4 Years Ago:
The guitar hums in the stillness of the room, the note lingering like a whisper before it fades.
The whole place - by which I mean all forty of us - lurches to their feet, clapping and whistling as she smiles widely and does this cute little curtsy thing.
“Merci, merci.”
Her voice is smoky and sensual, like cigarettes and brandy and sex. She pushes her thick red hair back over her shoulder, her blue eyes sparkling as she bows again to the small crowd.
“Merci beaucoup, bon nuit!” she says in her Marion Cotillard voice. She smiles and waves as she turns to walk off the tiny stage when her eyes catch mine and linger for a moment before she looks away.
The crowd finishes their drinks, talking excitedly amongst themselves as they grab coats and hats and head out into the cold Parisian winter night. Some go over to where she’s standing by the bar, hugging her, snapping selfies, or even having her sign something.
I just sit and sip my drink, quietly.
Eventually, the place is empty - all except for her and I.
“Okay, I guess we’re doing this tonight then?” her accent and the attitude is so very French. Though, the attitude, I deserve.
I’ve come to her last five shows here, always sitting alone in the corner like a psycho and always the last to leave. At this point, she must have me pegged for either a serial killer or a serial killer and a necrophiliac.
She’s wrong, of course. I haven’t come watch Léa play five weeks in a row at the small cafe her uncle owns in the 14th arrondissement to murder her. I’ve come because she’s amazing, and it fucking kills me that someone this goddamn talented is playing for forty people at a time – two-thirds of whom she probably personally knows - at a dumpy little side-street cafe.
That and the red hair, the blue eyes, the smoky voice and the way she plays that guitar is, well…it’s not Ana, but it’s the closest I’ve found.
It’s like the faintest version of a drug high I’ve been chasing for years, which is why I keep fucking coming back here.
I smile at her as I finish the last of my drink and nod.
Why not, might as well be tonight.
I start to stand when she suddenly pulls a wicked-looking bat of some sort, with spikes on it for Christ’s sake, out from behind the bar.
“Five weeks, I was telling myself you were just a fan, or a drunk, or….” She shakes her head, pulling her phone out with her free hand.
“I’m calling the police. I suggest you leave before they get here.”
I grin, chuckling.
Yeah, I figured she had the wrong impression.
“I just want to talk,” I say quietly, sitting again.
She starts to dial.
“You have an amazing voice, and—”
She brings the phone to her ear.
“I’ll give you ten-thousand Euros, in cash, right now, if you hang up that phone.”
Her eyes snap to mine, and she says something quietly in French into the phone before she brings it down and sets it on the bar.
“Who are you?”
“A fan.”
She rolls her eyes.
“No, I mean a real true fan. Also, you remind me of someone.”
She flexes her fingers around the bat.
“I’ll give you another ten-thousand if you play for me some more.”
Léa looks at me coolly, appraising me, like she’s trying to peel back the surface and see what I’m up to.
Shit, she really does remind me of her.
“Look, nothing fucked up, nothing weird, all right? You’re very talented, and you sound a lot like someone I used to know who I used to love hearing play. And I’m leaving to go home tomorrow, so this is my last show.”
I slip my hand into my pocket and pull a thick wad of cash out, peeling off a bunch of bills and dropping them on the small cafe table.
The bat lowers in her hand, but her brows knit as she stares at the money.
“Who carries around that kind of money,” she says quietly. “And who pays twenty thousand Euros to hear someone play guitar and sing a little bit.”
“A fan.”
She arches a brow.
“A rich fan,” I shrug, and then nod at her guitar, sitting on a stand on the small stage.
“Please. You can even play the same set list.”
Léa sets the bat down.
“I’m not a whore, you know.”
I laugh quietly. “Yeah, no, I got that.”
“I mean I’m not going to fuck you if that’s what you’re after.”
“I’m not.”
“Just a rich pretty-boy throwing his money around to get what he wants?” She rolls her eyes. “Such a very American cliché.”
“Says the chick wearing all black playing Joni Mitchell covers in a fucking cafe in Paris?” I rake my fingers over my chin. “You really want to talk cultural clichés?”
She smiles.
“Who are you? Really.”
“Sebastian.”
“Léa.”
“I know.”
She looks at me coolly and picks her phone up.
“The police number is punched in. All I have to do is hit call.”
“And all I want to do is listen to you play.”
We meet each other’s eyes, and she nods.
“Fine. Same set list as tonight. It needed work anyway.”
“Agree to disagree.”
She steps back onto the little stage and starts tuning her guitar.
“Does twenty grand buy me another drink?”
She looks up and nods at the bar. “Help yourself.”
I sit back at the table with the whiskey and light a cigarette as she starts to play. The smoke curls, the liquor burns, and just for one brief, fleeting second, the music takes me somewhere else, to a different time. Léa plays and sings, and makes me think of fucking nothing else but her, and by the end, I’m in a trance - a half empty bottle and mostly full ashtray in front of me.
I clap when she’s done, my jaw clenched tight and my heart shattering a little as she bows, her long red hair tangling across her face and making her look so fucking much like her that it sends a bullet through me.
She steps off the stage and moves to my little table, sitting and pouring herself a splash of the whiskey.
Apparently, she’s decided over the last hour of her playing alone for me that I really am just a sad, rich bastard, and not a serial killer.
“What’s her name?” She pulls one of my cigarettes out of the pack and lights it with my lighter, leaning back to look at me curiously.
“Who I remind you of.”
“A girl.”
“Very illustrative, thank you.”
I smile thinly, feeling drunk off the whiskey and half-high off the music, like a little hit of something not quite the real thing but enough to get you lifted.
“Someone I used to know. Someone I hurt.”
I shake my head.
“No, someone I keep hurting.”
“Lucky her.”
I push the money across the table to her and raise a glass in toast. Léa ignores the money and does the same.
“Tell me about her.”
“Why?”
“Because it fascinates me. A man with your kind of money, and good looks, and arrogance,” she shrugs, smoking the cigarette delicately between her lips.
“You just seem like someone used to getting what he wants. The girl that breaks you like this intrigues me.”
“What makes you think I’m broken?”
She looks up at me, unblinking.
“Everything.”
Léa leans across the table on her elbows, studying me coolly.
“So tell me about her.”
And for whatever reason, I do. I tell her everything. Maybe it’s the weirdness of this little bubble we’re in. Maybe it’s because after tonight, there’s a very real chance I’ll never see her again.
Maybe it’s because telling all this to her feels like a draft version of telling it to the girl who deserves to hear it all.
When I’m done, we’re out of cigarettes and down to the last drops of whiskey, and Léa is quiet.
“Wow,” she whispers. “You are…” she shakes her head, “I could write a whole songbook off of you.”
“Be my guest.”
She smiles sadly at me.
“What’s her name? You never said.”
“Anastasia.”
Léa raises her glass. “To Anastasia. May she one day break free of the spell she has on you and find true happiness.”
And that, I can drink to.
* * *
Present:
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
There’s a quiet on the other end of the line before he speaks.
“Listen, man, I’m not sure I’m comfortable doing this any—”
“You sure?” I snap coldly. “You seem pretty comfortable in that new Corvette you’re cruising around in, Dan.”
I can hear him swallow.
“Nice color, by the way.”
“Thanks,” he says quickly.
Dan’s a nurse I met at the hospital after the crash - a big, beefy guy who looks about as comfortable in a bright yellow Corvette as I’d be in an AA meeting. Dan also - like most people - enjoys money.
And that’s my in.
“Look, buddy, I just- it feels like I’m breaking some kind of—”
“No one’s breaking the law here, Dan. It’s just a phone call.”
That he probably can’t hear or understand anyway.
I grit my teeth at the thought.
Here’s the deal: Dylan’s still in a coma at the hospital, and I’m still under house arrest. Also, Dylan’s family has me pretty much at the bottom of their list right now, which is fair. But it also means in the six fucking months since I almost killed my best friend, I still can’t stand by his side and tell him I’m sorry.
…Even if he can’t hear me. Probably can’t, at least.
I’d ask Ash or Tyler to do this, but I’m aware enough of the situation with the Forbes family to not want to put them in the middle of it. So, that leaves me Dan.
Dan who likes money. Dan with the keycard access to the long-term trauma ward.
Dan with the iPhone with FaceTime.
“Usual amount?” he finally mumbles.
I growl. “Yes, the usual amount. Now get up there.”
“You’ll have five minutes. I’ll call you back in ten.”
Those five minutes, by the way, are going to cost me a grand a minute.
I couldn’t care less.
I sit in silence, lighting a cigarette and toying with the lighter.
I can still taste her lips. I can still feel her body melting to mine. I’m still fucking buzzing like I’m high from the contact. It’s honestly one of the reasons I’m calling Dylan tonight.
I don’t know what to believe about comas. I’m pretty sure I don’t believe in white lights or whatever either, so who the fuck knows if Dylan can hear me when I talk to him.
It doesn’t stop me from confiding in him, and tonight’s a big one.
The phone jingles in my hand. I swipe it open.
“Hey man.”
Dylan, of course, doesn’t respond, but that doesn’t stop me from grinning - even if I’m also ignoring the feeling of weirdness that hits me every time at talking to my comatose best friend.
“Dude, you need to fucking shave.”
Dan’s phone is propped up on this little food tray table thing that straddles Dylan’s chest, giving me face-to-face talk time. Dan’s out of the room, but I know the time’s ticking before he comes back in and cuts me off.
“So, listen, I’ve been thinking. I know you’re still thinking about it, but I really think you should consider our offer. Ash, Ty, and I are ready to throw down some serious cash to get you some regular action after hours over there. I read online that your dick still works totally normal in a coma, and dude, I think you need this. Time to break that dry spell, buddy. We’ll even have her dress like a nurse or something.”
Beeps, dings, and the humming of the machines keeping Dylan alive are the only answer I get.
I study my friend’s face, trying to bite back the rage.
At myself.
In a weird way, I want him to look worse. I want him to look bruised, and battered, and all fucked up. I want him to look as broken as he is on the inside because seeing him looking totally normal but completely not is fucking me up even more.
I take a deep breath.
“So, some shit went down tonight, man.” I nod slowly, looking for the words. Dylan is fully abreast of the Ana situation. Actually, in the last few months, he’s gotten the full damn story - every gory detail.
He’s a great listener like that.
“I kissed her.” I shake my head. “It was fucking stupid, but…” I shrug. “Well, you know. We were just signing some stuff - you know, that shit Ash and I came up with to make the whole thing more legit, and I was fucking stupid. I played the Joni Mitchell song- yeah, that fucking song, and it was all set from there.”
I sigh, reaching for my drink but then stopping myself. Somehow, drinking in front of the guy who you drove off a cliff while drunk seems a little past the pale.
“Look, I know you’d tell me to stop being a fucking moron. I know the whole trust fund thing is bullshit, and I know I could grab any random chick and pay her ten grand to just do this thing and be done with it. But, when have you ever known me to do what I’m supposed to do, right?”
I smile.
Dylan’s quiet.
I look down, wincing as the pain of the memory of the night cuts into me a little.
“All right, man, I should let you get back to raging it up over there. Hey, see if they’ll get you some medical weed or something, all right?”
I look away, like Dylan’s going to care that I’ve got tears in my eyes like a complete pussy.
“Thanks for listening, man,” I say quietly. “Later.”
I hang up before Dan comes back in and does it for me.