Us
short story written by Monique Wallace
My ears were still ringing in the post-show haze when a security guard found me within the crowd as we were trying to slowly make our way out of the venue.
Was I in trouble? I was one of the more sedate fans in the pit. My phone never left my bag. I didn’t throw anything onto the stage. There were no signs being held, no shouting. Definitely nothing which could be considered inappropriate behaviour.
He starts to walk away and I’m frozen. He realises, stopping.
‘Follow me.’
We weave through endless corridors until we find ourselves in front of a lone door. I pause. The security guard nods at the door. I point from myself to the door. He nods before walking away.
My heart is racing. What is about to happen? My instincts tell me just to open the door, not to knock. My hand is trembling as it pulls the handle.
‘Thanks for coming back.’ He’s inside the room, alone.
There’s a single lounge, a table filled with endless cigarette butts and half-drunk beers, a random assortment of a few other things. It was basic is what I am trying to say. ‘Why did you bring me back here?’
‘I recognise you and I can’t remember why. Why do I know your face?’ ‘Because you know.’
He pauses to study my face, analysing every part of it. Then a smile spreads across his. ‘You.’
‘Me.’
The first time I saw him was across a crowded lecture hall.
Don’t ask me what course, I couldn’t tell you. It’s insignificant. All lectures in those first few weeks of university are. Nothing matters as much as trying to decide which versions of ourselves we’re hoping to be.
For me, I didn’t know. Never a popular girl, never the super social girl, always the girl. Nothing special, nothing different, merely average. Not when being average can be seen as a bad thing. Also definitely not in the I’m not like other girls way, because I absolutely am. The same as every last one.
There was something in the way he held his body. Both completely immersed in the subject matter while looking like he would rather be anywhere else in the world except here. As though he was above the content, more so than the course being below him. ‘What’s his name?’ I motion in his direction, asking her.
‘Who, him?’ She points right at him.
‘Yes.’
‘I wouldn’t bother.’
‘Who said I was doing anything of the sort?’
‘All he’s interested in is his music.’
‘His music?’
‘Musician. Damn good if I’m honest.’
‘Where can I see him?’
‘This Friday night. Come with me.’
Okay, so maybe I’m not a boring average girl because I have one major weakness and its musicians. It’s always been musicians.
Maybe it’s the talent. Maybe it’s the arrogance. All I know is that it’s hot.
On Friday night, I went with her.
The venue was low-lit, the stench of beer and sweat was high. Nothing looked clean but none of it was so dirty I felt I had to leave. I nearly considered it, leaving, until they started playing. I wouldn’t consider myself a religious person, but from the opening chords the night felt like a religious experience. Immediately I was hooked. I knew I would take every opportunity to see them. To see him.
Every time his band had a gig, there I was. Their music was mesmerising. The lyrics of the songs I would later discover he wrote may as well have been tattooed on my brain. We always hung around, hoping for a chance to speak to them. We weren’t going for Almost Famous. I’m not a groupie. Well I wasn’t. Even now I wouldn’t call myself that. Especially because I know him.
I know his fickle relationship to fame. Wanting so much to be understood through his music, while needing the element of privacy. Watching him around fans, there’s a definite persona. A switch that happens where he feels both completely approachable and lovely, but still at a distance. The rest of the boys don’t have it as bad. It’s the curse of being the frontman. Everyone knows your face, your voice, your movements.
I watch him struggle with it.
‘Nobody actually knows me but I’m forever having to pretend they do. It would be damaging to “the brand” if I wasn’t immediately lovely.’
‘Can I ask, why did you even bother with university?’
He barely lasted a semester before an A&R rep turned up to one of their gigs and they were picked up. It wasn’t straight to stadiums and sold-out shows, but their following continued to grow steadily.
‘Deal with my parents. They wanted me to have a backup if the music thing failed.’
‘What’s your backup?’
‘There is none. This is my life.’
There’s one thing I know for sure, I hate subtext.
Tell me what you feel, even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts.
‘You put way too much pressure on me.’
‘I thought you’d be used to pressure at this point in your life.’
‘But it’s pressure I want. Pressure I asked for. I never asked for this.’
‘You never asked for me.’
‘That’s not what I said.’
‘It’s what you meant though.’
Silence as we stare at each other.
We spoke a couple of times. Nothing serious. All surface level. The kind of brief conversations you have with aspiring musicians after a gig.
‘You were amazing tonight.’
‘Thanks, really appreciate it.’
I was interested, of course I was interested, but I was never going to make a move. It’s never been my style; it either happens to me or not at all. I was going for not at all. When they were signed, it changed. Suddenly the venues they played in meant we couldn’t get close to them afterwards.
Then they went overseas and it would be a long time before I would see them again.
It doesn’t make sense that I fell so hard. There’s the musician thing of course, but even now when I occasionally share a bed with him, he doesn’t feel approachable. He’s just there, an arm's length away, but it may as well be oceans separating us.
He kisses me like I’m the only person on earth who has ever felt the tender brush of his lips. Who he is on stage and the person he becomes the moment he steps off are two different sides of the same coin.
On stage he is mesmerising. A true extrovert. Loud, funny, abrasive, a man who loves to dance, to put on a show. People come to watch him. It helps that their music is as good as it is.
Being with someone who writes songs this earnest sounds better than it is. He saves all his feelings for his work.
‘It would be so cliche to write about you.’
‘Maybe I want to be a cliche.’
‘That’s not who I am and you know it.’
Still, he sings me to sleep. A life of being a touring musician has made him a night owl. We’re not aligned like this. I still prefer an early night.
How did we get here?
The room smells like peppermint. Every time he jumps out of the shower, his body still wet with droplets of water, he lathers his body in a lotion scented with peppermint.
‘It relaxes my muscles,’ he tells me. He can’t afford to feel tense. Not in his line of work. It feels funny calling it that, work.
To anyone else it’s a hobby. A passion, maybe. But not to him. Not to the millions of fans around the world who love him.
We don’t live together as such. He’s never in one place long enough to call home. Forever on tour or relaxing between shows, or post-tour, holing up away in isolated locations to write; always writing. But we share a bed more often than we don’t.
For someone with so much to say, I’m astounded by his lack of personal communication skills. We don’t talk. Not really.
He’s sitting on the bed, rubbing the lotion into his tense calves. I’m laying underneath the covers, staring at the hotel ceiling, avoiding his gaze, knowing it will confirm what I already know to be true.
The first time we found ourselves alone in a room exactly like this one, right down to the personalised hotel stationery no one uses anymore, every nerve ending of my body was electrified in anticipation. This is real. This is happening.
How long have I dreamt of being in a position like this?
When he kissed me, I wasn’t expecting it. I hoped, but he’s been in the public eye for a little bit now. For all I know, it was part of the gig.
‘I’ve been wanting to do that.’
Was this the reality I pictured?
The overwhelming loneliness? Knowing I would never, not for a single second, be as important or mean as much as his only true love. Music.
What a paradox.
If I could write songs the way he does, that move you in a way not describable by mere words, I think I’d be the same. Who would ever say no to a gift like that? Not that any of this is his fault.
‘I’m not good for you,’ he said.
‘Who said I’m looking for good?’
‘I won’t be able to give you what you want.’
‘All I want is you.’
Being backstage is underwhelming. While the specifics change from venue to venue, it’s a bunch of rooms where the musicians and their crew keep their stuff. Bright lights and comfy chairs for makeup touch-ups ahead of showtime.
Yes, there’s makeup. It’s minimal but there nonetheless.
There’s a room where you can get something to eat, which even I’ll admit is pretty damn sweet.
His food requests are a combination of barbecue, fried chicken and sushi.
Standing in the wings, watching him from the sidelines doesn’t feel as good as being in the pit. We were advised by the label not to let it happen. Our relationship is hidden, you see, and they’re worried we might lock eyes in the middle of a set and the people around me on the floor would realise he isn’t single. Would realise he belongs to me. Or is it that I belong to him.
This should bother me and on some level it does, but on a bigger level it doesn’t. I don’t want fame. I don’t want anyone to know who I am or feel entitled to information about this, about my relationship.
The secret makes it more exciting.
‘Maybe we can keep this just for us.’
‘Are you hiding me?’
‘Not in the way you think. This is for you.’
At first, maybe it was.
Sometimes during their warm-up ritual together backstage, I excuse myself and wander among the crowds. I pass rows and rows of girls. So many of them are wearing shirts with my boyfriend’s face, with his name.
Not too long ago I was one of them.
Now he’s mine and I can’t decide if I’ve got the better end of the deal.
‘I thought this is what you wanted.’
‘I wanted you.’
‘I wanted you too.’
Past tense.
‘You’ve never written a single song about me.’
‘Why do you care?’
‘Because I thought you did.’
‘There isn’t a melody in existence which could capture you. Nothing that would even come close.’
It happens slowly. Imperceptible to the naked eye, especially in real time. But hindsight tells a rich narrative of small gestures slowly detaching. Longing stares faded to mere glances. We go longer between thoughtless touches.
I never realised how much I craved his touch until I didn’t have it anymore. I would reach for him without knowing whether he would meet me halfway.
He used to shower me in affection.
Past tense.
‘I want you so much.’
‘I’ve never wanted anything more.’
‘Come with me.’
‘I have a job. I have a life.’
‘But you could have a life with me.’
It was enticing. A life with him. A different city almost every night. A chance to see the world. There’s nothing keeping me here.
‘I’ll go anywhere with you,’ I tell him.
The first time I get on a plane with him, I discover he flies like a regular person, if that regular person flies first class.
Silently I’m cursing myself for agreeing to travel with him instead of meeting him at the destination.
Economy isn’t the most comfortable option in the air but it’s all I’ve ever known so you suck it up and deal with it. How do you go back after this? After knowing what life could have been?
‘I know he seems hard, but he has a heart of gold.’
‘He does.’
‘It’s not always enough, is it?’
‘No, it’s not.’
It’s a classic situation. Right person, wrong time.
Hell it may not even be right person. Meeting him and properly getting to know him now, after all this fame, it was never going to work.
He would always question if I truly loved him for him or for what he could do.
I would always question why he wanted to be with me in the first place when he could literally have anyone he wanted.
‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ he says.
‘How about how you feel.’
‘But what if I don’t know how I feel?’
‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s not bullshit, it’s the truth,’ he says.
‘Bullshit. Just tell me.’
‘I don’t know, okay?’
I leave the bed. I can’t stay lying down during the destruction of everything.
‘Why are you like this? You write these beautiful lyrics and tell the world how you feel but when it comes to me, you don’t know? You know what, fuck you.’
I pull on my clothes and grab my bag when he grabs my arm.
‘No stop, please don’t go,’ he begs.
‘I’m not staying.’
‘Please just stay.’
‘Give me one good reason why.’
I wait and he says nothing. I make my way to the door.
‘I’m not good at this okay? It’s easier singing to everyone than it is to sing to just one person.’
‘I’m not asking for a song here.’
‘I know you’re not.’
‘I’m not asking you to be your onstage persona,’ I tell him.
‘I know.’
‘I’m just asking for a real moment from you.’
Pause.
‘What do you mean, this is real.’
‘Is it? Is it real? Or am I just some crazed fan who grew too attached and you didn’t know how to get out of it.’
Another pause.
‘How did you know?’ he says.
‘I heard you,’ I whisper.
‘You heard me?’
‘I heard you.’
‘Shit.’
‘Yep.’
‘That’s what I said but it’s not what I meant.’
‘Then what did you mean?’ I hate this version of myself.
‘Fuck me, I cannot go around in circles like this.’
‘It’s not going around in circles, it’s trying to get just a moment of honesty out of you but I don’t think that’s possible so I guess that’s it.’
‘What’s it?’ he asks.
‘Us.’
‘Us?’
‘We’re done.’
His hand strokes the side of my face and all my resolve threatens to melt away. ‘That’s not what I want though.’
‘I don’t think you know what you want.’
‘Can you give me time to try and figure this out? You’re forcing this on me and I want to just get it right.’
It sounds like he means it.
‘You might be wanting to get it right, but this is all wrong.’
‘You make being on tour feel like home.’
‘I’ve never been someone’s home before.’
‘You’re mine.’
We lasted months. The most dramatic, exciting, exhausting, exhilarating months of my life. ‘I think we could have really been something,’ I say.
‘Me too.’
‘I love you.’
He says nothing
‘Goodbye.’
I kiss the side of his cheek, my lips brushing the stubble he’s been growing out after I asked him to.