to disperse into the thickening air between us. He watched my heart shatter, the shards laid in his grasp as they should've been, a constant reminder as to why the tears did roll so unexpectedly down my cheeks.
"This is why I can't trust you. You slept with some random girl after telling me you weren't gonna hurt me again. Like I'm nothing to you." I mumbled almost, my eyes looking up towards the ceiling in a clearly desperate attempt to avoid his.
"I was drunk... and I was angry. I want you Adelynn. I don't fucking want her..." Roger exclaimed, the anger in his voice only being directed towards himself as I shook my head.
"Do you even know her name ?" I laughed, looking at his blank expression that welcomed a noticeable pause that enabled me to realise the truth. He didn't even know her name, and yet she was worth jeopardising any chance we had.
I scoffed and walked past him, rushing back down the stairs to make my way to the door I wish I never walked through. I'd been so stupid the day before, calling myself dramatic and telling myself I was in the wrong for letting the chance of me getting hurt stop us from having what we wanted- and now Roger was trying to put the pieces back together as quick as he could before I slammed the door.
I didn't know what was going to happen after that. I didn't know much at all. How could I when it was all so sudden and so unexpected ? But I did know the second my foot stepped out the frame it would never be the same. Which is why I stopped at the bottom of the stairs, sitting down on the final one to give myself the chance to let reality sync to where it should need to.
Despite how our paths had seemed to cross and suddenly divert, Roger was always in my life. And the past few months with him had been... well I couldn't begin to even explain it. The cinema he'd booked all the seats in, the night I spent at his after he took me to the hospital, the way we danced at Freddie's party and crawled out of the same bed the day after, the night he spent loosing Scrabble to Summer, the date I'd happily dressed him for, the nights in Charlie's, the beach at sunset, the dozen red roses, the concert tickets, the dress. Everything he'd been to me just as a friend- and I knew the second I left that was gone.
And so did Roger. Which is why a lot more slowly and calmly than I did, he sat down on the step beside me, and let his arm fall around my frame as my head fell against his shoulder.
"Don't do this Lynn... please. Don't go. I can't loose you again."
"Then why didn't you treat me like you wanted me to stay ?" I replied, finally taking the chance to let our eyes find one another's through the thickness of the air settled between us. The blue fencing his pupils wore lost all life they held, and instead they just drowned in a guilt clearly to harsh for their innocence to peak through.
It was the glance in his eyes that gave me the final answer, the last question that needed a reply besides it that told me it was well and truly over. Roger was trying desperately to glue back the pieces, fumbling with each shard knowing he couldn't manage to do it.
"You know you're never gonna find something like this- like us. Despite the shit parts, this side of it all, you know what we've got is too good to let go of." Roger added, the plead in his tone making me wish I'd blocked it out. I sighed, my head nodding at the truth i wished I told before he did, letting another pair of tears fall to the floor.
"I know. That why it's gonna be so hard to leave it all behind." I let a tear roll subtly down my cheek, lifting my head from his shoulder to watch his eyes focus on the small drop of water that had managed to say more than either of us had. He brung his hand up softly to my face, brushing the tear back as if he hadn't even bothered to cause it.
"Then don't. Please."
"You know this is it Roger. You know it is. We can't be in each other's lives. I thought being friends couldn't hurt, but my god this is so painful." I got up from the step, leaving him sat almost clueless as I brushed my hair back with my fingers, sighing as another set of tears fell. "I know I'm never gonna find something like us... but this is how it ends. Me and you..."
"It doesn't have to be the end of it all Lynn." He jumped up, his arms wishing to find my frame in their hold as I stepped back towards the door I knew would end everything once it slammed.
"Then why is it Roger ?" He pulled me into his arms, holding me strangely gently as I simply cried into his chest. He knew he couldn't do anything to defend himself now, and that he simply had to let it go. Let me go. No matter how much the both of us would suffer. We couldn't be in each other's lives. Not when we couldn't love one another.
"I'm so sorry." He mumbled under his breathe, pretending he hadn't been the one to say what he had. The sentence cut through the air, a sharp sting in the tenseness that only let the guilt seep through. "I think you're the most gorgeous girl in the world Lynn. And kind. Too kind actually. And I know you deserve someone better than me. But you'll always be more than just a friend to me."
"I just wish you could've fallen for me like I fell for you. I wish that I could go a day without thinking about you. But I just wish you loved me Roger... so I don't have to stop loving you. I hate how much I love you. I hate it."
"I know." He pressed a moment-aril kiss against my forehead, preparing to lift his arms from my frame until we heard the familiar click of the handle to his bedroom door.
"I did fall in love again. And it was with you... just like you asked me to." I turned on my heel, freeing myself from the hold I liked to fit into, knowing I could never fall back into it. Everytime I was in his arms it felt different, sometimes wrong, but that felt awful. Awful because it was the last time I would be in them. Awful because the comfort was too good to let go of. Awful because they were his.
"Adelynn ?" I turned the instant I heard his voice, a questioning at my expression that refused me the need to ask him what he wanted. He paused, a strangely comforting smile at his lips as he shook his head.
I let my hand grasp the handle of the front door, pausing with a thought that tempted me to look back and say more than I had, but I knew there wasn't long before his new friend made her way into the picture. So I walked out, even though it was the most painful, heart breaking, gut wrenching move I ever had to make.
That was a clear difference between me and Roger. He'd walked out my door with ease all those years ago, like he'd even prepared to do it with so little care, but the chains weighing me down made it the hardest thing I'd ever had to do.
And so that was it. The end. The end of mine and Roger's 'love story'. The end of the two famed stars sworn to keep their feelings for each other to secrecy. But it wasn't the end of my love for him. It was the start to something we both craved so desperately.
-
"It's over ? That's the end of Roger and Adelynn ? Just like that..." Connie asked, her arm around my shoulder as I sniffled and nodded. Her apartment was the first I went to, not because I wanted to tell her more than I did the others, but she seemed to handle a things a lot more calmly than Julian and Summer were known to. And that's what I needed in that moment.
"Connie, he can't be apart of my life if he doesn't love me. He really can't." I shrugged, another sip from the bottle in my grasp trickling past my lips as she sighed heavily. She was lost for words, no response available that would give me any reassurance.
I knew if I wanted to talk to anyone that day it was my mum. Cause now i knew exactly what she meant when she told me Roger was my angel. I just felt like she would know what to do next, and wether the change I gave him was good enough.
"What if he does ?" Connie mumbled in reply, a nervous pull at his fingers as they edged towards her lips. "I mean... he never said that he didn't."
"I don't know. I really don't. What if he loves me I just let him back in ?"
"I hate to say it but he was angry. And I don't think he had any intentions of hurting you. I think this all a huge, huge mess that the both of you need to think about. It's awful. But I don't believe he's just gonna give up. You ask me... he'll fight for you. And I think at this point he'll do anything to prove he just wants you Addy. Cause you know he does."
"I know Connie but finding her upstairs in his bed... in the jumper I bought him ! God it was awful. Like someone really had just stabbed me..." I replied, baring a heavy frustration in my voice as my arms flung in each direction they could. She nodded, slowly enough for me to watch her head fall up and down as my eyes let yet another set of tears roll.
"I know... I told you friends could hurt."
"I didn't wanna listen. I wanted to think everything would be alright. Maybe that's the part of me that wanted to tell herself Roger was in love with me..."
"Addy you can fake love once. Only once. Even if he was faking it the first time, which I don't think he was, he couldn't of this time. That's probably why he didn't tell you he loved you... cause this time it's true. I'm telling you... no matter how could you are at pretending no one can look at you and treat you the way he did without loving you. He's scared of knowing he would do anything for you."
"I'm fucked."
An- I hope you cried ngl