As weeks passed by, Tristan and the others closed them off entirely from the world outside. I watched as they all stopped posting on their social media accounts, stopping their tweets and most importantly stopping their interactions with hardcore fans out in public.
Tristan hadn't answered one of my calls since the seventeenth of November and it was now the twenty second. It's like the four of them just entirely wanted to drop off the face of the earth until they discovered a gem within their writing that they could go with.
I stopped showing up at Tristan's house because I knew that none of them would answer the door. They stopped being photographed together by the paparazzi and stopped going out in entirety.
I wasn't worrying because I knew where he was, I was just disappointed more in myself than him. I should have known that as soon as his career was pulled off the rocks he would be gone again, and that was exactly what was happening.
We'd had several meetings with the writers, directors and producers of Spotlight over the past week where I had to explain that Tristan's absence was due to a strange sickness he'd been down with lately. They'd given me contracts for me to take over to his house to give to him, but I couldn't do much if he wasn't answering his calls or opening his door to his own girlfriend.
In the past two days the minor cast had all signed on to film a second season of Spotlight that would consist of twenty-two episodes. Michelle, Brian and I had all also signed on to complete another season.
I didn't see the problem in filming another season. It kept me living as I got paid and it kept me happy because I got to work with my some of my best friends every day.
As the days went on I continued to think about my last phone call with Tristan and how he didn't believe that Hank was the person who hospitalized me by spiking my drink. I couldn't stop thinking about Tristan's attitude, and how I knew it would result in this after I thought I was happy.
I opened my phone to check Instagram, when a photo popped up at the top of my feed. I read the caption a few times and noticed it was posted by Blake.
"And we're back" he stated with the tick emoji. The photo was the three others sitting on the carpet surrounded by sheet music. I noticed that many of their fans were commenting things like:
'SO THE BAND IS BACK TOGETHER!?"
"oh my god its real."
"I STAN U GUYS."
"I s2g their next album will be lit."
I read through all the comments and noted that a majority of them were teenage girls tagging their friends in the photo and it was gaining quick popularity.
If they were posting photos, it meant they were answering their phones. I quickly made my way over to Tristans house. The contracts were still in my car so it's not like I could possibly forget them.
I knocked about three times before he came to the door, and when he opened I discovered that he had grown quite the beard since I had last seen him.
"Hey," he smiled and invited me in. His hand was wrist deep in a bag of corn chips and he was wearing a sweater and grey sweatpants.
"Are the other guys here?" I asked as I walked in. I looked into the music room and noticed there were no others in the house, but the room was certainly a mess. The house was quiet for the first time in a long time.
"Nah. They left a few hours ago," he said, shutting the door. I made my way over to the kitchen counter and pulled out one of the stools so that I could sit down.
"How have you been?" I asked.
"Alright. You?" he asked.
"I mean alright too. Why haven't I heard from you?" I asked. He threw the empty bag into the garbage bin and opened the fridge, to where he reached for a carton of milk and skulled half the carton. He wiped the milk droplets from his face.
"I've just been writing. No biggie."
No biggie?
"Well, you need to sign these," I noted, lifting the wad of contracts out of my handbags and dropping them loudly onto the counter. I hovered over them as he looked at me confusingly and placed the remnants of the milk carton back into its original spot in the fridge. He shuffled his bare feet over the wooden floor to the counter and stared down to the thick paper beneath his nose.
"What's this?" he asked.
"It's the contracts you have to sign for Spotlight season two. We've all signed on, it's just you left and then we can get underway."
He stayed silent as he looked over the first page, not bothering to touch them or gather a pen from somewhere to begin signing.
"I mean if you just sign them and then I can take them back to the studio in the morning and then you can get back to writing –"
"Mae..." his voice softly said. I begged for him to say something relevant or something important. I just needed something.
"Tristan?" I asked, basically repeating the same thing he said back to me. He stayed silent as he looked over the contracts on the bench. I looked behind him to stare out the window into the city, where a thousand lonely lights shun from buildings.
It felt like an hour before anyone spoke.
"I can't sign these..." he whimpered in a near inaudible whisper.
"Why can't you?"
He ran his hands through his hair that was longer and curlier than usual. He pulled his hair back with his hand until it bounced back over his face.
"I don't want to do another season," this time in a whisper.
My heart dropped at the thought of him not returning for another season. Although it was his life and his career, he was the one who brought me out here in the first place to star in a series and he couldn't just leave now.
"Of course you can. Are you serious? Did you not see the views that we got Tristan? We broke records!"
He shook his head slightly and took a few steps away from the bench.
"Is this all about breaking records to you?" he groaned and exited the room by entering the music room that was connected to the kitchen. I followed him around the corner and stumbled down the small set of steps behind him.
"I never said that!" I yelled, "Tristan you're the one who brought me out here to have a television series with you, and now you're telling me that you're going to leave me to be in it on my own?"
He collected some papers off the floor and then stood up to arch his back. His silence tonight was killing me and it made my blood boil that he would do this to me.
"You know they're going to cancel the show if I don't return, right?" he gritted through his teeth. He continued to file away the sheets of music in the desk drawers on the side of the room.
"I'm not an idiot Tristan," I paused. "Clearly you are!"
He turned around and stared at me at that comment.
"Can you not see how happy it makes me to make music again? I have my best friends back, my manager is back, the music is back - the band is back Mae!"
"But you don't have your girlfriend in that picture, do you?" I asked, my voiced dropping. I wiped a quick tear from my eye. I could tell the answer by his silence. He stood still at the desk as I stood on the other side of the room by the piano and neither of us dared to take a step closer.
"I didn't-"
"No Tristan you didn't, that's right. I'm not going to sit here again and watch the Tristan Dawson show. The Tristan Dawson that goes to rehab, and dates girls for publicity, and has his own t.v show," I cried. "The same Tristan Dawson that claims he loves me when he doesn't have the time to stick around."
His eyes couldn't even meet mine, and whenever he tried to start talking he stumbled on his words.
"It's just... musicians don't stay in the same place for long Mae," he groaned, running his hand over the nape of his neck. I got that, but what was he meaning? "If we tour again ... I mean who knows"
"So? Are you telling me you're leaving now?"
"I'm not leaving Mae, it's just all the female attention, and the constant touring and the music. There's no time for a television series or even life in Los Angeles."
"The female attention?" I spat. "What makes you bring that up?"
"It's just a part of being on tour I guess Mae. Everyone knows that."
I stared at him from across the room and I couldn't believe he was being this selfish.
"You know that this means my career is over don't you?" I argued.
"Mae, what career? You've only been here for just under six months. So what if a television series ends? You've got family back home."
"You want me to move back to Miami?" I sarcastically laughed. "You're the one who brought me out here if you don't remember that."
"Yeah I did Mae, I did." He shoved his hands into the pockets of his grey trackies. He looked around the room again.
"This was your plan all along wasn't it? To become famous again by starring in some television series until you could bring yourself out of the ditch you were in to make music again?" I asked. "Ironic how it was my birthday that you got the band back together at."
He laughed in a snickering motion, but it was almost so quiet that I couldn't hear it. I saw his head jerk back as a look on his face grew as if he was impressed by what I just said.
"Mae you knew I didn't want to film another season before you showed up here. And you know what my answer is to your next question."
I shook my head and bit my lip as the tears streamed down onto my cheeks and hitting the corner of my mouth, the salty taste of my own tears entering my mouth and erupting my taste buds.
"So that's it? We're done?" I asked.
"I told you that you knew the answer, didn't I?" he said, looking down at the pair of guitar picks he picked up from the desk under his hip. I took a deep breathe and ran towards the stairs that I entered in the room not long ago. I didn't bother to collect the contracts from the bench. I didn't care what he did with them now. He could burn them for all that I cared.
I turned around once I got to his front door and looked back at him in the music room, noticing that he hadn't moved an inch from his position when he was arguing with me. His body was facing my direction, we locked eyes for a few seconds, and suddenly everything felt normal and okay.
He didn't move and neither did I, which told me that everything wasn't normal and it was in fact not okay. I turned around and let myself out the door, letting the big glass door slam back on the entire house as I ran to my car and drove into the Hollywood Hills.
Well, that was it. I was done.