Fic: Where We'll Land
So I participated in no_tags!
romanticalgirl wrote Too Fast for Love for me, which is Gabe/Ryland h/c on the Hot Mess tour, full of feelings and all these spot-on canon details, with a really fantastic Ryland voice.
I wrote:
Where We'll Land
Pairing: Z/Tennessee(ish), past Z/Ryan, past Z/Charlotte, Charlotte/OFC
Prompt: 38. Z/Tennessee - post hiatus late night phone calls. When I saw this prompt, I considered writing phone sex for half a second, but then I remembered I'm me, so instead there's angst and Ryan Ross. \o?
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes: I apologize for my blatant disregard of the timeline.
Release Me was probably their last shot.
Z gets that.
That's not true for any of them individually, of course. They’re brilliant, resourceful, and talented (if Z does say so herself); they all have other offers and side projects. None of them needed The Like, not the way Z and Tennessee used to. They’ll be fine, even if they’re not fine together.
Z gets that too.
She spent the weeks between the decision and the announcement saying that while everybody eyed her warily until Tennessee finally looked at her, careful and resigned, and said, “You’re right. Maybe we just have to accept that it’s not going to work.”
And in that moment, Z couldn’t read her at all and it was terrifying. Her vibrant energy was more shut down than Z had ever seen it, even counting the weeks right after Charlotte left. “I just mean, we all have a lot of options,” she tried again. “You have the fashion thing, Tenn. And the acting...”
Tennessee smiled, still looking kind of sad, and said, “Yeah, I get it.”
Z swallowed and looked away. She only had so much fight in her, and stubborn conviction only takes you so far. She thought maybe admitting that would make it easier.
It hasn’t helped so far.
*
She doesn't say that to Ryan, because she might be kind of an asshole, and she’s definitely an asshole when she’s in pain, but she does have limits. Besides, there are a lot of things they don't say to each other these days; there are all these conversational land mines where she always thought there'd be solid ground.
“It’s a hiatus, Z,” Ryan says, like this is the first time they’ve had this conversation, too alert through the phone at 2 a.m. He’s patient with her, more patient that he is with anyone else.
His voice is faint, muffled like he’s not speaking directly into the receiver. She can picture him, holding his iPhone to his ear with his shoulder, hunched over his guitar and notebook. He’s probably wearing old man silk pajamas in dark, rich colors. It makes her smile, and it makes her heart ache with “if only” and “what if.” If only they hadn’t understood each other quite so well. What if they’d ever been able to look at each other without seeing the echoes of their own fuckups.
He’s writing a song about their breakup. She can tell because he won’t send her any lyrics at all. She wonders if it’s one anybody will hear or if it will go in the drawer with the real songs about the Panic or The Young Veins. She doesn’t want to be in that category.
But she probably isn’t; even though he’s the last person on the planet she should call with this, and even though she does it all the time, he’s talking to her about hiatus with only the slightest twinge of anything other than affection in his voice. She does love him. Not in a way that could keep them together, but oh, she does.
He’s still wrong, and they both know it.
“It’s not,” she says, “hiatus is just what people always say.”
“Not always,” he says, “things change. You all still like each other, right?” And there it is, that tight, bitter edge in his voice they never did manage to push past.
“Of course,” Z says faintly.
Z talked to Laena yesterday. Laena’s voice was scratchy from overuse, not enough sleep, and probably too many cigarettes, but that couldn’t cover the exhilaration underlying every word. She scratched up her knees falling down on stage; she’d text Z the pictures. Did Z want to hear the new song they were doing? She’d send her that too. Z loves Laena, but they were always going to be a pit stop for her.
She talked to Annie this morning, when Annie called to ask if Z’d gotten the pictures she’d sent from the latest photo shoot. Z fumbled to her computer and clicked through the slide show - Annie, sultry and wide-eyed in leather and lace, or smirking out from under her pin striped fedora. Z worries about Annie, but she feels better every time they have conversation where Annie gets excited enough to talk about lighting and camera angles for forty-five minutes.
She hasn’t talked to Tennessee in nearly a month. It’s longer than she’s gone without talking to Tennessee since they were sixteen.
Sometimes she thinks about the way she still knows Charlotte’s old cell phone number by heart and her whole chest hurts.
“I’m sorry, Z, I know it’s…I’m sorry,” Ryan says, concern in his voice, but he’s gone muffled again. She probably shouldn’t have called him.
“I know you do,” she says. Acknowledgement, they at least owe each other that. “It’s okay. I should go, get some sleep.”
“You won’t sleep,” he says, and then, “You should call her,” and that’s funny, coming from Ryan Ross, but mostly in a way that makes her wish they were in the same room so she could hug him.
“I miss you,” she says. He makes a hmming noise of affirmation in his throat, faintly she can hear him picking out minor chords on his guitar across the line.
*
It wasn’t her dream. Not originally. She didn't start it; Tennessee and Charlotte came to her. That’s what she keeps thinking about.
She wanted it. She wanted them so badly she almost couldn’t contain it. And later, she wanted Annie and Laena too. She remembers the four of them at that dinner. After everything with Laena just slid into place, what were the odds that Annie would be so perfect for them? Z was fairly convinced she’d dreamed her into existence. It was such a startling, breathless thrill to have momentum again. She doesn’t know what happened.
But she also remembers waking up with Charlotte curled around her (Tennessee at her back, always, always), the smell of burning chocolate cake still lingering in the house, and her fingertips raw from her guitar. She remembers the stunning swirl of possibility the first time they had momentum, when she was being pulled into someone else’s dream that she made hers, and that they all lost.
She doesn’t really know what happened there either.
She calls Tennessee to ask, but hangs up before she answers.
*
She didn't think Charlotte had changed her number, but Z doesn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” the girl says. Her voice is softer than Charlotte’s, sweeter, the kind that goes brittle in irritation.
Z says, “Sorry, I must have the wrong…”
The girl cuts her off with a sigh, audible and annoyed. “Z, right? Hold on.”
Oh. Okay.
The fact of the other girl doesn’t twist knots up in Z’s gut like it probably still would have even a year ago, but the knowledge of the things they don’t know about each other anymore may never stop hurting.
There’s a whispered exchange, and then a rustling and the sound of a door closing, and Charlotte’s there, sleep roughening her voice. “Z? Kay saw the caller ID. Shockingly, you’re not her favorite. Are you okay?” She sounds wry, and a little bemused. It makes Z feel stupid and exposed. Z Berg is, if nothing else, in control. She doesn't like vulnerability and she doesn’t let her guard down in front of people she doesn’t trust.
Z laughs, self-effacing and glib (she’s always known how to play to her strengths), and says,
“Sorry, it’s late, I shouldn’t have called.”
“Probably not, but you did. So are you okay?”
“I’m fine; I should...”
“Is it Tenn?” Charlotte’s voice goes sharp at that, concern spiking through her wariness.
Z sighs. “No, she’s fine. I think. I.” She swallows hard and asks quietly, “has she said anything to you?”
There’s a long pause before Charlotte says, “I haven’t talked to her. Not since right after you guys went on hiatus. We were going to get together, but she said she couldn’t deal with me yet.”
“I’m not sure I can deal with you yet,” Z says and Charlotte laughs. It’s sharp, exasperated, but not unkind.
“You called me,” she says, there’s a taunting lilt to her voice, playful and just a touch triumphant, which Z wouldn’t have been able to tell if she hadn’t once known her so completely.
“I’m sorry.”
“For calling?” Charlotte says, sounding incredulous. “That’s what you’re gonna pick to apologize for? It’s fine.”
It’s true, Z never apologized - not for any of it, not really - but it’s not like Charlotte ever did either. Z starts to say that, the old indignation flaring up, when Charlotte says,
“It really is fine.” She pauses, and then, “I’m not glad, you know. I'm not. If you wanted to get some kind of Schaedenfreude reaction from me to distract you from brooding in the dark, sorry.”
Fuck Charlotte Froom, seriously.
Z says, “Not even a little bit?
“Well, okay, yeah, a little bit at first, but believe it or not, I want good things for you, and for Tenn. It worked out for me. It’ll work out for you. It already is, right? JJAMZ?” Z doesn't answer, and when Charlotte speaks again, there's something gentle in her voice. “It’s okay to not want the same things you wanted when you were seventeen. I don’t. Most people don’t.”
That’s what Z’s been saying. Except she does want them; that’s sort of the thing.
It’s not that she doesn’t like change; she does, and she’s good at it. She likes new things; she gets bored easily; her style and public persona shift on a whim, but all that stuff - baby doll dresses and berets, wide-anime eyes, the leggings and eighties style tunic she’s wearing right now, the constructed versions of herself - that isn't the stuff that matters.
The things that matter are the threads that carry through, the things that she picks up along the way that endure or the things that last and that she's wanted all along.
Z says, “I have to go. I’ll call you?” She means it. That's interesting.
Charlotte says, “I’ll believe that when I see it,” but there's something like real affection underneath.
Neither says, “I miss you,” but it’s there.
*
Here is what happened: Z is afraid of losing everything.
She's vicious when she's scared; she knows that, and it's never good, but it's nothing compared to the way she shuts down when she's terrified. She knows that too.
Z is a performer, flash and smile, wink and shine. She's quirky, off-beat, elegant, and not a move of it is accidental. She was awkward as an adolescent, all sharp angles, sharper tongue, and so much desperation that it felt constantly visible; she was sure anyone could tell just by looking. Now, no one can tell anything she doesn't want them to by looking.
She doesn't like vulnerability, and sometimes she doesn't let her guard down in front of people she does trust.
Possibly, Z hasn't talked to Tennessee in nearly a month because Tennessee has been out of the country. Possibly it’s because they’re not really talking. It’s not clear. They'd all needed space, even before the actual announcement. There was no bad blood, no hard feelings, no blame. It just wasn't working, wasn’t meshing, wasn’t…something. Wasn't their last, best chance, just their last one.
The day they actually publicly made the announcement, Z went to Runion's and spent the next three days on his couch getting high with him and whoever else stumbled in She didn't answer her phone.
When she came down, Tennessee was in England. That was fine. But it was also weeks ago.
*
“I thought we'd always work,” she says to Tennessee's voicemail at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday. It's 2 a.m. in London, but Z doesn't care. Tenn won't be asleep; she'll be out with her London friends, probably somewhere trendy with a twenty-pound cover. “I'm not sure how to do this without you,” she says. She means, don't make me want this alone.
It all feels so stupidly huge and final, and Z feels dramatic and overwrought. She was so sure it was going to work this time - so sure she and Tenn had pulled it off after everything. Release Me was them, everything they'd been through and fought for. It was their brand new beginning. Except it wasn’t that at all, so what the fuck happens now?
“Elizabeth Berg, what actually goes on in your head?” Tennessee says by way of greeting at 3 a.m. on Wednesday. Z doesn't know what time it is in London because she's too disoriented to do any kind of math in her head. She was passed out on her couch in the oversized Arctic Monkeys sweatshirt she borrowed from Tennessee on the last tour and never gave back. Her fingertips come away gritty with yesterday's mascara when she rubs at her eyes.
“Tenn?”
“Obviously. Yes. Hi. Z, what is going on with you?”
Z shakes her head to clear it, asks, “How's London?”
“It's fine. It's raining. It's been raining for a week. I bet it's sunny there.”
“It's two in the morning. It's dark.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
They're silent for a minute, and then Tennessee says, “You didn't call me to talk about the weather.”
“You called me.”
“I called you back.”
“I was just checking in. It's been awhile and...”
“That was NOT a 'just checking in' voicemail, Z.”
They're quiet for a moment. Z can hear Tennessee breathing down the line. “Are you mad at me?” Z asks into the silence, and holds her breath. She doesn't like personal questions she doesn't know the answer to.
Tennessee sighs. “No. I’m not mad. I’m just. I couldn’t listen your endless talk about all of our great, new options anymore. Just to have you disappear when...”
“What?”
“When the announcement went up. Z, where were you? We should have been together. You can say this is some new adventure all you want, and maybe it is. We'll all be fine; you're right, and I’m glad you’re moving on. I'll be at the first JJAMZ show or whatever you do. I want that for you, but don't you dare pretend like this doesn't matter.” Tennessee’s voice has gone low and angry and hurting, and Z’s known her long enough that she can picture her face - the downturn of her mouth from the clench of her jaw, the narrowing of her eyes.
“Of course it matters!” Z says, shocked out of silence. “Everything about it matters, I wasn't pretending anything; I was trying...fuck.” She takes a deep breath and rubs at her eyes again.
“Trying…”
“To be comforting?” Z tries.
There’s a pause on the line long enough that Z starts to worry about the connection; she's not even sure she can hear Tennessee breathing anymore, but then Tennessee says, “Oh my God. You were, weren’t you.”
Z bites her lip. “It was really hard, Tenn. Harder than it felt like it should have been. I didn’t know what to do.”
Tennessee’s voice is a lot more gentle when she answers. “Okay. I missed what is painfully obvious; I see that now, but I didn’t know what to do either. Would it have killed you to actually say any of that?” Tennessee's voice drops lower, takes on a smokier timber and pretty decent American accent. “Tennessee, I'm having feelings not based in bravado and irony, please help me process them.”
Z laughs softly, mostly in relief because Tennessee doesn't sound angry at all anymore, but it still stings, just a little. It's doesn’t feel completely fair, not coming from Tenn, but then, Tenn's hurting too.
“I'm sorry,” Z says.
“Don't be sorry. Just talk to me.”
“I miss it.”
“The band? So do I. But we were always so precarious.”
Z shakes her head, because that's not quite it. She misses The Like and those moments of exhilaration both times around, but Tenn's right, they always spent more time in formation, in planning than they did actually existing. They were always just on the edge of something shining and bright. “I miss...the potential,” she says, “I miss wanting it. I don't know what to do with that hole.” She has other things filling up so many other areas of her life, but there's just this space now. That adolescent dream she got close enough to touch.
Tennessee's voice is quiet when she answers. “I know.”
Z swallows. “Are we done?”
“The Like? I don't know. How many incarnations do you want to go for?” She's smiling now, Z can picture it; Tenn's face is so expressive Z can hear it in her voice.
“Maybe one more?” Z says, but she doesn't really mean it as she saying it. That piece is done. A part of her still hates it, but that's what she feels.
Tennessee says, “Or maybe we start over?” She clears her throat, and then, like picking up another conversation, she says, “We're not done, Z. You know you don't have to do it alone, right?”
Z pulls her knees up to her chest on the couch and wraps her arms around them, holding her phone to her ear with her shoulder. “Do what?” She asks.
There's a long pause and then Tennessee says, “anything you don't want to.”
Z inhales sharply, a knot of worry uncurling under her rib cage that she didn't even know was there until it relaxed. “I miss you,” she says; her voice sounds raw and honest.
Tennessee’s voice is bright and warm. “I miss you, too. Go back to sleep, Z. I'll see you in a couple of days. Pick me up at the airport. I’ll send you my itinerary.”
Z hangs up the phone, but she's too wide awake and flooded with relief to sleep. There are snatches of lyrics in the back of her mind, about the things you keep and the ways you find your way back. There's the beginning of the melody, and underneath it, the rhythm of threads that carry through.
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romanticalgirl wrote Too Fast for Love for me, which is Gabe/Ryland h/c on the Hot Mess tour, full of feelings and all these spot-on canon details, with a really fantastic Ryland voice.
I wrote:
Where We'll Land
Pairing: Z/Tennessee(ish), past Z/Ryan, past Z/Charlotte, Charlotte/OFC
Prompt: 38. Z/Tennessee - post hiatus late night phone calls. When I saw this prompt, I considered writing phone sex for half a second, but then I remembered I'm me, so instead there's angst and Ryan Ross. \o?
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes: I apologize for my blatant disregard of the timeline.
Release Me was probably their last shot.
Z gets that.
That's not true for any of them individually, of course. They’re brilliant, resourceful, and talented (if Z does say so herself); they all have other offers and side projects. None of them needed The Like, not the way Z and Tennessee used to. They’ll be fine, even if they’re not fine together.
Z gets that too.
She spent the weeks between the decision and the announcement saying that while everybody eyed her warily until Tennessee finally looked at her, careful and resigned, and said, “You’re right. Maybe we just have to accept that it’s not going to work.”
And in that moment, Z couldn’t read her at all and it was terrifying. Her vibrant energy was more shut down than Z had ever seen it, even counting the weeks right after Charlotte left. “I just mean, we all have a lot of options,” she tried again. “You have the fashion thing, Tenn. And the acting...”
Tennessee smiled, still looking kind of sad, and said, “Yeah, I get it.”
Z swallowed and looked away. She only had so much fight in her, and stubborn conviction only takes you so far. She thought maybe admitting that would make it easier.
It hasn’t helped so far.
*
She doesn't say that to Ryan, because she might be kind of an asshole, and she’s definitely an asshole when she’s in pain, but she does have limits. Besides, there are a lot of things they don't say to each other these days; there are all these conversational land mines where she always thought there'd be solid ground.
“It’s a hiatus, Z,” Ryan says, like this is the first time they’ve had this conversation, too alert through the phone at 2 a.m. He’s patient with her, more patient that he is with anyone else.
His voice is faint, muffled like he’s not speaking directly into the receiver. She can picture him, holding his iPhone to his ear with his shoulder, hunched over his guitar and notebook. He’s probably wearing old man silk pajamas in dark, rich colors. It makes her smile, and it makes her heart ache with “if only” and “what if.” If only they hadn’t understood each other quite so well. What if they’d ever been able to look at each other without seeing the echoes of their own fuckups.
He’s writing a song about their breakup. She can tell because he won’t send her any lyrics at all. She wonders if it’s one anybody will hear or if it will go in the drawer with the real songs about the Panic or The Young Veins. She doesn’t want to be in that category.
But she probably isn’t; even though he’s the last person on the planet she should call with this, and even though she does it all the time, he’s talking to her about hiatus with only the slightest twinge of anything other than affection in his voice. She does love him. Not in a way that could keep them together, but oh, she does.
He’s still wrong, and they both know it.
“It’s not,” she says, “hiatus is just what people always say.”
“Not always,” he says, “things change. You all still like each other, right?” And there it is, that tight, bitter edge in his voice they never did manage to push past.
“Of course,” Z says faintly.
Z talked to Laena yesterday. Laena’s voice was scratchy from overuse, not enough sleep, and probably too many cigarettes, but that couldn’t cover the exhilaration underlying every word. She scratched up her knees falling down on stage; she’d text Z the pictures. Did Z want to hear the new song they were doing? She’d send her that too. Z loves Laena, but they were always going to be a pit stop for her.
She talked to Annie this morning, when Annie called to ask if Z’d gotten the pictures she’d sent from the latest photo shoot. Z fumbled to her computer and clicked through the slide show - Annie, sultry and wide-eyed in leather and lace, or smirking out from under her pin striped fedora. Z worries about Annie, but she feels better every time they have conversation where Annie gets excited enough to talk about lighting and camera angles for forty-five minutes.
She hasn’t talked to Tennessee in nearly a month. It’s longer than she’s gone without talking to Tennessee since they were sixteen.
Sometimes she thinks about the way she still knows Charlotte’s old cell phone number by heart and her whole chest hurts.
“I’m sorry, Z, I know it’s…I’m sorry,” Ryan says, concern in his voice, but he’s gone muffled again. She probably shouldn’t have called him.
“I know you do,” she says. Acknowledgement, they at least owe each other that. “It’s okay. I should go, get some sleep.”
“You won’t sleep,” he says, and then, “You should call her,” and that’s funny, coming from Ryan Ross, but mostly in a way that makes her wish they were in the same room so she could hug him.
“I miss you,” she says. He makes a hmming noise of affirmation in his throat, faintly she can hear him picking out minor chords on his guitar across the line.
*
It wasn’t her dream. Not originally. She didn't start it; Tennessee and Charlotte came to her. That’s what she keeps thinking about.
She wanted it. She wanted them so badly she almost couldn’t contain it. And later, she wanted Annie and Laena too. She remembers the four of them at that dinner. After everything with Laena just slid into place, what were the odds that Annie would be so perfect for them? Z was fairly convinced she’d dreamed her into existence. It was such a startling, breathless thrill to have momentum again. She doesn’t know what happened.
But she also remembers waking up with Charlotte curled around her (Tennessee at her back, always, always), the smell of burning chocolate cake still lingering in the house, and her fingertips raw from her guitar. She remembers the stunning swirl of possibility the first time they had momentum, when she was being pulled into someone else’s dream that she made hers, and that they all lost.
She doesn’t really know what happened there either.
She calls Tennessee to ask, but hangs up before she answers.
*
She didn't think Charlotte had changed her number, but Z doesn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” the girl says. Her voice is softer than Charlotte’s, sweeter, the kind that goes brittle in irritation.
Z says, “Sorry, I must have the wrong…”
The girl cuts her off with a sigh, audible and annoyed. “Z, right? Hold on.”
Oh. Okay.
The fact of the other girl doesn’t twist knots up in Z’s gut like it probably still would have even a year ago, but the knowledge of the things they don’t know about each other anymore may never stop hurting.
There’s a whispered exchange, and then a rustling and the sound of a door closing, and Charlotte’s there, sleep roughening her voice. “Z? Kay saw the caller ID. Shockingly, you’re not her favorite. Are you okay?” She sounds wry, and a little bemused. It makes Z feel stupid and exposed. Z Berg is, if nothing else, in control. She doesn't like vulnerability and she doesn’t let her guard down in front of people she doesn’t trust.
Z laughs, self-effacing and glib (she’s always known how to play to her strengths), and says,
“Sorry, it’s late, I shouldn’t have called.”
“Probably not, but you did. So are you okay?”
“I’m fine; I should...”
“Is it Tenn?” Charlotte’s voice goes sharp at that, concern spiking through her wariness.
Z sighs. “No, she’s fine. I think. I.” She swallows hard and asks quietly, “has she said anything to you?”
There’s a long pause before Charlotte says, “I haven’t talked to her. Not since right after you guys went on hiatus. We were going to get together, but she said she couldn’t deal with me yet.”
“I’m not sure I can deal with you yet,” Z says and Charlotte laughs. It’s sharp, exasperated, but not unkind.
“You called me,” she says, there’s a taunting lilt to her voice, playful and just a touch triumphant, which Z wouldn’t have been able to tell if she hadn’t once known her so completely.
“I’m sorry.”
“For calling?” Charlotte says, sounding incredulous. “That’s what you’re gonna pick to apologize for? It’s fine.”
It’s true, Z never apologized - not for any of it, not really - but it’s not like Charlotte ever did either. Z starts to say that, the old indignation flaring up, when Charlotte says,
“It really is fine.” She pauses, and then, “I’m not glad, you know. I'm not. If you wanted to get some kind of Schaedenfreude reaction from me to distract you from brooding in the dark, sorry.”
Fuck Charlotte Froom, seriously.
Z says, “Not even a little bit?
“Well, okay, yeah, a little bit at first, but believe it or not, I want good things for you, and for Tenn. It worked out for me. It’ll work out for you. It already is, right? JJAMZ?” Z doesn't answer, and when Charlotte speaks again, there's something gentle in her voice. “It’s okay to not want the same things you wanted when you were seventeen. I don’t. Most people don’t.”
That’s what Z’s been saying. Except she does want them; that’s sort of the thing.
It’s not that she doesn’t like change; she does, and she’s good at it. She likes new things; she gets bored easily; her style and public persona shift on a whim, but all that stuff - baby doll dresses and berets, wide-anime eyes, the leggings and eighties style tunic she’s wearing right now, the constructed versions of herself - that isn't the stuff that matters.
The things that matter are the threads that carry through, the things that she picks up along the way that endure or the things that last and that she's wanted all along.
Z says, “I have to go. I’ll call you?” She means it. That's interesting.
Charlotte says, “I’ll believe that when I see it,” but there's something like real affection underneath.
Neither says, “I miss you,” but it’s there.
*
Here is what happened: Z is afraid of losing everything.
She's vicious when she's scared; she knows that, and it's never good, but it's nothing compared to the way she shuts down when she's terrified. She knows that too.
Z is a performer, flash and smile, wink and shine. She's quirky, off-beat, elegant, and not a move of it is accidental. She was awkward as an adolescent, all sharp angles, sharper tongue, and so much desperation that it felt constantly visible; she was sure anyone could tell just by looking. Now, no one can tell anything she doesn't want them to by looking.
She doesn't like vulnerability, and sometimes she doesn't let her guard down in front of people she does trust.
Possibly, Z hasn't talked to Tennessee in nearly a month because Tennessee has been out of the country. Possibly it’s because they’re not really talking. It’s not clear. They'd all needed space, even before the actual announcement. There was no bad blood, no hard feelings, no blame. It just wasn't working, wasn’t meshing, wasn’t…something. Wasn't their last, best chance, just their last one.
The day they actually publicly made the announcement, Z went to Runion's and spent the next three days on his couch getting high with him and whoever else stumbled in She didn't answer her phone.
When she came down, Tennessee was in England. That was fine. But it was also weeks ago.
*
“I thought we'd always work,” she says to Tennessee's voicemail at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday. It's 2 a.m. in London, but Z doesn't care. Tenn won't be asleep; she'll be out with her London friends, probably somewhere trendy with a twenty-pound cover. “I'm not sure how to do this without you,” she says. She means, don't make me want this alone.
It all feels so stupidly huge and final, and Z feels dramatic and overwrought. She was so sure it was going to work this time - so sure she and Tenn had pulled it off after everything. Release Me was them, everything they'd been through and fought for. It was their brand new beginning. Except it wasn’t that at all, so what the fuck happens now?
“Elizabeth Berg, what actually goes on in your head?” Tennessee says by way of greeting at 3 a.m. on Wednesday. Z doesn't know what time it is in London because she's too disoriented to do any kind of math in her head. She was passed out on her couch in the oversized Arctic Monkeys sweatshirt she borrowed from Tennessee on the last tour and never gave back. Her fingertips come away gritty with yesterday's mascara when she rubs at her eyes.
“Tenn?”
“Obviously. Yes. Hi. Z, what is going on with you?”
Z shakes her head to clear it, asks, “How's London?”
“It's fine. It's raining. It's been raining for a week. I bet it's sunny there.”
“It's two in the morning. It's dark.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
They're silent for a minute, and then Tennessee says, “You didn't call me to talk about the weather.”
“You called me.”
“I called you back.”
“I was just checking in. It's been awhile and...”
“That was NOT a 'just checking in' voicemail, Z.”
They're quiet for a moment. Z can hear Tennessee breathing down the line. “Are you mad at me?” Z asks into the silence, and holds her breath. She doesn't like personal questions she doesn't know the answer to.
Tennessee sighs. “No. I’m not mad. I’m just. I couldn’t listen your endless talk about all of our great, new options anymore. Just to have you disappear when...”
“What?”
“When the announcement went up. Z, where were you? We should have been together. You can say this is some new adventure all you want, and maybe it is. We'll all be fine; you're right, and I’m glad you’re moving on. I'll be at the first JJAMZ show or whatever you do. I want that for you, but don't you dare pretend like this doesn't matter.” Tennessee’s voice has gone low and angry and hurting, and Z’s known her long enough that she can picture her face - the downturn of her mouth from the clench of her jaw, the narrowing of her eyes.
“Of course it matters!” Z says, shocked out of silence. “Everything about it matters, I wasn't pretending anything; I was trying...fuck.” She takes a deep breath and rubs at her eyes again.
“Trying…”
“To be comforting?” Z tries.
There’s a pause on the line long enough that Z starts to worry about the connection; she's not even sure she can hear Tennessee breathing anymore, but then Tennessee says, “Oh my God. You were, weren’t you.”
Z bites her lip. “It was really hard, Tenn. Harder than it felt like it should have been. I didn’t know what to do.”
Tennessee’s voice is a lot more gentle when she answers. “Okay. I missed what is painfully obvious; I see that now, but I didn’t know what to do either. Would it have killed you to actually say any of that?” Tennessee's voice drops lower, takes on a smokier timber and pretty decent American accent. “Tennessee, I'm having feelings not based in bravado and irony, please help me process them.”
Z laughs softly, mostly in relief because Tennessee doesn't sound angry at all anymore, but it still stings, just a little. It's doesn’t feel completely fair, not coming from Tenn, but then, Tenn's hurting too.
“I'm sorry,” Z says.
“Don't be sorry. Just talk to me.”
“I miss it.”
“The band? So do I. But we were always so precarious.”
Z shakes her head, because that's not quite it. She misses The Like and those moments of exhilaration both times around, but Tenn's right, they always spent more time in formation, in planning than they did actually existing. They were always just on the edge of something shining and bright. “I miss...the potential,” she says, “I miss wanting it. I don't know what to do with that hole.” She has other things filling up so many other areas of her life, but there's just this space now. That adolescent dream she got close enough to touch.
Tennessee's voice is quiet when she answers. “I know.”
Z swallows. “Are we done?”
“The Like? I don't know. How many incarnations do you want to go for?” She's smiling now, Z can picture it; Tenn's face is so expressive Z can hear it in her voice.
“Maybe one more?” Z says, but she doesn't really mean it as she saying it. That piece is done. A part of her still hates it, but that's what she feels.
Tennessee says, “Or maybe we start over?” She clears her throat, and then, like picking up another conversation, she says, “We're not done, Z. You know you don't have to do it alone, right?”
Z pulls her knees up to her chest on the couch and wraps her arms around them, holding her phone to her ear with her shoulder. “Do what?” She asks.
There's a long pause and then Tennessee says, “anything you don't want to.”
Z inhales sharply, a knot of worry uncurling under her rib cage that she didn't even know was there until it relaxed. “I miss you,” she says; her voice sounds raw and honest.
Tennessee’s voice is bright and warm. “I miss you, too. Go back to sleep, Z. I'll see you in a couple of days. Pick me up at the airport. I’ll send you my itinerary.”
Z hangs up the phone, but she's too wide awake and flooded with relief to sleep. There are snatches of lyrics in the back of her mind, about the things you keep and the ways you find your way back. There's the beginning of the melody, and underneath it, the rhythm of threads that carry through.
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