And The Sun Will Come Up Again, And I Will Be Here, If You Get Scared Just Hold My Hand
This is the calm before the storm.......i'm really looking forward to the storm.
Chapter 5/?
She sleeps well that night. Even on the pull out couch in Jane’s living room with the bar under the flimsy mattress that digs into her back. She lies on her side with her pillow tucked under her arm as she thinks about him and everything that he could be and what she could be when she stands next to him.
When he gets home his mother is still up watching the news and she notices his smile as soon as he walks in the door.
“You have a good show?”
“Yeah.” He leans against the wall in the living room and looks at her with his arms crossed. “Did you know Olivia was going to be in town this week?”
“I might have heard something.” She doesn’t look at him.
“Is that why you insisted that I come here for Christmas?”
“Maybe. I just wanted you two to have a second chance. She never comes back Lee and I heard that she was going to be back and I just had to do something for the two of you, I know you like her and I just want you to have a shot.” She stops talking when Lee pushes himself off the wall and walks over to her, puts his arms around her and hugs her.
“Thank you mom.”
“So it went well?” She says her voice warm with excitement and hope that her son has finally found someone worth having.
“I’m taking her out tomorrow.” Lee laughs at how happy she is as she claps her hands.
“This is amazing. But what are you going to do when she leaves, are you going to go back with her or what?”
“We got it all worked out. Kind of. It’ll all be okay. I’m going to bed.”
“I’m really happy for you Lee.”
“I know.” He tells her as he walks to the stair and he sighs with contentment. “I’m happy too.”
He picks her up the next day right on time, almost annoyingly on time because she’s still upstairs in Jane’s room trying on clothes trying to find the most appropriate and best looking outfit, her hair still up in a pony tail. When they hear the knock on the door Olivia pulls on the first outfit that she can get her hands on, the first thing she tried on, jeans and a sweater, simple but still sexy, and Jane rips the elastic out of her hair causing is to fall around her shoulders in thick waves and then almost pushes her down the stairs to get the door because she shouldn’t keep him waiting.
He’s dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, the black leather jacket a sharp contrast to the white shirt. He really looks no different than he usually does but now he’s kind of hers. No one would stop her and she wouldn’t feel guilty about reaching out and curling her fingers around the back of his neck, through his soft hair and kissing him.
He walks with his hand on the small of her back as he walks her to his car then opens the door for her hand she gets in and he jogs over to his side.
“Lunch?”
“I’m hungry.” She hasn’t eaten all day. She’s been too nervous, too flighty.
“You want eat in town or venture out?”
“You asked me on the date, you plan it.” She teases and he laughs as he starts the car.
“I just wanted to know if you had a preference, trying to make you have a good time.” He says as he pulls out of the driveway.
He takes her out of town to a fancy little restaurant in the middle of downtown. It’s sophisticated but neither of them feels underdressed as the waitress puts down their menus and pours them water. They order and eat and make small talk about what has been going on in their lives. They focus on only each other and the stories that they have to tell, something new always comes up, some hidden memory that they tucked into their brains to keep and save until they saw each other again because they knew that the only the other would truly appreciate it.
They hang out in the city, enjoying the fact that there is actually something to do here unlike her home town. He holds her hand as they walk and she leans into him and it’s comfortable and relaxed and both of them feel like they’ve already been dating for months.
Except when at the end of the night, it’s dark when they finally get back to town, they spent the whole day together, and she’s back on the front steps fiddling with her hands and wondering if he’s going to kiss her again and then he does and butterflies take flight in her stomach the whole time their lips are touching.
That’s how the whole week goes. Butterflies and hand holding, kisses that last forever but not long enough at the same time, car rides with the radio playing softly and their voices intermingling in laughter and teasing and shy looks followed by him grabbing her hand over the table and smiling at her until she can look at him without being afraid that he’ll catch her.
They spend Christmas with his mother and he’s so nervous about the gift that he got her. He’s afraid that it’s not going to mean enough or that she’ll be expecting or wanting more. He’s never known her to be materialistic or anything but as the hours tic by on Christmas Eve he thinks that maybe he should’ve gotten her a back up or something. Like a necklace or a bracelet that he could tuck away just in case her face fell when she opened the one that he got her and he could laugh and say ‘just kidding, here’s your real present, I’m not a sucky boyfriend, I do really care about you, please forgive me.’ But there aren’t any stores open now and he’s pretty sure that his car is blocked in by one of his mother’s friends that it over for the party. He thinks for a second that he could ask him mother for something of hers, it would be sweet, handing over a piece of jewelry that belonged to his mom, a way of telling Olivia that he’s not afraid to do it since he knows that she’ll always be there. But it’s too soon for that and his thought process is kind of convoluted anyways and he’s getting more and more anxious and by the time Olivia takes his hand and pulls him upstairs because that’s where she stashed the present that she got for him, he’s ready to run away from her and run to the nearest store and get whatever he can find.
She sits him down on his bed and opens up the closet door and gets his present. It’s cumbersome and guitar shaped and she almost knocks the lamp off the bedside table trying to lay it down on the bed next to him.
“I hope you like it. I hope…..I don’t know.” She wrings her hands together. She seems just as nervous as he feels and that does make him feel a little better.
He slides his finger under the taped edge of the gift and rips the paper off. He smiles at what he sees. It’s a new guitar case, shiny and not dented or worn from years of use. He’s about to thank her when she starts her own rant, thoughts that she’s been having since she bought the thing.
“Is it okay? I didn’t know if you wanted a new one but I was looking over your old one and it’s kind of beat up and it doesn’t really buckle all the way, like one of the hooks doesn’t snap and I thought that seems sort of risky because you want to protect that thing because it’s really important to you and I guess I’m afraid that your old one had some sentimental value or something, and I’m sure that it does because there has to be a story behind that dent and why it doesn’t close all the way.”
“I dropped it. It’s not really a story. I don’t even remember where.” He tells her.
“I didn’t want to get you a useless gift.” She sighs and crosses her arms over his chest, a pout on her lips and he reaches out to uncross her arms and pulls her closer to him.
“I love it. It was really thoughtful. I’m going to change it over now.” He starts to stand but she pushes him down by the shoulders.
“I want my gift first.”
“Greedy.”
“I’m just excited.” She defends herself and he tenses back up. “It’s Christmas. I love Christmas.”
“Okay.” He takes a deep breath and leans over the end of the bed to get her present. She tries to take it from him but he holds it back, twisted around to his side so she can’t reach it. “Hold on. This present it stressing me out like crazy right now ‘Liv. I was so confident when I bought it and then it kind of weighed on my mind and I started to second guess it and……” He shoves the small gift, haphazardly wrapped in red paper into her hands. “Just open it put me out of my misery and I’ll take whatever you give me for a reaction.”
She looks at him as she tears open the paper. It’s a wooden box about the size of a text book and she turns it over and unlatches the brass clasp on the front of it. The wrapping paper falls to the floor as she opens the box. It’s filled with paper. Really good writing paper, heavy and bordered with a thin gold band along the top of it and next to the paper is a simple black pen. She looks up at him in confusion.
“You hate it don’t you? God, I’m so sorry.” He drops his head into his hands and leans forward and she shifts the box into one of her arms so she can lay her hand on his shoulder but he leans back out of her touch and lies down on the bed, his palms dug into his eyes. “I thought that it would be cute. You said that we could write each other and I wanted you to have something to write on but you can write on anything and this was a crappy gift.”
He hears the box hit the floor and expects to hear the door slam next but instead he hears one footstep to get closer to him and then he feels her body lying across his on the bed. He takes his hands off his eyes and she kisses him, her fingers running through his hair, knotting into it and his hands move around to her back and he’s a little embarrassed by the way that he moans softly into the kiss.
“I love my gift Lee.” She tells him, her lips still brushing against his.
“Do you really?”
“Yes.” She kisses him softly. “You really thought it out and it shows that you care about me and us.” She kisses him again, harder this time, her tongue slipping between his lips and against this own. “And every time I write on that paper to you I’m going to think of this moment.” She works her hand under his shirt and leans into him a little harder and he pulls her tighter to him.
She sits up and his hands slide down her sides to her hips and she starts to take off her shirt and his first, purely guy thought is to help her with hit, rip it off her body along with the rest of her clothes so he can feel all of her but then his more cautious side comes into play and he starts to hear the party that’s going on downstairs instead of just her voice and her breathing.
He sits up as well and he takes hold of her hands to get her to stop moving the fabric out of the way of her skin.
“Olivia.” His voice is gentle as he starts to let her down. “Are you thinking about what you’re doing now?’
“Yes. Now get your pants off.” She climbs off of him and he bursts out laughing. “What’s so funny?”
“You are.” He takes her hand again and pulls her down next to him on the bed. “We can’t do this now.”
“Why not?” She’s close to whining and he shakes his head and smiles. “I wanted to thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that.” He soothes. “You don’t have to thank me like that. And not here.” He says with a squeeze of her shoulders and she breathes out a soft sigh.
“You mean you don’t want to have sex in your mother’s house with a bunch of people downstairs?” She jokes.
“Are you kidding? I’d love to but I don’t think you’re the kind of girl to do that with.” He pauses. “I feel like that came out so wrong.”
“It’s okay.” She stands up and straightens out her shirt then runs her fingers through his hair to fix it, she messed it up a lot. “Let’s go back downstairs, mingle, before anyone gets any ideas.”
“I don’t think anyone would suspect you of trying to get me naked up here.” He mumbles against the back of his neck and she giggles and snakes her arm around his neck as she walks in front of him.
The rest of the week goes by too fast and before either of them want to acknowledge it it’s time for her to go back to college and him back to singing and trying to get by.
They share a long kiss goodbye at the airport, people actually stop to look at them before they continue on to catch their flight or get their bags and when it finally ends he still holds onto him.
“Are you going to write me?” She asks him, standing up on her toes and kissing his forehead.
“I don’t have the fancy paper.”
“I don’t mind regular notebook paper.” She tells him softly as she rests her head against his chest.
“I’ll write to you, and call and text and I can come see you a few times. It’s not like New York doesn’t have places that I could play.”
She straightens up and kisses him once more then picks her bag up off the ground. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
“I hope so.” She says quietly as she tips her head.
He should say something else but he doesn’t. ‘I love you’ won’t form in his mind for some reason. ‘I’m falling in love with you’ is but he doesn’t say that either.
But neither does she. They don’t know that they’re constantly on the same page with everything that they do and say because neither of them will do or say anything to clue each other in. Everything could be so simple for the two of them if they just used their words.
He watches her walk away with a heavy heart and she walks off with tears forming in the corners of her eyes that don’t ever fall because by the time she gets to security she’s more focused on the long line ahead of her instead of the boy that she left behind.
New York City is cold. Ever colder than it was when she left it last week, she has to pull her heavy pea coat up around her chin to protect herself from the wind that funnels down between the tall buildings. But even when she’s sitting in class or her dorm or anywhere that would allow her to take her coat off, and her gloves and hat she still feels the chill run through her body because she misses him. But then she feels like an idiot. Rolling her eyes at herself is her new hobby because whenever she catches herself feeling sad and missing him she reminds herself that he’s still out there, waiting for her. He might be miles away but it’s not like they’re not together. She has him and he has her and she’ll pull out her phone and text him a simple message and he’ll text back right away because he’s feeling the same way that she is.
Chicago is cold as well. And bitter. With every day that passes that he doesn’t get signed and he doesn’t see her, the harder it becomes to stay there. He loves it, it’s him home but the constant ache of denial is starting to get to him, poking into his side or itching at him like a wool sweater. Sometimes he thinks it would be better to just give up. Throw in the towel on his dreams and call it a day or whatever other stupid cliché he can come up with to describe in a poetic language how much of a failure he is.
She kind of floats around aimlessly in the city. Everyone around her seems to be marching towards a goal, talking and over talking about their major and the job that they have lined up next year when they graduate or they’re finally picking their major, sighing in satisfaction that the worry about what’s going to happen to them when they leave the relative safety of school is finally over. She just doesn’t know. Nothing sounds good to her and she doesn’t feel like she’s good at anything that could get her security in the long run. She can sing. That’s it. She could pursue that, just like Lee is, they could be something together but she feels like she’s not good enough, certainly not as good as him and would end up holding him back and he would let her do that because he’s not a jerk that would dump her for his own dreams. And he deserves to have his own dreams, that last thing she wants to do is take them away from him. He’s worked so hard and anything less than getting famous and all that the wants would be a disservice to him. She doesn’t want to ride his coattails either. The more she thinks of it the more she feels like that is what she’d be doing. She likes to perform. People clap for her when she’s done playing, she got a guitar but she kind of sucks at it, but the people who listen to her doesn’t seem to mind or pay attention to it. They like her voice and the sincerity that she brings to it. She didn’t think that her brand of country music would be so accepted but it is and she likes the feeling of acceptance.
They write a letter at least once a week. Texts and phone calls are fine; they speak on the phone every night before they go to bed and they’ll text randomly throughout the day. He’ll tell her something funny that he saw or did that he knows will make her smile and she’ll usually text him for advice about things. Like what song she should sing when she plays tonight or which CD should she buy while she’s standing in the record store, holding two of them, completely unsure about what to do. He’ll usually send her a message back that says ‘both. You need both in your life right away’ and she’ll have to do it because he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to music. The romance of the letter is so much better. Waiting on one to come in the mail is like a game for them and writing them is kind of cathartic. They can say things that they don’t really have the courage to say face to face or over the phone. It’s easier to write it out long hand.
He always opens her letters slowly, carefully pulling at the envelope at the seams. She usually goes on about her roommate or the crappy winter weather that is still plaguing her and how much she misses being tan for the first few paragraphs before she finally gets into it.
I know it’s stupid to think about but sometimes I worry that I’m going to disappoint you. You’re going to tell me something completely sweet in response to this, I know you are, you’re going to make me feel better and say that I could never disappoint you because that’s the kind of guy that you are and that might make me feel better for a little while but then that fear is going to come back. I don’t know what I’m doing here Lee. It’s too much and too big, the city feels like it’s going to swallow me up any day, which that, in its own right, it probably one of the most over dramatic things that I have ever thought but it’s true. What it comes down to is this. You wanted me out of that town so bad and I left it and it was great for a little while but now I’m getting the feeling that I’ll just end up back there. What if there’s nothing for me in this city or anywhere else? What if I’m meant for that small town life? I know you’re not and you’d never go back for good and I know that this is too soon that I’m thinking about this but I want you to be there with me for as long as you can and me being there and you being out there and doing what you’re doing isn’t going to work. This keeps me up at night Lee. I worry and I worry about it. I’m probably not making any sense now and you’re probably very confused and I know I said at the start of this that you telling me not to worry would only make me feel better for a little while but I would like that, just for a little while. So just say it to me so I can. I miss you.
He puts the letter down and starts his own right away.
It’ll be okay. It will all be okay. I can promise you. You could never disappoint me. Do you feel better now? I hope you do because the thought of you sitting in your dorm all alone sad and scared about what’s going to happen when you graduate or a year after that or even ten days after that, or even a week from now really makes me sad. I wanted you to leave that town because I know that there is more for you out there even if you don’t know what that is yet. And I don’t think you have to know what that is. You’ll figure it out in your own time and until you do there’s nothing wrong with being confused. That’s how you do figure things out. You never know if you can do something if you don’t try it. Try it all Liv. Do whatever you want. Go home if you want to, I’ll go with you if you want me to. I want to be where you are, no matter where it is. The location is only good if you’re there with me. I swear that’s the truth and not some line that I’m only saying to make you feel better. I mean it. And if I’m going to be really honest with you, I have to tell you that sometimes I feel the same way that you do. I worry I’m going to disappoint me. You really believe in me and you can’t even think of me not making it but I feel like I’m not going to make it. Yesterday I seriously considered applying for a steady job in the place of playing shows. I don’t know how long I can live like this. I’m barely getting by, I’m barely making rent and I’m practically counting pennies to pay for things and I know this is not the kind of life that you deserve. In the long run, I’m thinking about the future with you as well, I should be able to take care of you and I don’t know how I’m going to do that when I can’t even take care of myself. If I’m going to be completely honest with you I should probably tell you that as I was just writing that last sentence I thought that if I keep going on like I’m going I’ll never be able to buy you a ring. I hope that didn’t freak you out. I haven’t even told you that I love you yet and I’m not going to say it for the first time in a letter, but just know that I do. You’ll be okay Olivia. You can have whatever you want whenever you decide what that is. No rush. I’ll help you figure it out if you need me to or I can step back and let you have your space. It’s all up to you.
She puts down his letter, the thin notebook paper wrinkling in her hands and she grabs one of the sheets of paper from the wooden box to start her own letter but her hands are shaking a little bit from his almost omission of love and she has to put the pen down and pick up her phone to call him, romance of a letter be damned, she needs to hear his voice.
“Hey.” His voice is warm on the other end of the phone and she takes a deep breath.
“I got your letter.” She has to whisper because her roommate is sleeping no more than five feet from her.
“Oh.”
“I don’t want to say that I love you in a letter either. Or over the phone but you should just know that I do.”
There’s no response on the other end of the line and she feels her heart clench but then she hears him exhale and laugh quietly.
“I want to see you. I wanna say it to you. When are you available, when can I come out?”
“Next week. We have a week off for spring break. Can I come to you, I want to try a different city and I want to see where you live and where you play and all of that. Can I do that?”
“Yes, if you’re sure, I can come to you.’’
“No, you’ve already done so much for me, let me do this.”
“Okay Olivia, okay. I’m okay with anything that you want to do.” He’s bubbling over in excitement and she starts up her computer to find plane tickets.
“Can I stay for the week?”
“You can stay forever Olivia.”
“Don’t tempt me.” She tells him and gets another low laugh.
Her bags are packed that night and she lives out of a suitcase for the rest of the week, counting down the hours till she gets on the plane to go see him again. She wakes up early the day of her flight and opens up the blinds in her window and all she sees outside is white. It’s snowing. Again. It’s actually a blizzard. White out conditions and no plane is leaving or entering the city for the next three days and she sits looking out her window as she dials his number to tell him the devastating news.
“It’s snowing.” She tells him, her voice monotone and sad and she feels like she could very easily break down into tears.
“I know honey.” He says to her, trying to calm her down and stop her watery voice.
“How did you know?”
“It’s been on the news. Huge storm hitting the east coast. It’s going to last for awhile.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve gotten an earlier flight or something. This is what I get for not watching the news for the past few days and studying for my stupid classes. I’m so stupid and annoyed and I’m all alone in my dorm because everyone else is gone because they already left yesterday because they don’t care about that final day of class and are smart enough to turn on the stupid news.” She sighs into the phone when she hears a knock on the door. “Oh great, someone is at the door, it’s probably a murderer or a rapist or something given my luck.”
She lowers the phone from her ear and opens the door. The phone drops out of her hand and bounces to the floor when she sees Lee standing on the other side, snow covering the shoulders of his jacket and a black beanie pulled down over his hair.
He slowly lowers his phone from his ear and puts it in his pocket.
“Are you going to say something? Are you mad that I’m here? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I thought it would be a surprise and it would be cute. Like the paper.”
She shakes her head and puts his arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck and kissing his skin and then she pulls away, her arms still crossed at the wrist behind his neck.
“I love you.” She tells him and he smiles and leans into to kiss her.
“I love you too.” He says back to her and she pulls him into her room, stepping around her phone and then stumbling back towards the bed, his lips still on hers and her hands unbuttoning his coat and then pushing his shirt up his chest so she can get it off of him. “’Liv.” He mumbles in between a kiss when she backs out of his arms to pull her sweater over her head. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She doesn’t want to talk right now or have him talk her out of it. She doubts he’s going to talk her out of it but the ‘are you sure, are you really sure?’ are going to make her annoyed. She steps back into him and shivers when his hands, still cold from the outside touch his skin but the rest of him is so warm that it doesn’t matter.
“We should maybe slow down.”
“I’ve been slow for 21 years Lee, I don’t want to be slow.” She pulls on his shirt and works his coat down his arms at the same time and they both fall clumsily onto the bed and she giggles as she tries to get his shirt all the way off.
“I just don’t think that we should rush this.”
She takes her hands off of him and lays them down by her sides on the bed. “Are you the girl in this situation right now?”
He laughs and stands up kind of awkwardly and takes his shirt all the way off then reaches into his pocket for this wallet.
“I want to make sure that you do this right and you don’t regret it or anything.”
She sighs and throws her arm over her eyes. “You are a girl.”
“I’m not a girl.” He lies down next to her and runs the pad of his fingers over her side and she laughs and pushes his hand away. He grabs her hand and brings it up to his lips. “I love you. I really love you.”
“That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear.” She tells him softly and he kisses her, slowly moving his hand down her skin to the front of her jeans and he cautiously undoes the button and she lifts her hips so he can slide them down her legs. He reaches for his wallet again and opens it, pulling out the condom that he keeps in there for ‘emergencies’ and she’s suddenly hit with nerves. “You might have to tell me what to do.”
“You’re going to be fine.” He says, distracted by the way her legs feels under his hands. “Just tell me if anything is too much or I’m doing something that hurts you or anything.”
“Okay.” Her voice breaks and he kisses her softly.
“When don’t have to do this.”
“No. I want to. Just….go slow.” She says as she blushes furiously and he nods his head and his kiss starts to calm her right down as he starts to take the rest of her clothes off and finally, slowly, moves against her.
It’s kind of awkward and not at all like she thought it would be or what she’s seen in movies and she knew that it wouldn’t be but it was still good. She feels loved and happy and safe, like it really, really meant something to both of them and she doesn’t want to get all girly all over the moment but it was definitely worth waiting for.
In the morning they stay in her room, not moving from the bed and surviving on the Pop Tarts that she has in her room that just happen to be within arm’s length of the mattress.
It’s lazy and sleepy and going outside would be a huge disaster because it’s cold and snowing and in bed they can just be together, warm and protected and he can kiss her and she can touch him without anyone seeing them.
He kisses her shoulder and she puts her hand flat over his chest, her heart beating into her palm.
“When you said in that letter that you couldn’t buy me a ring what did you mean by that?”
“That I’m practically broke.” He mumbles against her neck.
“But. Do you want to buy me a ring?” She asks, some fear in her voice because she can’t figure out what she wants him to say. Too soon for marriage, too soon to even think about it. But she would like to think that is a possibility for them at some point.
He exhales and his breath hits her skin causing her to get goose bumps and then he removes his lips from her skin and looks at her.
“I’m not going to ask you to marry me Olivia. Not right now. Probably not for awhile. I still have something’s to figure out and you have things to figure out but at some point, I’m going to ask you and I hope that you’ll say yes.”
“I will.” She says and he covers her lips with his own and the second time is better than the first.
They venture out to explore the city the next day and she shows him the music stores and restaurants that she has found and he lets her show him around like he’s never been to a city before. They’re like a real couple. Living together and spending time together, walking hand in hand down the street like nothing, not even hundreds of miles and at least over a year until they can truly be like this for real.
Spring break comes to an end too fast and he has to get back in a car and drive home and she has to go back to class and back to figuring her life out.
It’s back to texts and calls and letters, counting down the days until summer comes so they can spend that whole time together. They go through their normal routines without each other, he plays and tries to pick up as many paying gigs as he can so he can still have an apartment to live in and she studies and tries to pick a stupid path but she just keeps coming back to the shiny new guitar that she bought for herself that she still struggles to learn how to play and sad country songs about being separated from the one that they love.
She spends the summer with him in Chicago. He’s nervous about her judging his small apartment but she just throws her bag down by the door, asks him which door the bedroom is behind and grabs his hand and drags him into it.
She goes with him to every show and more often than not she’s called up to the stage to sing with him, her sweet, innocent voice, blends with his deep, rough one and she feels like she could do this with him forever. They make a nice summer life together. Days are spent out on the town, she wants to see every part of the city and their nights are spend performing or holed up in his apartment, hanging out and watching TV or her lying on the couch listening to him play a new song that he’s been working on, stopping every once in awhile to hand her the guitar so he can teach her a little bit more so she’s more comfortable with it.
It’s harder to leave him in the fall than she thought it would be but he kisses her goodbye at the airport with the promise to come and visit her around Christmas and again in March and then it’ll be June and she’ll have graduated and they can move on for real.
The months pass faster than she expected them to. Christmas comes and goes and so does that visit in March and it feels like all of the sudden it’s the middle of June and she’s standing there in a cap and gown nervously scanning the massive crowd of people in the audience for her mother and father and Lee, who all said that they would be there, not together, her parents have barely spoken to her since they found out that she was dating him for real with a genuine future. She doesn’t see her parents but she gets a few texts from Lee throughout the day asking her if she was alright. He knows she’s stressed out now. She still doesn’t know what she’s doing and the unknown terrifies her. She spent her whole life, save the last five years, were perfectly mapped out for her and now she’s being thrown into a world of uncertainty.
After the ceremony Lee meets up with her outside the building, in a suit that’s too hot for the weather and a small bunch of flowers for her.
She takes the flowers, kisses him, and shifts the flowers and her cap in her hands. “Did you see my parents?”
He frowns. “No. I’m sorry.” His heart breaks when she looks down at the ground sadly. “But there were a lot of people in there ‘Liv. I might have missed them.”
“You didn’t miss them.” She replies sullenly. “They just didn’t show. It’s no big deal though. Alabama is pretty far away and my dad works a lot and my mom probably didn’t want to come to the city on her own and…..” She sighs and stops talking, sick of coming up with excuses on why her own parents would miss her graduation.
He puts a warm hand on her arm. “Let me take you out, we can go celebrate.”
“I don’t really feel like celebrating. What is there to celebrate?”
“You just made it through college. It’s something not everyone can say that they did. I can’t say that.” He says with a wide smile and she gives him a smirk. “I know you’re hungry. Let’s go get dinner. It’ll be fun. We can meet up with some of your friends if you want to.”
“I don’t really want to.” She leans into him and awkwardly laces her fingers around his jacket and kisses him. “Just you.” She finishes quietly.
They spend the summer back home with his mother, staying at his mother’s house. She’s overjoyed that they’re together and real and going strong. But, they’re still put into separate rooms. Mary clears out some space in that office and throws an air mattress down on the floor and tells Lee ‘that’s where you’ll sleep’ before taking a hold of Olivia’s hand and pulls her into Lee’s old room, Olivia tossing Lee a smile over her shoulder as she’s being led away.
But being in separate bedrooms doesn’t keep them apart at night. She’ll sneak out and tip toe into his room and either climb onto the flimsy mattress with him where she falls asleep with his arms around her waist or she’ll gently wake him up with a kiss and a tug on his hand to get him out of bed and he’ll give her a sleepy smile and carefully follow her into his bedroom where he’ll have to bury his face into the side of her neck and she’ll have to bite her lip to keep from making too much noise as their hands trace across each other’s bodies and in the morning they can’t even look at each other without a blush covering their faces and necks.
She doesn’t talk to her mother, avoids her at all cost, going as far as leaving a store as soon as she walks in if she sees her standing at the counter. But, on the last day before she goes back to Chicago with him she goes over to his mother’s house. She stands in front of the house for ten minutes before she has the guts to go up and ring the doorbell and when she finally does she feels the urge to run off the deck in a ding dong ditch game that she knows she’s too old for. Before she can make her body hop off the deck her mother answers the door, her pleasant, greeting smile vanishes when she sees who it is.
“What are you doing here?”
Olivia almost rolls her eyes at the tone of her voice. “Can I come in?”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know, a lot of things, we haven’t talked in years, a lot has happened.”
Her mother sighs and lets her in, closing the door around as soon as Olivia steps into the foyer.
“I know you’re seeing that boy.” She says it like an insult and Olivia’s nose crinkles at the severity of it.
“His name is Lee. He has a name and he’s not really a boy anymore. He’s twenty two.”
“He’s trouble.”
“He hasn’t done anything wrong in years mom, he didn’t even do anything wrong when you think he did do something wrong.”
“He got into a fight with Ryan.”
“That was over four years ago and do you seriously not get why he did that? Do you still not understand that Ryan used to abuse me, he hit me mom, Lee was defending me, he saved me.”
“He is bringing you down. He has no future and ever since you got with him neither do you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Really? What are you doing with your life that’s so great Olivia, please, tell me, prove me wrong.”
“He is doing things.”
“Right, he’s going to be a singer or some stupid thing like that. How’s that going for him? Does he have a deal or a tour or anything going? Does anyone that means anything care about him or know that he exists?”
“He’s trying.”
“People can try their whole lives and not get anywhere Olivia.”
“He’s going to get somewhere.”
“Fine, then what about you? What’s your master plan? You going to follow him around like a puppy for the rest of your life? That sounds a lot like what you ran away from down here.”
“I love him.”
“Loving him can’t win an argument. You shouldn’t feel that way. He can’t do enough for you or you can’t do enough for him, it’s not right, you’re going to burn out and you’ll be left alone and unhappy. Cut to the chase with this thing Olivia.” Her voice softens and she steps closer to Olivia, putting her hands on her arms. “Leave him now, come home, and find someone down here that wants the same things that you want.”
“I want him.” She says defiantly as she shakes her arms away from her mother’s hands.
She nods her head slowly. “Then you need to get out of this house and not come back.”
“So that’s just it? It’s the end; you’re not going to talk to me again? Ever? What about when I get married? Should I just not invite you? What about when I have a kid, you’re only grandchild; you’ll want nothing to do with him or her?”
“Not if it’s with him I won’t.”
“I’m sorry that you feel that way. I really sorry but I won’t leave him, he wants to marry me and when asks I’ll say yes and there’s nothing that you can do about that.”
“You’ll never marry him.” Her mother says clearly, believing it with everything that she has and Olivia holds back the anger as she pushes past her and swings open the door, walking out of her childhood home for the very last time.
When she gets back to Mary’s house Lee’s up in his old room, packing up her things and she watches him from the doorway before he notices that she’s standing there. He’s carefully folding a shirt of hers; actually folding it instead of just throwing it in her bag like he does with his things and it hits her just then how much she means to him. He’s willing to take all that time to do that for her just because he knows that she likes it. When he does see her he stares at her for a minute and when she doesn’t react he drops the pair of shoes that he’s holding and walks over to her, gently squeezing her hand to wake her from the state that she’s in.
“Are you okay?”
“I talked to my mom.” She says quietly, emotionlessly.
“Oh. How did that go?”
“I’m not allowed back in that house anymore.” She says coldly and steps out of his arms over to her suitcase that’s resting on the bed.
“Maybe she’ll get over it.” Lee tries to help but she just sighs.
“She won’t. It’s done. And I don’t even care. There’s nothing that I can do.” She jams the rest of her clothes unceremoniously into it and then zips it up. “I just want to leave.” She takes her bag off the bed, and swings it into her arm. “Is your stuff all packed?”
“Yes.” He mumbles.
“Okay.” As she walks past him she drags her hand across his stomach. “I’ll be waiting downstairs alright?”
She doesn’t wait for a response and walks down the stairs and he runs his hands over his face then goes to join her with his own bag.
He feels an overwhelming sense of guilt for that, even though she’s not holding that over him or blames him internally at all. She moves in with him in his shitty apartment in downtown Chicago that has no curtains or hot water or a door in the whole place that locks properly and he’s overcome with the thought that she doesn’t belong here. After what she came from and what she had, it’s just a long way to fall. He knows that she loves him, she tells him that every single day but sometimes he wonders if love is enough for her. He loves her more than anything and would give up everything that he’s ever wanted or thought about having for her if she needed him to. But the problem is that she would never ask him to do that. She’d just smile through all the hard times, come home to him every day from her job at the diner around the corner which she had to take because one of them has to have a steady job, and go on like that for as long as he wanted her to.
He does a show almost every night at some local bar or dive. She’s usually right there with him, except for the nights where she has to work. It’s tiring for him to be optimistic that it’s going to work out for him, and her. She plays with him when she can as well, she either comes up after him or does her own thing or they end up playing together, their voices mixing together beautifully in a comforting mix of country and pop folk, acoustic. He wants to stay positive, mostly for her, she did give up everything to be here with him, that something will happen but a year passes with them singing and living and going on and no one slips either of them their card or wants to set up a meeting or takes any special interest in them at all.
He’s about to look through the newspaper for any job opportunities that might be available when an envelope falls out between the folds, tucked in their by accident when Olivia went and got the mail the day before.
It’s addressed to him and he thinks that it’s probably another bill that they’re going to struggle to pay or some piece of junk mail that he’s going to toss as soon as he skims the first line.
It’s not a bill and it’s definitely not junk and he knits his eyebrows together in confusion and has to take a seat at the kitchen table as he reads it, and then rereads it again to make sure that he can understand it.
It’s a letter from a tour manager that wants to take him and Olivia on a small, nationwide tour along with five other people. People that Lee kind of knows, he’s seen them play and remembered their names. She’ll have to leave her job and agree to pack up and go with him, all of them, and right now he’s not sure if that’s something that she’s willing to do. He’s going to ask her to uproot her life for his dreams again.
She comes home late that night, tired and cold because it’s just turning into a harsh Chicago winter, and stops in the doorway when she sees him sitting on the couch with a piece of paper tucked between his fingers with a serious look on his face.
“Are you okay?” She slides her coat off her shoulders and hangs it up on the hook by the door then kicks the door closed and makes her attempt at locking it.
“I got a letter today.” His voice is still low, unsettling.
“Well what does it say? Is it a Dear John letter; is one of your other girlfriends breaking up with you?” She jokes, tipping her head and smiling at him to try and break the tension. He doesn’t say anything and her smile drops off her face. “Lee, what is it, you’re making me nervous.”
He shakes his head slightly and hands the paper over and she takes it cautiously. “Maybe you should just read it.”
She glances down at the letter than back at him and then back down to read the letter.
“I don’t understand this, what does this mean?” She says to him once she reads it the second time.
“It means.” He sighs and sits forward on the couch, his hands clasping together in front of his knees. “They want us to go on tour this summer. If that goes well they’ll sign us, the both of us.”
“Oh my god.” She laughs happily and puts the letter down on the table next to the couch and leans down to hug him. “This is amazing. Why are you not excited? Why do you look so sad? You should be begging me for excited, celebratory sex right now.” She leans back from him and puts her hands on his shoulders so she can look him in the eyes.
“I am excited and…would I really have to beg you for sex?” He questions seriously and she bursts out laughing and sits down next to him, her hand on his thigh.
“No. You wouldn’t and as soon as you tell me what’s wrong we’re going to go do it.” She says as she kisses his cheek, her hand running through his hair. “What’s bothering you about this?”
“Do you really want this?” He asks her, looking up at her with sad eyes.
“What? Going on tour with you?”
“I’m talking about this whole thing. Do you really want this? I mean, is this your dream, do you want to just take off on a prayer that everything will work out? You could have more than this too you know.”
“I want this. I want this with you.” She nods her head to punctuate the words. “I may not know if this is…..all that I ever want but right now and for as long as I can see whatever you do is where I want to be.”
“But I already took you away from so much.”
“What did you take me from? I wasn’t happy back home Lee. You made me happy. I would never go back there without you.”
“But what if you want to go back there and I can’t or something happens and I won’t?”
“Then I’ll stay here with you. I want to be with you. It’s that simple.” She says, putting her hands on his face and kissing him and after a moment he kisses back. “This is the start Lee. It’s only going to get better from here and I get that you’re nervous about it but it’s going to work out. You should have more than this too Lee. You’re going to get more than this.”
“I just want you to be happy and not resent me.”
“I would never resent you. This is the most fun that I’ve ever had. Do you know what I would be doing now if I was still stuck at home? Probably clipping coupons…”
“We do that now.”
“Yeah but that’s because we need to and it’s exciting. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, yesterday I didn’t know that a tour would be all planned and your dreams would start to come true and thank you so much for letting me come along with you on it because I want to see it happen.”
“Are you sure that this is what you really want?”
She smiles and kisses him, moving across his body so she’s sitting on his lap and his hands come up to rest on her lower back as she deepens the kiss, answering his question without using any words.
Chapter 5/?
She sleeps well that night. Even on the pull out couch in Jane’s living room with the bar under the flimsy mattress that digs into her back. She lies on her side with her pillow tucked under her arm as she thinks about him and everything that he could be and what she could be when she stands next to him.
When he gets home his mother is still up watching the news and she notices his smile as soon as he walks in the door.
“You have a good show?”
“Yeah.” He leans against the wall in the living room and looks at her with his arms crossed. “Did you know Olivia was going to be in town this week?”
“I might have heard something.” She doesn’t look at him.
“Is that why you insisted that I come here for Christmas?”
“Maybe. I just wanted you two to have a second chance. She never comes back Lee and I heard that she was going to be back and I just had to do something for the two of you, I know you like her and I just want you to have a shot.” She stops talking when Lee pushes himself off the wall and walks over to her, puts his arms around her and hugs her.
“Thank you mom.”
“So it went well?” She says her voice warm with excitement and hope that her son has finally found someone worth having.
“I’m taking her out tomorrow.” Lee laughs at how happy she is as she claps her hands.
“This is amazing. But what are you going to do when she leaves, are you going to go back with her or what?”
“We got it all worked out. Kind of. It’ll all be okay. I’m going to bed.”
“I’m really happy for you Lee.”
“I know.” He tells her as he walks to the stair and he sighs with contentment. “I’m happy too.”
He picks her up the next day right on time, almost annoyingly on time because she’s still upstairs in Jane’s room trying on clothes trying to find the most appropriate and best looking outfit, her hair still up in a pony tail. When they hear the knock on the door Olivia pulls on the first outfit that she can get her hands on, the first thing she tried on, jeans and a sweater, simple but still sexy, and Jane rips the elastic out of her hair causing is to fall around her shoulders in thick waves and then almost pushes her down the stairs to get the door because she shouldn’t keep him waiting.
He’s dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, the black leather jacket a sharp contrast to the white shirt. He really looks no different than he usually does but now he’s kind of hers. No one would stop her and she wouldn’t feel guilty about reaching out and curling her fingers around the back of his neck, through his soft hair and kissing him.
He walks with his hand on the small of her back as he walks her to his car then opens the door for her hand she gets in and he jogs over to his side.
“Lunch?”
“I’m hungry.” She hasn’t eaten all day. She’s been too nervous, too flighty.
“You want eat in town or venture out?”
“You asked me on the date, you plan it.” She teases and he laughs as he starts the car.
“I just wanted to know if you had a preference, trying to make you have a good time.” He says as he pulls out of the driveway.
He takes her out of town to a fancy little restaurant in the middle of downtown. It’s sophisticated but neither of them feels underdressed as the waitress puts down their menus and pours them water. They order and eat and make small talk about what has been going on in their lives. They focus on only each other and the stories that they have to tell, something new always comes up, some hidden memory that they tucked into their brains to keep and save until they saw each other again because they knew that the only the other would truly appreciate it.
They hang out in the city, enjoying the fact that there is actually something to do here unlike her home town. He holds her hand as they walk and she leans into him and it’s comfortable and relaxed and both of them feel like they’ve already been dating for months.
Except when at the end of the night, it’s dark when they finally get back to town, they spent the whole day together, and she’s back on the front steps fiddling with her hands and wondering if he’s going to kiss her again and then he does and butterflies take flight in her stomach the whole time their lips are touching.
That’s how the whole week goes. Butterflies and hand holding, kisses that last forever but not long enough at the same time, car rides with the radio playing softly and their voices intermingling in laughter and teasing and shy looks followed by him grabbing her hand over the table and smiling at her until she can look at him without being afraid that he’ll catch her.
They spend Christmas with his mother and he’s so nervous about the gift that he got her. He’s afraid that it’s not going to mean enough or that she’ll be expecting or wanting more. He’s never known her to be materialistic or anything but as the hours tic by on Christmas Eve he thinks that maybe he should’ve gotten her a back up or something. Like a necklace or a bracelet that he could tuck away just in case her face fell when she opened the one that he got her and he could laugh and say ‘just kidding, here’s your real present, I’m not a sucky boyfriend, I do really care about you, please forgive me.’ But there aren’t any stores open now and he’s pretty sure that his car is blocked in by one of his mother’s friends that it over for the party. He thinks for a second that he could ask him mother for something of hers, it would be sweet, handing over a piece of jewelry that belonged to his mom, a way of telling Olivia that he’s not afraid to do it since he knows that she’ll always be there. But it’s too soon for that and his thought process is kind of convoluted anyways and he’s getting more and more anxious and by the time Olivia takes his hand and pulls him upstairs because that’s where she stashed the present that she got for him, he’s ready to run away from her and run to the nearest store and get whatever he can find.
She sits him down on his bed and opens up the closet door and gets his present. It’s cumbersome and guitar shaped and she almost knocks the lamp off the bedside table trying to lay it down on the bed next to him.
“I hope you like it. I hope…..I don’t know.” She wrings her hands together. She seems just as nervous as he feels and that does make him feel a little better.
He slides his finger under the taped edge of the gift and rips the paper off. He smiles at what he sees. It’s a new guitar case, shiny and not dented or worn from years of use. He’s about to thank her when she starts her own rant, thoughts that she’s been having since she bought the thing.
“Is it okay? I didn’t know if you wanted a new one but I was looking over your old one and it’s kind of beat up and it doesn’t really buckle all the way, like one of the hooks doesn’t snap and I thought that seems sort of risky because you want to protect that thing because it’s really important to you and I guess I’m afraid that your old one had some sentimental value or something, and I’m sure that it does because there has to be a story behind that dent and why it doesn’t close all the way.”
“I dropped it. It’s not really a story. I don’t even remember where.” He tells her.
“I didn’t want to get you a useless gift.” She sighs and crosses her arms over his chest, a pout on her lips and he reaches out to uncross her arms and pulls her closer to him.
“I love it. It was really thoughtful. I’m going to change it over now.” He starts to stand but she pushes him down by the shoulders.
“I want my gift first.”
“Greedy.”
“I’m just excited.” She defends herself and he tenses back up. “It’s Christmas. I love Christmas.”
“Okay.” He takes a deep breath and leans over the end of the bed to get her present. She tries to take it from him but he holds it back, twisted around to his side so she can’t reach it. “Hold on. This present it stressing me out like crazy right now ‘Liv. I was so confident when I bought it and then it kind of weighed on my mind and I started to second guess it and……” He shoves the small gift, haphazardly wrapped in red paper into her hands. “Just open it put me out of my misery and I’ll take whatever you give me for a reaction.”
She looks at him as she tears open the paper. It’s a wooden box about the size of a text book and she turns it over and unlatches the brass clasp on the front of it. The wrapping paper falls to the floor as she opens the box. It’s filled with paper. Really good writing paper, heavy and bordered with a thin gold band along the top of it and next to the paper is a simple black pen. She looks up at him in confusion.
“You hate it don’t you? God, I’m so sorry.” He drops his head into his hands and leans forward and she shifts the box into one of her arms so she can lay her hand on his shoulder but he leans back out of her touch and lies down on the bed, his palms dug into his eyes. “I thought that it would be cute. You said that we could write each other and I wanted you to have something to write on but you can write on anything and this was a crappy gift.”
He hears the box hit the floor and expects to hear the door slam next but instead he hears one footstep to get closer to him and then he feels her body lying across his on the bed. He takes his hands off his eyes and she kisses him, her fingers running through his hair, knotting into it and his hands move around to her back and he’s a little embarrassed by the way that he moans softly into the kiss.
“I love my gift Lee.” She tells him, her lips still brushing against his.
“Do you really?”
“Yes.” She kisses him softly. “You really thought it out and it shows that you care about me and us.” She kisses him again, harder this time, her tongue slipping between his lips and against this own. “And every time I write on that paper to you I’m going to think of this moment.” She works her hand under his shirt and leans into him a little harder and he pulls her tighter to him.
She sits up and his hands slide down her sides to her hips and she starts to take off her shirt and his first, purely guy thought is to help her with hit, rip it off her body along with the rest of her clothes so he can feel all of her but then his more cautious side comes into play and he starts to hear the party that’s going on downstairs instead of just her voice and her breathing.
He sits up as well and he takes hold of her hands to get her to stop moving the fabric out of the way of her skin.
“Olivia.” His voice is gentle as he starts to let her down. “Are you thinking about what you’re doing now?’
“Yes. Now get your pants off.” She climbs off of him and he bursts out laughing. “What’s so funny?”
“You are.” He takes her hand again and pulls her down next to him on the bed. “We can’t do this now.”
“Why not?” She’s close to whining and he shakes his head and smiles. “I wanted to thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that.” He soothes. “You don’t have to thank me like that. And not here.” He says with a squeeze of her shoulders and she breathes out a soft sigh.
“You mean you don’t want to have sex in your mother’s house with a bunch of people downstairs?” She jokes.
“Are you kidding? I’d love to but I don’t think you’re the kind of girl to do that with.” He pauses. “I feel like that came out so wrong.”
“It’s okay.” She stands up and straightens out her shirt then runs her fingers through his hair to fix it, she messed it up a lot. “Let’s go back downstairs, mingle, before anyone gets any ideas.”
“I don’t think anyone would suspect you of trying to get me naked up here.” He mumbles against the back of his neck and she giggles and snakes her arm around his neck as she walks in front of him.
The rest of the week goes by too fast and before either of them want to acknowledge it it’s time for her to go back to college and him back to singing and trying to get by.
They share a long kiss goodbye at the airport, people actually stop to look at them before they continue on to catch their flight or get their bags and when it finally ends he still holds onto him.
“Are you going to write me?” She asks him, standing up on her toes and kissing his forehead.
“I don’t have the fancy paper.”
“I don’t mind regular notebook paper.” She tells him softly as she rests her head against his chest.
“I’ll write to you, and call and text and I can come see you a few times. It’s not like New York doesn’t have places that I could play.”
She straightens up and kisses him once more then picks her bag up off the ground. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
“I hope so.” She says quietly as she tips her head.
He should say something else but he doesn’t. ‘I love you’ won’t form in his mind for some reason. ‘I’m falling in love with you’ is but he doesn’t say that either.
But neither does she. They don’t know that they’re constantly on the same page with everything that they do and say because neither of them will do or say anything to clue each other in. Everything could be so simple for the two of them if they just used their words.
He watches her walk away with a heavy heart and she walks off with tears forming in the corners of her eyes that don’t ever fall because by the time she gets to security she’s more focused on the long line ahead of her instead of the boy that she left behind.
New York City is cold. Ever colder than it was when she left it last week, she has to pull her heavy pea coat up around her chin to protect herself from the wind that funnels down between the tall buildings. But even when she’s sitting in class or her dorm or anywhere that would allow her to take her coat off, and her gloves and hat she still feels the chill run through her body because she misses him. But then she feels like an idiot. Rolling her eyes at herself is her new hobby because whenever she catches herself feeling sad and missing him she reminds herself that he’s still out there, waiting for her. He might be miles away but it’s not like they’re not together. She has him and he has her and she’ll pull out her phone and text him a simple message and he’ll text back right away because he’s feeling the same way that she is.
Chicago is cold as well. And bitter. With every day that passes that he doesn’t get signed and he doesn’t see her, the harder it becomes to stay there. He loves it, it’s him home but the constant ache of denial is starting to get to him, poking into his side or itching at him like a wool sweater. Sometimes he thinks it would be better to just give up. Throw in the towel on his dreams and call it a day or whatever other stupid cliché he can come up with to describe in a poetic language how much of a failure he is.
She kind of floats around aimlessly in the city. Everyone around her seems to be marching towards a goal, talking and over talking about their major and the job that they have lined up next year when they graduate or they’re finally picking their major, sighing in satisfaction that the worry about what’s going to happen to them when they leave the relative safety of school is finally over. She just doesn’t know. Nothing sounds good to her and she doesn’t feel like she’s good at anything that could get her security in the long run. She can sing. That’s it. She could pursue that, just like Lee is, they could be something together but she feels like she’s not good enough, certainly not as good as him and would end up holding him back and he would let her do that because he’s not a jerk that would dump her for his own dreams. And he deserves to have his own dreams, that last thing she wants to do is take them away from him. He’s worked so hard and anything less than getting famous and all that the wants would be a disservice to him. She doesn’t want to ride his coattails either. The more she thinks of it the more she feels like that is what she’d be doing. She likes to perform. People clap for her when she’s done playing, she got a guitar but she kind of sucks at it, but the people who listen to her doesn’t seem to mind or pay attention to it. They like her voice and the sincerity that she brings to it. She didn’t think that her brand of country music would be so accepted but it is and she likes the feeling of acceptance.
They write a letter at least once a week. Texts and phone calls are fine; they speak on the phone every night before they go to bed and they’ll text randomly throughout the day. He’ll tell her something funny that he saw or did that he knows will make her smile and she’ll usually text him for advice about things. Like what song she should sing when she plays tonight or which CD should she buy while she’s standing in the record store, holding two of them, completely unsure about what to do. He’ll usually send her a message back that says ‘both. You need both in your life right away’ and she’ll have to do it because he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to music. The romance of the letter is so much better. Waiting on one to come in the mail is like a game for them and writing them is kind of cathartic. They can say things that they don’t really have the courage to say face to face or over the phone. It’s easier to write it out long hand.
He always opens her letters slowly, carefully pulling at the envelope at the seams. She usually goes on about her roommate or the crappy winter weather that is still plaguing her and how much she misses being tan for the first few paragraphs before she finally gets into it.
I know it’s stupid to think about but sometimes I worry that I’m going to disappoint you. You’re going to tell me something completely sweet in response to this, I know you are, you’re going to make me feel better and say that I could never disappoint you because that’s the kind of guy that you are and that might make me feel better for a little while but then that fear is going to come back. I don’t know what I’m doing here Lee. It’s too much and too big, the city feels like it’s going to swallow me up any day, which that, in its own right, it probably one of the most over dramatic things that I have ever thought but it’s true. What it comes down to is this. You wanted me out of that town so bad and I left it and it was great for a little while but now I’m getting the feeling that I’ll just end up back there. What if there’s nothing for me in this city or anywhere else? What if I’m meant for that small town life? I know you’re not and you’d never go back for good and I know that this is too soon that I’m thinking about this but I want you to be there with me for as long as you can and me being there and you being out there and doing what you’re doing isn’t going to work. This keeps me up at night Lee. I worry and I worry about it. I’m probably not making any sense now and you’re probably very confused and I know I said at the start of this that you telling me not to worry would only make me feel better for a little while but I would like that, just for a little while. So just say it to me so I can. I miss you.
He puts the letter down and starts his own right away.
It’ll be okay. It will all be okay. I can promise you. You could never disappoint me. Do you feel better now? I hope you do because the thought of you sitting in your dorm all alone sad and scared about what’s going to happen when you graduate or a year after that or even ten days after that, or even a week from now really makes me sad. I wanted you to leave that town because I know that there is more for you out there even if you don’t know what that is yet. And I don’t think you have to know what that is. You’ll figure it out in your own time and until you do there’s nothing wrong with being confused. That’s how you do figure things out. You never know if you can do something if you don’t try it. Try it all Liv. Do whatever you want. Go home if you want to, I’ll go with you if you want me to. I want to be where you are, no matter where it is. The location is only good if you’re there with me. I swear that’s the truth and not some line that I’m only saying to make you feel better. I mean it. And if I’m going to be really honest with you, I have to tell you that sometimes I feel the same way that you do. I worry I’m going to disappoint me. You really believe in me and you can’t even think of me not making it but I feel like I’m not going to make it. Yesterday I seriously considered applying for a steady job in the place of playing shows. I don’t know how long I can live like this. I’m barely getting by, I’m barely making rent and I’m practically counting pennies to pay for things and I know this is not the kind of life that you deserve. In the long run, I’m thinking about the future with you as well, I should be able to take care of you and I don’t know how I’m going to do that when I can’t even take care of myself. If I’m going to be completely honest with you I should probably tell you that as I was just writing that last sentence I thought that if I keep going on like I’m going I’ll never be able to buy you a ring. I hope that didn’t freak you out. I haven’t even told you that I love you yet and I’m not going to say it for the first time in a letter, but just know that I do. You’ll be okay Olivia. You can have whatever you want whenever you decide what that is. No rush. I’ll help you figure it out if you need me to or I can step back and let you have your space. It’s all up to you.
She puts down his letter, the thin notebook paper wrinkling in her hands and she grabs one of the sheets of paper from the wooden box to start her own letter but her hands are shaking a little bit from his almost omission of love and she has to put the pen down and pick up her phone to call him, romance of a letter be damned, she needs to hear his voice.
“Hey.” His voice is warm on the other end of the phone and she takes a deep breath.
“I got your letter.” She has to whisper because her roommate is sleeping no more than five feet from her.
“Oh.”
“I don’t want to say that I love you in a letter either. Or over the phone but you should just know that I do.”
There’s no response on the other end of the line and she feels her heart clench but then she hears him exhale and laugh quietly.
“I want to see you. I wanna say it to you. When are you available, when can I come out?”
“Next week. We have a week off for spring break. Can I come to you, I want to try a different city and I want to see where you live and where you play and all of that. Can I do that?”
“Yes, if you’re sure, I can come to you.’’
“No, you’ve already done so much for me, let me do this.”
“Okay Olivia, okay. I’m okay with anything that you want to do.” He’s bubbling over in excitement and she starts up her computer to find plane tickets.
“Can I stay for the week?”
“You can stay forever Olivia.”
“Don’t tempt me.” She tells him and gets another low laugh.
Her bags are packed that night and she lives out of a suitcase for the rest of the week, counting down the hours till she gets on the plane to go see him again. She wakes up early the day of her flight and opens up the blinds in her window and all she sees outside is white. It’s snowing. Again. It’s actually a blizzard. White out conditions and no plane is leaving or entering the city for the next three days and she sits looking out her window as she dials his number to tell him the devastating news.
“It’s snowing.” She tells him, her voice monotone and sad and she feels like she could very easily break down into tears.
“I know honey.” He says to her, trying to calm her down and stop her watery voice.
“How did you know?”
“It’s been on the news. Huge storm hitting the east coast. It’s going to last for awhile.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve gotten an earlier flight or something. This is what I get for not watching the news for the past few days and studying for my stupid classes. I’m so stupid and annoyed and I’m all alone in my dorm because everyone else is gone because they already left yesterday because they don’t care about that final day of class and are smart enough to turn on the stupid news.” She sighs into the phone when she hears a knock on the door. “Oh great, someone is at the door, it’s probably a murderer or a rapist or something given my luck.”
She lowers the phone from her ear and opens the door. The phone drops out of her hand and bounces to the floor when she sees Lee standing on the other side, snow covering the shoulders of his jacket and a black beanie pulled down over his hair.
He slowly lowers his phone from his ear and puts it in his pocket.
“Are you going to say something? Are you mad that I’m here? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I thought it would be a surprise and it would be cute. Like the paper.”
She shakes her head and puts his arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck and kissing his skin and then she pulls away, her arms still crossed at the wrist behind his neck.
“I love you.” She tells him and he smiles and leans into to kiss her.
“I love you too.” He says back to her and she pulls him into her room, stepping around her phone and then stumbling back towards the bed, his lips still on hers and her hands unbuttoning his coat and then pushing his shirt up his chest so she can get it off of him. “’Liv.” He mumbles in between a kiss when she backs out of his arms to pull her sweater over her head. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She doesn’t want to talk right now or have him talk her out of it. She doubts he’s going to talk her out of it but the ‘are you sure, are you really sure?’ are going to make her annoyed. She steps back into him and shivers when his hands, still cold from the outside touch his skin but the rest of him is so warm that it doesn’t matter.
“We should maybe slow down.”
“I’ve been slow for 21 years Lee, I don’t want to be slow.” She pulls on his shirt and works his coat down his arms at the same time and they both fall clumsily onto the bed and she giggles as she tries to get his shirt all the way off.
“I just don’t think that we should rush this.”
She takes her hands off of him and lays them down by her sides on the bed. “Are you the girl in this situation right now?”
He laughs and stands up kind of awkwardly and takes his shirt all the way off then reaches into his pocket for this wallet.
“I want to make sure that you do this right and you don’t regret it or anything.”
She sighs and throws her arm over her eyes. “You are a girl.”
“I’m not a girl.” He lies down next to her and runs the pad of his fingers over her side and she laughs and pushes his hand away. He grabs her hand and brings it up to his lips. “I love you. I really love you.”
“That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear.” She tells him softly and he kisses her, slowly moving his hand down her skin to the front of her jeans and he cautiously undoes the button and she lifts her hips so he can slide them down her legs. He reaches for his wallet again and opens it, pulling out the condom that he keeps in there for ‘emergencies’ and she’s suddenly hit with nerves. “You might have to tell me what to do.”
“You’re going to be fine.” He says, distracted by the way her legs feels under his hands. “Just tell me if anything is too much or I’m doing something that hurts you or anything.”
“Okay.” Her voice breaks and he kisses her softly.
“When don’t have to do this.”
“No. I want to. Just….go slow.” She says as she blushes furiously and he nods his head and his kiss starts to calm her right down as he starts to take the rest of her clothes off and finally, slowly, moves against her.
It’s kind of awkward and not at all like she thought it would be or what she’s seen in movies and she knew that it wouldn’t be but it was still good. She feels loved and happy and safe, like it really, really meant something to both of them and she doesn’t want to get all girly all over the moment but it was definitely worth waiting for.
In the morning they stay in her room, not moving from the bed and surviving on the Pop Tarts that she has in her room that just happen to be within arm’s length of the mattress.
It’s lazy and sleepy and going outside would be a huge disaster because it’s cold and snowing and in bed they can just be together, warm and protected and he can kiss her and she can touch him without anyone seeing them.
He kisses her shoulder and she puts her hand flat over his chest, her heart beating into her palm.
“When you said in that letter that you couldn’t buy me a ring what did you mean by that?”
“That I’m practically broke.” He mumbles against her neck.
“But. Do you want to buy me a ring?” She asks, some fear in her voice because she can’t figure out what she wants him to say. Too soon for marriage, too soon to even think about it. But she would like to think that is a possibility for them at some point.
He exhales and his breath hits her skin causing her to get goose bumps and then he removes his lips from her skin and looks at her.
“I’m not going to ask you to marry me Olivia. Not right now. Probably not for awhile. I still have something’s to figure out and you have things to figure out but at some point, I’m going to ask you and I hope that you’ll say yes.”
“I will.” She says and he covers her lips with his own and the second time is better than the first.
They venture out to explore the city the next day and she shows him the music stores and restaurants that she has found and he lets her show him around like he’s never been to a city before. They’re like a real couple. Living together and spending time together, walking hand in hand down the street like nothing, not even hundreds of miles and at least over a year until they can truly be like this for real.
Spring break comes to an end too fast and he has to get back in a car and drive home and she has to go back to class and back to figuring her life out.
It’s back to texts and calls and letters, counting down the days until summer comes so they can spend that whole time together. They go through their normal routines without each other, he plays and tries to pick up as many paying gigs as he can so he can still have an apartment to live in and she studies and tries to pick a stupid path but she just keeps coming back to the shiny new guitar that she bought for herself that she still struggles to learn how to play and sad country songs about being separated from the one that they love.
She spends the summer with him in Chicago. He’s nervous about her judging his small apartment but she just throws her bag down by the door, asks him which door the bedroom is behind and grabs his hand and drags him into it.
She goes with him to every show and more often than not she’s called up to the stage to sing with him, her sweet, innocent voice, blends with his deep, rough one and she feels like she could do this with him forever. They make a nice summer life together. Days are spent out on the town, she wants to see every part of the city and their nights are spend performing or holed up in his apartment, hanging out and watching TV or her lying on the couch listening to him play a new song that he’s been working on, stopping every once in awhile to hand her the guitar so he can teach her a little bit more so she’s more comfortable with it.
It’s harder to leave him in the fall than she thought it would be but he kisses her goodbye at the airport with the promise to come and visit her around Christmas and again in March and then it’ll be June and she’ll have graduated and they can move on for real.
The months pass faster than she expected them to. Christmas comes and goes and so does that visit in March and it feels like all of the sudden it’s the middle of June and she’s standing there in a cap and gown nervously scanning the massive crowd of people in the audience for her mother and father and Lee, who all said that they would be there, not together, her parents have barely spoken to her since they found out that she was dating him for real with a genuine future. She doesn’t see her parents but she gets a few texts from Lee throughout the day asking her if she was alright. He knows she’s stressed out now. She still doesn’t know what she’s doing and the unknown terrifies her. She spent her whole life, save the last five years, were perfectly mapped out for her and now she’s being thrown into a world of uncertainty.
After the ceremony Lee meets up with her outside the building, in a suit that’s too hot for the weather and a small bunch of flowers for her.
She takes the flowers, kisses him, and shifts the flowers and her cap in her hands. “Did you see my parents?”
He frowns. “No. I’m sorry.” His heart breaks when she looks down at the ground sadly. “But there were a lot of people in there ‘Liv. I might have missed them.”
“You didn’t miss them.” She replies sullenly. “They just didn’t show. It’s no big deal though. Alabama is pretty far away and my dad works a lot and my mom probably didn’t want to come to the city on her own and…..” She sighs and stops talking, sick of coming up with excuses on why her own parents would miss her graduation.
He puts a warm hand on her arm. “Let me take you out, we can go celebrate.”
“I don’t really feel like celebrating. What is there to celebrate?”
“You just made it through college. It’s something not everyone can say that they did. I can’t say that.” He says with a wide smile and she gives him a smirk. “I know you’re hungry. Let’s go get dinner. It’ll be fun. We can meet up with some of your friends if you want to.”
“I don’t really want to.” She leans into him and awkwardly laces her fingers around his jacket and kisses him. “Just you.” She finishes quietly.
They spend the summer back home with his mother, staying at his mother’s house. She’s overjoyed that they’re together and real and going strong. But, they’re still put into separate rooms. Mary clears out some space in that office and throws an air mattress down on the floor and tells Lee ‘that’s where you’ll sleep’ before taking a hold of Olivia’s hand and pulls her into Lee’s old room, Olivia tossing Lee a smile over her shoulder as she’s being led away.
But being in separate bedrooms doesn’t keep them apart at night. She’ll sneak out and tip toe into his room and either climb onto the flimsy mattress with him where she falls asleep with his arms around her waist or she’ll gently wake him up with a kiss and a tug on his hand to get him out of bed and he’ll give her a sleepy smile and carefully follow her into his bedroom where he’ll have to bury his face into the side of her neck and she’ll have to bite her lip to keep from making too much noise as their hands trace across each other’s bodies and in the morning they can’t even look at each other without a blush covering their faces and necks.
She doesn’t talk to her mother, avoids her at all cost, going as far as leaving a store as soon as she walks in if she sees her standing at the counter. But, on the last day before she goes back to Chicago with him she goes over to his mother’s house. She stands in front of the house for ten minutes before she has the guts to go up and ring the doorbell and when she finally does she feels the urge to run off the deck in a ding dong ditch game that she knows she’s too old for. Before she can make her body hop off the deck her mother answers the door, her pleasant, greeting smile vanishes when she sees who it is.
“What are you doing here?”
Olivia almost rolls her eyes at the tone of her voice. “Can I come in?”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know, a lot of things, we haven’t talked in years, a lot has happened.”
Her mother sighs and lets her in, closing the door around as soon as Olivia steps into the foyer.
“I know you’re seeing that boy.” She says it like an insult and Olivia’s nose crinkles at the severity of it.
“His name is Lee. He has a name and he’s not really a boy anymore. He’s twenty two.”
“He’s trouble.”
“He hasn’t done anything wrong in years mom, he didn’t even do anything wrong when you think he did do something wrong.”
“He got into a fight with Ryan.”
“That was over four years ago and do you seriously not get why he did that? Do you still not understand that Ryan used to abuse me, he hit me mom, Lee was defending me, he saved me.”
“He is bringing you down. He has no future and ever since you got with him neither do you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Really? What are you doing with your life that’s so great Olivia, please, tell me, prove me wrong.”
“He is doing things.”
“Right, he’s going to be a singer or some stupid thing like that. How’s that going for him? Does he have a deal or a tour or anything going? Does anyone that means anything care about him or know that he exists?”
“He’s trying.”
“People can try their whole lives and not get anywhere Olivia.”
“He’s going to get somewhere.”
“Fine, then what about you? What’s your master plan? You going to follow him around like a puppy for the rest of your life? That sounds a lot like what you ran away from down here.”
“I love him.”
“Loving him can’t win an argument. You shouldn’t feel that way. He can’t do enough for you or you can’t do enough for him, it’s not right, you’re going to burn out and you’ll be left alone and unhappy. Cut to the chase with this thing Olivia.” Her voice softens and she steps closer to Olivia, putting her hands on her arms. “Leave him now, come home, and find someone down here that wants the same things that you want.”
“I want him.” She says defiantly as she shakes her arms away from her mother’s hands.
She nods her head slowly. “Then you need to get out of this house and not come back.”
“So that’s just it? It’s the end; you’re not going to talk to me again? Ever? What about when I get married? Should I just not invite you? What about when I have a kid, you’re only grandchild; you’ll want nothing to do with him or her?”
“Not if it’s with him I won’t.”
“I’m sorry that you feel that way. I really sorry but I won’t leave him, he wants to marry me and when asks I’ll say yes and there’s nothing that you can do about that.”
“You’ll never marry him.” Her mother says clearly, believing it with everything that she has and Olivia holds back the anger as she pushes past her and swings open the door, walking out of her childhood home for the very last time.
When she gets back to Mary’s house Lee’s up in his old room, packing up her things and she watches him from the doorway before he notices that she’s standing there. He’s carefully folding a shirt of hers; actually folding it instead of just throwing it in her bag like he does with his things and it hits her just then how much she means to him. He’s willing to take all that time to do that for her just because he knows that she likes it. When he does see her he stares at her for a minute and when she doesn’t react he drops the pair of shoes that he’s holding and walks over to her, gently squeezing her hand to wake her from the state that she’s in.
“Are you okay?”
“I talked to my mom.” She says quietly, emotionlessly.
“Oh. How did that go?”
“I’m not allowed back in that house anymore.” She says coldly and steps out of his arms over to her suitcase that’s resting on the bed.
“Maybe she’ll get over it.” Lee tries to help but she just sighs.
“She won’t. It’s done. And I don’t even care. There’s nothing that I can do.” She jams the rest of her clothes unceremoniously into it and then zips it up. “I just want to leave.” She takes her bag off the bed, and swings it into her arm. “Is your stuff all packed?”
“Yes.” He mumbles.
“Okay.” As she walks past him she drags her hand across his stomach. “I’ll be waiting downstairs alright?”
She doesn’t wait for a response and walks down the stairs and he runs his hands over his face then goes to join her with his own bag.
He feels an overwhelming sense of guilt for that, even though she’s not holding that over him or blames him internally at all. She moves in with him in his shitty apartment in downtown Chicago that has no curtains or hot water or a door in the whole place that locks properly and he’s overcome with the thought that she doesn’t belong here. After what she came from and what she had, it’s just a long way to fall. He knows that she loves him, she tells him that every single day but sometimes he wonders if love is enough for her. He loves her more than anything and would give up everything that he’s ever wanted or thought about having for her if she needed him to. But the problem is that she would never ask him to do that. She’d just smile through all the hard times, come home to him every day from her job at the diner around the corner which she had to take because one of them has to have a steady job, and go on like that for as long as he wanted her to.
He does a show almost every night at some local bar or dive. She’s usually right there with him, except for the nights where she has to work. It’s tiring for him to be optimistic that it’s going to work out for him, and her. She plays with him when she can as well, she either comes up after him or does her own thing or they end up playing together, their voices mixing together beautifully in a comforting mix of country and pop folk, acoustic. He wants to stay positive, mostly for her, she did give up everything to be here with him, that something will happen but a year passes with them singing and living and going on and no one slips either of them their card or wants to set up a meeting or takes any special interest in them at all.
He’s about to look through the newspaper for any job opportunities that might be available when an envelope falls out between the folds, tucked in their by accident when Olivia went and got the mail the day before.
It’s addressed to him and he thinks that it’s probably another bill that they’re going to struggle to pay or some piece of junk mail that he’s going to toss as soon as he skims the first line.
It’s not a bill and it’s definitely not junk and he knits his eyebrows together in confusion and has to take a seat at the kitchen table as he reads it, and then rereads it again to make sure that he can understand it.
It’s a letter from a tour manager that wants to take him and Olivia on a small, nationwide tour along with five other people. People that Lee kind of knows, he’s seen them play and remembered their names. She’ll have to leave her job and agree to pack up and go with him, all of them, and right now he’s not sure if that’s something that she’s willing to do. He’s going to ask her to uproot her life for his dreams again.
She comes home late that night, tired and cold because it’s just turning into a harsh Chicago winter, and stops in the doorway when she sees him sitting on the couch with a piece of paper tucked between his fingers with a serious look on his face.
“Are you okay?” She slides her coat off her shoulders and hangs it up on the hook by the door then kicks the door closed and makes her attempt at locking it.
“I got a letter today.” His voice is still low, unsettling.
“Well what does it say? Is it a Dear John letter; is one of your other girlfriends breaking up with you?” She jokes, tipping her head and smiling at him to try and break the tension. He doesn’t say anything and her smile drops off her face. “Lee, what is it, you’re making me nervous.”
He shakes his head slightly and hands the paper over and she takes it cautiously. “Maybe you should just read it.”
She glances down at the letter than back at him and then back down to read the letter.
“I don’t understand this, what does this mean?” She says to him once she reads it the second time.
“It means.” He sighs and sits forward on the couch, his hands clasping together in front of his knees. “They want us to go on tour this summer. If that goes well they’ll sign us, the both of us.”
“Oh my god.” She laughs happily and puts the letter down on the table next to the couch and leans down to hug him. “This is amazing. Why are you not excited? Why do you look so sad? You should be begging me for excited, celebratory sex right now.” She leans back from him and puts her hands on his shoulders so she can look him in the eyes.
“I am excited and…would I really have to beg you for sex?” He questions seriously and she bursts out laughing and sits down next to him, her hand on his thigh.
“No. You wouldn’t and as soon as you tell me what’s wrong we’re going to go do it.” She says as she kisses his cheek, her hand running through his hair. “What’s bothering you about this?”
“Do you really want this?” He asks her, looking up at her with sad eyes.
“What? Going on tour with you?”
“I’m talking about this whole thing. Do you really want this? I mean, is this your dream, do you want to just take off on a prayer that everything will work out? You could have more than this too you know.”
“I want this. I want this with you.” She nods her head to punctuate the words. “I may not know if this is…..all that I ever want but right now and for as long as I can see whatever you do is where I want to be.”
“But I already took you away from so much.”
“What did you take me from? I wasn’t happy back home Lee. You made me happy. I would never go back there without you.”
“But what if you want to go back there and I can’t or something happens and I won’t?”
“Then I’ll stay here with you. I want to be with you. It’s that simple.” She says, putting her hands on his face and kissing him and after a moment he kisses back. “This is the start Lee. It’s only going to get better from here and I get that you’re nervous about it but it’s going to work out. You should have more than this too Lee. You’re going to get more than this.”
“I just want you to be happy and not resent me.”
“I would never resent you. This is the most fun that I’ve ever had. Do you know what I would be doing now if I was still stuck at home? Probably clipping coupons…”
“We do that now.”
“Yeah but that’s because we need to and it’s exciting. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, yesterday I didn’t know that a tour would be all planned and your dreams would start to come true and thank you so much for letting me come along with you on it because I want to see it happen.”
“Are you sure that this is what you really want?”
She smiles and kisses him, moving across his body so she’s sitting on his lap and his hands come up to rest on her lower back as she deepens the kiss, answering his question without using any words.