Page 103 of All That Remains
"Babe..."
“Do you even realize what you're doing to my head?" I wept. "Do you have any fucking clue?"
"None of this is good for us, babe. That’s my entire point. Even when we’re together or makin’ love. It’s sick and addictive and shameful. We feel terrible afterwards. It makes us paranoid—desperate. It’s unhealthy, Rafe…and deep down, you know it too. We were past this. We saw how everythin’ happened before. The pain, the violence…long before Mila."
"It could be different now…"Fuck’s sake, was it really over? Again? Was he really choosing her over me? I couldn’t catch my breath.
"If we keep tellin' ourselves that—pretending it could be different, even though it never is…how can we ever be honest? And besides…I can't just do that to her. Just cast her aside. It wouldn’t be right."
We were already fighting. He got up and went into the lounge and messed around with his phone. To avoid having to call the cleaning crew back out, I cleaned up as much of the sloshed coffee as I could, and picked up the broken bits of ceramic. God, I was sick of the back and forth. Sick of not knowing where we stood. At this point, I wanted the bullshit to end more than I wanted he and I to continue. I didn't want to go back down this path with him, because it was clear that like last time, I would become roadkill.
I needed to focus on myself, my music, my career—the Spielberg thing. Why was I sitting here going through all this shit all over again? What did he have to offer that was any different from before?Always a whoppingnothing. Zero assurances. Just a new way of sneaking around behind someone else’s back. For as much as I loved him, Ifuckingdespised his impotence and everything we’d become. Time to give this thing one swift merciful blow to the temple and have done with it.
We mutually concluded he needed to go back to her, at least for now. Allow tensions to cool. This tug of war would only serve to damage the three of us. For now, forhim, I would stomach the loss. Again, I would be the sacrificial lamb, suffering in silence so that he could live in peace. At least in this scenario, only one of the three got hurt.In an excruciating bout of deja vu, Iconceded, allowing him to walk out of my life for a second time. He fought me on it for a while, then came to his senses and realized I was offering him an out.
Before I knew it, he was out the door. There was no emotional goodbye. No plans for the future. We would take everything in stride, accepting reality as it came. No forethought because it never did us any good anyway. No strings for the exact same reason.
My only consolation was that we were no longer estranged. I could pick up the phone and dial him anytime, and that madeall the difference. As his car headed down the driveway, the shutting gate offered a strange sense of closure.
32
After spending the following afternoon with producer friends, I found myself cruising around Malibu alone and trying to string together the events of the previous few days. Each time I tried to recount my ecstasy, I saw her rage. Each time I tried to recount the whisper of his kisses, I felt the scrapes on my arms and my banged-up shin. Each time I tried to remember the sound of his voice, his laughter, the stories we'd shared—all I heard were her screams, pealing out of the darkness like some ultrasonic war cry.
I veered along PCH, windows down and music off because bits of prospective lyrics called to me. I drifted beyond the roar of the ocean in search of them. I tried piecing the words together like a withered jigsaw, forcing them into any semblance of coherence. I’d been distracted for too long. The apprehension of my upcoming album had vanished while I was in his care. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d utterly neglected to write a single new song. Or that I was devoid of a band, a sound, an aesthetic—direction. His presence had provided a fraudulent sense of fullness, leaving me complacent when I should’ve been hyper-focused.
Rome had that way about him. It was rare that he let anyone in, so if he chose you, you went without hesitation and questioned nothing. Following him into a potential lapse in good judgment. Acquiescence became my only personality trait whenwe were together. With one touch, one gaze, he could coerce me to forget everything.
Now that he was gone, the pit returned to my stomach. It reformed the minute I entered discussions for signing a multimillion-dollar deal with Columbia Records that morning. John didn't waste time. He knew the success of my solo career hinged on how I optimized the aftermath of Invicta’s disbanding. If I acted too late, the momentum would be squandered, and I'd flop historically.
Already he'd helped me book a gig in a highly anticipated film project to be released the following year, and several fashion and cosmetic campaigns were waiting in the wings, years in advance. It was his goal to have my debut album land around the same time as the series to ensure'optimum exposure', as he called it. That left me on an impossible timetable for filming and fostering the creative energy to do music. And if I didn't create something remarkable, the world would deride me as a talentless hack who'd gotten away with riding the coattails of my four counterparts for years.
I set out to prove the naysayers wrong. I thought of them daily and what they would spew in all manner of circumstance. What would the headlines promulgate? What would the other boys say if I were to fail on my own, having deserted them to followhim? They'd say it was karma, no doubt. The headlines would maim.Ralph Rawlings: Unprecedented Flop. Made the Biggest Mistake of His Life by Leaving Invicta. Couldn't Hack It Alone. Moves Back In With His Parents.
The pressure was unparalleled. The only other person who could relate was Roman Jacobs, since he'd undergone the process first. The expectations for him had been far more intense than they were for me, because he had the balls to step away first and trash our music in the process. Now he was over the hill of expectation, and I watched him go from the otherside, afraid to follow. He had a smash hit; a number one single that had broken countless records for charts and sales, and I knew he couldn't be more relieved. He had proven his ability and could rest at ease, knowing the remainder of his output would be received with the same enthusiasm.
I, however, suffered the added pressure of being the most recognizable name from the group. It was a double-edged sword—like being voted both Prom Kingand Most Likely to Succeed, leaving me desperate to live up to the hype. I tried to maintain humility in all things, but it would be remiss of me to ignore how I’d managed to become the most renowned member of the group—that is, before Rome left and set fire to the world. His success story was a precedent; a bullseye I must aim for on top of making music that wouldn't be derivative or forgettable.
Early evening descended and the shore was set ablaze in the golden hour. Ghostly refrains followed me. Lyrical fragments, unspeakable sentiments, ungodly memories. They wouldn't leave me be. At one point I pulled over on the side of the mountain to speak ardently into a voice note. I missed him dreadfully. I couldn't stop thinking of him pulling away, zooming down my driveway out of sight.
I recalled waking him up a day ago, and the way his face softened into a weary smile. "Perfect..." I murmured. Was there any better way to describe him? His smile, his heavily fringed eyes. Every ounce of him lacking fault. Every bit inspiring an unremitting adoration that made it unbearable to be without. Though I must. And there was no idea whether I would see him again. We'd talked and talked for hours, trying to figure it all out, but the only tenable solution remained letting him go. Yet another talk about where it’s going wrong. Fuck’s sake, we’d had a lot of those.
I considered the places we might end up in the next few months or years, in these jet-setting careers,apartfrom eachother; but it was tiresome to think of him in that light. Outside of me. Away from me. Never to speak of him in interviews. Never to attend the same events. Avoiding each other all over Hollywood and damnation, as though our existences were mutually exclusive.
I wasn't sure of much, particularly where things were headed, but I knew where we belonged. And I prayed the universe would be about bringing this to fruition. I murmured another potential lyric into the phone, the refrain piecing itself together and tumbling from my lips.
A semi-truck flew by and rocked the car so soundly I snapped out of my creative zone. I gazed around and remembered I was pulled over on the side of the highway, and that it was getting late. By the time I'd gotten home, the rest of the song came to me, and I sat at my desk in nothing but my briefs.
I thought back to the start and saw his bunk at school, lying in quiet defiance across from mine. We'd just moved to London and were all five crammed into a single room for many months. At best it was a pigsty. At worst, it was a cesspit for hormonal adolescents that emanated weird odors. Also, constant revelry, as we could never keep quiet. We were the worst of our kind; boys who'd forgotten all manner of home training the minute we were liberated from the scrutiny of our mothers.
No one complained about the conditions of the war zone more than Rome. For more reasons than one, he annoyed me deeply back then, and in hindsight it was easy to distinguish most of that stemmed from my hatred of his relationship witha female classmate. Beyond that, my distaste for him was the result of misapprehension and curiosity.And maybe a mild intimidation—all things that I, of course, projected onto him.
Mostly because I couldn'tunderstandhim. I was envious that he'd chosen to spend his spare time with someone outside of the group, instead of goofing off with us in our downtime. Alex and Igrew closer day by day, and although I spent a fair share of time with our female housemates as well, I had reserved my nights and my wars for Rome.
Waiting to hear his music blaring from his headphones became my nightly ritual, so that I had a reason to complain. Anything to draw him out of his square and onto common ground to parley. Even if it was only to tell me to‘fuck off’as he so often had.The mystery he cultivated around himself by being so indifferent and withdrawn grated my nerves. Why did he get to be moody and mysterious? I was an open book. Everyone in the house knew everything about me. So, it felt like an outrage that he bore the intellectual and emotional depth to bereserved.
Who exactly did he think he was? I'd asked that question a thousand times over the last few years. And of course, that led to me believing he thought lowly of me, but I see now it took him longer to warm up to strangers than I did. He was an introvert through-and-through.
He could be a priss about his bathroom items. Very moody and territorial. He was lazy in the mornings and took too long in the bathroom, running out all the hot water. He was vain, of course—obsessed with looking at his own reflection and fussing over his hair. He liked to ride in the car with the windows down, and it infuriated us. He also liked to listen to his music so loudly that it bled through those damn headphones wherever he went, especially at night when the rest of the house had fallen into silence.
