“You can come back, you fuckers. I’ve seen the note and I know you’re in cahoots with her.”
“What?” Arch poked his head around the door, looking all sweet and innocent.
“Dickheads, the pair of you. Get in here and let’s eat.”
Two days later, we were in the basement of the record label, putting the final touches to a song we’d been asked to write for a movie. I had my eyes closed as I sang some harmonies and when I opened them, there was Fern, standing on the other side of the glass.
The sight of her stole my breath. Her silver hair was longer, poker straight and tied up in a ponytail; dressed in a stunning powder blue suit. She smiled and my resolve to stay away from her melted like an igloo in a heatwave as I struggled to remember why I’d walked away.
She held a giant sheet of white card in her hand and stepped forward to press it to the glass. I pulled off my headphones, planning on walking out or at least turning away from her, butmy band brothers had other ideas, closing in behind me and forcing me to look at what she’d written.
I know I’ve been a prize dick
To emphasize her point, she’d drawn a massive cock next to her words.
I couldn’t help but crack a half smile, as Archer and Fox shoved and nudged me like we were fucking teenagers.
She dropped the card to show me the one behind it, like something out ofLove Actually.
I love you.
The next one read,
I miss your voice. I miss touching you. I miss waking up next to you.
On the next one there was a shocking stickman drawing that I couldn’t work out until I read the words.
I will spend a lifetime on my knees begging for forgiveness if that’s what it takes.
Then she dropped that card, showing off another one.
Please talk to me. You’re my forever. I want a chance to make this right.
And then she blew me a kiss and vanished, leaving me speechless.
A week later, I found a letter in my guitar case that I knew Fox had put there because he looked like a naughty schoolboy for hours before I found it.
Charlie.
I don’t know if I’ve ever thanked you properly for everything you did for me. Saving me, getting me out of there, staying with me, and protecting me. Youhelped me explore who I was and what I enjoyed, and you gave yourself to me unconditionally.
What I did to you was unforgivable. In my defense… actually, scrap that. I have no defense. I was a bitch to you and you deserve so much more. You are nothing like him. Even at your worst, you were a better man than he could ever hope of being.
If you’d talk to me, I’d ask you if you were happy. Are you happy, Charlie? I want you to be. But I can’t help wondering if you’re as miserable as me. If you feel like part of your heart is missing or your soul is endlessly searching for its other half.
If you’d talk to me, I’d tell you that I want a forever with you and that you’re it for me.
If you’d listen to me, I would spend my days telling you that I love you and promising that I will protect your heart as much as you protected me when you got me to that lighthouse.
I know I hurt you and I deserve your reaction, but if you’d let me, I’d spend my life loving you so fiercely that you’d never doubt my feelings for you.
I didn’t play you, Myth Maker. I was who you thought I was until that sentence ruined everything. I’m sorry for how much those words must have hurt.
I can’t take them back, but I can hound you with new words until they lessen the hurt that I caused, because you are my everything.
Love, F x
Archer opened the door of his house and there was some God-awful song playing in the background. “What is this?” I laughed.