Chapter Fifteen
Elly
I sat in the green room and watched Tristan’s interview on the TV mounted up in the corner. When they asked about his sobriety, I was nervous for him. I know that he doesn’t like talking about it because he is afraid that it will inevitably lead to questions about his parents. Or, worse yet in Tristan’s eyes, someone will think of him as weak. To him, there would be no worse punishment. I could see on his face through the TV screen that he didn’t really want to answer it. I held my breath, waiting for him to speak. When he did, the tears came gushing out of my eyes so fast that I didn’t realize I was crying until they were rolling down my cheeks. He was saying things about me that he had said to me before….but not so eloquently. I wondered if he’d rehearsed it, if he’d planned on saying all of that. But, I decided that I didn’t care. What he said about a twelve year old saving him with her love, that was about me, I knew that for sure. I cried again when I heard him say that and I’m sure it won’t be the last time. Every time I thought about how proud he seemed to be of me up there when he talked about me and our little family and how he remembered that I was only twelve years old when I fell in love with him, I teared up all over again. All that time I was talking about how infatuated I was with him as a kid when we first got together, I would have sworn he was tuning me out.
I got up and left the green room. I didn’t like being in there alone and I suddenly wanted to be closer to Tristan. I asked the security officer where I could stand backstage and he showed me. I looked out at the small stage he was on and, just like what he’d said about the babies, I couldn’t stop looking at him. I couldn’t imagine my life without him and I loved him more every day. Even on a tiny little stage in front of a small audience of people, he was killing it. My beautiful husband was going to be immortal. No one would ever be able to forget he existed because his music was going to live on forever.
I listened to the words of the song he was singing. It was one I hadn’t heard before and it was about a “bad boy” who fell in love with a “good girl.” The chorus of the song talked about her being out of his league, the way Tristan had said it earlier about me. It’s a sweet song, but absolutely untrue where Tristan is concerned. I had problems and faults just like he did, or anyone else for that matter. The difference was that I’d had a great support system and Tristan had pretty much crap. I was glad we found each other so that I could be there for him, but I wasn’t taking credit for all the hard work he’d put in and all the growing up he’d done himself. He’d turned into a fine man, and since he’d had so many odds stacked against him, I thought he deserved extra credit.
He finished his song and then went back to talk to the ladies. They asked him some more questions about his record label and he talked some more about the babies, then they said good-bye and let him go. I was waiting for him so that as soon as he walked off the stage, I could tell him how much I appreciate him saying such nice things about me. He didn’t give me a chance. Instead of walking up to me, he walked into me. He walked up; put his hands on my hips and his face down close to mine. After shooting me another grin he put his lips against mine. He kissed me softly with his lips first all over my mouth before I felt the sliver of his tongue slip through. My own tongue didn’t even wait for directions; she hurriedly tangled herself up with his.
As we kissed, deeply and passionately, I lost all conscious thought of where I was or who I was with, except Tristan. He wasn’t the only one in the room…he was the only one in every room. When he broke the kiss he looked down into my eyes and I said, “Thank you for all of that out there. You know though that no matter who it had been that encouraged you to go to rehab, you did all of that work and you’ve stayed sober yourself.”
“I know. I’ll give myself credit for that, but I meant it…I think I would have died if you let me continue down the path I was on. If I hadn’t died, I’d at least be living on the streets, maybe banging on my guitar to get people to throw money in my case. I was an alcoholic, a drug addict and an all-around lousy, miserable person. By all rights, you should have run as far away from me as you could get…but you didn’t. You stuck it out and you saved my life.”
“I saved it for me,” I told him with a grin. Brandi was right not to argue with him, he never let anyone else win.
“I will never be able to tell you how glad I am that you did. I love you, Elly.”
I kissed him again and said, “I love you, too.”
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Alycia Taylor