I’m all over the place. My mind is cut up about Alex. All I want is her, but she just doesn’t want a bar of me. I wish I knew how to go about these feelings I’m having, because I just really need to talk to her. I want to see her, just once, but I can’t even do that. After talking to Nate, I feel a little like I might be losing the plot. I need someone to walk me off the edge, so I pick my cell back up and dial. The cell rings a couple of times and then she answers.

“Hey, you. It’s really late, you okay?”

I sigh, I’d forgotten the time. I should have called tomorrow morning. Idiot!

“Oh shit, sorry! I should’ve called tomorrow… I can call back then.”

Charlie’s voice is wide awake, no hint of sleepiness in her tone at all. “No, it’s okay. I’m working on something anyway, so I’m up.”

“Oh, okay, sorry to interrupt.”

“No, all good, I needed a break. You okay? You sound a little, I don’t know… frazzled?”

Nodding even though she can’t see me, I sigh. “Yeah, just a bit. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good, Matt.”

“No, it’s not. Can you come over, I could do with some company?”

She sighs. “Sure, text me your address, and I’ll come now.”

“Okay, see you soon.”

“Sure.”

We hang up, and I send her the details. Soon after she’s at my home, and I let her in with a smile. She leans in to give me a hug and takes a look around my place.

“This place is really nice, Matt.”

“Thanks.”

“And Nate used to live here, too?” she asks looking at everything.

I nod my answer and think, but he’s living with Ria now, so it’s just me.

Charlie nods like she’s taking that all in. She turns plonking down on the sofa, and I follow suit. “Okay, so what’s got you frazzled?”

Running my hands through my hair, I exhale and slump down onto the sofa. “Fuck! I don’t even know.”

She glances down at me and nods. “Okay, well something has you upset.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk, I can just sit here and we can chill.”

“I think I’m just a bit overwhelmed with my life right now. Everything and nothing is happening at the same time, and to be honest, I don’t know where I see myself in five years, you know?”

She nods again and reaches out grabbing my hand. “Okay, well, we just ride it out. It will be okay. I’m not too worried. Matt, you’re amazing. You’re gifted. You’re a wonderful man. Things have a way of working out how they’re meant to.”

I suppose she’s right. Maybe Alex is giving me space, or maybe us being away from each other will only make us a stronger bond in the end. Or maybe we aren’t supposed to be friends. Fuck, I don’t know. But maybe things will work out how they’re supposed to.

“True... okay, so you think just wait it out for now?”

“I do. Don’t make any rash decisions, take each day as it comes. Everything happens for a reason, Matt, people come into your life to test you, to change you. Everyone is in it for a reason, even if you can’t figure out why.”

I nod emphatically. That I believe. I just wish I knew the future for Alex and me. I wish I knew my future, period. This not knowing bullshit is doing my fucking head in.

“Okay, how about we watch some television, and then I’ll stay over to make you feel calmer tonight. In your brother’s old room, of course?”

“Thanks. That would be awesome.”

“The Walking Dead?” she asks, and a sinking feeling filters through my stomach.

I grimace and shake my head. “No, how about something funny?” I try and make it obvious that I’m not affected by her asking to watch The Walking Dead. That series was Alex and my go to. I miss her so bad.

 

***

 

We’re in the kitchen making cups of tea. My mind is a mess, and I wish I knew where my head was taking me. I’m zoned out as I pour the kettle, the boiling water fills and then splashes out over the mug and onto the bench top everywhere. “Shit!” I call out, and quickly grab a tea towel and move in to wipe up the hot mess. Charlie slides in, grabbing the tea mug and shifts it over to the sink, emptying it out, while I wipe down the bench and let out a heavy sigh.

“Thank you,” I murmur.

She chuckles moving in behind me to catch the water now sliding off the bench that I didn’t see, as she collects it with another cloth wiping in time with me as we stand next to each other. With our sides touching, she smiles at me kindly as I turn to lean against the counter.

“We make a good team you and me,” she says. I notice something shift in her. Her eyes sparkle, and she draws her bottom lip in by her teeth. Something is happening. I’m just not sure what.

“We do make a great team. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I say.

Charlie steps closer to me. She’s suddenly in my space, and her hands move from the counter to my chest while her eyes stay focused on mine. My hands move to the side like I have no idea where to put them as I’m kinda lost. I think I know what’s happening, but like a deer caught in the headlights, I’m stunned in the moment.

“I was hoping you would say that,” she murmurs and she leans up on her toes. My body tenses and not in a good way. I should want this. Charlie’s practically my perfect ten, but right now all I can see flashing through my mind is images of Alex, and my chest heaves as her lips inch closer to mine. Charlie’s so close her breath tickles my skin. I wince away as her lips go to touch mine—I can’t do it. I pull back grabbing her shoulders to stabilize and hold her away from me, at the same time as her eyes fling open and she looks at me like she’s in utter shock.

“I’m sorry… shit! Sorry, Charlie,” I blurt out.

She swallows hard, her face dropping like she’s going through a million thoughts in her mind all at once. Her eyes flicker from side to side like you’d see someone who’s having a mental breakdown. It unsettles me. “Charlie?”

She steps back, breaking free from my grip forcefully, and glares at me so fiercely it shocks the hell out of me. Her stare is cold, hard, and calculating. “I didn’t want to have to do this, Matt,” she says.

“Sorry… what?”

She flares her nostrils and opens her handbag pulling out a ream of paper. It’s quite thick, maybe thirty pages, and I furrow my brows looking at the typed notes. On the front page is a profile—on me. Tensing up, I take a step back as my breaths come in hard and fast, trying to figure out what the hell is happening right now. I grab the profile and turn to page two, and it’s dot points on me. Details of everything I’ve told her. She’s written everything down. I slam my fist onto the pages and glare at her.

“What is this?” I yell, she doesn’t even budge like she knew it was coming.

“It’s not just on you, it’s about all your band mates, too. Everything you’ve said, everything I’ve dug up. Every little detail I could find or get out of you.”

“Charlie!”

“C’mon Matt, you know I work for an LA paper. You can’t honestly think I’m going to let a story like meeting a Recoil band member go by, do you? I couldn’t believe my luck when you turned up. It was like all my dreams had come true at once,” she declares.

I scoff and throw my hands in the air. “So what… you think I’m just going to let you print all that stuff about me? About Madeline… fuck, about Alex?”

She shrugs. “The readers will love it!”

“Charlie, seriously, why would you do this to me? I thought we were a team? We just said this literally two minutes ago.”

She flares her nostrils and rolls her eyes. “Matt we were a team, this whole time I’ve been building us up, working toward us being together, and when you had your chance to prove to me that we could be together, you failed. You still chose her. So, now sure… I don’t get you, but I do get my big break… unless…”

I listening to her ramble as she pauses at the end, and I decide to bite. “Unless what?”

“I change my story to something you want. Something that’s more of a hero piece for Recoil, and I get it published somewhere much better than my lousy paper.”

“And how exactly is that going to happen?”

She smirks. “You’re hooked up. Get me a column in an issue of Rolling Stone, and I’ll write you a glowing article… which you can approve before publication, and this all goes away.”

“Great, this is just fucking great!”

“Can you do it?” Charlie’s eyes light up like she’s hopeful, the excitement in her voice annoys the crap out of me. What the hell, she cares more about her career than the damage she’s causing me right now.

“Sure,” I murmur as I wave my hand through the air in agreement. “But all this, all this info you have on me, stays here. You can’t take it with you.”

“Okay, fine. I have it on my computer at home anyway.”

“Charlie!”

“Okay fine, I won’t use any of it. I’ll do the piece on how you guys are having a break from music at the moment, but you’re going to be going back to it once Danger is back from wedded bliss. Right?”

“Yeah. We’re going to start recording again, then eventually we’ll do another round of touring to promote that album.”

“Okay, this is going to be great…” Her smile is so wide it makes me want to slap it right off her face, but I wouldn’t of course – I would never hit a woman. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t make me see red though. “Why aren’t you happy, Matt? This is a win-win for everyone! Can’t you see? I get a piece in Rolling freaking Stone, and you guys get an article slanted in your favor.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “Was this your angle all along?”

“No, I came in wanting to be with you, Matt. But I could see early, you were way too into someone else for it to go anywhere. So I made the decision to get as much out of you as possible and see where it could take me. It worked, hey?” Charlie’s so damn happy she’s bouncing up on her toes, and I screw my face up.

“It’s time for you to leave.”

“Okay, you’re angry, I get it. I do. But in time you’ll see this as a blessing, Matt.”

“Not fucking likely, Charlie. I thought Madeline was bad luck, seems like you’re even worse. Now get out,” I say grabbing her arm. She doesn’t fight or argue as we head to the door. Charlie picks up her bag on the way and simply walks with me.

Charlie turns to face me. “For the record, I think we could have been good together.”

“For the record, I don’t do conniving psychopaths.” I open the door, and she smirks walking through it.

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Contact Tillie Marks, she can handle everything from now on. I’ll let her know you’re doing a story on us, and she’ll give you everything you need. Don’t contact me again,” I say slamming the door in her face.

I take a deep breath and turn slamming my body against the door and clenching my eyes shut while scrubbing my hands against my face. “What the fuck!” I yell.

I bang my head against the door wondering how the fuck did my life get to this? Fangirls, hookers, thugs, crazy reporters? What the hell is next?

I’m not sure I can dive further in the wrong direction if I tried. Everything’s gone off course when I lost Alex. I feel like I’m breaking. After everything that’s been thrown my way, knowing that on top of everything else, the realization that I had Alex in my life and now I have nothing. I hardly have any friends at all at this stage including my own brother… I’m completely and utterly alone.

Trying to find the perfect ten was a ridiculous idea.

I see that now.

Three women I thought matched that criteria and one by one they got crazier as I went on. There’s no such thing as a perfect ten. I was so stupid. By having this idea of the exact woman I wanted in my mind, I pushed a version of the perfect woman away. Sure, she’s not the sophisticated and innocent looking woman I planned to have on my arm. Sure, she has tattoos and piercings. Sure, she has bright colored hair, swears like a sailor, and drinks like a man. But fuck if she isn’t the perfect ten for me.

What the fuck was I thinking?

It’s only when you’ve lost what you had, that you truly see it for what it was.

Alex was my friend, my best friend. I didn’t want to change that. But I fucked everything up by not realizing sooner that we were more, so much more. We had the potential to be something epic. One of those great loves. The ones that romance lovers dream about.

My heart is beating rapidly in my chest as her voice echoes in my mind. “To let me be happy, you have to let me go.”

I clench my jaw tight and smack my head back against the door again hard. I’ve fucked up. I know I have, and I want her to be happy but I’m fucking miserable, and this realization is coming way too late. It’s been nearly three weeks since I’ve spoken to Alex. It’s too long! I need something, anything, to tide me over. I’m a sinking ship. So I pull out my cell from my jeans and dial Nate’s number.

“Hey, you know it’s like stupid o’clock, right?” Nate tells me and I close my eyes trying to hold it together.

“Sorry, I’m just ah… I ah… I needed to talk to someone,” I murmur.

Nate’s quiet for a pause then I hear shuffling like maybe he’s sitting up in bed. “Matt, that sounded serious and your voice is kinda strained like you’re just holding it together.”

“I am only just holding it together, man,” I blurt out, and he exhales.

“Babe, I’m just gonna go to the living room, go back to sleep,” he murmurs obviously to Ria. I hear her mumble something incoherently in the background, and then there’s movement like he’s shifting around their home. “Matt, you wanna talk to me, tell me what’s going on?”

I sniff and exhale. “I’ve fucked up.”

“Okay, are you in trouble?”

Shaking my head, my bottom lip trembles and clench my eyes tight so they don’t water. “I think I’ve lost her man.”

He exhales and murmurs under his breath. “Alex?”

My chest tightens, and it’s hard to breathe. “Yeah.”

Nate sighs. “So she told you then?”

My eyes flick open, and my body jolts at his words. “Told me? No. I haven’t spoken to her since the fight? Told me what?” I ask, and he groans followed by a slapping sound as if he’s slapped his hand to his forehead. “Nate!”

He mumbles under his breath then blurts it out. “She’s moving. Alex was packing the last of her stuff tonight. She leaves tomorrow morning.”

All the air leaves my body, and I feel like a lead weight. My head spins while trying to take this in. “Wait she’s leaving, but what about your gallery?”

“She hired some pompous, arrogant ass. I hate him. But he knows what he’s doing so that’s all that matters, I suppose.”

“But I don’t… what… why?” I blabber, and Nate sighs.

“Because she has trouble looking at me, Matt. I remind her of you.”

Now I really feel awful. “Fuck! I have to fix this—”

“Hallelujah, finally one of you is seeing sense.”

“I gotta go,” I blurt out, and go to move even though my body feels like it’s been run over and weighs a ton. Maybe all this ice cream is affecting me.

“Matt, make this right. Get the girl. Fix this fucking mess. Okay?”

I nod in pure compliance. “She’s my perfect ten, Nate. I just couldn’t see it till now.”

“I know, brother, I know. I’ve known all along. Now stop talking to me and go to her.”

“Already on my way,” I say, reaching over to grab my keys as I walk out the door.