i think i have to begin with an apology. i completely forgot about my whole account actually, but i'm back now. this year at school is really important so updates may be irregular but it's not long now until summer, thank goodness. anyway, on with the story!
i wrote this listening to "good thing" by the incredible sam smith. you may want to have a listen while you read. i found it rather fitting.
It had started with Henley.
They'd been sitting backstage prior to a show in Chicago, sprawled across leather couches and flipping decks of cards into Meritt's fedora, when she'd come out with it.
"I'm leaving."
They'd turned to her, blatantly shocked, and she'd looked down into her lap, staring at her leather gloves and twisting her fingers together. Jack had spoken up first.
"What, like, forever?" He'd asked, head cocked to the side in confusion. Henley had laughed softly, nodding as she looked back up.
"Yes. Forever, Jack."
"You can't just up and leave, Henley. We're the Four Horsemen for a reason," Danny had sighed, leaning back and pinching the bridge of his nose. Trying to be the voice of reason.
"You can't stop me, Danny," Henley had tipped her chin up, staring at him defiantly, raising a perfectly curved eyebrow as if to say; "I dare you to try, you jumped up shit."
"At least tell us why?" Merritt had grumbled into the bottom of his coffee cup, rubbing a hand down his face wearily after he had taken a sip.
"I'm getting married."
Daniel's jaw had dropped.
"Hold on, backtrack. You're getting married?!"
"Yes, Danny. It's not an alien concept, people do it all the time y'know," Henley had rolled her eyes, standing as a techie popped his head into the room to inform them that it was 5 minutes until the show started.
She'd left a month later.
Her departure had been heartfelt; they'd bundled her into a yellow taxi with a battered suitcase of memories, crumpled tags hanging off the handles, each representing a show, a venue, a milestone in their journey. She'd hugged each of them in turn before turning and getting into the taxi, her red hair glowing a halo around her head in the bleak New York sunshine.
They'd had five shows scheduled in the month following Henley's departure, after which the calendar fell blank and days would blur into one another as they would sit around the apartment, watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother.
They'd cancelled every single one.
Then Merritt had left.
"It's just not the same, yknow?" He kept saying, trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing, resigning himself to a future of squeezing money out of tourists in holiday resorts and small Parisian cafes, his own face staring back at him from the outdated billboard, mocking him, taunting him.
For Jack and Danny, their lives became the empty boxes on the calendar, their only social interactions with one another or the girl that usually packed their groceries at Walmart.
"Are you guys definitely not a couple?" She asked one rainy Tuesday afternoon as she scanned another box Poptarts, the twelfth this month.
"Definitely not." Danny confirmed, throwing the shopping into plastic bags and loading it into the trolley, ignorant to the way Jack's long lashed gaze would catch on him at certain times during their Walmart visits, like when he discovered the last bag of Hershey's on the shelf and gave a wide grin of victory.
He never did question why Jack never left.
1 year, 7 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 19 hours, 4 minutes and 12 seconds had passed since Henley had departed.
Danny and Jack were sitting on the tattered couch, watching Mean Girls and hardly picking at the plastic carton of greasy takeaway chips sitting between them.
1 year, 7 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 19 hours, 4 minutes and 28 seconds.
"Danny?"
"Mhm?"
"Y'know how long it's been since Henley left?"
"Don't much care."
"You used to."
"Well. Things change. Get used to it, Jacko."
Silence.
1 year, 7 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 19 hours, 6 minutes and 28 seconds.
"Why'd you ask?"
"Just wondering."
1 year, 7 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 19 hours, 7 minutes and 4 seconds.
"You never 'just wonder', Jack Wilder. What's up?"
Blood roared in his ears, as though he was freefalling. Air swallowed him up, pulling at his clothes, smacking the skin on his cheeks and his throat.
1 year, 7 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 19 hours, 12 minutes and 31 seconds.
"You never asked why I didn't leave. I could've. But I never did."
"What's this got to do with Henley, Jack?"
"It's been 1 year, 7 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 19 hours, 13 minutes and 2 seconds since Henley left. That's over a year and a half of opportunities for me to leave."
"So? Why didn't you?"
1 year, 7 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 19 hours, 13 minutes and 49 seconds.
"Jack?"
He keeps falling
falling
falling
falling.
"I think I'm in love with you."
"What?"
1 year, 7 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 19 hours, 15 minutes and 11 seconds.
"I love you."
"Jack, I-"
And then they're kissing.
And it tastes of Marlboros and Black Jack gum and stale coffee and suddenly he's not falling anymore because Danny's arms are winding around his back and he's protected and exposed all at the same time and it's wonderful.
They manage alright, Danny and Jack. They drink coffee and lie in bed until noon, read poetry and eat Chinese takeaway and watch shitty rom-com movies. Sometimes, Danny will grab a pen and scrawl Keats across Jack's skin, the black ink swirling down through his veins.
If Danny switches off the news when they mention a new foursome entrancing the crowds with bewitching forms of magic, then that's okay. If Jack sometimes takes his old pack of cards out of the cupboard to flick a few towards the empty takeaway carton at the other side of the room, then that's okay, too.
1 year, 10 months, 3 weeks, 5 days, 8 hours and 26 minutes.
When something runs deep in your veins, it's difficult to gouge it out immediately. Jack would think of it like a withdrawal. Magic was the sickly drug that clung to his blood cells like oxygen, something he would find it difficult to live without.
When you depend on something that much, you can't just let it go.
Jack reckons it was the same with Danny.
2 years, 7 months, 1 week, 4 days, 12 hours and 38 minutes.
Henley gave birth to a little boy. James Daniel Fisher. A tiny port wine shaped club graced his left hipbone, perhaps a premonition that he would be swallowed up by the allure of sleight of hand, much like his godfather.
2 years, 8 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 21 hours and 53 minutes.
Merritt's estranged daughter sent him a letter. They carried on a transatlantic correspondence, writing to one another almost every other day, be it a postcard or a lengthy letter.
Not long after, Jack and Danny got married. Wore matching silver bands on their ring fingers, engraved with the tiniest letters on the inside.
2 years, 11 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 16 hours and 14 minutes.
i'm not sure if this makes much sense but i enjoyed writing it anyway :) title comes from sam smith's "good thing". thanks for reading!
xo