Even though it was for the best, watching him drive awayburned.
Travis
July2017
Recently,I had come to realize that the women I hooked up with only wanted me because I was rich and famous. Every single person in my life wanted something from me. More platinum albums, more chart topping hits, extravagant gifts and attention in magazinespreads.
But there were a few exceptions to this rule: my mom and my friends, the people I grew up with, the people who knew me and loved me before I wasfamous.
Her. BeckyMiller.
She’d always been a part of my life for as long as I could remember. I’d always thought she was gorgeous, with her dark hair and the prettiest blue eyes that I’d ever seen. But Becky was off-limits. You weren’t supposed to screw your best friend’s little sister, especially not Becky. Becky was special, she’d been through hell andback.
She didn’t deserve to be someone’s secret, and I hated that she was mine for the last several years. I was determined to do it right this time, because Becky wasn’t the kind of girl you gotover.
Before I got a taste of her, it used to be easy to forget about loneliness and isolation with the chaos of a tour and the high of performing on stage for thousands of people. It was easy to lose myself in the company of attractive, willing women, but then she sort of fell in my arms and messed meup.
Now, I feltdisquieted.
I started feeling this way more and more over the last few years, and that feeling got worse when I was back in the Muskoka’s, back around the people I’d known forever…back around Becky. Nothing beat coming home, even if it was a painful reminder that my life was lacking substance: that it was lackingher.
I found myself heading to Parry Sound whenever I got the chance; even if it was just for a few days between shows. If I got to meet up with her at least once, it was worth the extra time spenttraveling.
During our off time, I’d done my best to throw myself back into the casual fling pool. Truthfully? It hadn’t really worked out forme.
In fact, it was damn near pathetic. I hadn’t hooked up with anybody but her in three years. I kept that from her, because I’d worried if she found out she would flip. It was supposed to be just sex between us, and I was supposed to live my life the way I hadbefore.
But one-night stands had lost their allure, and no other woman had since captured my attention the way that Becky had. Early on into our arrangement, I’d had a few one-night stands. After each of those hookups, I’d felt terrible, like I’d betrayed someone. Like I had betrayedher.
She wasn’t the kind of girl you played games with; she was the kind of girl you committed too. But she’d been hurt before…badly.
The irony was not lost on me that she was a lot like my mom. My mother had relationships—plenty of them, I’m sure. She was a gorgeous woman and she was only forty-four years old. But, like Becky, Mom had never let anybody get close enough. She’d never moved in with anyone, had never gotten engaged, and hadn’t even had a seriousrelationship.
Becky had opened my eyes to what was real and what was an illusion. The women who easily fell into my bed did so because I was famous and had money. None of them saw past that to the man I was beneath it all, and none of them cared to knowhim.
I played her game and followed her rules because I’d wanted to fill up on her wordless love, but there was no doubt about it; Iwascommitted to her. She’d inspired every piece of music I’d written in the last four years, and I wanted to tell the world who my muse was. But Becky was cautious and I had to tread carefully, or I risked losing hercompletely.
I stopped the one-night stands, and every time we were together, what I felt for her grew. I thought it was the same for her, and I was working up the courage to tell her. But a few weeks ago, she told me she wanted the arrangement toend.
I met Tasha and Sandra on the plane, and they were “big fans of mine”. They were best friends that looked almost identical, and they certainly played off theirsimilarities.
They had a one-night layover in Toronto, and kept talking about how awesome it would be to see the town I grew up in. So I thought,why the hellnot?
If I could get a rise out of Becky, if I could make her jealous, then maybe I could make her see that we could have so much more than our arrangement. And if she didn’t care, at least I had two very willing women as afallback.
But the unsettled, anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach hadn’t let up since the moment I walked in with Tasha, Sandra, and my bodyguards and saw the devastated look on herface.
I wanted to make Becky jealous, not hurt her, and I didn’t feel any better knowing that she cared, not with the wounded look in her eyes. In fact, I had a sneaking suspicion I’d fucked things up evenmore.
The jealousy trick might work on most women, but not her. I should have knownbetter.
Still, I couldn’t take back what I’d done. I did my best to disentangle myself from them, sending them off to the bar for drinks the first chance I got. They seemed content enough being the focal point of every male in thebar.
Every male but me. I was busy, surveying the bar, looking for the dark hair and blue eyes that tormented me in my dreams, the ones where I’d be moving toward her and she would just get further and further away with each step Itook.
I didn’t see her at the table she’d been sitting at when I walked in, nor was she around the pool tables or bar. My shoulders relaxed. I hadn’t seen her leave, so she was probably hiding out in thebathroom.
Becky retreated when things got complicated. It was something she’d always done. Eventually, she’d have to come out, and I’d bewaiting.
