5
JASON
“You can’t say these things, Jason,” Alex says as she breaks our eye contact. “And it seems to me like you’ve done very well without me in these last few years. It doesn’t seem that you’re having a bad time of it at all.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about…These five years have been…” I shake my head and rest my hands on the balcony. “It’s been hell, Alex.”
She sighs and sits down next to me.
“They’ve been five bad fucking years,” I confess to her and let my head fall into my arms.
“If it hadn’t been for Aaron, I don’t know what I would have done. Surely I wouldn’t be here now talking to you, believe me. He got me out of some trouble, he gave me some warmth and a family. He and Rain have been everything for me.”
She brushes my arm and that touch, so intimate and delicate, gives me the encouragement to go on telling her the truth.
“We were in a terrible spot, but we rolled up our sleeves and did everything possible to make a go of things.
“They still had a mortgage to pay off and I wanted to help out, to be for them like they were for me. I was a delivery guy, waiter, petrol-pump attendant…anything that would permit me to bring home a salary. Aaron did the same, and not to mention Patrick, Liam and Neil. You know where we come from…” I look at her through the corner of my eye.
She also comes from that neighborhood and her family certainly wasn’t trafficking in gold, even if her father’s coffee-shop business always seemed to go pretty well.
“We continued to play music, we never gave that up. We played in the streets, in pubs, at parties…and one day the impossible happened: someone noticed us. An independent label, no huge deal, but for us it was a start, you understand? Hope. Something we never had before.”
“And then?”
“And then success showed up, unexpected and frightening. We were still kids, we didn’t know anything about how to manage it. Our first album was a boom: concerts, fans, the press…everyone wanted us. We got a new contract and this time with an English record company.
“They proposed a second album, an eight-month tour and a bucket-load of money. But Neil, Liam and Rain had that damned car accident. Neil died, he was our lead singer and the one who wrote all our songs. Rain was in the condition she was in, and Liam took off, abandoning us all.
“You can’t imagine what it’s like to lose touch with your band. Everything you’ve always wanted, and to lose it all before you can grab it.” I look at her intensely because I’m not referring to just the music.
“I’m so sorry.”
“The press was all over us; the car accident and Liam taking off created a huge mess, and his success in England certainly did not help. You know how bad the English press can be.”
“And so you all found yourselves back here.”
“When Rain started to get better, we were already drowning. Aaron had put their house on the market, they couldn’t stand to be near that place, we were under constant watch. So, we sold everything we could, cashed in on our first album’s success and our insurance policy and we invested all the money we had into this place.
“Only4You,” she whispers with a smile on her lips. “You all did it for her.”
“What else could we do? Rain is like a sister for me.” I say the words with a knot in my throat, watching her from a distance. “I thought I had lost her, Alex, that she wouldn’t know anything but a life filled with pain, confusion and solitude. Instead, look at her now. She’s well, she’s happy and she’s in love.”
“I’m sorry not to have been there for her…and for everyone,” she sighs sadly. “But now she’s got Liam.”
“Liam is an asshole and if Rain weren’t so in love with him, I would have already kicked his ass by now.”
“Oh, I don’t believe you. You and Liam have been friends forever.”
“Too much.” I smile tightly.
“We’ve all known each other forever.”
“It’s true, and we’re all still here. All of us.”
Alex smiles slightly and breaks eye contact.
It’s true that we’ve all known each other since we were kids. In the neighborhood where we grew up that wasn’t difficult to do.
