How to Be a Rock Star's Ex-Girlfriend (18 page)

But just days before I turned twenty-six, I suffered from my own life-altering experience. Mine didn’t involve moving in with the perfect guy or starting a family, but it did bring my past rushing back into my life.

Scott had picked me up from work, since I was getting the oil changed in my car and it wasn’t quite ready yet. We decided to have a quick bite to eat before going to pick it up. If I wouldn’t have turned on the radio, I wonder what would have happened.

It was the middle of a song, something that I hadn’t heard before, it was moody and sad and heart wrenching, and I sighed a little when it was over. I had felt a connection with the song, almost as if I had heard it before, but I knew I hadn’t. I very rarely listened to the radio. My commute to work was only a few minutes long and at home I listened to CDs or the eighties station. I just couldn’t get into music like I used to. But somehow this song made me want to cry and pound my fists against something.

“Do you now who sings that song, the one that just played?” I asked Scott. I didn’t really think he would know. He listened to classical music at work and some country, but nothing really like the song that I had heard.

“Oh, I think that’s the song some guys at work were talking about. I don’t know who sings it though.”

“What were they saying about it?” I was curious because Scott worked with a lot of older people, not exactly the people who I

could see standing in front of the water cooler, talking about a sullen love song.

“I guess some local guy wrote it. This is his first big hit or something. I wasn’t really paying attention. Why? Did you like it? I could try to find out for you.”

I hadn’t heard anything he said after “
some local guy wrote it”.
I knew who sang the song. I just couldn’t believe that I hadn’t realized sooner. That was why it felt so familiar, why I reacted to it. Just as the single word, “Braden.” came out of my mouth, the DJ confirmed it.

“In that set you heard Eminem, Black Eyed Peas, and that last song was by our very own local star, Braden O’ Neill! It’s called
Relaxed Posture,
and if you believe all the rumors, it’s supposed to be about an ex that broke his heart. You can read all about it in the new issue of
Rolling Stone,
he’s on the cover looking great and promising to reveal the identity of the mystery women! We’ll be back right after this!”

Scott didn’t seem to notice that I was silent the rest of the evening. I picked at my food at dinner, smiled or nodded if he asked me anything, and left him standing on the curb when he dropped me off. I completely forgot about picking up my car, I just couldn’t get my brain to stop thinking about Braden’s song.

Braden was on the radio! I was so happy for him! It was amazing and wonderful, and all I wanted to do was run to the phone and call him and tell him congratulations. And then I remembered the words of the song, the rumors the DJ had talked about. Was it me? I felt a little funny even asking myself that question. How conceited was I? Of course it was just a rumor. It wasn’t written about anyone, and that’s what the article would say. It was probably about some inanimate object, like a car or something. It was silly to get worked up about it.

Two hours later I was still pacing back and forth, wondering about it, so I did something crazy. I called Cara and told her.

“What? You want me to come over, and take you to pick up your car, so you can go buy the new
Rolling Stone?
Why? You don’t even read that magazine!”

I had tried and failed to keep my reasons a secret from Cara, but I should have known better. She could always see right through me. My voice was almost a whisper when I admitted, “He’s on the cover.”

“Who is? Do you have some rock star crush? I know we went through a Tommy Lee phase, but aren’t you a little old to have to run out and buy a magazine just because some guy is on the cover?”

“Um, Cara? It’s Braden. He’s on the cover.” I was quiet, waiting for the big blow up, and Cara didn’t disappoint me.

“No way! I am not taking you to get anything that has to do with that guy! You are over him! Right? It took a long time, but you made a decision and stuck with it. It was what was best for you. Right? Why aren’t you answering me? You love Scott, you want to make a life with him, forget about the rocker boy who broke your heart. Okay?”

“Yes, you’re right. Thank you. I really needed you to tell me that. I just heard his song on the radio and went a little crazy. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye.”

“Bye, Ava. If you need me, for anything else, just call.”

I had really tried listening to Cara, I had! But it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Cara had barely said goodbye before I grabbed my flip flops from my room and walked out the door.

It was thirteen blocks to the closest gas station, and six more to one that hadn’t already closed for the night. But I needed to see that magazine, to look at him. Maybe he had gotten fat.

Maybe I would take one look and realize that I stopped loving him a long time ago, and I had nothing to worry about. Maybe I would take one look and realize that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. How would I know unless I read the article?

When I got home from my adventure, Cara was waiting for me. She took one look at me, my eyes already red from crying, and couldn’t yell at me.

“It’s about me. The song …”

Cara gave me a big hug. “I know. I heard the song at the bar one night and knew. I wanted to wait as long as possible before I told you. You know, like after you and Scott were engaged!”

With a weak smile on my face, I let Cara walk me back into my apartment and pry the rolled up magazine out of my hand.

“Do you want me to stay? Should I call Scott?”

“I think I’ll just go to bed. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Go home, but thanks for coming over. I needed you tonight.” I just really wanted to be alone so I could absorb everything that I had just learned. I needed to let myself think about Braden and how I really felt about him. It wasn’t everyday that you found out that your first love wrote a song about you and is now famous.

The next few days were a blur. I told everyone that I needed extra rest since I thought I was coming down with a cold and wanted to make sure I was better for my birthday. The only person who knew otherwise was Cara, and I made her promise to give me a little time to work things out on my own.

I read the article on Braden half a dozen times, and looked at the pictures even more. I just couldn’t get over how great he looked! And my name was right there in black and white. The song was written while he was working out his feelings about the breakup. He had never really gotten over it, he thought about ‘her’ (me!) a lot, and hoped that ‘she’ was happy.

The big question now was “Was I happy?” Maybe, I guess. I knew that I should be. I had everything that a girl could want and here I was trying to decide if I wanted to keep it or not! Was I crazy? I didn’t really have much time to think it through, since my big day was upon us and we were all gathering together to celebrate my twenty-sixth birthday.

Scott had put together a lovely dinner party in my honor, with all my best friends in attendance. It was a really nice gesture, and I was really enjoying myself, even though I had hoped at first for a big rowdy blow out at Shaken. What did I expect with this group anyway? We had all turned into old people! Sophie and Mark didn’t even bother getting a babysitter; they just brought Tabby with them! Nothing screams party like a baby. I was trying not to be upset that my birthday was being upstaged by a baby. Every time I would start to say something, Tabby would do something ‘cute’ and everyone would stop to talk about it. It was getting a little annoying.

Towards the end of the evening, I began to realize that something was up. Sophie and Cara kept giving each other looks and then glancing over at me. Mark and Scott had wandered into another room, very serious and secretively. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. I kept remembering all the teasing I had gotten recently from the girls. One single thing was running through my head “Please, please don’t propose!”

My silent pleas were not answered. A few minutes later, Scott reappeared with a bottle of champagne.

“Could I have everyone’s attention?” Scott cleared his throat and continued on with his speech. “Thank you all for spending this evening with Ava and me. I’m so glad that you could all be here tonight.” He turned to me then and I knew exactly what he would say next.

“Ava, I think you’re wonderful. I’ve enjoyed every moment that we’ve spend together and I really want to continue spending my time with you.” He moved down on one knee. “Will you marry me?”

Even though I had known it was coming, I was dumbstruck. I looked around the room at everyone’s expectant faces. Here was where I was supposed to jump up and down for joy, throw my arms around Scott, and shout “YES!” Instead, all I managed was, “Oh.”

Scott moved over to me, took me in his arms, and ignored the fact that I hadn’t answered his big question. With a quick kiss, he slipped the ring onto my limp finger.

It was a beautiful ring, at least a caret, round cut, with a slim gold band. Well, there it was a sign from God. That gold band proved that I wasn’t with the right person for Scott. I don’t wear gold jewelry, and I would expect the guy I loved to know that. But Scott didn’t. He didn’t know I would have preferred white gold, with an emerald or princess cut. He didn’t realize that this wasn’t the proposal of my dreams. I didn’t want everyone around, and I would’ve liked it to be just us. He hadn’t even waited for my answer.

I opened my mouth to say, “No, wait.”, but it was too late. The girls were swarming in to look at the ring, to offer their congratulations, and to give us both big hugs. I don’t even think that I was smiling, and even with all the attention we were getting, I still felt like I was being totally ignored.

I was quiet while everyone got ready to leave, and I accepted the hugs and offers to go shopping for dresses the girls threw out as they walked out the door. How did I end up engaged? Engaged to Scott?

Scott came up behind me and gave me a little squeeze. “How’s my girl? You made me so happy!”

“Oh, yeah, well. Scott, I think we need to talk about that. I never really had a chance to answer you.”

“Don’t worry about that! I know things got a little crazy after I asked.” He didn’t seem the least bit worried about it. It never crossed his mind that I might have a few concerns about us.

I glanced up at him, and the look on his face stopped me from going any further. He was obviously so excited, so happy. I couldn’t say what I knew I should.

Maybe it would be okay. I did really like Scott and I could probably learn to love him. He would always keep me first; always do his best to make me happy. I just wasn’t sure if it was possible for him

to make me happy. And if I went through with this wedding, would I be setting us both up for failure?

CHAPTER 18
 

Instead of embracing the idea of being a bride, I put off all planning, saying that I was weighing my options. I had a pile of bride magazines next to my bed, but I hadn’t looked through them. Cara and Sophie were always dropping off a new one with pages bent to mark the dresses and things they were sure that I would like. I pretended that I loved everything that I was narrowing down those choices, looking at each item carefully.

Scott was pushing for an early spring wedding, giving us a little under a year to plan our big day. I hadn’t yet said yes to the date. Something was going to happen to make this wedding either go away or make me really excited about it. At least I hoped that was the case.

I secretly listened to Braden’s CD all the time. I read the lyrics over and over.

I need, to figure out, how to catch my breath again

I need

I need, to chill out and use my relaxed posture

I need

Sometimes, when I get stressed, and I don’t know what to do

Strike my relaxed posture

Flex my relaxed posture

I need, to figure out, what it means to be myself again

I wished that I could talk to him, to see how he was, to see if he ever felt the way that I did. I felt like every decision I made took me farther away from where I had hoped to be, farther away from him. When I finally admitted to myself that deep down, that was the problem, I was so far from Braden; I called in sick to work and cried the whole day.

On top of all the crap I was dealing with about the wedding, I was being recognized as ‘the girl’ from that song on the radio. I got a lot of weird looks; some people even came up to me in the store and asked me about him. It just made it harder to separate myself from his life. Reporters called and left messages at my house, hoping to get exclusive interviews with me. They wanted the inside track to Braden O’Neill. They had been able to come up with a few old pictures of the two of us together and they had plastered them all over the front pages of the tabloids. Even as far away from the action as I was in Minnesota, I was having a hard time going to the grocery store without someone saying something to me.

Scott and I hadn’t talked about our pasts very much. We both knew that there had been a serious relationship in both our lives that hadn’t worked out, but Scott didn’t want to know anything more. And, to be honest, I really didn’t care enough to ask him about his.

I didn’t tell him about the phone calls or the stalkers for a few weeks. I just didn’t want to get into it. What was I supposed to say, anyway? “Guess what, honey? My ex-boyfriend is famous, and there’s a song about me on the radio!” I don’t think so! I was having a hard enough time trying to deal with all of it myself. I mean, is it cheating if you’re thinking about someone else all the time? What if you’re dreaming about him, and imagining him kissing you and

holding you? I had a few bad moments when I realized just how many of my thoughts were shifting right to Braden.

Unfortunately, the truth came out while we were out grabbing some lunch one day. As we sat there, quietly enjoying our food, a tabloid reporter ambushed us. His cameraman took a few pictures, while he rapidly asked me questions about the situation.