jasper
Day 64
“I’m over this shit, man. You’re miserable. She’s made you miserable. I’ve had it, just cut this shit off and be done with her.”
“Parker!” Charlotte snapped at him.
The expression on her face mirrored the way I felt.
“I’m sorry, legs, but this has gone on long enough. We’re not making new music, he’s just moping around like a sack of shit all fuckin’ day. I’ve seriously had better conversations with that cat he’s got hanging around.”
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” I barked.
Parker dropped his favourite guitar down onto the couch. He never treated that thing with anything other than the utmost respect, so he must have been at the very end of his tether right now.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand his frustration.
I get it.
I was a waste of space right now. Every day was blending into the next and I was passing by in a blur of coffee, takeout and booze.
I was back smoking every day again too, and I hated myself for it.
Lotte despised my dirty little habit too.
Lately she seemed to appear out of thin air every time I went out for a cigarette, and if she wasn’t lecturing me about dying young, she was sitting there giving me a death stare in the hopes that I’d put it out.
I watched Parker as he paced the room back and forth – the way he always did when he was frustrated.
I felt bad that he was stressing about me, but there was no way in hell I was giving up on Hannah.
No fuckin’ way.
“Park, man, just take a breath.”
“I feel like I don’t even know you right now. You’re a shell of the man you were.”
“Maybe I’m not that guy anymore.” I shrugged.
“Like hell you’re not,” he growled. “She’s just sucked the life out of you.”
I got to my feet. I may have appeared calm, but my emotions were all over the place.
I knew Parker meant well, and he wasn’t exactly wrong. I did feel like the life had been sucked out of me.
I did feel sorry for the guy too.
He had it tough right now. He was having to deal with not only me, but Lotte as well. She kept up a strong façade around me, but I knew she was hurting too.
She missed her best friend.
Parker had her to comfort at home, and me to deal with outside of it.
His life probably wasn’t exactly enjoyable right now, but that didn’t mean I was going to take his criticisms of my girl lying down.
“Enough, Parker.”
“No, you know what, J? It’s not enough. I’ve stayed quiet for the past six weeks, but it’s time you faced facts, both of you,” he glanced between Charlotte and me, “she’s not coming back, I don’t have any fuckin’ clue why she left in the first place, but she’s clearly not coming back and you two need to start getting on with your lives.”
Get on with my life?
Fuck that.
She is my life.
“Rock star, you need to shut up,” Lotte snapped at him. “You don’t know Hannah like we do. She’s… insecure… you probably can’t even begin to understand that, but we can, and at the very least you need to respect it.”
I didn’t know what I wanted to do first – knock Park into next week for being such a colossal douche, or grab Lotte in a giant bear hug for being the kind of loyal friend that Hannah needed.
Parker snorted. “Oh, cut the crap… If there’s one thing I know about Hannah Montgomery, it's that she is NOT lacking in confidence. This isn't an insecurity issue, legs; this is a ‘being stupid as fuck’ issue.”
Charlotte looked at him like she was genuinely disappointed in him, and my need to punch him evaporated into thin air.
Nothing would cut him as deep as the look his wife was giving him.
“Well, rock star, that's exactly where you'd be wrong. I know insecurity. I've felt it, and I sure as hell know how to spot it in my best friend.... Hannah comes across as being confident and self assured, and in some areas of her life, she really is those things, but most of the time, it's a front.”
She was so right.
Hannah put up her walls the same way I did, the only difference was the type of shield we used.
“She’s playing games with him, Lotte,” Parker replied. His angry, certain voice had morphed into something unsure and hurt.
Charlotte shook her head at him. “She's just a scared little girl under that beautiful face, that smart mouth and that loud voice. She's lacked what she considers to be unconditional love in her life, Parker, so when she does get it, she freaks out. You might not realise how big of a step it was for her to let Jasper into her life in the first place, but I know. He knows. Other than me, she's never let anybody in, not really...”
A lump formed in my throat as I listened to Charlotte speak. She knew Hannah so well.
“So, the only thing that needs to happen right now, is that you need to stop being so judgemental and think about why she's doing this, rock star, because I promise you this is not a game to her.”
She turned and hugged me before stomping her way out of the room, right past her husband.
“Charlotte!” Parker called after her.
He winced as he heard the sound of my front door slamming.
“Well, I just got told,” he mumbled.
I stared hard at him, not trusting myself to reply just yet.
“Fuck, man, I know this is hard… and I’m sorry.” He ran his hand through his dark hair. “I’m trying to be supportive, I really am… but you’re my best friend, Jasper. You’re my brother and I hate seeing you like this.”
I hate seeing me like this too.
He looked down at the ground. “I’m scared for you. I don’t know what will happen to you if you never get her back... and I’m mad as hell, because you shouldn’t have had to go through this in the first place.”
He scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand and I realised he was tearing up.
I breathed in deep and tried to blink back the tears that were forming in my own eyes.
“I’ll find her, Park… I have to.”
He nodded, his gaze still on the floor.
“Can you do something…? Just do anything. I don’t care if you don’t want to play with me right now, but I need you to do something about it. Get on the bike and go looking… fuck, I don’t know, make some calls or whatever… ever since the show you’ve given up trying, but you haven’t let go... you need to make a choice and then do something about it.”
He was right. I’d moped around long enough.
I wasn’t going to find her sitting around on this couch with my cat.
It was time to stop being a depressed sack of shit and start looking again.
“And for the love of god, stop gambling, you suck at it.”
He wasn’t wrong there either.
That was just another thing that wasn’t the same without Hannah.