Liberated -- Part Four
Liberated -- Part Four
Writer: Ally (wasted_rawkstar)
Fandom: Simple Plan
Rating: R
Summary: After a disastrous fifth album release, the future of Simple Plan is uncertain. With a growing rift between the members, and different passions pulling them in different directions, no one's sure how they'll reconcile the band. So one member takes things into his own hands and makes the only decision he can, putting his relationship and friendships in jeopardy. But will it pay off in the end? It's the gamble he's willing to take.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
David stared absently out the sliding glass door, looking past the small balcony and to the water, sparkling beneath the sunshine and reflecting the cloudless blue sky. It was another perfect spring day in Vancouver, and somehow he’d already grown accustomed to the city. He’d only planned to stay there for a week, crashing at the condo he and Jeff always rented when the band went there for work. It had taken him a full, meandering seven days to drive from Quebec to British Columbia, but it felt like the northwest coast would give him the peace he needed. And one week in the condo had turned into two, then three, but now he’d been there for a month. He sensed that it was time to move on, but he couldn’t yet find the reason to. The last few weeks had been surprisingly easy; he’d come to terms with his abrupt leave during the long hours on the road, and the further away he got from Montreal, the lighter the burden had become, until the night he reached Vancouver, and he actually didn’t think about Louna when he went to sleep. Though she was the first thing he thought of the next morning - had she ever been to Vancouver? He knew she would’ve liked it, and he promised to bring her here when they were together again. He couldn’t let himself think about her not taking him back. She had to; it was the only way any of this would work out in the end.
The quiet hiss of the coffee maker pulled him from his thoughts and he stepped away from the door, retrieving the cup and taking it to the kitchen table. He sat down and opened his laptop, navigating to one of the social media sites to see what his friends were up to. For the first two weeks that he’d been gone, he’d dreaded going on the sites, for fear that he’d be found out, but the time for that had gone. There had been a few flurries of activity after both Jeff and Seb announced they were parting ways with the band, but after that things had been quiet - just the occasional fan posting lyrics or song choices, which was the norm.
He took a sip of the coffee as the page loaded; the free wifi at the condo wasn’t the greatest, and nearly choked on the liquid when he saw his notifications numbering in the low thousands. His stomach went hollow and instead of clicking on the notification tab, he went to his email, hoping there might be a quick explanation there.
A dozen new messages were waiting for him - four from Jeff alone, and a few from friends who he couldn’t remember giving his private email address to. All the messages from his old friends had similar subject lines: asking where he was. Only Jeff’s and Sebastien’s emails differed, and the one message from Louna simply read, “I miss you. Stay safe. XOXO.” She hadn’t given up quite yet.
He clicked into the first message from Jeff, reading quickly.
David - I’m not sure what’s going on, but a friend told me to reach out and make sure you’re safe. If you’re out of the country or off the grid, stay that way. If I find out more I’ll let you know. J.
He went to the next message.
Pierre took your disappearance public. Shit’s going to blow up. He did an interview that’s airing tomorrow morning. Guess this is the publicity angle he’ll work for the moment… so fucking glad I got out.
The next email, from earlier that morning, was a single sentence.
He is the fucking biggest goddamn asshole in the history of assholes.
And finally, he came to the last email from Jeff, which was a video link and a simple warning.
I’m not bailing you out if you go to California to commit murder.
He sighed, the cursor hovering over the link. Could it really be that bad? What was the worst that Pierre had said? David couldn’t conjure all the terrible scenarios that the singer might instigate, so he decided against his better judgement to watch it. He could always turn it off.
The page loaded with the video and David read the brief description beneath it: ‘Exclusive tell-all interview with Pierre Bouvier, formerly of Simple Plan, reveals the real reason behind the band’s break-up and scandalous disappearance of Simple Plan’s bassist David Desrosiers.’ The text was enough to make him not want to watch the video, and believe that Jeff’s assessment of assholishness was quite correct. However, he needed to be as informed as possible before he made any decisions. If he was indeed going to head down the coast and commit homicide, he needed to have evidence to justify his actions.
He took a large drink of coffee and looked at the still of the video - Pierre looking vaguely smug as he sat across from the bland interviewer. He clicked play before he could stop himself, and it took every ounce of his self-control to not throw the computer across the room as he listened to the singer’s words.
“Really the beginning of the break up started with David about two years ago, while we were trying to finish up our fifth album… we could all just see that he didn’t want to be there, you know? Like his heart just wasn’t in it, but he was still showing up. And how do you kick someone out of a band they’ve been in for fifteen years? We couldn’t do anything about it in good conscience… both Chuck and I thought that he’d quit before the album came out, but everything sort of continued like normal for awhile.”
David stared at the computer, his pulse fast in his throat. How could Pierre be saying this? And who would actually believe him? There was only truth in those statements because both Pierre and Chuck had gotten so insufferable that Seb, Jeff, and David had talked about quitting together. It had taken two more years to make it happen, and only after the California Faction had made it perfectly clear who was in charge of the band, and the majority vote almost never qualified anymore.
The interview went on for a minute, Pierre rambling about what he was doing now and if he was still in contact with the other band members. He explained that he’d left Montreal after Jeff and Seb had quit, and hadn’t heard from them directly, but he knew what they were doing through mutual friends.
“And David?” the interviewer asked.
David watched as Pierre’s gaze changed - like he’d been waiting for this question, because he was going to drop the fucking bomb. David held his breath.
“Actually,” Pierre replied slowly, “no one knows about David, because no one knows where he is.”
The interviewer looked confused. “So he just took off after the band split?”
“We don’t know,” the singer said. “He actually didn’t show up at our last band function, and since then he’s been missing.”
“Missing?”
“It’s like he just disappeared.”
Suddenly the interviewer looked concerned. “Do you think something happened? That he might be in danger?”
Pierre shook his head. “We don’t really have a reason to think that, and when we reached out to the authorities we were told that in cases like this, there isn’t much that can be done, which is why we’re reaching out now. It’s been a month since we’ve heard anything from him, so if anyone has information regarding his whereabouts, we’d appreciate them coming forward. We just want to know David’s safe.”
He closed the laptop then, not bothering to close the browser. He had no idea how much time had had, but he knew that his next decision had been made for him. He had to get out of Vancouver today; someone was bound to report him. Pierre had made sure of that, but it wasn’t to make sure he was safe. Pierre wanted to know where he was so he could get the last word, and David was never going to let that happen. He had to pack up and go, but there was one last stop he’d make before he left town: the small satellite label office. He had a contract to officially terminate.
# # #
He walked through the familiar doors, anxiety pooling in his stomach. Although he had checked out of the condo without incident, he still felt like entire city was watching him. That had always been the worst part of his so-called celebrity status with the band; he never knew when someone would recognize him and want a picture or an autograph. It had always stirred a low level of anxiety for him, but today it seemed to be sky rocketing. Certainly no thanks to his former friend’s national callout. He took a calming breath as he approached the desk and met the friendly gaze of the office receptionist.
She gave him a patronizing smile after a second. “Sorry, we’re not accepting demos this week,” she told him.
David raised an eyebrow - at least he still looked the part of a rockstar; complete with leather jacket, beanie, and sunglasses he’d yet to take off. He slipped them from his face and gave her a cool stare. “I’m actually here to terminate a band contract. It’ll be under David Desrosiers.”
The girl’s face went white and she reached for the phone without saying another word to him. She awkwardly repeated his statement into the receiver and a minute later a man rushed out of one of the back offices.
“David?!” His voice carried through the office and several people looked up, noticing first the man hurrying to the front desk, and then David himself.
He nodded in acknowledgment. “Gary.”
“Where have you been? What’s going on?” he asked hurriedly as he came to stop next to David at the desk. “How are you here… today?”
“I think you know why I’m here,” he replied evenly. “I have a contract to destroy.”
“David, we have to talk about this,” Gary countered.
“No we don’t. I left for a reason… Jeff and Seb terminated for a reason… it’s time to do what I should have done two years ago. Now, will you get me the paperwork or do I have to get someone else in this office to get it for me?”
Gary sighed. “No, I’ll get it for you… might take a little while though.” He glanced away from David, but the bassist could see the nerves on his face. “Would you want to just come back in an hour or two?”
David narrowed his eyes - he wasn’t going to fall into a trap Gary set. “No, I’ll wait,” he said. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”
Gary looked a little defeated then, but walked around the desk, the receptionist automatically moving out of his way.
David hardly listened to the idle chit-chat Gary offered as he typed, asking if he’d come out to the coast to stay, if he’d brought a motorcycle, if he had tried to contact anyone from the band or label or anything. He answered noncommittally, an uneasy feeling growing in his stomach the longer he stood at the desk. The receptionist looked at him curiously, and he tried to dismiss it, but he couldn’t. Something was going on; he was sure of it. And it wasn’t just about the contract.
The front desk phone rang then, the girl answering it automatically. “Coalition Group, how may I direct your call?” She frowned at the request. “Hold please.” She put the phone down, pressing a button on the base, then looking at him. “David?” She said his name with a question, because she wasn’t quite sure who he was and how he’d shown up and whipped the office into a frenzy - more people had come out of their offices to see what the commotion was at the front desk, and were now all huddled back by the coffee bar along the far wall.
He met the girl’s gaze, not believing that he’d only been in the office for all of fifteen minutes and already was intercepting phone calls there. “Yes?” he acknowledged her.
“Line two is for you… there’s a conference room if you-”
He didn’t let her finish, instead just leaned over the desk, plucked the phone from her hand, and pressed the flashing button. “Salut?”
“Holy shit, it is you.” Chuck’s voice rang with disbelief. “What are you doing there?” he asked.
David rolled his eyes. “What the fuck do you think I’m doing? What I should have done two fucking years ago, according to you and Pierre…”
“Hey, Pierre’s interview-”
“I don’t want to hear it. There is nothing either of you could say that will change any of this now… Did you even think about what might happen? What I might’ve had in play the last few weeks? What’ll happen to Louna and Jeff back home? Did you even stop to think that maybe all of this was actually a deliberate plan that shouldn’t just be fucked with? No. Because why would you?” His voice was scathing. “You only think about how any of this affects you and you don’t have any fucking regard for anyone outside of your inner circle anymore. Newsflash… there’s a whole fucking world out there that you and Pierre stopped seeing a long time ago. Maybe you should get your head out of the fucking sand and take a look around again.”
“David-”
“No,” he continued, sharply. “I’m done, Chuck. This contract is ending today and you can thank Pierre for pushing me out the door. I have nothing left to say to you and if you even try to call me back here, you’ll regret it. Ciao, motherfucker.”
He dropped the phone back into its cradle and looked up to see that everyone in the office was staring at him. A small printer on the end of the front desk was spewing out pages and halted after a few awkward, quiet moments. David looked at Gary pointedly. “Is that my contract?” he asked, gesturing to the printer.
Gary nodded dumbly.
David stepped around the desk and scooped up the stack of papers. “I’ll try not to be too long,” he said, then marched straight back to the office he’d seen Gary come out of, and shut the door behind him. It was time to end things permanently.
# # #
The air was crisp and fresh as David climbed out of his car, turning his face up toward the setting sun. He’d finished at the record company just before three o’clock, and then he’d left. He took highway 99 north out of the city and kept watching the road signs, not knowing where he was actually going, but he’d know when he saw it or got there. He’d found it freeing to not be so dependent on maps and schedules and all the details. Now he could just get in his car and go. When 99 hooked into the Trans-Canada Highway (of which he was now quite familiar) he headed west, and upon seeing a sign for Horseshoe Bay, he decided to try his luck (ha ha ha). He drove to the town and discovered there were several ferries running to different ports, but instead of doing any research, he simply bought a ticket for the next departing boat. Once his SUV was parked on the ferry he’d climbed out and gone onto the bow to watch the water, the sun sparkling on the surface as the boat skimmed over the waves. The salty spray was comforting and helped to clear his head of the day’s events.
The ferry crossing took about forty minutes and once he’d arrived on the other side of the water, to a place called Langdale, he felt as though he could finally breathe again. He’d driven off the ferry and followed the highway a little way before deciding to regroup. He’d spotted the sign for the small café and even better was seeing a tiny notice in the window offering free wifi to customers. He knew he needed to see if he had any clean up to do online, though it was the last thing he wanted to do.
He walked inside, his backpack over his shoulder, and the guy leaning on the end of the bar looked up in surprise. It was still the off season for tourists and probably any customers here after five o’clock was unusual.
However, the server wasn’t quite phased. “Seat yourself,” he told David, gesturing to the whole of the café.
He glanced around, spotting a table by the window with a power outlet; he could at least charge his laptop a little more before he got on the road again. He settled at the table and plugged in the computer before the guy came over with a menu and glass of water. David set the menu aside and met the kid’s eyes - he couldn’t have been older than eighteen and suddenly he was flashing back to all the ways his life could have gone wrong and what had led him to be in some remote part of British Columbia, clear across the continent from any friends or family. He pushed those thoughts away and refocused on the server.
“How well does the cook take to special requests?” he asked, keeping his voice light.
The server frowned. “It depends on what it is.”
He smiled. “How about a plain salad and a plain baked potato?”
“Plain?” The kid’s voice was doubtful.
“No dressing, no butter, nothing. Plain.”
After a second the kid nodded and disappeared around to the kitchen. David listened for voices or footsteps, but nothing came. He hoped he could at least eat half of what he was served, because he didn’t want to give up on the vegan diet just yet. He had an idea that he might have to eventually, and he knew Louna would be disappointed in him for it.
He opened the laptop a minute later, closing the browser of Pierre’s interview and checking his email. There weren’t any new messages since the morning, but he clicked on one of Jeff’s messages. He started to type, then stopped. What was he doing? He hadn’t contacted anyone since he’d left, so why was he going to reach out now? Just because Pierre had made a complete dick move didn’t mean that he had to respond to it; they’d know how he responded. They’d see that he’d broken the contract. Or would they?
If the label posted notice, like they were legally obligated to do, then anyone could see he’d terminated. But maybe no one was looking, and that left it up to him. He looked at the emails once more, then closed out of them. If he was going to break his rule of no contact, then he’d do it for the person who wanted to hear from him the most. He clicked on the social media site, shaking his head at seeing that his notifications now were more than five thousand. Maybe he could crack ten thousand; there was only one way to try.
He moved the cursor into the update box and typed quickly: Liberated. 25-05-2017 #vayacondios
He clicked the button to post the missive, then went to a new page, reading through the news of current events in other places. It was all the same reports of horrific bombings and shootings and misguided politics. It made his heart hurt, but it was a welcome distraction from his own life. He’d always used the news as a diversion from his emotions, and somehow he was happy that hadn’t changed. He read through the articles until the server returned, bearing a plate of lettuce and some other vegetables.
He set it down unceremoniously. “Chef says it’ll be a half hour for the potato.”
David nodded, looking down at the lifeless greens, then sighed. For as much as he’d wanted to clean his conscience and do good in the world by being vegan, he’d mostly done it for Louna, and she was no longer there. This was a rule he could break and not feel too bad about - the cow had probably died a long time ago anyway. “Fuck the potato… I’ll take a cheeseburger.”
The kid raised an eyebrow. “You sure? Want fries with that?”
“Yeah,” David replied without hesitation. “Definitely. And a Coke, please.”
The kid smiled, trying not to laugh. “Be right back.”
He went to the kitchen and David closed the news tab in his browser, but noticed he had a new direct message on the social site. He frowned as he clicked in to see it, wondering who would’ve tried to reach him there. His breath stalled. Pierre.
Are you okay? Where the hell are you?
David shook his head, knowing the singer wasn’t going to give up the search for him so easily. He wanted to not reply, but he knew that once he answered the feud would be over. At least he had that to gain.
You don’t get to know. I’m done with your games so fuck off. Last word = mine.
He hit send before he could second guess himself, then blocked Pierre’s name, and then Chuck’s for good measure. He closed the tab, actually feeling more liberated in that moment than he had earlier. It was strange, but gratifying.
The server came over with the glass of soda then and David opened the map on his computer - now it was time to figure out where he wanted to go next.
# # #
As soon as Louna stepped out of the closer corner office, she could feel something was wrong. She’d been in a meeting for the last two hours and they’d just dismissed for an hour lunch and would reconvene. It was a quarter past noon, she noted, and as she stepped to her desk, she could feel everyone’s eyes on her. The stares didn’t flicker away when she sat down at her workstation and she reached for her phone - she’d forgotten it during the meeting, but apparently that might’ve been for the best. Dread weighed in her stomach as she picked up the mobile, wondering what she’d find on the screen.
The notification bubble informed her that she had 18 new text messages and three missed phone calls and voicemails. Her adrenaline started then, as she realized that whatever had happened was not taken lightly, and seemed to be big news.
Had she been waiting for this day? When all her friends would find out she’d been lying? Because this had to be about David; how could it be anything else? Nothing else in her world would be such big news. So what had happened? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Mostly she wanted to throw her phone in her bag and escape from the fixed stares on her. They felt like spotlights and she hated feeling vulnerable and exposed beneath them. This wasn’t what she wanted - had never been what she wanted. She wasn’t with David for his fame or fortune, and wasn’t with him at all now that he was gone, but other people didn’t understand that. They couldn’t grasp the concept that their souls felt matched together, how they could finish each other's thoughts, and how they always seemed to move on the same wave. She had always imagined a clock-smith swinging pendulums, and it had been instant for their pendulums to fall in sync with one another. It was a rare and beautiful thing.
She swiped the phone open, worry congealing in her stomach, and clicked the phone icon instead of the messages. Two voicemails were from Jeff and one was from Emadou. She tapped the first from Jeff.
“Lou, I know you probably just got to work, but call me when you get this. Shit is going down with Pierre. I don’t know what it is, but I wanted to call just in case… I hope you’re okay. Let’s see each other soon.”
The message ended and she held the phone down.
Of course it had been Pierre. Who else would have dragged all this through the mud after all the news around the band had finally gone away? The so-called scandal of Jeff and Sebastien quitting had finally settled, so what better to stir the pot than the revelation that David had disappeared? She could only imagine how he’d spun his tale about it, and it made her feel sick.
She tapped on the second message to listen to it, Jeff’s voice more strained than the first voicemail.
“Louna, please call me? Pierre’s interview just aired and we’re pretty fucked with our story that D’s in Matane… I’m not going to do anything until I hear from you, okay? However you want to handle this, we will. Just call me.”
She set the phone next to her keyboard, not needing to listen to her sister’s message to imagine how it might go. And she could also see all the horrified texts from her friends, asking if she was okay and what was going on with her and David.
But what had Pierre actually said?
She didn’t want to watch whatever interview he’d given, but she had no choice. The eyes of her coworkers still bore into her and she had to face them at some point, but not right then. Right then she needed to collect herself and see what she was up against. It wasn’t often that she let her personal life interfere with her job, but at that moment it was necessary. Slowly, she gathered her bag and phone and water bottle, pulling on her jacket before she stood up. Only just as she stood and pushed in her chair, her mother, Julie, came hurrying out of her office. Louna’s stomach clenched in horror; she’d never had the heart to tell Julie what David had done the month before. She’d told her the same lie she’d told all her friends: that David was taking time to be with his family in Matane, but now that cover had been blown, and the worry creasing Julie’s eyebrows was a dead giveaway.
“Louna,” her mother’s voice was hushed, “honey, can we go talk?”
She swallowed hard, shaking her head slowly. “No.”
“Sweetheart,”
“No.” Her voice was firm. “We’re not doing this here.” She lowered her voice. “I chose not to tell people for a reason, and I’m not going to stand here and try to explain myself right now.” She took a breath. “Please let me go home? We can talk tonight… but not here.”
Julie nodded, reaching to touch her daughter’s hand. “Can I come by after work?”
Louna glanced up to the ceiling, checking her emotions at her mother’s touch. “Whatever you want,” she finally replied.
Julie’s breath was short, seeing the pain in Louna’s eyes. “Oh honey-”
She shook her head abruptly and stepped away. “I’ll see you later.” She spun on her heel and hurried out of the office, finally escaping the stares of her coworkers and trying not to realize that her secret was no longer secret.
Her relationship was in pieces around her, and she’d had no choice in the matter. In that instant, practically running to her car because the tears in her throat were imminent, she wished she’d never met David. Had they not met, he couldn’t have left her, or broken her heart the way he had. But life never worked that way. They had met, and now he had vanished. She hadn’t even had an indication that he was still alive; anything could have happened in the last month.
She forced the thoughts aside and sank down into her car, leaning her head to the steering wheel as tears slipped down her cheeks. She felt more sadness than anger, but the anger would come later. She knew it would come when she watched the interview, because it had all come down to Pierre. He had been the instigator in all this, and she knew he had his karma coming. He had pushed them all to the edge before, but this was unprecedented. He had defied what Jeff and Seb asked of him, and used David’s story for personal gain, without any regard to what it would mean for David’s true friends and family. She felt the wound in her chest throb painfully - a scab ripped off to expose the still-healing flesh beneath it. She took a deep breath, trying to stifle her tears before driving home, because even though she was a victim in all of this, she had no interest in becoming the first casualty; she’d gladly leave that statistic up to Pierre.
# # #
Louna waited to close her front door until the headlights on her mother’s car had disappeared down the street. She sighed as she turned the deadbolt over; it had been a long evening, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock. Yuki looked at her curiously from where he was sprawled beside the couch, but he didn’t get up when she walked into the kitchen. She had purposely not drunk while her mother had been there; she needed to maintain her focus while attempting to explain why she’d thought it was a good idea to not tell her that David had left (for a whole month?! Julie had been horrified). Her mother’s understanding had only carried so far, but ultimately she’d forgiven Louna for not telling her. Sometimes it was best to smooth things over with an absence of truth, but now things were out of Louna’s control and she had to accept the consequences. That was going to be the hardest thing she had to do; accept that everyone else now knew that David had left. It wasn’t just a secret she held between a few friends - the world knew and they could do anything they wanted with that information.
Louna poured a generous amount of wine into the glass and took a sip before recorking the bottle. From the living room, she heard her phone chime with a new text. She sauntered back to the couch, settling down before reading the new message. It was probably Em checking up on her again; they’d already talked twice before Julie had come over, and she knew Em would need to know how the talk went. However, it wasn’t Em’s name that popped onto the screen - it was David’s.
Her heart stalled. Was Pierre’s infuriating interview all it had taken to make him come back? No. There was no way. She looked at the message again, then realized it wasn’t a message at all. It was a notification from an app, letting her know that David had just made an update.
She let out a breath; he was alive at least. And that was more than she’d known for the last four weeks. She tapped into the app and looked at the brief update, frowning. What the hell did it mean? She was used to his vague messages, but this was bizarre, even for him. She read it again and couldn’t help rolling her eyes, seeing the cheesy movie ending playing out in her mind’s eye - the beach, the rain, and the husky voiced actors regarding one another in that too-cool way of absolute nonchalance. It was one of David’s favorite movies and they’d watched it many times on their lazy, hungover Sunday mornings. He could quote nearly every scene, but he never got tired of it. And clearly he’d finally found the proper use for the phrase he’d jokingly said so many times. She hated to admit it, but it was the perfect hashtag for the situation it seemed - no matter what he was referencing. She shook her head, but before she could exit the app, her phone began to ring.
Jeff.
They still hadn’t talked that day, despite both his pleas to call him, but she’d texted him once she was home, relaying that she wasn’t quite ready to have the conversation. Now it wasn’t a matter of her being ready; it was finally time to confront these consequences.
“Hey,” she answered, her voice strangely calm.
“Hey,” Jeff’s voice was a bit surprised. “I kinda thought I’d get your voicemail again,” he admitted.
She half smiled. “Want me to hang up?” she offered.
“No, no… it’s fine. I… David just posted a thing… did you see it?”
“Yeah, I did, actually,” she replied. “I got a notification on my phone and for half a second thought he’d texted me.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Yeah… not the second heart attack I needed today,” she said.
“Did you finally watch?” Jeff asked.
“Half of it… got to the part where he said he just ‘wanted to make sure David was safe…’” She trailed off, the sarcasm thick in her voice.
Jeff almost snorted. “Yeah… safe my fucking ass. You didn’t miss much after that. More bullshit pleas that just made me want to punch him in the face.”
“Because you didn’t before?”
“You know… the rage had actually calmed a little, but I did email David to warn him against potential homicide.”
She shook her head. “Do you think he’ll listen?”
“My hopes are high.”
The conversation paused then and Louna took a long drink of wine. “Have you heard from him at all?” she asked, her voice going quiet.
Jeff sighed audibly. “No… and this probably won’t make you feel better, but he’s near Vancouver.”
She sat up in shock, eyes wide at Jeff’s admission. “What?! How do you know that? And why aren’t we flying there right now?!”
“Believe me, if I knew exactly where he was, I would be. The only reason I know that it’s Vancouver is because he showed up in the label office to terminate his contract.”
As soon as Jeff said the words, David’s post made absolute sense. He was free from the band; liberated indeed.
“When was he there?” she asked.
“I think it was around one… four our time. Seb called me after Chuck called him to say he’d just talked to David at the office.”
“What did he even say? I mean, what did David say? How did Chuck even know David was there?”
“I guess one of the employees recognized him and sent Chuck a message… think everyone was on high alert to look for him after the interview.”
“Well no shit, so that drove David out to take care of the contract, but then what?”
“Nothing,” Jeff replied. “He left the office and no one thought to follow him… after Seb told me all this I couldn’t stop thinking about why he’d chosen Vancouver… why he didn’t just fly to Australia or something.”
“Right…” Louna nodded absently, wondering where Jeff’s thoughts were going.
“So I called the condo place where we’ve always stayed while we’re in BC, and guess who checked out this morning after a four week stay?”
“Fuck.”
Heartbreak was clear in her voice and she stared down at her lap, feeling as helpless as ever. David had been one flight away, just across the country, hiding in plain sight almost. How had they not thought to check somewhere like that earlier? They could’ve gone and confronted him - tried to reason with him - and even though that might’ve been in vain, they still would have tried. But now he was gone again, and Louna couldn’t shake the feeling that the day’s events had driven David from the city. He would no longer have felt safe there, too exposed and as if everyone was watching him. She hated that he’d felt that way when they were out together, and he had to be “on.” He’d said putting on that façade always felt too fake to him. And when she suggested he stop, he’d scoffed. He’d used the front for so long that everyone would question what was wrong with him if he didn’t wear it. His logic had always been a bit flawed, but now she could see what he’d held onto it for so long. It was a safe guard, especially during something like this. She knew how easy it was for David to shed that façade and blend in with the crowd too, and vice versa. He was an expert chameleon, at the detriment to his true personality.
She sighed, realizing then that his disappearing act would finally allow him to become his true self for awhile, and not all the expectations of those around him. And he needed that; he needed to be free of those limitations and constructs. He needed to breathe and to grow and shake off the shadows he’d been carrying for the past eighteen years. Of course he’d grown with the band, and evolved even more when they’d started their relationship, but it hadn’t all been personal. David had molded himself into some preset ideals, and now it was time for him to break free of those.
Louna stared at her hand, wondering if the David who came back to her would still be the David she loved, because she could feel how much he might change, and it only made her sadder that she wouldn’t be with him to experience it.
“I know,” Jeff replied, his voice soft. “I was pissed when I found out… looked at a plane ticket, then realized there’d be no point. He probably left the city after he left that office and could be headed to Alaska right now.”
She laughed weakly, her thoughts settling back down. “Because he’d really survive in that kind of cold?”
“No, but he’d figure it out real fast.”
They shared a laugh, then both went quiet. Silence stretched the line, neither knowing how to continue the conversation, but there were still things they needed to discuss. Pierre’s interview had created a whole mess for them that wouldn’t be easy to clean up; the long talk with her mother had certainly been only the surface of what Louna had to deal with.
“God I miss him,” she said after another second. “That stupid update just made me want to watch ‘Point Break’ for the eight hundredth time and wish he was here so I could see how happy that would make him… and maybe I’d finally give into that Ex-Presidents costume he always wanted to do on Halloween.”
Jeff laughed and she could hear his grin through the phone. “Just don’t let him convince you to jump out of any airplanes, okay? Let the motorcycles be enough.”
She smiled slightly. “I’ll try…”
The silent lull came again, but this time it was Jeff who broke it.
“What’re we supposed to do now?” he asked, voice becoming serious. “Since we’ve been lying to everyone for the last month?”
She sighed and took a drink of wine. “I think we tell the truth,” she said after a moment. “I just had to have that discussion with my mother, and contrary to what I thought might happen, she was actually very understanding when I explained that I just wasn’t ready to admit what had happened.”
“She really seemed okay about it?” His voice was doubtful.
“She did… but I had to tell her everything. Tell her why David was so unhappy, explain about the band… Pierre.”
“Well it’s not like I can blast that everywhere,” Jeff countered.
“But maybe you can,” she replied immediately, “and maybe you should. Pierre wasn’t afraid of creating a fucking spectacle around this. Why should he get to be the authority on this? There’s two sides to every story… tell David’s. Tell yours.”
“You’re serious.” Jeff was a little surprised at the adamancy in Louna’s voice. She spoke with a conviction he hadn’t heard before.
“I am… and you don’t have to give an interview… just write something, and post it everywhere.”
He frowned. “What would I even say?”
She rolled her eyes, glad they were speaking on the phone and not face to face. “Everything! You’d explain everything… Talk about your friendship with David, how the band changed in the last few years, how a group that has been together for eighteen fucking years doesn’t just call it quits overnight and fall apart like you did… You write about what happened to make the band split… about the factions and how even though everyone could put on a happy face, that wasn’t how it was behind the scenes.” She took a breath. “Jeff, you write about two years ago when you all went to California and worked together to create an album that you poured your hearts and souls into, only to have all that work stripped away and changed, little by little, until all your work on it was nearly gone and unrecognizable. You write about how that made you feel… you write about the day you got the mastered copy of the album, and how you didn’t even want to put your name on it.”
“Okay, fuck, I need to write this shit down if you’re gonna keep going.”
She half smiled, taking another drink of wine. “I used to do this kind of thing with David… when he’d be writing some new song idea and get stuck… he’d tell me to say whatever random words would come into my head, until I said the right one and off he’d go again.” She paused slightly. “An endless stream of music from his fingers.” Her words lilted at the end, a note of sadness creeping into them.
“He’ll come back,” Jeff told her quietly.
“I know… I just wish he didn’t have to be gone first.”
He nodded knowingly, taking a drink of his beer. “But you can’t have the rainbow without the rain, right?”
“I guess not,” she conceded.
“So what else am I writing?” he prompted her, a notebook open beside him and a pen in his hand.
She swigged the wine and settled back on the couch. “You write about the past eighteen years, and how you all became men together,” she told him. “How you grew up in this band and rewrote the rules for a band’s success, and how you celebrated the triumphs and held each other through the tragedies. You write about the cancer, the loss of your parents, the injuries and potential career ending surgeries, and all the relationships you’ve been through that led to marriages and then to fatherhood. You write about all that and how, ultimately, it led to betrayal. Betrayal through the band, and betrayal through friendship. You write about the man who stood beside you for eighteen years as a friend, and as a brother, who betrayed and deceived you, and who had the audacity to sit in front of a fucking camera and tell a truth he swore he wouldn’t share.”
She finally inhaled. “That’s what you write about. You tell the truth that can’t be denied. You tell your story… David’s story… my story. You write about how I don’t get a chance at love because that selfish asshole drove away the best person in our lives, and how he didn’t give a damn about what would happen when he exposed the truth. The truth is that two band members don’t just up and leave the band they’ve been in for eighteen years on a random Monday morning. And the third guy doesn’t just pack up his entire fucking house and leave his entire fucking life behind over nothing. You expose the real truth, and not the sugarcoated bullshit that narcissist is spreading everywhere. You write about all of that, and now ask me again what you have to say.”
Jeff didn’t reply at first, still frantically scribbling words down into the notebook. Louna’s voice was harsh, edged with an undercurrent of anger at Pierre, and he couldn’t blame her. The singer had betrayed her today just as badly as he’d betrayed David, but the difference was that Louna had to bear the consequences. She had to face her friends and family and coworkers, just the same as Jeff did. He resolved then to write as much as he could about what had actually happened, because the truth deserved to be heard. He was done with the half-truths and the outright lies. It was time to come clean about the last few years, and now he finally felt strong enough to make that happen. He would write his story; David’s story, and maybe if he was persuasive enough, Sebastien’s story. The Montreal faction could unite one more time together and weather the storm Pierre tried to bring, only this time they’d be strong enough to endure it. This time they wouldn’t be silenced or shut out. This time their story would be heard, and there was nothing Pierre could do about it. Jeff would make sure of that.
Writer: Ally (wasted_rawkstar)
Fandom: Simple Plan
Rating: R
Summary: After a disastrous fifth album release, the future of Simple Plan is uncertain. With a growing rift between the members, and different passions pulling them in different directions, no one's sure how they'll reconcile the band. So one member takes things into his own hands and makes the only decision he can, putting his relationship and friendships in jeopardy. But will it pay off in the end? It's the gamble he's willing to take.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
David stared absently out the sliding glass door, looking past the small balcony and to the water, sparkling beneath the sunshine and reflecting the cloudless blue sky. It was another perfect spring day in Vancouver, and somehow he’d already grown accustomed to the city. He’d only planned to stay there for a week, crashing at the condo he and Jeff always rented when the band went there for work. It had taken him a full, meandering seven days to drive from Quebec to British Columbia, but it felt like the northwest coast would give him the peace he needed. And one week in the condo had turned into two, then three, but now he’d been there for a month. He sensed that it was time to move on, but he couldn’t yet find the reason to. The last few weeks had been surprisingly easy; he’d come to terms with his abrupt leave during the long hours on the road, and the further away he got from Montreal, the lighter the burden had become, until the night he reached Vancouver, and he actually didn’t think about Louna when he went to sleep. Though she was the first thing he thought of the next morning - had she ever been to Vancouver? He knew she would’ve liked it, and he promised to bring her here when they were together again. He couldn’t let himself think about her not taking him back. She had to; it was the only way any of this would work out in the end.
The quiet hiss of the coffee maker pulled him from his thoughts and he stepped away from the door, retrieving the cup and taking it to the kitchen table. He sat down and opened his laptop, navigating to one of the social media sites to see what his friends were up to. For the first two weeks that he’d been gone, he’d dreaded going on the sites, for fear that he’d be found out, but the time for that had gone. There had been a few flurries of activity after both Jeff and Seb announced they were parting ways with the band, but after that things had been quiet - just the occasional fan posting lyrics or song choices, which was the norm.
He took a sip of the coffee as the page loaded; the free wifi at the condo wasn’t the greatest, and nearly choked on the liquid when he saw his notifications numbering in the low thousands. His stomach went hollow and instead of clicking on the notification tab, he went to his email, hoping there might be a quick explanation there.
A dozen new messages were waiting for him - four from Jeff alone, and a few from friends who he couldn’t remember giving his private email address to. All the messages from his old friends had similar subject lines: asking where he was. Only Jeff’s and Sebastien’s emails differed, and the one message from Louna simply read, “I miss you. Stay safe. XOXO.” She hadn’t given up quite yet.
He clicked into the first message from Jeff, reading quickly.
David - I’m not sure what’s going on, but a friend told me to reach out and make sure you’re safe. If you’re out of the country or off the grid, stay that way. If I find out more I’ll let you know. J.
He went to the next message.
Pierre took your disappearance public. Shit’s going to blow up. He did an interview that’s airing tomorrow morning. Guess this is the publicity angle he’ll work for the moment… so fucking glad I got out.
The next email, from earlier that morning, was a single sentence.
He is the fucking biggest goddamn asshole in the history of assholes.
And finally, he came to the last email from Jeff, which was a video link and a simple warning.
I’m not bailing you out if you go to California to commit murder.
He sighed, the cursor hovering over the link. Could it really be that bad? What was the worst that Pierre had said? David couldn’t conjure all the terrible scenarios that the singer might instigate, so he decided against his better judgement to watch it. He could always turn it off.
The page loaded with the video and David read the brief description beneath it: ‘Exclusive tell-all interview with Pierre Bouvier, formerly of Simple Plan, reveals the real reason behind the band’s break-up and scandalous disappearance of Simple Plan’s bassist David Desrosiers.’ The text was enough to make him not want to watch the video, and believe that Jeff’s assessment of assholishness was quite correct. However, he needed to be as informed as possible before he made any decisions. If he was indeed going to head down the coast and commit homicide, he needed to have evidence to justify his actions.
He took a large drink of coffee and looked at the still of the video - Pierre looking vaguely smug as he sat across from the bland interviewer. He clicked play before he could stop himself, and it took every ounce of his self-control to not throw the computer across the room as he listened to the singer’s words.
“Really the beginning of the break up started with David about two years ago, while we were trying to finish up our fifth album… we could all just see that he didn’t want to be there, you know? Like his heart just wasn’t in it, but he was still showing up. And how do you kick someone out of a band they’ve been in for fifteen years? We couldn’t do anything about it in good conscience… both Chuck and I thought that he’d quit before the album came out, but everything sort of continued like normal for awhile.”
David stared at the computer, his pulse fast in his throat. How could Pierre be saying this? And who would actually believe him? There was only truth in those statements because both Pierre and Chuck had gotten so insufferable that Seb, Jeff, and David had talked about quitting together. It had taken two more years to make it happen, and only after the California Faction had made it perfectly clear who was in charge of the band, and the majority vote almost never qualified anymore.
The interview went on for a minute, Pierre rambling about what he was doing now and if he was still in contact with the other band members. He explained that he’d left Montreal after Jeff and Seb had quit, and hadn’t heard from them directly, but he knew what they were doing through mutual friends.
“And David?” the interviewer asked.
David watched as Pierre’s gaze changed - like he’d been waiting for this question, because he was going to drop the fucking bomb. David held his breath.
“Actually,” Pierre replied slowly, “no one knows about David, because no one knows where he is.”
The interviewer looked confused. “So he just took off after the band split?”
“We don’t know,” the singer said. “He actually didn’t show up at our last band function, and since then he’s been missing.”
“Missing?”
“It’s like he just disappeared.”
Suddenly the interviewer looked concerned. “Do you think something happened? That he might be in danger?”
Pierre shook his head. “We don’t really have a reason to think that, and when we reached out to the authorities we were told that in cases like this, there isn’t much that can be done, which is why we’re reaching out now. It’s been a month since we’ve heard anything from him, so if anyone has information regarding his whereabouts, we’d appreciate them coming forward. We just want to know David’s safe.”
He closed the laptop then, not bothering to close the browser. He had no idea how much time had had, but he knew that his next decision had been made for him. He had to get out of Vancouver today; someone was bound to report him. Pierre had made sure of that, but it wasn’t to make sure he was safe. Pierre wanted to know where he was so he could get the last word, and David was never going to let that happen. He had to pack up and go, but there was one last stop he’d make before he left town: the small satellite label office. He had a contract to officially terminate.
# # #
He walked through the familiar doors, anxiety pooling in his stomach. Although he had checked out of the condo without incident, he still felt like entire city was watching him. That had always been the worst part of his so-called celebrity status with the band; he never knew when someone would recognize him and want a picture or an autograph. It had always stirred a low level of anxiety for him, but today it seemed to be sky rocketing. Certainly no thanks to his former friend’s national callout. He took a calming breath as he approached the desk and met the friendly gaze of the office receptionist.
She gave him a patronizing smile after a second. “Sorry, we’re not accepting demos this week,” she told him.
David raised an eyebrow - at least he still looked the part of a rockstar; complete with leather jacket, beanie, and sunglasses he’d yet to take off. He slipped them from his face and gave her a cool stare. “I’m actually here to terminate a band contract. It’ll be under David Desrosiers.”
The girl’s face went white and she reached for the phone without saying another word to him. She awkwardly repeated his statement into the receiver and a minute later a man rushed out of one of the back offices.
“David?!” His voice carried through the office and several people looked up, noticing first the man hurrying to the front desk, and then David himself.
He nodded in acknowledgment. “Gary.”
“Where have you been? What’s going on?” he asked hurriedly as he came to stop next to David at the desk. “How are you here… today?”
“I think you know why I’m here,” he replied evenly. “I have a contract to destroy.”
“David, we have to talk about this,” Gary countered.
“No we don’t. I left for a reason… Jeff and Seb terminated for a reason… it’s time to do what I should have done two years ago. Now, will you get me the paperwork or do I have to get someone else in this office to get it for me?”
Gary sighed. “No, I’ll get it for you… might take a little while though.” He glanced away from David, but the bassist could see the nerves on his face. “Would you want to just come back in an hour or two?”
David narrowed his eyes - he wasn’t going to fall into a trap Gary set. “No, I’ll wait,” he said. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”
Gary looked a little defeated then, but walked around the desk, the receptionist automatically moving out of his way.
David hardly listened to the idle chit-chat Gary offered as he typed, asking if he’d come out to the coast to stay, if he’d brought a motorcycle, if he had tried to contact anyone from the band or label or anything. He answered noncommittally, an uneasy feeling growing in his stomach the longer he stood at the desk. The receptionist looked at him curiously, and he tried to dismiss it, but he couldn’t. Something was going on; he was sure of it. And it wasn’t just about the contract.
The front desk phone rang then, the girl answering it automatically. “Coalition Group, how may I direct your call?” She frowned at the request. “Hold please.” She put the phone down, pressing a button on the base, then looking at him. “David?” She said his name with a question, because she wasn’t quite sure who he was and how he’d shown up and whipped the office into a frenzy - more people had come out of their offices to see what the commotion was at the front desk, and were now all huddled back by the coffee bar along the far wall.
He met the girl’s gaze, not believing that he’d only been in the office for all of fifteen minutes and already was intercepting phone calls there. “Yes?” he acknowledged her.
“Line two is for you… there’s a conference room if you-”
He didn’t let her finish, instead just leaned over the desk, plucked the phone from her hand, and pressed the flashing button. “Salut?”
“Holy shit, it is you.” Chuck’s voice rang with disbelief. “What are you doing there?” he asked.
David rolled his eyes. “What the fuck do you think I’m doing? What I should have done two fucking years ago, according to you and Pierre…”
“Hey, Pierre’s interview-”
“I don’t want to hear it. There is nothing either of you could say that will change any of this now… Did you even think about what might happen? What I might’ve had in play the last few weeks? What’ll happen to Louna and Jeff back home? Did you even stop to think that maybe all of this was actually a deliberate plan that shouldn’t just be fucked with? No. Because why would you?” His voice was scathing. “You only think about how any of this affects you and you don’t have any fucking regard for anyone outside of your inner circle anymore. Newsflash… there’s a whole fucking world out there that you and Pierre stopped seeing a long time ago. Maybe you should get your head out of the fucking sand and take a look around again.”
“David-”
“No,” he continued, sharply. “I’m done, Chuck. This contract is ending today and you can thank Pierre for pushing me out the door. I have nothing left to say to you and if you even try to call me back here, you’ll regret it. Ciao, motherfucker.”
He dropped the phone back into its cradle and looked up to see that everyone in the office was staring at him. A small printer on the end of the front desk was spewing out pages and halted after a few awkward, quiet moments. David looked at Gary pointedly. “Is that my contract?” he asked, gesturing to the printer.
Gary nodded dumbly.
David stepped around the desk and scooped up the stack of papers. “I’ll try not to be too long,” he said, then marched straight back to the office he’d seen Gary come out of, and shut the door behind him. It was time to end things permanently.
# # #
The air was crisp and fresh as David climbed out of his car, turning his face up toward the setting sun. He’d finished at the record company just before three o’clock, and then he’d left. He took highway 99 north out of the city and kept watching the road signs, not knowing where he was actually going, but he’d know when he saw it or got there. He’d found it freeing to not be so dependent on maps and schedules and all the details. Now he could just get in his car and go. When 99 hooked into the Trans-Canada Highway (of which he was now quite familiar) he headed west, and upon seeing a sign for Horseshoe Bay, he decided to try his luck (ha ha ha). He drove to the town and discovered there were several ferries running to different ports, but instead of doing any research, he simply bought a ticket for the next departing boat. Once his SUV was parked on the ferry he’d climbed out and gone onto the bow to watch the water, the sun sparkling on the surface as the boat skimmed over the waves. The salty spray was comforting and helped to clear his head of the day’s events.
The ferry crossing took about forty minutes and once he’d arrived on the other side of the water, to a place called Langdale, he felt as though he could finally breathe again. He’d driven off the ferry and followed the highway a little way before deciding to regroup. He’d spotted the sign for the small café and even better was seeing a tiny notice in the window offering free wifi to customers. He knew he needed to see if he had any clean up to do online, though it was the last thing he wanted to do.
He walked inside, his backpack over his shoulder, and the guy leaning on the end of the bar looked up in surprise. It was still the off season for tourists and probably any customers here after five o’clock was unusual.
However, the server wasn’t quite phased. “Seat yourself,” he told David, gesturing to the whole of the café.
He glanced around, spotting a table by the window with a power outlet; he could at least charge his laptop a little more before he got on the road again. He settled at the table and plugged in the computer before the guy came over with a menu and glass of water. David set the menu aside and met the kid’s eyes - he couldn’t have been older than eighteen and suddenly he was flashing back to all the ways his life could have gone wrong and what had led him to be in some remote part of British Columbia, clear across the continent from any friends or family. He pushed those thoughts away and refocused on the server.
“How well does the cook take to special requests?” he asked, keeping his voice light.
The server frowned. “It depends on what it is.”
He smiled. “How about a plain salad and a plain baked potato?”
“Plain?” The kid’s voice was doubtful.
“No dressing, no butter, nothing. Plain.”
After a second the kid nodded and disappeared around to the kitchen. David listened for voices or footsteps, but nothing came. He hoped he could at least eat half of what he was served, because he didn’t want to give up on the vegan diet just yet. He had an idea that he might have to eventually, and he knew Louna would be disappointed in him for it.
He opened the laptop a minute later, closing the browser of Pierre’s interview and checking his email. There weren’t any new messages since the morning, but he clicked on one of Jeff’s messages. He started to type, then stopped. What was he doing? He hadn’t contacted anyone since he’d left, so why was he going to reach out now? Just because Pierre had made a complete dick move didn’t mean that he had to respond to it; they’d know how he responded. They’d see that he’d broken the contract. Or would they?
If the label posted notice, like they were legally obligated to do, then anyone could see he’d terminated. But maybe no one was looking, and that left it up to him. He looked at the emails once more, then closed out of them. If he was going to break his rule of no contact, then he’d do it for the person who wanted to hear from him the most. He clicked on the social media site, shaking his head at seeing that his notifications now were more than five thousand. Maybe he could crack ten thousand; there was only one way to try.
He moved the cursor into the update box and typed quickly: Liberated. 25-05-2017 #vayacondios
He clicked the button to post the missive, then went to a new page, reading through the news of current events in other places. It was all the same reports of horrific bombings and shootings and misguided politics. It made his heart hurt, but it was a welcome distraction from his own life. He’d always used the news as a diversion from his emotions, and somehow he was happy that hadn’t changed. He read through the articles until the server returned, bearing a plate of lettuce and some other vegetables.
He set it down unceremoniously. “Chef says it’ll be a half hour for the potato.”
David nodded, looking down at the lifeless greens, then sighed. For as much as he’d wanted to clean his conscience and do good in the world by being vegan, he’d mostly done it for Louna, and she was no longer there. This was a rule he could break and not feel too bad about - the cow had probably died a long time ago anyway. “Fuck the potato… I’ll take a cheeseburger.”
The kid raised an eyebrow. “You sure? Want fries with that?”
“Yeah,” David replied without hesitation. “Definitely. And a Coke, please.”
The kid smiled, trying not to laugh. “Be right back.”
He went to the kitchen and David closed the news tab in his browser, but noticed he had a new direct message on the social site. He frowned as he clicked in to see it, wondering who would’ve tried to reach him there. His breath stalled. Pierre.
Are you okay? Where the hell are you?
David shook his head, knowing the singer wasn’t going to give up the search for him so easily. He wanted to not reply, but he knew that once he answered the feud would be over. At least he had that to gain.
You don’t get to know. I’m done with your games so fuck off. Last word = mine.
He hit send before he could second guess himself, then blocked Pierre’s name, and then Chuck’s for good measure. He closed the tab, actually feeling more liberated in that moment than he had earlier. It was strange, but gratifying.
The server came over with the glass of soda then and David opened the map on his computer - now it was time to figure out where he wanted to go next.
# # #
As soon as Louna stepped out of the closer corner office, she could feel something was wrong. She’d been in a meeting for the last two hours and they’d just dismissed for an hour lunch and would reconvene. It was a quarter past noon, she noted, and as she stepped to her desk, she could feel everyone’s eyes on her. The stares didn’t flicker away when she sat down at her workstation and she reached for her phone - she’d forgotten it during the meeting, but apparently that might’ve been for the best. Dread weighed in her stomach as she picked up the mobile, wondering what she’d find on the screen.
The notification bubble informed her that she had 18 new text messages and three missed phone calls and voicemails. Her adrenaline started then, as she realized that whatever had happened was not taken lightly, and seemed to be big news.
Had she been waiting for this day? When all her friends would find out she’d been lying? Because this had to be about David; how could it be anything else? Nothing else in her world would be such big news. So what had happened? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Mostly she wanted to throw her phone in her bag and escape from the fixed stares on her. They felt like spotlights and she hated feeling vulnerable and exposed beneath them. This wasn’t what she wanted - had never been what she wanted. She wasn’t with David for his fame or fortune, and wasn’t with him at all now that he was gone, but other people didn’t understand that. They couldn’t grasp the concept that their souls felt matched together, how they could finish each other's thoughts, and how they always seemed to move on the same wave. She had always imagined a clock-smith swinging pendulums, and it had been instant for their pendulums to fall in sync with one another. It was a rare and beautiful thing.
She swiped the phone open, worry congealing in her stomach, and clicked the phone icon instead of the messages. Two voicemails were from Jeff and one was from Emadou. She tapped the first from Jeff.
“Lou, I know you probably just got to work, but call me when you get this. Shit is going down with Pierre. I don’t know what it is, but I wanted to call just in case… I hope you’re okay. Let’s see each other soon.”
The message ended and she held the phone down.
Of course it had been Pierre. Who else would have dragged all this through the mud after all the news around the band had finally gone away? The so-called scandal of Jeff and Sebastien quitting had finally settled, so what better to stir the pot than the revelation that David had disappeared? She could only imagine how he’d spun his tale about it, and it made her feel sick.
She tapped on the second message to listen to it, Jeff’s voice more strained than the first voicemail.
“Louna, please call me? Pierre’s interview just aired and we’re pretty fucked with our story that D’s in Matane… I’m not going to do anything until I hear from you, okay? However you want to handle this, we will. Just call me.”
She set the phone next to her keyboard, not needing to listen to her sister’s message to imagine how it might go. And she could also see all the horrified texts from her friends, asking if she was okay and what was going on with her and David.
But what had Pierre actually said?
She didn’t want to watch whatever interview he’d given, but she had no choice. The eyes of her coworkers still bore into her and she had to face them at some point, but not right then. Right then she needed to collect herself and see what she was up against. It wasn’t often that she let her personal life interfere with her job, but at that moment it was necessary. Slowly, she gathered her bag and phone and water bottle, pulling on her jacket before she stood up. Only just as she stood and pushed in her chair, her mother, Julie, came hurrying out of her office. Louna’s stomach clenched in horror; she’d never had the heart to tell Julie what David had done the month before. She’d told her the same lie she’d told all her friends: that David was taking time to be with his family in Matane, but now that cover had been blown, and the worry creasing Julie’s eyebrows was a dead giveaway.
“Louna,” her mother’s voice was hushed, “honey, can we go talk?”
She swallowed hard, shaking her head slowly. “No.”
“Sweetheart,”
“No.” Her voice was firm. “We’re not doing this here.” She lowered her voice. “I chose not to tell people for a reason, and I’m not going to stand here and try to explain myself right now.” She took a breath. “Please let me go home? We can talk tonight… but not here.”
Julie nodded, reaching to touch her daughter’s hand. “Can I come by after work?”
Louna glanced up to the ceiling, checking her emotions at her mother’s touch. “Whatever you want,” she finally replied.
Julie’s breath was short, seeing the pain in Louna’s eyes. “Oh honey-”
She shook her head abruptly and stepped away. “I’ll see you later.” She spun on her heel and hurried out of the office, finally escaping the stares of her coworkers and trying not to realize that her secret was no longer secret.
Her relationship was in pieces around her, and she’d had no choice in the matter. In that instant, practically running to her car because the tears in her throat were imminent, she wished she’d never met David. Had they not met, he couldn’t have left her, or broken her heart the way he had. But life never worked that way. They had met, and now he had vanished. She hadn’t even had an indication that he was still alive; anything could have happened in the last month.
She forced the thoughts aside and sank down into her car, leaning her head to the steering wheel as tears slipped down her cheeks. She felt more sadness than anger, but the anger would come later. She knew it would come when she watched the interview, because it had all come down to Pierre. He had been the instigator in all this, and she knew he had his karma coming. He had pushed them all to the edge before, but this was unprecedented. He had defied what Jeff and Seb asked of him, and used David’s story for personal gain, without any regard to what it would mean for David’s true friends and family. She felt the wound in her chest throb painfully - a scab ripped off to expose the still-healing flesh beneath it. She took a deep breath, trying to stifle her tears before driving home, because even though she was a victim in all of this, she had no interest in becoming the first casualty; she’d gladly leave that statistic up to Pierre.
# # #
Louna waited to close her front door until the headlights on her mother’s car had disappeared down the street. She sighed as she turned the deadbolt over; it had been a long evening, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock. Yuki looked at her curiously from where he was sprawled beside the couch, but he didn’t get up when she walked into the kitchen. She had purposely not drunk while her mother had been there; she needed to maintain her focus while attempting to explain why she’d thought it was a good idea to not tell her that David had left (for a whole month?! Julie had been horrified). Her mother’s understanding had only carried so far, but ultimately she’d forgiven Louna for not telling her. Sometimes it was best to smooth things over with an absence of truth, but now things were out of Louna’s control and she had to accept the consequences. That was going to be the hardest thing she had to do; accept that everyone else now knew that David had left. It wasn’t just a secret she held between a few friends - the world knew and they could do anything they wanted with that information.
Louna poured a generous amount of wine into the glass and took a sip before recorking the bottle. From the living room, she heard her phone chime with a new text. She sauntered back to the couch, settling down before reading the new message. It was probably Em checking up on her again; they’d already talked twice before Julie had come over, and she knew Em would need to know how the talk went. However, it wasn’t Em’s name that popped onto the screen - it was David’s.
Her heart stalled. Was Pierre’s infuriating interview all it had taken to make him come back? No. There was no way. She looked at the message again, then realized it wasn’t a message at all. It was a notification from an app, letting her know that David had just made an update.
She let out a breath; he was alive at least. And that was more than she’d known for the last four weeks. She tapped into the app and looked at the brief update, frowning. What the hell did it mean? She was used to his vague messages, but this was bizarre, even for him. She read it again and couldn’t help rolling her eyes, seeing the cheesy movie ending playing out in her mind’s eye - the beach, the rain, and the husky voiced actors regarding one another in that too-cool way of absolute nonchalance. It was one of David’s favorite movies and they’d watched it many times on their lazy, hungover Sunday mornings. He could quote nearly every scene, but he never got tired of it. And clearly he’d finally found the proper use for the phrase he’d jokingly said so many times. She hated to admit it, but it was the perfect hashtag for the situation it seemed - no matter what he was referencing. She shook her head, but before she could exit the app, her phone began to ring.
Jeff.
They still hadn’t talked that day, despite both his pleas to call him, but she’d texted him once she was home, relaying that she wasn’t quite ready to have the conversation. Now it wasn’t a matter of her being ready; it was finally time to confront these consequences.
“Hey,” she answered, her voice strangely calm.
“Hey,” Jeff’s voice was a bit surprised. “I kinda thought I’d get your voicemail again,” he admitted.
She half smiled. “Want me to hang up?” she offered.
“No, no… it’s fine. I… David just posted a thing… did you see it?”
“Yeah, I did, actually,” she replied. “I got a notification on my phone and for half a second thought he’d texted me.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Yeah… not the second heart attack I needed today,” she said.
“Did you finally watch?” Jeff asked.
“Half of it… got to the part where he said he just ‘wanted to make sure David was safe…’” She trailed off, the sarcasm thick in her voice.
Jeff almost snorted. “Yeah… safe my fucking ass. You didn’t miss much after that. More bullshit pleas that just made me want to punch him in the face.”
“Because you didn’t before?”
“You know… the rage had actually calmed a little, but I did email David to warn him against potential homicide.”
She shook her head. “Do you think he’ll listen?”
“My hopes are high.”
The conversation paused then and Louna took a long drink of wine. “Have you heard from him at all?” she asked, her voice going quiet.
Jeff sighed audibly. “No… and this probably won’t make you feel better, but he’s near Vancouver.”
She sat up in shock, eyes wide at Jeff’s admission. “What?! How do you know that? And why aren’t we flying there right now?!”
“Believe me, if I knew exactly where he was, I would be. The only reason I know that it’s Vancouver is because he showed up in the label office to terminate his contract.”
As soon as Jeff said the words, David’s post made absolute sense. He was free from the band; liberated indeed.
“When was he there?” she asked.
“I think it was around one… four our time. Seb called me after Chuck called him to say he’d just talked to David at the office.”
“What did he even say? I mean, what did David say? How did Chuck even know David was there?”
“I guess one of the employees recognized him and sent Chuck a message… think everyone was on high alert to look for him after the interview.”
“Well no shit, so that drove David out to take care of the contract, but then what?”
“Nothing,” Jeff replied. “He left the office and no one thought to follow him… after Seb told me all this I couldn’t stop thinking about why he’d chosen Vancouver… why he didn’t just fly to Australia or something.”
“Right…” Louna nodded absently, wondering where Jeff’s thoughts were going.
“So I called the condo place where we’ve always stayed while we’re in BC, and guess who checked out this morning after a four week stay?”
“Fuck.”
Heartbreak was clear in her voice and she stared down at her lap, feeling as helpless as ever. David had been one flight away, just across the country, hiding in plain sight almost. How had they not thought to check somewhere like that earlier? They could’ve gone and confronted him - tried to reason with him - and even though that might’ve been in vain, they still would have tried. But now he was gone again, and Louna couldn’t shake the feeling that the day’s events had driven David from the city. He would no longer have felt safe there, too exposed and as if everyone was watching him. She hated that he’d felt that way when they were out together, and he had to be “on.” He’d said putting on that façade always felt too fake to him. And when she suggested he stop, he’d scoffed. He’d used the front for so long that everyone would question what was wrong with him if he didn’t wear it. His logic had always been a bit flawed, but now she could see what he’d held onto it for so long. It was a safe guard, especially during something like this. She knew how easy it was for David to shed that façade and blend in with the crowd too, and vice versa. He was an expert chameleon, at the detriment to his true personality.
She sighed, realizing then that his disappearing act would finally allow him to become his true self for awhile, and not all the expectations of those around him. And he needed that; he needed to be free of those limitations and constructs. He needed to breathe and to grow and shake off the shadows he’d been carrying for the past eighteen years. Of course he’d grown with the band, and evolved even more when they’d started their relationship, but it hadn’t all been personal. David had molded himself into some preset ideals, and now it was time for him to break free of those.
Louna stared at her hand, wondering if the David who came back to her would still be the David she loved, because she could feel how much he might change, and it only made her sadder that she wouldn’t be with him to experience it.
“I know,” Jeff replied, his voice soft. “I was pissed when I found out… looked at a plane ticket, then realized there’d be no point. He probably left the city after he left that office and could be headed to Alaska right now.”
She laughed weakly, her thoughts settling back down. “Because he’d really survive in that kind of cold?”
“No, but he’d figure it out real fast.”
They shared a laugh, then both went quiet. Silence stretched the line, neither knowing how to continue the conversation, but there were still things they needed to discuss. Pierre’s interview had created a whole mess for them that wouldn’t be easy to clean up; the long talk with her mother had certainly been only the surface of what Louna had to deal with.
“God I miss him,” she said after another second. “That stupid update just made me want to watch ‘Point Break’ for the eight hundredth time and wish he was here so I could see how happy that would make him… and maybe I’d finally give into that Ex-Presidents costume he always wanted to do on Halloween.”
Jeff laughed and she could hear his grin through the phone. “Just don’t let him convince you to jump out of any airplanes, okay? Let the motorcycles be enough.”
She smiled slightly. “I’ll try…”
The silent lull came again, but this time it was Jeff who broke it.
“What’re we supposed to do now?” he asked, voice becoming serious. “Since we’ve been lying to everyone for the last month?”
She sighed and took a drink of wine. “I think we tell the truth,” she said after a moment. “I just had to have that discussion with my mother, and contrary to what I thought might happen, she was actually very understanding when I explained that I just wasn’t ready to admit what had happened.”
“She really seemed okay about it?” His voice was doubtful.
“She did… but I had to tell her everything. Tell her why David was so unhappy, explain about the band… Pierre.”
“Well it’s not like I can blast that everywhere,” Jeff countered.
“But maybe you can,” she replied immediately, “and maybe you should. Pierre wasn’t afraid of creating a fucking spectacle around this. Why should he get to be the authority on this? There’s two sides to every story… tell David’s. Tell yours.”
“You’re serious.” Jeff was a little surprised at the adamancy in Louna’s voice. She spoke with a conviction he hadn’t heard before.
“I am… and you don’t have to give an interview… just write something, and post it everywhere.”
He frowned. “What would I even say?”
She rolled her eyes, glad they were speaking on the phone and not face to face. “Everything! You’d explain everything… Talk about your friendship with David, how the band changed in the last few years, how a group that has been together for eighteen fucking years doesn’t just call it quits overnight and fall apart like you did… You write about what happened to make the band split… about the factions and how even though everyone could put on a happy face, that wasn’t how it was behind the scenes.” She took a breath. “Jeff, you write about two years ago when you all went to California and worked together to create an album that you poured your hearts and souls into, only to have all that work stripped away and changed, little by little, until all your work on it was nearly gone and unrecognizable. You write about how that made you feel… you write about the day you got the mastered copy of the album, and how you didn’t even want to put your name on it.”
“Okay, fuck, I need to write this shit down if you’re gonna keep going.”
She half smiled, taking another drink of wine. “I used to do this kind of thing with David… when he’d be writing some new song idea and get stuck… he’d tell me to say whatever random words would come into my head, until I said the right one and off he’d go again.” She paused slightly. “An endless stream of music from his fingers.” Her words lilted at the end, a note of sadness creeping into them.
“He’ll come back,” Jeff told her quietly.
“I know… I just wish he didn’t have to be gone first.”
He nodded knowingly, taking a drink of his beer. “But you can’t have the rainbow without the rain, right?”
“I guess not,” she conceded.
“So what else am I writing?” he prompted her, a notebook open beside him and a pen in his hand.
She swigged the wine and settled back on the couch. “You write about the past eighteen years, and how you all became men together,” she told him. “How you grew up in this band and rewrote the rules for a band’s success, and how you celebrated the triumphs and held each other through the tragedies. You write about the cancer, the loss of your parents, the injuries and potential career ending surgeries, and all the relationships you’ve been through that led to marriages and then to fatherhood. You write about all that and how, ultimately, it led to betrayal. Betrayal through the band, and betrayal through friendship. You write about the man who stood beside you for eighteen years as a friend, and as a brother, who betrayed and deceived you, and who had the audacity to sit in front of a fucking camera and tell a truth he swore he wouldn’t share.”
She finally inhaled. “That’s what you write about. You tell the truth that can’t be denied. You tell your story… David’s story… my story. You write about how I don’t get a chance at love because that selfish asshole drove away the best person in our lives, and how he didn’t give a damn about what would happen when he exposed the truth. The truth is that two band members don’t just up and leave the band they’ve been in for eighteen years on a random Monday morning. And the third guy doesn’t just pack up his entire fucking house and leave his entire fucking life behind over nothing. You expose the real truth, and not the sugarcoated bullshit that narcissist is spreading everywhere. You write about all of that, and now ask me again what you have to say.”
Jeff didn’t reply at first, still frantically scribbling words down into the notebook. Louna’s voice was harsh, edged with an undercurrent of anger at Pierre, and he couldn’t blame her. The singer had betrayed her today just as badly as he’d betrayed David, but the difference was that Louna had to bear the consequences. She had to face her friends and family and coworkers, just the same as Jeff did. He resolved then to write as much as he could about what had actually happened, because the truth deserved to be heard. He was done with the half-truths and the outright lies. It was time to come clean about the last few years, and now he finally felt strong enough to make that happen. He would write his story; David’s story, and maybe if he was persuasive enough, Sebastien’s story. The Montreal faction could unite one more time together and weather the storm Pierre tried to bring, only this time they’d be strong enough to endure it. This time they wouldn’t be silenced or shut out. This time their story would be heard, and there was nothing Pierre could do about it. Jeff would make sure of that.