Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
BELLA
“The talent arrives at three. First song at five. Close at eleven.” I speak into the microphone that connects me with my assistant, Iulia, who is across the pavilion checking out the main doors. We’re mapping out an upcoming rock concert at Hordern Pavilion in downtown Sydney. My new home.
“Everything looks good over here,” she reports back into my headset. Her Australian lilt still makes me smile.
It’s been nice here. Fun. Stimulating.
But it feels so empty.
And it has everything to do with the man I ran away from back in Fork Lick, New York.
“Okay, let’s review the opening act plan…” I direct Iulia to a different area of the pavilion, so we can go over additional details. I’ve been in Sydney for almost a month. It’s hardly enough time to even get to know the city given how many events have landed in my lap. What I’ve experienced so far has been fun.
But it’s just not what my heart craves.
Exhaustion seems to accompany me every step of the way. For the first week I assumed it was jet lag. For God’s sake, this place is a full day ahead of Los Angeles. Talk about a time difference. But as the weeks wore on, I realized it was something else. Something a little deeper.
My phone pings as Iulia and I are tweaking the concert schedule. It’s a new email from Colleen. We’ve taken to emailing near daily, since between the twins’ sleep schedule and my position on the other side of the world, calling each other is almost impossible.
The preview of her email makes my stomach plummet: Are you okay since you left? Be honest.
Apparently, my attempts to convince the world that I can exist without Jackson Bedd are failing.
I’ve tried not to bring up Jackson with Colleen. That just seems like a weird move—talking about how I’m in love with her brother. I don’t want to subject the poor woman to even more whining in her ear about her rock star brother.
But she knows. She’s not dumb.
In fact, I feel like the only dummy here. The woman who had a gorgeous, creative, sensitive man ready to give her his heart, only to run away and shut things down.
I haven’t spoken to him since I got here, because somewhere inside me, that seems smart. Like going from one hundred to zero is the best way forward. But really, I’m withering from missing him. Our nearly two months together in Fork Lick changed me. The entirety of the Bedd family changed me. I even miss Baabara, that jealous bitch.
Iulia and I finish up, and I go back to my little apartment in downtown Sydney and stare out the window for a while at the ocean. And then I write back to Colleen.
I’m not super great. It’s been a hard adjustment, surprisingly. How are you? How are the babies? What’s new? Just out of curiosity, have you talked to Jackson?
I last about another hour before I email Jackson.
Hi. I really miss you.
I can’t bring myself to say more, even though I have a world of thoughts I’d like to share with him.
The next day, I have a phone date scheduled with my cousin Piper. Eight a.m. my time, which is six p.m. her time.
“There’s the time traveler!” Piper answers as she picks up. “How’s the future look?”
“Pretty average.”
“Jeez, don’t moonlight as a Magic Eight Ball, okay? Depressing answer. You’re supposed to use words like ‘bright’ and ‘fun.’”
I laugh, but it dies off quickly. My gaze rests on the sparkling surf crashing against the shores of Bondi in Sydney.
“Piper, I think I’m homesick.”
There’s a pause. “Already?”
“Yeah. But not for Bayshore. For Fork Lick.”
“Jeez, once again…”
“Okay, let me clarify,” I hurry to add. “I miss the snot out of you and the rest of the family in Bayshore. And I would teleport there right now if I could. But really, what I think I’m missing is Jackson.”
Piper gasps softly. “Jackson Bedd?”
“Yeah.”
In the background, I can hear a door slam along with some muddled shouting. Piper sighs. “Ignore that. Griffin just got home, and he insists on making jokes at volume three hundred.” She recently moved into her brother’s apartment in downtown Bayshore, and the adjustment process has been both humorous and challenging.
“Tell him I say hi. And that I miss him. Because I miss all of you ,” I remind her.
“Bella says she misses you and all of us even though she’s not homesick for Bayshore specifically,” Piper reports to Griffin.
“Oh, hey Bella,” Griffin says in the background. “So if you’re not homesick for Bayshore…”
“I’m talking to her, not you, so please go do your things over there while I finish up this call,” Piper says. “She’s about to go into work. We don’t have much time.”
Griffin’s grumbling about Piper makes me giggle. Okay, so maybe I’m a little homesick for Bayshore, too. I haven’t even seen Griffin’s new place since Piper became his roommate, and I feel like there’s so much I’ve missed out on.
“Okay, let’s continue,” Piper says. “So you and Jackson Bedd.”
“I think I made a mistake in shutting him out. I-I just…” It’s hard to admit these things. “I don’t think the long-distance thing can work. This seems like a necessary withdrawal. You know?”
“You and I have maintained our relationship perfectly fine despite you being in Australia,” Piper points out.
“Yeah, but we’re not, like, sleeping together .”
“Gross. But it’s not like you need to sleep with Jackson every day for a relationship to thrive.”
Emotions clamp my throat. I think back to my previous boyfriends. The way they were so good until they weren’t. Until they drifted away and left me. Until something about me made them decide otherwise.
“I don’t think Jackson and I would have made it long term,” I finally admit.
“So you broke up with him before he could break up with you.”
The summary makes me frown. She has a point. And she’s not wrong. “I guess I did.”
“Is that your plan when anyone amazing comes along?” Piper asks. “Just cut it off at the knees before it gets too good?”
I grapple for an answer, but there’s none at the ready. “Well…I mean…that’s not…we’re so far away.”
“And we just covered why that’s not necessarily fatal to a relationship.”
I swallow hard, feeling exceptionally called out. “I don’t even know where it was going with him or what he wanted.”
“That’s why conversations exist,” she reminds me.
I sigh. “Okay, you’re right, but?—”
“No ‘but.’ You were presented with something awesome and you shut it down. You need to own that. You can be too logical for your own good. Now you need to figure out how you’re going to make it right. Because you can mope around all you want, but until you’re honest with yourself, it’s just gonna keep happening. I promise you.”
Piper’s words follow me all day at work. And each day that week. Jackson never writes back to my little email, which makes me think I really did ruin things.
I stick it out for a full month and a half at the new job. I try—I really do. I like the job enough, but what becomes clear over time is that it’s too damn far away.
Not only that, I’m not as mobile as I once was. Turns out, assistant regional director just means I’m managing things on the ground in one specific area, and not overseeing multiple exciting areas. I’m stuck in Sydney for all my events. Jackson is stuck in Los Angeles.
I’m just not happy here.
I write to Colleen one evening after I’ve had a glass of wine.
Colleen, I fell in love with your brother. I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. I need to know how he’s doing—like really doing. He hasn’t written back to me, and I don’t blame him. I left him high and dry. Can you humor me and give me an update? I feel like I’m going crazy over here.
Luckily, Colleen checks her email soon after I send that and I get a phone call from her.
“You’re lucky I saw your email and both babies are still asleep,” she says. It’s so lovely to hear her voice again. Our schedules almost never sync up.
“You’re just starting your day, and I’m drunk at the end of mine,” I say with a sigh. “I can’t handle this time difference. I can’t handle being this far away. Sydney is a place I want to visit. I can’t be this far away from everyone I love, not permanently.”
“So why don’t you come home?” The way Colleen says it makes it sound so simple.
“I worked my ass off for this promotion,” I remind her.
“But you don’t like it.”
I narrow my eyes, looking out at the inky night sky over the ocean. She has a good point. “Right. But I feel like I haven’t given it enough of a shot. And what am I supposed to tell my boss? Please demote me? ”
“You could start there,” Colleen says with a laugh. “Honestly, I think you already know what’s best. You gave it a shot. You’ve been out there almost two months. When will it be long enough?”
I don’t have an answer for that one.
“But, since you asked, Jackson is doing…okay, I guess. I don’t talk to him a ton. He’s back in LA, of course, and he’s been in the recording studio a lot. I send him pictures of the babies. That’s about it.”
My shoulders slump. I don’t know what I was expecting to hear. That he hasn’t been able to function since I left? That he’s listless and unmoored without me?
“Oh, there is one thing I forgot to mention,” Colleen goes on. She pauses, laughing softly. “I can’t say too much, but Jackson told me recently he has something big coming. Something you helped him with.”
“Me?” I whisper, reaching for my wine bottle to refill my glass.
“Yeah. I think you’ll understand when you see it.”
Those words echo through my head for the rest of the night.