11th February 1981
"Shit... I've gotta go. But be there- one o'clock her meeting is." Julian slammed the phone down as soon as I stepped through the doors frame, a nervously blank expression seeming to be worn as he registered who'd twisted their key in the lock.
"Why are you slamming the phone down in such a hurry ?" I scoffed, padding straight through to the kitchen to find something quick to eat before my meeting with Mel at one. "Keeping secrets from me now Jules ?"
"Of course I'm not Miss Petrov." He shrugged guilty, a small and mischievous tug at his lips as I stole a cupcake I assumed Summer had made. "Look I didn't mind you eating all our food when you were staying here but it's been a couple weeks... cut it out !"
"I stayed here for three nights Jules- and ate I think a total of one chow mien and two Kit Kat's." I laughed in response, tossing my wrapper in the bin as Julian glanced subtly at his watch.
"Haven't you got a meeting to be going to ?" He asked almost sneakily, his grin unable to be wiped as I nodded. I wasn't sure why he was acting as suspicious and bizarre as he was, not until much later, and at the time I lead me to question him more than I usually would.
"Maybe I do. I've got twenty minutes to spare I thought I'd stop by." I dropped down onto the sofa, flicking on the tv as Julian nodded and took a seat besides me. "Where's Summer and Leo ?"
"Out shopping. I had to erm..." his expression flushed red, his eyes widening as his mind spun as fast as it could to figure out an excuse. "Had to do some things. Gay things."
"Excuse me mister." I laughed loudly, my head shaking from each side as Julian dipped his head down. "But you cannot pull the gay card here. No way. What were you doing ?"
"Nothing nothing. How've you been anyway ?"
I didn't have the answer I knew he wanted. Not at all. I couldn't tell him that even though some of the longest, hardest most dreadful weeks had passed that I was feeling tons better. I couldn't even tell him the days passed quicker. Or that I'd finally fallen out of love with someone I wish I could've had the chance to spend my life with.
I've been with people in my life time. Certainly had my share of experience. But no one ever made me feel like Roger did. I'd stopped caring about the fact he most defiantly treated every other women the same, and appreciated how he did treat me individually. I may have been nothing to him, but I never minded being the friend his arms fell around.
I wanted Roger back. But I wanted a Roger that would undeniably never leave me hurt the way he had. It was the pure definition of addiction. It felt so good when you were on that high, the one you never wanted to end, but you knew once you'd sobered up it was bad for you. And I had to make the decision between what was bad and what was good.
"Yeah I've been fine. Getting by atleast."
"I think he loves you." Julian suddenly blurted out, his hands sat wrapped with in one another in a ball under his chin as he watched the colour drain from my face. Shock had never had so much power over me as to take the rose from my cheeks and pull at my lips unless it involved Roger. "I really do doll... and I hate seeing you like this."
"He can't. I really don't think he's able to." I shrugged, my mind deciding to push away every crumb of what Julian had tossed over me until I was satisfied with the heaviness of the weight tugging me down. The phrase still plays on my mind now, and I wish still that I said something better in reply, but I was lost within a depth too deep to suddenly free myself from.
"Go to your meeting... and then come back here and tell me, Summer, Leo and Connie all about it. Over a Chinese." Julian grinned again, glancing at the clock on the wall before he looked back at me with the same suspicious glint his eyes were smitten with when I'd first walked through the door.
"Ok ok ok... I'll see you later."
-
"Is that everything ?" I sighed, glancing across at Mel as she nodded, her coffee cup rattling against the table as she threw the empty mug down recklessly. "So am I good to go ?"
"One more thing Adelynn..." she paused, her glasses finding themselves being pushed an inch further up her nose. She coughed and cleared her throat before she began saying anything, a nervous tremble in the fingers pushing back her hair. "Have you thought about getting help ?"
I scoffed, shaking my head as I laughed loudly. I wasn't in need of help. Not in my opinion. Sure I drank more and maybe I lost a little weight but their were people in the world that suffered far worse and far more than I had. I didn't need help. I needed him. And no one could really get me that... so if anything was a close substitute it had to be the reassurance and warmth of alcohol.
"I don't need any Mel. Don't be silly."
"I'm just worried... you drink and smoke like it's nothing. You don't wanna end up like-" I jumped up from my hair, my bag swinging over my shoulder in a hurry as Mel felt the regret hit her like a slap round the face. I don't think she consciously meant to say what she almost did, but she had cut me so severely I couldn't even place the depth's trueness.
"Yeah I know. I'll see you later." I gave Mel a small and probably too freely given wave as I shut the door behind me, resisting the urge to slam it with all my power and burst into tears behind it before I left the building.
Every step down towards the two double doors that granted my freedom and more importantly the beginning of my journey to Julian's consisted of thinking. Thinking about Roger, Mum, Mel, work, and most importantly and somehow terrifyingly, how I was asked if I was getting help.
Help was a vague term. Anyone can be helped. People help others without realising. It's thrown about so loosely in modern society. Help is something by definition given to someone to aid them through life, and it's often associated with kindness.
And that was the biggest misconception. That help included kindness. Help can be given so cruelly that the way its delivered manages to impact you more than the essential aid itself. Words can unexpectedly cause the worlds greatest and somehow most valued pain, and that helped reality in the way in which it worked. Cruelly.
It just so happened that as I stepped out of the two glass double doors at 13:32pm on the eleventh of February I found myself lost from reality. Every thought snatched and word swallowed. Every breathe quicker and heart beat rapid. Every second longer and air tighter.
He stood in front of his car parked on the curb like it was nothing. Nothing to him, meaning it should of been nothing to me. His eyes were glued to the cracks and dents of the pavement holding us both, his hair a mess and jumper old and worn. He didn't look like him. He looked like me. He looked heart broken.
I thought maybe I could pretend not to notice him and simply get on with the day like I was supposed to, but how could I when I was stood frozen in the centre of the path with my eyes stuck to his intriguing figure. I had no idea how it even intrigued me anymore, not when I knew everything I needed to about him.
His eyes slowly raised from the path, his smile pleading me to take the two steps closer towards him that would grant us the opportunity to talk. But that was a word just as vague. We could've talked about anything, not that the pair of us didn't know exactly what the topic of conversation was, but it could've been whatever he wanted it to be. Only we knew what it needed to be.
I did take them eventually. The somehow they became the best two steps I ever took. I slowly walked towards Roger as the air stiffened before us, our eyes concerned with the way the other looked. Both our eyebrows lowered and lips straight, both really thinking the same things.
And it dawned on me then why we were both so similar in that moment. Because we were both craving back the substance. Both desperate for the other. And more than anything both desperate for Roger to be different from who he was.
"What in fucks name are you doing here Roger ?" I mumbled, my head shaking gently from side to side as he shrugged lazily. He knew- of course he did. And it was clearly something he wanted to tell me when he'd figured out how to perfectly explain the reason he'd managed to so easily plague my every move.
He didn't say a word. He instead reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a crumbled, scruffy, slightly torn folded piece of paper and handed it to me. I paused instantly as it fell into my grasp, my head already consumed by the bubbling questions as to why he was even in front of me, the thoughts spinning too quickly to allow myself to even dare to predict what the paper was.
I slowly opened it, revealing Roger's scrawled handwriting, the words all seeming to revolve around one simple topic. Love. The piece of paper of course held a song, and that song happened to be one Roger had written.
"Look at the date." He instructed almost, following my eyes as they slowly edged towards the date at the bottom of the page. It read '15/5/1978'. "I wrote that song about you after we split up. When I realised I loved you. Properly."
Roger reached into his pockets again and tossed a pile of tickets onto the floor between us, my eyes flicking between him, the paper in my grasp, and the pavement as my jaw inched lower and mind become clearer.
I was riddled with shock. The shock of it all. And the realisation. The realisation that had never managed to make me feel so stupid before as it had done then as he tossed the tickets I knew to be from the cinema onto the road, looking up at me with that look.
That look. The same one that got any girl- not just me. The softness in his eyes as they proudly presented their sheer blueness, and the kindness in the warmth his features all wore fractions of. The intriguing way his lips smiled and eyebrows sat. It got me.
"Those are the tickets I bought so that me and you could spend the evening in the cinema alone." He pulled a wad of receipts from his pockets. "I bought twenty three pairs of earrings trying to find the right ones for your birthday."
"Roger what are you-"
"Pictures of us at Freddie's." He tossed a stack of images between us, just as he tossed a parking ticket on top of the same pile. "I got that ticket for parking in the hospital that night... I just never told you. Like
I never told you how I had to end things with Beth because I was in love with someone else. Like I never told you that I love you Lynn... and I know things will never be the same but my god I can't live without you. I am so sorry that I just loved you too late the first time round- but that day when our paths crossed couldn't of been coincidence Lynn, because I remember going home and screaming to Freddie about how I had a chance to have you back in my life. Because I didn't see Adelynn Petrov on her way out that day, of course not, I saw the women I'm gonna love until my lungs give out. Wether she cared or not."
"You're lying to me Roger." I shook my head again, disbelief pairing with the shock that roamed through my mind as he stood their with a plead in his eyes. "How'd you even know I was here ?"
"Ive got Julian's number. I've been ringing him every week to see how you are. And I wasn't gonna go on tour tonight without saying goodbye. But it had to be a proper one. And I had to tell you I love you Lynn. To the point where I don't think I'm ever gonna stop loving you. To the point where I know I'm only gonna love you more with every passing day. To the point where I'm not entirely sure what's gonna happen if you don't be the absolute idiot that agrees to give me a final chance. But I swear if you do it'll the last one I'll ever need from you. Because if you do... I'm never leaving you. Ever. I'm never lying to you. I'm never gonna hurt you. I'm never gonna even take the slightest risk of loosing you."
My chest tightened as I saw the crowds of people the streets held suddenly give us their attention. I took a glance down at the pile that managed to fall between us, looking at how each item held a memory so precious to me.
The phrase never stopped replaying in my mind. Over and over again I told myself Roger loved me, over and over and over until I managed to really believe it was true. It was most likely the shock that made me take everything he said with more consideration than usual, and the pure and utter surprise of him being there that made me new I was bound to give him that chance.
"I hate you Roger. I really do. I hate how I can't live without you. I hate how I love you so much I can't even think of being with anyone else but you. I hate how you treated me like I was the only girl in the world you ever cared about. But really... you know I hate how I don't even hate you. I love you." I felt tears slip from my eyes as they locked onto his, the drops of water rolling down my cheek as he took the subtle steps forwards he'd been waiting to take.
We'd managed to gain more than one watcher as we stood in the middle of the street, whispers of our names as we decided to pull ourselves away from reality to allow us both to get caught in a perfect fantasy that involved only us.
I knew them what I wish I knew before... that there was no ending to me and Roger. We would never end. There was no goodbye that would be forever. And there was no goodbye that wouldn't hold a special place in our hearts... even the ones so incredibly bizzare we were still struggling to make sense of them.
I'd started the day still heartbroken by the loss of Roger... and miraculously by some crazy little thing called love I'd manage ending it in his arms- which is what happened after the two fateful steps I took in his direction.
"There's no end Adelynn... that wasn't it. It was never gonna be over. This is us. It hasn't ended with us... it's finally gonna begin. The way it should've already began." He watched as I nodded with him. "And were gonna tell the entire fucking world. Right now by the looks of it."
"You're right... im never gonna find something like this. Like us. Or someone like you. Because I could never unlove you... But this makes no sense."
"Of course it doesn't... nothing between me and you ever does. I'm some mismatched twat and you're some skinny model- it never made sense. And it's never gonna." He pulled me into his arms, hugging me tightly as another set of tears rolled and we both laughed with relief. Relief to simply be in each other's arms. "But when you realise you wanna spend the rest of your life with someone... you can't wait for the rest of your life to start."
And that time was the last time it ever felt different. I felt like where I was meant to be, with Roger, and that's where I was gonna stay. And that's how it did stay. I didn't feel like they didn't fit me or recall how they held someone else or hesitate wether to stay in them, because I was always going to be his to hold.
Now the worst thing the universe can ever do to you is let you meet the right person... at the wrong time. And I believe that's what happened between me and Roger the first time around. We just didn't get the timing right. He loved me too late. But this time- purely by his absolute craziness, we just managed to get the timing right. Only just.
"You're an idiot." I chuckled, looking down at the pile he dumped between us in an attempt to prove his words. "You're insane for starters..."
"I know." He lifted my head up gently and placed a quick kiss on my lips, neither of us paying any care to the camera clicks we heard. It was of course the middle of the day and we were simply in plain sight for anyone to catch a glimpse of, but we didn't care.
It happened so quick. When I think about it now it all happened in the click of a finger. But it happened when it should've. His lips pressed against mine with the guarantee that they would in every opportunity they should've from that day.
"What so it's all just magically sorted ?" I pulled back and laughed a little, staring up at him as he shrugged.
"Look Lynn... you are very unfortunately an absolute idiot for giving me a chance. But I'm never ever ever gonna fuck this up. And once I've picked up all this shit from the road- I've gotta run away on tour. And you're gonna ring me every single day without fail until I get home and fuck you senseless."
He slowly unwrapped from me, his arm holding me besides him as we turned to face a man snapping the two of us with a camera covering his face.
"And please could you tell whoever you're gonna sell this photo to... that Roger Taylor is in fact in love with Adelynn Petrov... and that he intends to spend the rest of his life with her."
And we did. We spent the rest of our lives together. Sure, Roger made an easy escape from what should've been a few unforgivable acts, but unfortunately love made people do very, very stupid things. Including buying 23 pairs of earrings, getting a parking ticket, buying every ticket in the cinema and showing up outside offices at one in the afternoon.
Thinking about it now I rushed the entire process of it all. I didn't stop to ask him if he was certain or doubt his words, which was probably something I shouldn't done. But i'd seen him in the papers... and he'd seen me. And we saw how we needed each other. Which is maybe why it all happened so quickly... but it was indescribable if it was anything.
We knew more than we did before. We knew so much that words could be left unsaid. And unfortunately for me I knew I was never gonna be able to walk away without giving Roger that chance. There would never be an end for us... not unless we shared it. Neither one of us would walk out the door and never come back.
"Wait till I fucking tell Julian this !"
-
"Right... don't come in yet. Wait a sec." I giggled as me and Roger neared the door to Julian's flat, his frame staying hidden as I twisted the key and pushed down the handle.
Connie, Summer, Leo and of course Julian were sat all eagerly on the sofa, nervously smiling at me as I sighed and tossed my jacket over the coat rack. They all glanced at one another confused, looking at the others expression in an attempt to see if anyone knew why I was so seeming pissed off.
"So uh-"
"Rogers been calling every week ? Really ? And you didn't tell me ? He shows up outside my office like some complete asshole trying to win me back !" I yelled almost not fully, watching all their eyes widen and jaws drop as I rambled on. Julian leaped up from his seat, his eyes full of fear as his arm fell around my frame lazily.
"What did he say to you !" Connie asked nervously, her nails letting themselves be torn between her teeth as I shook my head. "Oh god what did he say ? I thought he loved you ?"
"Thought ? Thought ? My god." I laughed, maybe a little too hard at the fact Roger was stood only outside the flat door probably sniggering at the conversation with his head shaking from side to side.
"Oh no. I'm so sorry." Julian kissed my cheek lazily, tutting as I sighed again. "I thought he changed. Every week he called asking how you were. I mean... you both looked like shit. You were lost without eachother ! And he said repeatedly-"
The door cracked open, and as all eyes turned to see the wooden panel drift forward I smiled brightly, watching Roger walk though it like it was any other occasion.
"Alright Jules so much for keeping your mouth shut ! You'd think I want the whole world to know I love her." Roger chuckled, his eyes locking onto mine as we somehow managed to ignore the gasps and laughs the room gave us.
"Well I would think that yes Roger... especially after you told the press only half an hour ago."
"YOU LIAR ! You had me shit scared thinking I'd fucked up and that it all went wrong and ugh I'm gonna kill you."
"I love you Julian." I kissed his cheek gratefully, squeezing his frame close to mine. "I really do. I'm never gonna be able to thank you for this."
I never was able to thank him enough. He'd been there for me no matter what for three years almost, and he'd done for me more than I could ever imagine. And he'd gotten me back the inevitable love of my life... which is why I always was grateful I stubbled into Charlie's and somehow found the two most important men in my life.
But that day never, ever made sense to me. It was so quick, so bizarre, and yet so perfect. It was the beginning. Not the beginning of me and Roger, but the beginning of the rest of our lives. And it was the end. The end of our life without one another.
But my god... it was only just the start of our story...
An- rushed ? yes. Needed ? yes. My best writing ? No.