Falling Stars (9 page)

“Carrie, you want me to put the top back up?” I shouted.

She shook her head no, which was fine. But in the seat in front of her, Julia rolled her eyes.

“What?” I asked.

One eyebrow went down, the other went up, her face wearing a skeptical, mocking expression.

“Seriously? What the fuck, Julia?”

“What, you ask? Why the fuck are you so considerate now, huh?
 
Here, you drive. Can I help you with your bags?
 
Carrie,
I can put the top back up
.”
 
Her voice had a mocking, unpleasant tone, but the words made no sense.

“I don’t get it.”

Her response came at a shout. “
Of course
you don’t get it, Crank! You never get it!”
 

“How the fuck am I supposed to get it, Julia? You aren’t communicating in English! I’m sorry I don’t speak sarcasm and innuendo.”

“Right. So instead of talking to me, you just put your hands and mouth all over some groupie, huh? Way to communicate, dickhead.”

All my resolution to slow down and stop left me. I’d planned on asking for forgiveness. I’d planned on kissing her ass until she forgave me. I’d planned on doing whatever it took. Instead, I ground my teeth and gripped the steering wheel harder as my foot pressed into the gas pedal.
 

“You know what, Julia? Yeah, I kissed her. Because I was
so fucking pissed.
I didn’t have an emotional affair with her right in front of your eyes. You didn’t hear me talking day in and day out about some girl. But I did. I heard every day about Preston fucking Reeve. Preston went to Harvard. Preston’s been in the music business a decade. Preston thinks we should stand on the left. Preston thinks we should stand on the right. Preston thinks we’re too close together on the stage. Preston thinks your perfect little kids will end up taking over fucking Harvard. Fucking Preston this and Preston that—are you fucking surprised I grabbed that girl’s ass and kissed her neck?”

Carrie leaned forward. “If you guys are going to have a fistfight, do you think you can pull over and let me or Sean drive?”

“Why did you do it?” Julia screamed.

“To piss you off!”

My heart suddenly jumped into overdrive as I heard a loud honk. The car had drifted, at seventy miles per hour, into the other lane.
 
Carrie screamed.
 

“Crank, pull the car over!” Sean yelled. “NOW!”

I’m a little bullheaded. Stupid, sometimes, even, but I didn’t want to die. I hit the brakes, rapidly slowing the car, then pulled into the emergency lane.

The second the car rolled to a stop, Julia opened her door and began speed walking down the highway. I got out and followed her.

“Julia!” I called.

She kept walking. Her back was rigid, the hot breeze blowing through her hair.

“Stop and talk to me, damn it!”

At that, she turned around. Her face was streaked with tears. She came back at me in a rush, then raised a fist and hit me in the chest. Which hurt.

“You want to talk now? Why now, and not two months ago? What the hell is
wrong
with you, Crank?”

“What the fuck?” I shouted. “I didn’t start this, Julia. It was you and fucking Preston.”

As I shouted the words, I had to yell even louder, because a semi passed, diesel horn blaring as the eighteen wheels threw gravel and dust at our position on the shoulder.
 

Julia flinched, then shouted, “I love
you
, Crank! I don’t give a crap about Preston! I never did. He’s a creep. Why can’t you see that?”

All the anger left me in a sudden rush. This wasn’t some contest of my pride. This wasn’t an argument with some shithead down in the pit or in a bar we were playing in. This wasn’t some groupie.

This was Julia. And she was hurting.

“Julia… I’m so sorry.”

“
What?
” she said, stunned at my sudden capitulation.

“I’m sorry.”

“You can’t do that.”

I literally took a step back, winded.
 
What? I couldn’t do what?
 
“I don’t understand.”

“Crank, you don’t get to suddenly be the nice guy! You don’t get to suddenly stop fighting and apologize and be reasonable. It’s not fair.”

I had no answer for that. I opened my mouth, then closed it.

“Say something, damn it!” Her tone was ragged.

“I was wrong,” I said. “I was jealous.”

“You were jealous?” she shrieked.

I sighed.
 
And nodded.
 
“Yeah, babe. I’m sorry. I was so fucking jealous I couldn’t think straight.”

Her mouth wrenched a little to the side, jaw tightening. “I was too. I’ve never been so angry and jealous in my life.”

“I should have talked with you, not just reacted.” At my words, her eyes watered even more.
 

    
“I should have reassured you,” she admitted.

I looked at the ground, studying the meaningless patterns in the gravel and dust, then back up into the empty, grieving face of the love of my life.
 
“You shouldn’t have needed to reassure me, Julia. I need to trust you.”

She nodded.
 
“You do. And I need to be able to trust you, Crank.”

I took a step closer to her.
 
She reacted, instantly, stepping back, her old armor starting to settle into place, but she visibly stopped herself after a step or two and stayed in place. “I
do
trust you, Crank,” she whispered.
 
“That’s why this hurt so much.”

I opened my mouth to speak, and at the same time I reached out and touched her, tentatively, with one fingertip.
 
My words came out on a breath of hope. “Forgive me?”
 

She swallowed, her eyes wide and tearing up, then she leaned close to me and whispered the words in my ear. “Forgive
me?
”

“I do,” I replied instantly.

“I do,” she said.

And then, for the first time in weeks, she was in my arms again.

It was a little bit over twelve hours from our unscheduled stop beside the road before we finally reached the banks of the Mississippi River at Memphis, Tennessee. The sun was setting behind us, casting the entire sky in shades of yellow and gold as Carrie turned the Mustang onto the Hernando de Soto Bridge.

Julia leaned against me in the back seat and together we stared up at the arches of the bridge, the spans lit up by rows of bright, twinkling lights.
 

For most of the last twelve hours, Julia and I huddled together in the back seat, talking and holding each other. It reminded me all too forcefully how much I missed the simple things. Running my fingers through her hair. Wrapping my arms around her. Listening to her low, earthy chuckle in response to jokes. Sean and Carrie took turns driving, taking us straight through with no stops except for gas and the occasional bathroom break.

So we caught up. We talked about the good and the bad from our summer. We talked about the tour, and our lives, and our hopes. But most of all we just touched, and reconnected. And loved.

For twelve hours straight, Sean and Carrie talked about bacteria. About ecology. Computers. Sean shouting in his loud, blaring tone, Carrie responding in her low, rich voice. It was clear she was as big a geek as my brother, and I loved that. I especially loved the fact that she was the only person I’d ever met who could stump him. The only person I’d ever met who
knew
as much as he did.
 
Carrie loved her science.
Loved.
 

By the time we were fully into Memphis, the sun was out of sight and darkness had overtaken the city. Carrie kept driving through until we reached the far side of Memphis, then pulled off the highway and followed the signs. Dixie Motor Inn. This looked…fantastic. Rustic. Seedy, really, but it would have beds.
 

I was wiped out, but kind of wired too, and an attached restaurant looked like it was still open. Maybe I could get Julia to go there with me so we could talk.

We parked and I followed Julia inside and she checked us in, because she’d made all the travel arrangements. I couldn’t help but wonder if I should be taking a more active role in this.
 
I mean…she was manager of the band, so she took care of that stuff on the road. But what about now? What was the right answer? I didn’t know anything, except that so far I’d been doing everything wrong.

We could sort that out. This much I knew: I wasn’t taking anything for granted any more.

After the desk clerk gave us keys for both rooms—we were in 210 and 212—I said, “Mind if we go talk for a bit over some coffee?”

She gave me a half-smile. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

So we put our bags in the rooms, me and Sean in one, Julia and Carrie in the other. I wasn’t exactly happy with the arrangement, but first, letting the two seventeen-year-olds room together was a bad idea, and second, up until today Julia and I hadn’t really been speaking much.

“Hey guys, me and Crank are going to go get some coffee,” Julia announced after we’d sorted out the rooms.

Sean and Carrie stood there, frozen. Carrie’s eyes darted to Sean, her expression unreadable, then she said, “Okay. We’ll see you guys later.”

That was odd. Maybe they were fighting or something. I didn’t have time to deal with a couple of teenagers.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Julia gave them an odd look and we turned and walked along the concrete second-floor walkway. It was odd. In the car, we’d touched a lot. Constantly, really. After weeks of us not touching each other, I couldn’t stop myself. Now, suddenly, I felt nervous, and the space between us as we walked toward the stairs felt like a hundred yards if it was an inch.

I wanted to touch her. I badly wanted to touch her, to hold her hand, or rest my hand on the curve at the small of her back. I loved that curve. I loved the heat of her bare skin under my fingertips, which ached for the sensation of running along the top of her jeans.

Instead, we walked downstairs. Stiff. Unyielding. Both of us suddenly more awkward than we’d been in a very long time.

The restaurant was like a downscale, ratty version of Denny’s, which isn’t exactly upscale in the first place. Threadbare carpet muted our footsteps as we entered the restaurant. In the background, most likely in the kitchen, I heard muffled country music.
 

A woman just this side of forty greeted us. “Hey there. Two?”
 

She led us to our seats and plopped down the menus with a smile. “Jeannie’s gonna be your waitress, she’ll be right with you. Can I get you started with a drink?”

“Do you have Earl Grey?” Julia asked.

“Sorry, we don’t have a liquor license, but Stanley’s down the road is open until two.”

Julia stared at her for a long ten seconds, then shrugged. “Just hot tea, please.”

“Okay, darlin’. How ‘bout you?” She gave me a disapproving look. It was almost as if she thought that I—the unpleasant barbarian with spiked hair—had kidnapped the perfectly coifed Ivy League Julia.

“Coke,” I replied.

She disappeared quickly.
 

I stared at Julia for what felt like a long time.
 
“I fucking love you,” I finally said.

Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed.
 
“I love you,” she said.
 

Her voice was quieter than mine. And more cautious. I hated that caution. I hated that I was part of the cause.

 
“I want us to move past this.”

Her response was cold and to the point. “I set out on this drive expecting to break up with you at the end.”

The baldness of her statement hit me like a hammer, closing my throat up and twisting the muscles in my chest. I couldn’t respond. I had no words. The longer I took to respond, the more concerned she looked. Her eyebrows slowly moved together, the furrow in her forehead that appeared in moments of anger suddenly becoming more and more prominent.

“Say something, damn it.”
 

I opened my mouth, unable to think.
 
“I’m paralyzed with fear,” I spit out.
Where the hell did that come from?

She opened her mouth…and just stopped.
 
“What?” she asked, shaking her head. “What? Why?”

“Because I don’t ever want to lose you and I’m afraid I’ve screwed it up beyond belief.”

Julia closed her eyes and slowly nodded her head. “Maybe both of us need to do more listening and less reacting.”

“I wish I’d done more of that when we first left on the tour.”

“I do too. You know I was never even remotely attracted to Preston. He’s a pompous asshole.”

“That groupie I kissed smelled bad. I didn’t want anything to do with her.”

“Why did you kiss her and grab her ass, then?”

I looked down at the table. I had a lump in my chest, my throat swollen with shame. “I wanted you to be jealous. I wanted you to want me more than you wanted that prick.”

“I didn’t want him at all.”