23
Having No One
~Claire~
Merry Christmas, Noah.
[…] Dad flew in for Christmas and brought me a surprise. Kyle! It was so good to see him. He’s doing well in school. You should see the sleeves on his arms. The guy looks like a work of art. All Max’s studio art, of course, in commemoration of him. Still no girlfriend, but he and Signora Gelardi’s granddaughter, Giuliana, were eyeing each other over dinner tonight, much to Signora Gelardi’s disappointment. It was funny to watch all the tension at the table.
And I had a date tonight. I hate to admit that it’s the first one since you left, but it is what it is. I want to say it’s because I’ve been too busy, but I could never lie to you. And maybe I’m hoping that, by telling you, you will rush in like a knight in shining armor and rescue me, and then we can live happily ever after. But fairy tales aren’t real.
His name is Jesse. He’s British, which I can’t help loving his accent. And he works with me. The date went well, just a walk along the river and stopping to hear the Christmas bells from the churches. I loved that part. Magical. He is the composer’s intern, and I haven’t made company yet at the opera house, so we weren’t needed at work tonight. I kind of like not having responsibilities like that.
You should be happy to hear that while the date went well, and he did kiss me at the end of it, I couldn’t help hurrying to my room to write to you …
March 14, 2012
When are you going to show up? When are you going to put us out of our misery and let us know if you are alive or dead? I am so conflicted right now and could use my best friend: you. Despite everything, you are still my best friend. I will always, always love you …
It’s more than that …
I slept with Jesse last night, and now I feel so damn guilty, and I have no reason to be. No. Reason! You left me. You are probably sleeping with hundreds of women and not me. So why do I feel like I am cheating on you? Why can I not feel any of the passion I felt with you with him? What makes you so damn special!
May 1, 2012
Happy 21st Birthday, Noah!
How does it feel to be able to drink legally? Not that you were ever much of a drinker before, but, who knows? Times change, right? People change. Like me. I love wine now. How can you live in Italy and not appreciate it?
I wish you all the happiness in the world for your birthday. Be safe.
Loves,
Claire
October 2, 2012
[…] Jesse proposed, but I couldn’t go through with it. I love him, but I’m not in love with him. His gesture was so romantic, too. He got down on his knee in the middle of the road and asked in front of a crowd of people, and all I could do was shake my head, holding back tears of embarrassment and sorrow that I couldn’t say yes. I couldn’t. Something held me back. I don’t know…
After the boos, which Jesse came to my defense and told everyone we had just started dating, lying to save me, he took me into a café where we had a serious conversation. He made me keep the ring, saying when I was ready to just wear it, but I don’t know if that will ever be possible. I told him that, yet the man is stubborn and now things are back to how they were before the proposal.
The ring sits on my desk, in front of me right now. It’s beautiful, exactly something I would pick for myself. But how can I put on an engagement ring when I still wear the pendant you gave me? [ …] I can’t. I simply cannot.
September 27, 2012. Remember that date as the day another man asked me to marry him. A man worthy, yet I am not. How can I be true to him when you are still in my heart? [ …]
Claire
P.S. Is it a sign that Angel knocked the ring off my desk and now I can’t find it?
November 22, 2012
Happy Thanksgiving!
Time is slipping by. The opera is mid-season, and we’ve had a great year. Everyone is saying that the numbers are double from previous years, and I got moved up to lead! I can’t believe it! I want to throw up whenever I’m on stage, but I am LEAD!
The downfall is that I don’t have a lot of fans in the company. Being the newest and youngest member, not too many lifers are happy. However, I commit to being thoughtful to all and hope for the best. Kill them with kindness, right? It’s working for the most part. And it helps that Jesse has been with the company for years and is supportive. [ …] It will get better. I know it.
And I have been interviewed by newspapers and magazines from all over the world! Do you know how nerve-racking that is? Signora Gelardi has a friend who works in PR who has been teaching me what to say. It’s all so exciting yet nauseating at the same time. I’m also afraid to mess up, and I never have “me time” anymore.
In fact, I must go on stage in half an hour.
March 3, 2013
We finished the season last night. It was the best one in over a decade. I’m on such a high right now! I’m literally shaking just writing this. I smiled brighter than I have in years. My face literally hurts from the smiling. I can’t believe I went from dropping out of the Manhattan School of Music to this! I don’t care if I ever get to sing on a bigger stage; I am too happy here. I wish my dad was closer. Your family, too.
Before I forget; my dad started seeing someone. He hasn’t told me anything, but Katy saw him on a date a few weeks back. I keep forgetting to mention it. I am so happy for him. I hope she’s nice, cares for him. I don’t want him to be alone anymore.
July 25, 2013
Signora Gelardi passed away. I know I mentioned it before, but she’s been sick for a long time now. She kept fading away, leaving the house less and less, leaving her chair less and less, yelling at everyone less and less. Giuliana found her. […] That was over a month ago.
I couldn’t stay in her family’s home anymore, so I am renting my own place now. We were never supposed stay there forever. Just too busy to move. Now I feel like I don’t belong. Signora Gelardi’s son insisted we stay, but I can’t. So, once again I feel like I’m running away from ghosts.
Her service was lovely. She would have liked it. So many people showed up. Famous ones, too. Yeah, Signora Gelardi would have been very pleased. God, I miss her.
Dad flew in for it and stayed a week. I can’t tell you how good it was to see him. It’s been since Christmas. You know Dad, he can never get away from work.
I did get the details on his love life. He has been dating, but there hasn’t been a woman who appeals to him. He’s enjoying the dating scene. In fact, he’s gone on quite a few dates and has even brought some of them to those fancy dinners he used to drag me to. He seems happy, which makes me happy. At least there is some good news in this letter.
Wishing you were here.
December 15, 2013
Kyle is staying with us for the rest of the month. Him and Giuliana are pretty close now. I’ve accepted the fact that he doesn’t come here to see us anymore, just Giuliana. He’s staying with me this time, though. No more crashing at the Gelardi’s house. Giuliana is at my place most of the time, anyway …
I have been with the Italian Opera House for over two years now, which has been such a great fit for me. Years of singing Italian meant mastering the language in no time. I feel like a native, conversing with the best of them. And the food, the culture, the history, it makes living here a dream. I feel like I made the best decision when I took up Signora Gelardi’s offer to move here.
She was back to being my tutor, never going soft on me, something I admire and am grateful for. I don’t want anyone being gentle with me. I want the criticism. I want the hard hand and hard words. I would take a whipping if it meant I became a stronger person. And I do feel stronger every day, musically and as a person. I am finally able to stand by myself, never behind someone. Chelsea was right; it was a good thing Noah walked away.
However, now Signora Gelardi is dead. It’s been six months, and I am still so heartbroken. Both my mother and the woman who was a mother to me are dead. I can’t get over it.
After sitting back and playing understudy for a year, all my hard work and Signora Gelardi’s grueling tutoring paid off. I am in my second year of being the lead, singing several nights a week, working several different operas in one year. It’s above and beyond rewarding, and time consuming. So time consuming. Signora Gelardi made my dreams come true.
Then there is Jesse Page to contend with. Jesse is the opposite of Noah in every way. Physically, he is auburn-haired, green eyes, tall, and thin yet muscled. He comes from an old English family, aristocrats, and has manners imbedded in him. He is sweet, but a tad spoiled. We met as soon as I moved here and slowly started a relationship while working together on a project I started back in college.
When he proposed to me, I wanted to throw up. While we were in a relationship, a physical one at that, I didn’t think I was giving him the I’m-serious-about-you vibes. We never talked about where we wanted to go. We never even said how we felt about each other. Therefore, him proposing completely blindsided me. I’m not there yet. And I don’t think I will ever be there with Jesse.
He is great, takes care of me, we work well together, but marriage? I’m only twenty-one—was twenty when he proposed—I don’t want to think of marriage right now. I have a career to focus on, responsibilities. I can’t make that kind of a decision, especially with someone I know I can’t live with. There is too much stacked against him in my mind.
While having sex with Jesse, I realized something. Sex can be good with him, but it’s not great, because it’s not with Noah. Sex with someone you don’t love isn’t the all-consuming, powerful, encompassing passion you read about in books unless it’s with the one you feel all consuming, powerful, encompassing love with. I never understood that before. Noah was my first, so I thought sex was always that good. But it’s not. The sex you read about in books is between two people who have the love me and Noah had.
It’s now going on thirty-eight months of no word or sign of Noah. I think the unspoken concession is that he is dead. I don’t believe it, though. Not Noah. He is out there somewhere. I don’t know what he is doing, but he is out there.
Everyone stopped looking for him once Max’s lead went cold. I don’t even mention him anymore. It’s been over three years. I’m supposed to be over it by now, forgotten about him. That’s what everyone wants for me. But I haven’t.
My heart still aches for him, though I will never admit that out loud. No one needs to know how weak I still am over that man. Or, well, the dream of him. How I wake up crying into my pillow after dreams of all we lost. How I think how different life would be if we were still together.
One word, Noah. Just one word and maybe this pain will go away.
I still religiously write to him. Sometimes I won’t write for a couple of weeks, sometimes I write a few times a week. That’s my only link to him. It feels robotic yet therapeutic to write to him.
The memory of him is slipping away, and my feelings are changing, like he is only a dream I chase around, but now the dream is fading and reality has set in. I look back all the time, reliving our year that felt like a forever in my mind. So many memories … One year in my twenty-one years of life, but God, it seems like a lifetime. Remembering the way his eyes lit up on his birthday when he saw I had a present for him; the longing stares in our senior year classroom, waiting to get out of school and just be the two of us; the way his mouth quirked up on one side on the rare occasions he told a joke; the laughter that lit up his whole face when my laughing was addicting and he would catch it; the heat in his eyes when we made love …
God, I miss him. I miss the idea of him. I miss all the times we would fall asleep in each other’s arms, entwined, his leg between mine, mine between his, his arm as my pillow, one resting on my hip, my hand over his heart, feeling each thump, while my other arm fell asleep beneath me. Waking up with him on me, the opposite of how we fell asleep, his face buried in my neck, his hand cupping my breast, my arms wrapped around his back, our legs still entwined. Always entwined.
I miss the whispering conversations whenever someone was around, lost in each other and our talks of life—past, present, future—our dreams, memories, daily events, likes and dislikes, movies, TV, books, music, and so much more. We talked about everything, never afraid to share anything with one another.
I miss our adventures. Our walks in the woods, camping, swimming in lakes, splashing through creeks, teaching Noah how to fish, riding his bike, sitting in Aunt Katy’s truck and watching the clouds pass by, staring at the sun. God, those days were so innocent.
Then New York. Noah taking me everywhere, sometimes more than once, showing me his old haunts; watching him perform, tinges of jealousy at the rabid girls wanting his attention, the beautiful satisfaction and glee when he came straight to me every time, no one else in his eyes, no one else getting a second glance. I could breathe more freely after that, never noticing I held my breath every time he finished a set and made his way off the stage and through the crowd … to me. I smile now, thinking about the adoring look in his eyes.
At this point, I’m afraid of him returning. So much has changed. I have changed. Noah must have changed. What if, if he does come back, we will never get to that place we were before? I know we can’t, so I don’t know why I still hope. Well, I do know why. Still, it will all be different, and that thought scares me in ways that nothing in my life scared me before.
“Earth to Claire.”
I look up to see Jesse waving his hand in my face. I haven’t heard a word he said since he came in, distracted with trying to finish up dinner and picking up around the house. I was aware of him following me around, his energy high, but I am too distracted.
Working, domesticating, and trying to sustain a relationship is getting to be too much. I can’t give up the first two, which means the third needs to end. However, I don’t know how to do this. Jesse is great, but he isn’t for me. How do I tell him that without hurting him? I can’t cut him out of my life completely. I work with him. He’s become a part of my little family.
This is so hard.
I toss a bunch of things in a designated bin in the living room before rushing back to the kitchen to check the casserole, Jesse still following me.
“Have you heard anything I said?” he asks with this excited exasperation in his voice that makes me finally look at him.
I close the oven then lean back against the cabinets, giving him my undivided attention. He looks more excited than I have ever seen him; a wide smile on his face, his eyes animated. What did I miss?
I place my hands behind me, gripping the edge of the counter. “I must have zoned out. What did you say?”
He mistakes my actual confusion for shock, thinking whatever news he gave me has befuddled me. I can tell by the way his smile grows, by the way he reaches out and holds my biceps like he needs to support me.
“I said,” he says slowly, “the Metropolis Opera House wants to buy our idea—your idea,” he quickly corrects himself, “and they want you to lead the auditions. They want you to produce the opera. They want you to market and promote the idea. They want you, Claire.” He laughs then, joy bursting out of him. “The largest, most famous opera house in the world wants us!”
He has my complete and undivided attention now.
I am shocked stupid, confused. How did they hear about my idea? How are they aware of—
“What did you do?” I accuse, all the pieces fitting together.
We have been working on a new opera together for the past two years. It’s an idea I came up with in college for a class. I started writing the music myself during my free time, using the piano, something I dove into after Noah left. I remember once having a conversation about it with him that always stuck with me.
“I bet you’re being modest.”
“No, really. I can’t even play by memorization. I have to read the music. And songs that should be fast are slow because I don’t have the dexterity to make my hands do two separate things at once.”
“So, you can’t pat your head and rub your tummy?”
Ever since that conversation, and after seeing Noah’s relationship with his guitar, I always wanted to expand my music and learn more. The piano was my goal, and I am doing great. Then Jesse stepped in and took over the composition while I worked on scenes and lyrics.
The focus of the opera is to get kids involved in the art. My sales pitch is, if we can bring in the kids, then we can bring in the parents, expanding the range of audience. Right now, and for a long time now, only a certain clientele came to the opera, mostly a populace of fifty years and older. Getting kids interested builds our viewers and will put opera back in the public’s eye.
Therefore, our opera is bringing fairy tales back to life. And I’m not talking about the princess type of fairy tales portrayed on television. I worked with the original ones that everyone has forgotten. Sarah and Anthony helped a lot with that. They introduced me to stories from different cultures they came across over the years. Old stories that you can only find in the depths of history. Every scene is based off a different story. There are so many, we can write and compose an entire series, something we have already started. We have three so far, but the goal is ten. That’s how many I have outlined.
We agreed to wait until we were done with all ten before discussing what we would do with them, but now I realize that Jesse didn’t go home to visit his parents two months ago. He didn’t leave this past weekend to visit his sister in France, either. He went to New York. He took my idea to sell it.
I feel downright betrayed. Not only did he sell my idea, he kept it from me. Lied to me. Why? Because he knew I would be upset. This is my baby, and he took it and ran with it without talking to me.
Before he can say a word, I turn off the oven and walk away, pain shooting throughout my head.
“How can you be upset with this?” Jesse accuses as he follows me into the bathroom where I fill a glass with water to down the little pill I desperately need right now.
I swallow the pill then sigh, trying to calm down. “How can I not? Jesse, you went behind my back. It’s not even ready—”
“It’s ready enough,” he practically whines, following me to the laundry room where I take a load of towels out of the drier. Angel curls around my leg before she heads toward her food. “You have all the scenes laid out, lyrics done. Now other people can finish the rest. You don’t have to worry about this in your free time anymore. It’s sold!”
His last words freeze me in my tracks.
“It’s what?” I put my hands up like I’m telling him to back off. “You said, they want us. They want our idea.” I pause, at a loss of words. “Now you’re saying it’s sold? You sold it!”
Jesse doesn’t have much going for him right now, but at least he looks sheepish. Guess he didn’t mean for that to come out of his mouth.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, looking intently into my eyes, that spoiled, selfish side coming out, daring me to tell him no. “I closed the deal this weekend; negotiated to finish the season with our company. We are due in New York by April.”
“You son of a bitch.” I’m seething, so angry at him. Never has he pulled something like this.
Greed. That’s what this is. He is tired of being an intern, and I get that. But forcing me back to that city … He has no idea what he has done to me.
“Claire …” He deflates. Good. I hope he realizes how much he messed up. “This is going to be such a great thing. Why aren’t you happy? Don’t you want to go home? Be closer to your dad, your friends? What is this about?”
For starters, you haven’t even apologized, I want to say. Instead, I tell him, “I don’t want to be in that city. I like it here. We’re happy here.” This is my life, my idea, I can be as stubborn as I want.
Jesse gets this inquisitive look in his eyes before he asks, “Is this about—”
“Partly,” I admit, knowing what he was about to ask. He asks it all the time, whenever I get in one of my moods, whenever the past catches up to me. “Mostly it’s that this is home for me now. We’re happy here.”
Giving up on getting laundry done since this conversation has wiped me of all energy, I make my way back to the living room where I sink onto the couch.
Jesse is still following, still trying to argue his case, talking about the paperwork I need to sign, the apartment I still have that we can stay in. On and on and on, and no apology yet. I can’t listen to him.
“Jesse,” I sigh, turning toward him where he sits next to me. “I can’t do this with you anymore. What you did … I … I have no words. You broke my trust.” He tries to cut me off, but I talk over him. “What’s done is done. I’ll go with you to New York. I will read over the paperwork. I will even move there and do what needs to be done.” Not like I have much a choice since he already sold it, and backing out now, just to turn around in a few years and try then won’t promise anything. They will more than likely shut me down for shutting them down now.
“You’re right; this is my dream, and thank you for making it happen, even prematurely. But …” God, why is this so hard? “You’re not living with us. I don’t want to continue a relationship with you. I’m sorry.”
I say sorry, but I don’t feel sorry. I’m not sorry for ending it. Hurting him, yes. Now, though, I can’t feel it. He went too far with this. And it was a long time coming. Relief is all I feel.
He gave me the out I needed.
~Noah~
I am losing my shit. Three years without seeing Claire, and after the first six months, I wanted to turn around, beg her to take me back, apologize until my throat bled, and grovel and worship at her feet. I am the biggest asshole. The stupidest, gutless, most selfish son of a bitch.
When I saw Claire and Troy hugging in that window, I felt betrayed. At the time, I thought she needed a night to be alone with her mother’s things. Then I saw Troy, and the only thought in my head was she lied to me about coming to my show so she could hide the fact she was with him.
After months of stewing, running from my nightmares of Claire by going back to my old ways, doing things I can’t even admit to myself, I realized how wrong I was. Claire wouldn’t lie to me. Troy being there was a coincidence. He probably surprised her as much as he did me. Their embrace wasn’t romantic. It was comfort. Claire was grieving, and her friend was there to console her. I’m the biggest idiot in the world.
I took advantage of the misunderstanding. I let my fear control me. I threw away what Chris told me, about how Claire and I balance each other out, how we are perfect together, how I needed to accept it as it is and not think the whys or hows. I twisted his words around until all I could see was that I wasn’t right for her. Then I proved it by taking off, screwing around, drowning in my selfishness.
I drove and drove for months, never staying in one place for more than a few weeks. I got solo gigs set up wherever I went, sometimes even playing street corners. Then, six months after I left, I cashed out the rest of my money and headed west, all the way west, as far from temptation as I could get.
Once there, I straightened myself out. I started school, not that I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be better, not accept the easy life. I also continued performing solo under a different name and got a job on campus to help pay for tuition.
For the next two years, my world revolved around school. Associate’s in General Education was out of the way, and I was on to my Bachelors. No parties. No drinking. No drugs. No girls.
Then, this past summer, my world changed again. I was playing at a spot I frequented, a small bar right off campus, when a man in a business suit came right up, shook my hand, and introduced himself as a representative to the biggest music label in the business. Blown away is an understatement.
Turns out that the guy had followed me for years after hearing me months after I moved out here. He found out my schedule, showed up to multiple shows, took note of all my songs, and invited some executives to listen to me play. One set and they told him to bring me on.
Here’s the kicker. I didn’t want to be in a band anymore. I played for me these days. The extra money didn’t hurt, but I didn’t want to compete in an ever-changing business. Therefore, we settled for songwriting.
Karma never felt more real. I can’t help touching the bracelet at that thought.
I signed a contract, went into their gigantic, awe-inspiring building, into one of their dream studios, and recorded every one of my songs, even the ones from back in high school. In weeks, I was receiving contracts, setting up royalty payments from artists who couldn’t get enough of my stuff. All those songs I wrote about Claire, our relationship, our breakup, missing her, how I feel about her, everyone got that shit and wanted to sing about it themselves.
I was so happy I wanted to call Claire, have her share in my joy, my success. I picked up the phone to do that, just to get slammed back to reality that we weren’t like that anymore. I didn’t even know where she was, what she was doing. I didn’t know anything about her anymore, if she even had the same number.
I couldn’t call anyone. I had isolated myself from my family and friends for so long that I was afraid they didn’t even want to hear from me anymore. I was all alone. I only had my music. So, I wrote about my feelings.
I sold my feelings for the world to hear what a piece of shit I am, how I threw away the best thing that had happened to me, the person who knew me better than anyone. I sold my feelings about running from my family because I was afraid of what they thought of the mistakes I had made. I sold my feelings about the bandmates I had left behind. About little Abby who was probably all grown up now. I wrote and wrote and continued to sell pieces of my soul. And that’s where I am today.
I continue with school, now studying music production since I have the start of a career in it. I still live in the same shithole I rented a room from when I moved here, living with three other guys. I’m never home. I never socialize with them. I don’t even eat there. It’s only a place to sleep at night. I spend all my free time in the studio, and sometimes I crash there, too. Their couch is much more comfortable than my bed.
I don’t know where to go from here, if there is anywhere else to go. I know I need to go home soon, let everyone know I am alive. I owe them that much. I don’t know what to do about Claire.
Did she finish her degree in three years like she planned? Did she get picked up by a company? Has she moved on?
I want to look her up so badly; see if there is any news of her. Maybe she’s on social media now? I can’t bring myself to look. I’m scared shitless of what I will find. I have regular nightmares of finding out she ended up with Troy after all, that I pushed them together. I left her when she was at her lowest, the day after she had lost her mom. What if one of her guy friends became a comfort to her when I wasn’t there? Shit, what if she turned to one my own bandmates? If I find that her and Chris hooked up, I would probably puke.
Nevertheless, one of these days, I need to get up the nerve to go home and find out. I need to face my mistakes, and then learn how to move on. I need to apologize for worrying everyone, for disappearing like I did, for not even making one phone call. I have a lot to make up for, but today is not the day. Tomorrow won’t be either.
Soon.