Page 35 of The Deviation
My life was never meant to be lived so loud.
The thunk of the door closing resounds through the room. “Hey, guys.”
My head snaps up. Ned’s hand is still on the knob as he stands there, his gaze darting between the three of us as he waits for our reaction to his arrival.
With a sigh of relief, Oz crosses the room to shake Ned’s hand. “Good to see you. We weren’t sure you’d be here.”
A small grin twists Ned’s features. “Neither was I for a while.”
Gavin greets him next and why the hell aren’t I moving? I should already be there begging for forgiveness or offering condolences on his trauma or some shit. Forcing myself to rise, I make my way over to him, hoping he’ll forgive me for being the shittiest friend in the whole fucking universe.
Before I have a chance to open my mouth, Ned lifts a hand to stop me. “Look, I’m sorry for being an arsehole the other night. I shouldn’t have taken off like that.”
I shouldn’t have ambushed him with my excitement for a level of exposure Ned has always made it abundantly clear he doesn’t want. “I don’t care about—”
“Hang on. Let me finish, okay?”
Apparently, he’s not going to let me apologise until he’s said his piece, so I nod. “Go ahead.”
Ned takes a deep breath before he speaks. “I’ll admit it’s taken me a long time to face up to what happened in Sydney with Zac. I’m not going into the details, obviously, but it was bad for me. He was bad for me.”
Guilt bites into me, but I refuse to allow my gaze to fall. I need to face up to what I’ve been putting Ned through with my demands.
“Since I came back, I’ve been hiding from everything I wanted, from life and from music. It’s time I stopped hiding. I’ve dreamed of being a musician from the time I picked up my first guitar, and now I am. We are. I want to own that title again, I want to run with it, without being scared of falling down. And I want Fifth Circle to go as far and as high as we can. Together.”
My heart stalls inside my chest, before sparking back to life with a painful jolt. The energy of the room, so gloomy and regretful moments ago, now vibrates with possibility. Ned’s words have changed everything.
Go as high and as far as we can? I want it, too. I want it so bad I can feel my soul expanding, willingly cutting itself on the constraints imposed by my real life.
“What do you say, Johnny?” Ned turns to me, away from the enthusiastic smiles of Gavin and Oz. “Forgive me?”
I look at him, really look, and for the first time in years I can see the fire in his eyes. The one that burned in him when we were young, before adulthood tried to destroy the dreams we were told we could never fulfill.
“You goddamned arsehole. What the fuck do you need to be forgiven for?” The words burst out of me as I gesture at him wildly. His shocked ‘huh?’ only makes me feel worse.
“I’m the one who should be sorry.” I smack a hand against my chest. “You were there for me when Ellie left and I was a freaking wreck. You were all there for me. I don’t know what I would have done without you lot.” Emotions clog up my throat and threatento escape through my eyes. Damn it, I need to stop being such a melodramatic prick. I turn back to Ned. “You were a true friend to me, and I should have been the same to you. I never should have pushed aside whatever you went through. It was selfish, and I’m sorry.”
Ned shakes his head, smiling as if I haven’t been yelling at him like a madman. “Don’t be. If you hadn’t pushed me, I never would have gotten past all the bullshit, and we’d never have the chance to move forwards.”
I’m not sure what that will look like yet… moving forwards… going far and high. But I know I’ll be there beside him for all of it. Fuck fame and fortune and festivals. As long as I have these men, and the music we create together, I don’t need anything else. Closing the last of the distance between us, I put a hand on Ned’s shoulder. “We’re in this together, right? We take care of each other. We have each other’s backs from now on. No matter what.”
Ned’s grin widens. “Yeah, we do.”
I launch myself at him and he grabs me in a fierce hug. “Welcome back, mate.” I smack a kiss on his cheek. The kind we usually exchange before a performance, when we’re hyped to the max.
He laughs out loud, giving me an enthusiastic back thumping. “It’s good to be here.”
When we part, my heart is lighter than it’s been in months, and my phone is halfway out of my back pocket before I realise my fingers are fixing to call Calum. It’s an urge I’ve managed to resist since he left my place on Saturday morning. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to discuss the band’s business with him anymore than I already had, and what other excuse would I have offered for calling? That I miss talking to him? That I crave his touch? That the need inside me has grown stronger after the taste he gave me? I’m in over my head, drowning, andfor all I know he’s only waist deep in this. So, yeah, I’ve preferred to hang on to what’s left of my dignity, thank you very much.
But this… this is the perfect excuse to reach out. Ned is back. There’s a chance everything could work out, and he could get his promotion. Except, I don’t know exactly what Ned’s vision for the future includes and I don’t want to risk turning this tide by asking. Despite the threat to Calum’s job, those questions will have to wait. Ned is my priority here.
I slide my phone back into my pocket as Ned opens the bag he came in with. “I’ve got a ton of new material to show you.” He pulls out a spiral book and a thick pile of papers covered in his messy scrawl.
Joy streaks through me at the sight. “Someone’s been busy.”
We all settle in to start sifting through what has to be some of the most creatively carefree writing Ned has produced in years. Seriously, the man has always been an outstanding lyricist, and together we’ve written songs that brought me to the edge of a freaking braingasm, but suddenly he’s reaching for a whole new level. I can’t wait to join him there.
I’m lost in re-reading one of Ned’s longer pieces, rearranging some of the lines in my head while the fingers of one hand toy with non-existent strings, when there’s another knock on the studio door. We all look up, but it’s Ned who rises from his chair to answer it. The rest of us stare in confusion as he greets whoever is on the other side with a total lack of surprise.