Chapter 46 Lily
FORTY-SIX
LILY
Watching my boyfriend onstage tonight sparks a deep-rooted grief that I’ve tried to bury while on tour.
Not sure why tonight, of all nights, it’s decided to stab me in the heart with a thousand mini little needles.
But grief knows no time or boundaries. I’ve learned it’s not there to torture you, but to make you remember great love that’s now buried beneath heartbreak.
“Our newest album, Four Stages, is unlike anything we have ever done, and it was scary to put it out in the world, not knowing how you guys were going to respond to it.” Leonidas speaks as Elijah strums his guitar.
It amazes me how the arena is completely quiet when a band member speaks to the crowd. If I dropped a pin, I would hear it hit the floor.
“The album is a symbol of what we’ve expressed in the past ten years, and we see your posts online and how much you all love this next song coming up. If you’re here with your parents tonight, look past the dark theme of the song and embrace your parents in this next song, ‘The Sorry Never Came.’ ”
I grab the barricade behind my back, and moisture clouds my vision as I try to focus on their voices rather than the message behind the song and the screen showing mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters hugging.
Leonidas’s raspy voice sings into the microphone.
I was just ten, crouched low on the stairs.
You screamed through the walls like we weren’t even there.
Glass hit the floor, then knuckles met skin.
That’s the night fear moved in.
All I needed was your love, not your rage.
But the sorry never came, just the slam of the door.
The sorry never came, only silence and the floor.
You vanished from my life like love could fade to war.
I feel a tear drop to my lip, and my tongue licks away the salty liquid. My chest tenses, like a tornado is starting to form in my body, ready to destroy me from the inside out.
Everywhere I look, people are embracing their loved ones, singing along to Leonidas’s voice, while I’m standing all alone, feeling like a lonely, scared, and confused five-year-old who has lost her parents in the mall.
I can’t do it. I need to leave.
I run backstage, hopefully leaving the music behind. The bodyguard the team has hired to follow all my movements falls back and gives me much-needed space.
“Honey, are you okay?” Fay’s face falls when she sees my tears, but without stopping to chat, I send her a small smile.
“I will be outside the dressing room if you need anything, Miss Papas,” the gentleman says before the door clicks shut.
I stand in an unfamiliar room in a city I just arrived in hours ago. It makes me feel so lost.
The sound of my ringtone has me striding to my bag.
Pulling my phone out, I don’t check it before answering. “Hello?”
“Bitch, did you forget about me?” Thea yells over the line.
Frowning from both her tone and the volume of her voice, I attempt to speak clearly when all I feel is zero energy. “I’ve been sending you updates when I get the chance.”
“But that isn’t enough. I miss you too much.”
I plop down in Elijah’s director’s chair in front of his vanity.
I balk, blinking rapidly, like it’ll help her words make more sense. “Thea, I haven’t forgotten about you, but with the constant new cities, time zones, and work, my phone is my last thought of the day.”
“Or is it because you’re getting too famous for me?” Bitterness is an aftertaste in her tone.
Wh-what?
Flabbergasted by the rage she thinks she’s hiding, I stammer, “I’d actually have to be famous to feel famous, and I’m sorry if you feel like I’ve been distant. It wasn’t intentional.”
“That’s what everyone says.” She sighs like I’m tiring her. “If I go on Pinterest, I’ll find that apology a hundred times.”
Throbbing from the back of my neck trickles all the way to my forehead and starts to pound my head. “Thea—”
“Just leave it, okay? I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she demands, sounding angrier than I’ve ever heard her.
This anger isn’t instant; it sounds slow-burning, like it’s been simmering for a long time before spilling over the edge.
Hearing the concert muffled through the walls, I wish I’d never left, seeing how I wouldn’t have been able to take this call. “How do you expect me to forget this conversation ever happened?” I stutter. “I can’t do that, Thea. We need to resolve this!”
“What’s done is done,” she replies, cold and distant.
Rubbing between my eyes, I attempt to find some comfort.
“The problem for me is, I believe nothing has been done. Before I left, you knew life on tour was going to be crazy, but you encouraged me to go anyway. Each chance that I got to text you, I did. We still message back and forth, FaceTime, and I’ve sent you an annoying number of pictures of different cities, food, and even the tour bus.
” Taking a deep lungful of air, I continue, “Even if people are gossiping about me, I haven’t changed one bit. ”
She mutters, “You’re wrong.”
I shake my head even though she can’t see me. I can’t change people when they’ve already made their mind up. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“I’m being a bitch, aren’t I? I just don’t want you to forget about me for Hollywood, just like Elijah did to you.”
“I’ll never forget about you, Thea. I’m sorry life has been so crazy.”
“I get it… I think,” she muses over the line. “Sorry for my outburst.”
“It’s okay,” I say softly, picking away at my nails.
“Hey, look, I gotta go. Talk to you later.”
My lungs shrink ten times smaller, and the phone disconnects.
The door swings open, startling me, and bangs against the wall, for sure leaving a hole there.
“Hey, are you okay?” Elijah, out of breath, rushes to me and cups my cheeks. Frantic eyes look over each inch of my body before settling on my eyes.
“Elijah Drakos, what do you think you’re doing?! You are in the middle of a show. Get back onstage right now!” Fay runs into the room, equally as distraught, looking like she’s ready to kill my boyfriend.
“I don’t care about that right now.” He doesn’t take his eyes off me. “All I care about is you,” is whispered just for me to hear.
“You ran offstage in the middle of a show because of me?” My voice wavers, cracking mid-sentence, like my body has no strength.
He nods. “I was worried about you. I saw you run backstage, all sad, and it killed me not to run right after you.”
The longer he stays put, the more crew members start gathering around the door, looking more worried as the seconds go by.
“Elijah, if you don’t start moving your butt to where you’re supposed to be, I’m going to fire you,” Fay warns, grabbing his arm and tugging slightly.
From where we are, the crowd sounds confused and a bit angry. Yet the threat goes over Elijah’s head, who seems to not be worried at all.
“Fay, you can’t fire me,” Elijah spits out playfully before giving me a hard stare. “I’m going to be right back, okay? If you need me, come to the curtain and wave me down.”
“She can wait until after the show,” Fay exclaims like she can’t believe her ears. She pulls him away and out the door, like it’s the end of the world.
My body sags when I’m alone with my thoughts again.