We have watched Eddy perform from the side of the stage. I've completely fallen in love with how pure his voice is. It's a gorgeous and simple music with thoughtful and lovely lyrics. I really have to get his album.
I haven't seen a trace of Marcel backstage until right before we go. It fuels my desire to get drunk and let loose. He has that weird spell on me all the fucking time and I am sick of it. I was listening to all of Eddy's longing and romantic lyrics and I kept thinking about Marcel. He occupies my mind even when I don't want to. I have just told him to leave me alone.
He tries to approach me, but I ignore him and follow the group to the dressing room to get ready to head out. I take my coat and my purse, but I decide to use the loo before leaving the venue. They all wait for me, but I take my time. I need to straight up my thoughts.
I am going out. I will have fun. You'll forget him, at least for tonight. You will enjoy this time with your brothers. I will get to see Cynthia again, Will invited her to join us at the club. It will be fun.
I give myself a soft pep talk and get ready to head out, but I am brutally stopped by a desperate Marcel standing in my way. I look away, not to be too sensible to how he feels. I don't want to care. Why is he not leaving me alone?!
"Grace." He says, resting both of his arms on the sides of the door to block my way out.
"Why are you doing this to me? I told you to leave me alone."
"I told you I can't."
"Haven't you heard me, Marcel? It's not up to you." I walk passed him, but he takes my arm to keep me from joining my friends standing a few feet away.
"I wrote you a letter. Please read it." I look up into his eyes and see him more vulnerable than ever before, but it doesn't change anything. It's too fucking late. He should have thought about the consequences before leaving me naked in my flat and insulting me.
"Why can't you let me move on, Marcel? I am done of this drama." I take back my arm violently as I hear him respond.
"No, you are not. You love the attention." I stop breathing and moving as he says that. It's as if all the air was gone from the world.
I do, but how the fuck does he know that?! It pisses me off from a man that pretended not to know me.
I roll my eyes and turn back to look at him, fully aware of the scene we are causing now that we've left the bathroom. If only he would let me go... I can't bare all these brutal emotions conflicting inside of my heart. I turn my back to him again to leave him for good.
I see Sophie from a few feet away, rolling her eyes and telling me to hurry up and join them. Ash then turns and looks at me inviting me to join him with a hand.
"Please, Grace. Don't go with him. Stay with me. We can sort this out." Marcel steps my way, but it only insults me, so I get closer to my friends, but think of a last thing to say before I can let go completely.
"Tell me one good reason why I should." I defy him, knowing fully well how he doesn't know how to express himself, nor like to, even less in public. So I know he will surrender and let me go. I know he is game over.
I look at him with a slight smirk of satisfaction to see him struggle and brake himself from saying what he might be thinking. Victory tastes good in my mouth.
I finally turn around and walk all the way to my friends, silent witnesses of the mess him and I are. I finally feel like I can turn the page and move on. He will let me be now.
"For fuck's sake, Grace. Isn't it obvious?! " He lets out, surprising me that he steps on his pride that way. "I am in love with you."
A gasp leaves my mouth as my heart stops.
I turn around, completely gobsmacked about what he just said. He loves me? I don't even know how I feel about it. I don't know what to do. So I instinctively walk away without looking back at him. I walk past my friends, being completely in my head.
What did he think? That saying that would change something? I am not even sure if I believe him... Why would he love me? Why is drama chasing me around? Why did he walk away from me if he is in love with me? How did he know?
I can't wrap my head around it. I walk all the way to our car outside without a single fucking word. My mind is spinning and my heart pounds even faster. At one point, the band calls a taxi and they follow us to the club William has told Cynthia we would meet. I haven't said a word and nobody has talked to me.
This affects me way more than I would like to. Could he be playing me? How could he be in love with me? And so quickly? He told me himself he didn't know me...
My phone vibrates and I hesitate to look. What if it is Marcel? Do I want it to be him? I peek and see Eddy's name. He wants to know which club we are heading to. I ask for the name to William and text him immediately. William keeps on making small talk and it triggers conversation that makes this whole situation less dramatic and awkward. I wonder what Ash thinks about this whole situation... It makes me feel a bit ashamed... Even my brothers were there. ARGH!!!! Why couldn't he have said something when we were in Eddy's room backstage!?
By the time we get to the club, everyone is pumped and in the mood for my round of tequila. Everybody but me... The boys join us and I don't even wait for them to say anything or to propose a drinking game that I drink my tequila all at once and I am calling another round. Eddy arrives just in time and I ask for another shot more for him. I walk to him to greet him properly with the ounce of alcohol and he quickly slips a piece of paper in my hand seemlessly. I put it in my rear pocket as I clink our glasses together.
Cynthia offers me a drink before she steals my brother away on the dance floor. Ronnie has already taken care of the other twin. Sophie and the other lads are talking about something and I don't want to impose myself because of everything that happened back at the venue. I wonder how Ash sees me now. I don't want to seem like I am using him. I am not. I really like him, it's just different. But I feel much more at ease to stay behind with Eddy and talk over a nice cold beer.
"You heard right. I left school at fifteen and moved to London. It took a long time, but here I am, touring Europe with my album." He smiles at me before taking a sip of his brown liquid.
"Why is it that I didn't know who you were? You are crazy talented."
"It hasn't always been that way. I worked hard to get where I am today. It took lots of shows at bars, being paid with beers, to be seen by somebody who could give me access to the knowledge and tools I needed to grow even more as an artist."
"When did you start to see yourself as an artist?"
"Good question. Why do you ask me that?" He frowns but keeps a fun smile hanging on his lips.
"I feel like even if my story is getting published, I don't feel at ease to call myself an author or a writer."
"Why?"
"I feel like it's pretentious..."
"It isn't. Why would it be? You are calling it what it is. You are a writer, you write stories. You are an author, you are getting published. It's like you are saying you feel like it's pretentious to call yourself ginger. It isn't, it's what you are."
"You are right..." I look at him thoroughly as I pick up my glass and drink what's left.
He looks at me and does the same to bring it loudly on the counter of the bar once empty.
"Want to dance?" He asks me and I accept without wasting a second.
He takes me near William, he dances close to his beloved and it might be the first time in a long while that I see him let loose like that. He used to be a free spirit like Simon, but he always had that maturity his twin never truly had. Simon is just such an attention seeker. He has the charisma to live up to it. He and Ronnie are alike on that. But as I move to the beat in front of Eddy, my mind can't help but wander randomly until I take an interest in the bond Cynthia and Will share. They breathe love and they just are so beautiful to see. They have this ease with each other, this romantic aura around them that is extremely contagious. They are drugging me with desire to have that.
It's right then and there that I realise who I want to share that kind of bond with. I feel a desire to work it out. Marcel is all I can see in my mind. He is all my heart wants. He makes me feel everything so damn deeply. And I didn't have a choice to make, he is the only one my heart cries for as I see what I want in my life. Damn me!
I stop dancing and remember the letter. This is the glimpse of desire I needed to get a look at it. If I didn't get to feel like that, I wouldn't have thought about opening it. Its content will tell me how to feel about him. I am unlocking the door. It's up to him to come in and find me or to steal from me.
I don't give my attention to anything else than the sheet of paper I am unfolding in my hands. I see his handwriting I love so much. I can practically imagine his pouty lips and how he usually hovers the paper he writes on as he has written me this.
"Dear Grace,
There is not a night I haven't been awake and thought about why I treated you the way I did. I knew I regretted it as soon as I got home, but I didn't know why. I raged against my feelings. I blinded myself that I finally had my solitary lifestyle back, that the order would come back, but when I thought you had mess everything up, you were actually fixing what has been broken inside of me for so long. I got scared. I was the master of my fate. I never needed anybody in my life. But there you were, listening, caring, trying, when I wasn't open.
You are the last thing I want to lose. I don't care about any contract. I just don't want you to be with anybody else. I have never felt anything like that before. It all feels so weird to share it, but losing you would be more than I could bare.
This is me. And this letter is that token of love, one like Harry gives Darcy. We are the heroes of your story, that's why I am so drawn to it. Before you even knew me, you described a man so alike to me that I felt compelled immediately. That's also why I was so determined to deny it. I don't want to make you suffer like they did to have their chance at happiness. You are my source of happiness and I feel like I finally deserve to take it. You are making me see things differently, Grace. I don't have to see myself as a victim anymore, but as a hero.
I can't promise that tomorrow will be worth it, but I can promise you to try as hard as you do for me. I know a lot, I have studied lots of things, but I seem to be a fool when it comes to you. So here are the things I know...
You have a heightened awareness. You question things. You think differently to most. You are not average. You're above that. I like everything you stand for. You are brilliant and that makes you so incredibly more attractive than you already are. It makes me think of you in a way that would be inappropriate to most.
I am not over my father's murder. I think my lack of emotion has stemmed from that. I'm cold. I find it hard to care about things. However, I feel this lack of emotion in some areas has led to heightened emotions and feelings in other areas. I feel like I have the most emotion, the most power when it comes to the subject of sex. Maybe I compensate for the emotional black hole in other areas of my life? Who knows... That's where I am at in my reflection.
I allow myself to reflect on myself because you have opened a door to my soul.
I know that I am redefining myself and all that is very scary to me and happening so damn quickly.
I know that I don't want to lose you, because I feel for you in ways I don't understand and it is overtaking me.
From what I have read in some many stories, I think I can admit that I have fallen in love with you.
Please forgive me, Grace. Give me one last chance to prove myself to you.
Yours,
M "
Mt heart pounds in my chest with amazement and excitement. He really knows how to make his way back in my heart. This is the most beautiful gift I have ever received. Nobody has ever told me such wonderful things before.
I look up at Eddy as I hold the paper to my heart, completely gobsmacked, yet again. He steps closer and leans to my ear for me to hear him .
"He wrote it during my set. I have never seen him like that, Grace. You mean a lot to him."
"He says he is in love with me."
"Wow... I never heard him say that. Not even about the Wicked Witch and he was obsessed with her for years."
"You think he really does?"
"I think he is crazy about you. This is all so new to him, he is learning. Give him a chance."
"Where is he?"
"He is staying at the same hotel he did the last time he was here. I guess it has sentimental value..." He smirks and winks at me. "Now, go, before he decides to be stupid and he leaves for London."
.