Chapter One: "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"
"Here you are, Mr. Quincy. Have a wonderful flight."
Tommy absentmindedly nodded at the customary phrase spoken by the flight attendant, was handed back his ticket, and proceeded to the boarding area and sat down. He glanced around and saw a garbage can, which triggered a memory of something he needed to throw out. He stood up, took Jude's unused ticket out of his pocket, glancing down at it as he did so, hesitated, and sat down again. His fist that held the paper hardened, the knuckles showing white, and his heart was shot once more with pain, as Tommy remembered why Jude wasn't going with him.
She had chosen Jamie, of course, yet she hadn't had the decency to tell him directly. For a full twenty-four hours after he had gotten Jude's music catalogue back for her (and Darius had driven an extremely hard bargain for it), confessed to her that he loved her, and offered her the trip to Asia, she had avoided having any sort of communication with him. It didn't take Tommy's imagination long to figure out why. In the end, all he got was a text message: "I can't. I just can't." He interpreted it a million different ways, but came up with no satisfactory conclusion other than that which he had already come to beforehand, so he went over to her house, determined to get a definite answer out of her as to why, which he certainly received.
Flashback
(doorbell rings)
Jude: (thinking to herself) What's going on? Jamie never comes by this early…Well, maybe he got some good news about studio spaces, and he just couldn't wait to tell me. Yeah, that does sound like him. (aloud while opening door) Hey Ja—Tommy. (immediately uncomfortable)
Tommy: Jude. (opens up his cell phone, shows her the text)
Jude: (sighs) Look, Tommy—
Tommy: Jude. Do you honestly think I wouldn't be able to tell for myself that you had chosen Jamie, if you hadn't told me face-to-face, instead of just sending me this pathetic text? You really couldn't have faced seeing me for two minutes?
Jude: No, I couldn't.
Tommy: Why not?!
Jude: Because! I knew you'd do what you're doing now.
Tommy: Which is?
Jude: Come over to my house, and try to persuade me to take you back.
Tommy: And why wouldn't I? Jude, I know for sure that you don't love Jamie. Now look me in the eyes and tell me you don't love me.
Jude: No, Tommy. It's not that easy, for either of us.
Tommy: What are you talking about?
Jude: I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you that I don't love you, but neither am I gonna go back on a choice I already made. I did what I did for a reason.
Tommy: What reason could you possibly have for not choosing me? iI'm/i the only one you love, and you know that. We both know that. So why are you doing this to us?
Jude: There is no us. You destroyed any chance we ever had.
Tommy: What?
Jude: You broke my heart way too many times, Tommy, over and over, until I can't trust you. But I know I can trust Jamie. He's never going to hurt me like you have.
Tommy: Jude, I can change.
Jude: I bet you say that to every girl. To Portia, when she found out you were cheating on her; to Sadie, when you never spent more than ten minutes out of the day with her; to every girl who's ever wanted you in her life, but all you wanted was a one-night stand.
Tommy: You're so different from all those other girls, Jude!
Jude: How?!
Tommy: Because I love you!!
Jude: Then why have you never shown me? Why have you always pretended you didn't? Why have you always hurt me so badly that I had to go back to Jamie for comfort?
Tommy: (quiets down) Jude, the only reason that I ever hurt you was that I was stupid and scared at the time; I didn't want to admit to myself that I was in love with you. But Jude, I'm past that, I'll never do it again.
Jude: It's too late, Tommy. Nothing you say's gonna work anymore. I love you, but it's just too much. Too much too late. Now, I need you to leave, and I need to stand by my decision to go with Jamie. You can go to Thailand, go through all of Asia just like you wanted, even stop through Europe while you're at it; or stay here in Toronto. I don't care. Just leave.
(Spell of silence and mutual staring at each other)
Tommy: …(leans in close and whispers in her ear) This isn't it, Harrison. I'm coming back for you. You know you're gonna want me back someday. (adjusts so that their cheeks brush as he pulls away)
(Jude can barely breathe.)
(Tommy continues to watch her intently as he goes down the steps, then gets into his car and drives away.)
(Jude slams the door shut.)
Flashback ends
He loved her so much, and they both knew that she loved him back, yet she had still denied him. The one girl he had ever truly fallen in love with suddenly considered all his screw-ups with her more important than their love, and gone with the boy next door. What else could ever bring him so low? Now I understand all of those soppy love songs on the radio, he thought ruefully. Ne-Yo spoke true. Without love, there truly was nothing. But why did he have to learn such an oh-so-painful truth in such a way? Was this, perhaps, the best punishment for the way he had always mistreated the girls he had been with, for him to be so treated? Had Jude, then, done the right thing in turning him away?
…No. How could it ever be so? It wasn't that he was being selfish in thinking that she couldn't live without him; it was that he knew he couldn't live without her. But she hadn't believed him when he had stood on her doorstep and said what he said, and that he couldn't, or rather wouldn't, forgive. So now she had to learn the error of her ways by herself. As for him, he/i would igo to Thailand, and find something to distract him and kill some time until Jude fully realized what she had done by turning him away, and wanted him back. He would come back then, and only then.
Newly resolved, he looked down at the ticket once more. He would keep it as a reminder. No, he would toss it. He didn't need to be reminded of her any more than necessary. And he would at least try to push her to the back of his mind during the trip. If she wasn't with him, why did he even need to think of her? Tommy got up and walked back over to the garbage can, tearing up the ticket into very small pieces as he did so. He stood in front of it now, and this time, without any hesitation, poured the now handful of confetti into it. He would think no more of Jude. This trip was now for him, and him alone, just as it had originally been planned. He was a free man, at least temporarily, and he fully intended to live that way, for however long it would take for Jude to want him back. The boarding call came at last, and a newly emancipated man rose to meet it.
"Hello, Mr. Quincy."
"Hey." He handed over his ticket once more.
The flight attendant looked at it, then at him again. She smiled. He did the same; he could tell what she was thinking. "Traveling alone?" she inquired playfully.
"Yeah."
"That's not like you." He gave a short laugh; it was actually the truth. She went on, as if continuing a joke. "Are you going to someone…special in Thailand?"
"No."
"Are you going to look for someone special?"
He decided to mystify her a bit. "I don't know."
She began laughing. "Have a pleasant flight to Thailand, Mr. Quincy."
"I intend to." He gave her one final look, and she went into hysterics. Holding her stomach with one hand, she waved him through with the other. Grinning like crazy, Tommy took his ticket from her moving hand, and went through the pathway to his plane.
Meanwhile, at the same time that Tommy's plane was taking off and he resolved not to think of Jude anymore, she was thinking of him. She was with Jamie at the moment, and Paegan, in a soon-to-be recording studio, listening to them discuss which was the best way to arrange studios right next to each other so that they'd fit the most in the smallest space. It appeared that Paegan hadn't wanted to be a rock star for all of his life. He had taken architecture in college, and so was fighting Jamie on solid ground. Jude had never seen anyone who could argue so soundly with Jamie, knowing the subject as well as, or even better than, he did; so it was quite amusing to watch. It reminded her of the way she and Tommy used to fight, during mixing, over virtually each detail of every song.
Tommy was usually the one who made the initial point that started the argument, and always pointed out his years of experience in the music business as if they were reason enough for her to listen to and agree with him, and he was right in everything, but she always insisted that she knew the song better than he did; while the fact of the matter was that she really just wanted to stretch out the time they spent alone together, even if it was spent in just screaming at each other. Looking back at these events with hindsight, she mentally laughed at herself for doing such a thing, and regarded it as a childish way to release sexual tension. Then she immediately realized what she had been thinking. What? Tommy and me? Like…that? Why am I thinking of him like that? In fact, why am I even thinking of him at all? He's in Thailand, and who knows when he'll be back. Maybe Kwest knows, perhaps I should call him. Wait; I shouldn't even care where he is. I told him myself that I wouldn't. So then, why am I worrying over him, wondering when he'll be back, and—oh, God—whether he'll bring a girl back? It'd be just like him to do that, wouldn't it, to try to spite me, and get me jealous. Not like it wouldn't work, though… No, it wouldn't matter to me. I wouldn't even care. I'm with Jamie now. Right. Jamie.
"Jamie?"
"Huh?" Jamie's head straightened up from being bent over the piece of graph paper he was now working on with Paegan.
"When are you two gonna be done with that, so we two can go out and get something to eat; you know, like a date?" She smiled engagingly.
"Sorry, babe. This is a lot of work. We have to get it to the contractor in twenty-four hours. I'd ask you to help, but…"
"Oh, you know how bad I am at math."
Paegan, still working, said, "I found that out when I asked you what was one-third of three hundred, and you couldn't answer me without a calculator."
"Hey!" Jude exclaimed, slightly offended. Jamie chuckled, however, and Jude herself couldn't help smiling. That really had happened.
"Can't help you there, Jude," Jamie smiled. "But I tell you what. Paegan and I'll try to get this done by this evening, and then we can go out. Right now, you just go home and do whatever you want. Write a song or two; that'd really help us out."
"But what'll I do without my inspiration?" Jude twined her arms around his neck, and planted a kiss on his cheek.
"You'll just have to do without for the moment, love," answered Paegan for Jamie. "I need this boy to work with me, otherwise I'll never get this done."
"That's a compliment for me, Jude. Just let me stay a few more hours, I promise I will make it worth the wait." He smiled suggestively at her.
"Then I guess I'll see you later…love." She smiled back at him, though not with the same kind of fervor.
"Bye, bye, baby."
Jude exited the studio, feeling both pleased with the way her relationship was going with Jamie and guilty for her previous thoughts. It's so great that Jamie and I are together again. It just feels right. Now, it wouldn't be this way if I had picked Tommy. If I were with him right now, we'd be…um…doing something clean, and nothing to do with…that…at all. Girl, will you get your mind out of the gutter! You'd better stop thinking right now about being in bed with Tommy, and focus into getting into bed by yourself. (Your nasty, mentally and emotionally adulterous self.) Sleep is the only thing that's gonna stop these thoughts, that's for sure. Though that's probably because I'm gonna very vivid dreams. Very, very vivid dreams. About Tommy, oh God, not again.
She turned out not to have any fantasies in her long nap, but several in her waking hours. She kept trying to think about Jamie, but her mind kept switching over to Tommy. She tried to rationalize it, but ended up attributing it to the fact that he knew just how to turn her on, and she remembered the exact way their cheeks had brushed the last time they had met more clearly than she cared to admit. She wondered how long it would take for her to get rid of these thoughts, or even if she really ever would get rid of them, but was saved from answering by her long, pensive glance around the room catching and landing on the clock. Oh shoot, it's getting close on to evening. I'd better get ready for my date with Jamie. She busied herself with doing so until she was well-dressed, made up, and her hair was as well. Then she had nothing to do except wait somewhat impatiently for him to call and pick her up. She even began trying to communicate with Jamie telepathically by staring intently at the cell phone in her hand. Suddenly it rang, and she almost dropped the phone in her enthusiasm to answer it.
"Hey baby. How are you doing? Almost ready for our date?"
"Um, hey, Jude. About that." Jude's face fell simply at his tone of voice. She knew him well enough to know that when he wasn't as excited as she was about something that involved both of them, something was wrong. But she pretended that she had no idea about that and answered, "Is something wrong? C'mon, if you tried to book us at some fancy restaurant at the last minute and it didn't work out, that's no big deal, believe me."
"Um, that's not really why I called…" iGreat/i Jamie thought, inow she's making me feel even worse; I wasn't even thinking of anything like that in the first place./i "See, I was just looking at the clock, and I realized that I've just been working about five hours straight here with Paegan, so…"
"You want to come a little late."
"Yeah. Like…tomorrow evening. Look, Jude, I am so sorry that I didn't call sooner, it's just that there's so much work to do, now that there's an actual site for the studios, and I just lost track of the time…"
"No, it's totally all right. You do have a lot of stuff on your hands right now, and that's what you should be working on, with Paegan. I can't help you out with it; I'm just a distraction."
"Jude, you're not a distraction—"
"But I am keeping you from working right now, aren't I? …Look, don't worry about me; I'm fine. You go focus on your stuff."
Jamie gave a crestfallen sigh on the other end. "All right. Bye, then."
"Bye." Jude sighed herself, and looked down at her finery. Now what? Think, what's the one thing I can do that always helps me out whenever I've been disappointed? …Of course! She took out her songwriting journal, opened it, flipped intentionally quickly over the first page where Tommy had written that heart-melting little note that belonged in a Hallmark card, turned to a blank page and began to write. Once she was done with the song, she took out her guitar and tried to establish a tune for it, but instead found that her own vocals did the best job of doing so. She set up her laptop to record it, and when she was finished, listened to it over and over again. She was satisfied with it, and unexpectedly remembered something she had once said to Kwest, back when he had been her producer for about a week: "Tommy always said I was prolific." Not again! she agonized, and immediately decided to go to bed, not even caring whether she'd dream of Tommy or Jamie tonight.
On the plane, Tommy was bored with the in-flight movie (it was one he'd watched once with Sadie, i.e., it was more than a year old); meanwhile, all the music stations kept playing Jude's songs. It seemed that he just couldn't get away from her. He contemplated calling her, but then wondered what he could possibly say, then of the time difference, which he wasn't even completely sure of in the first place, and then finally of his resolution. He scrolled through his phone book; Jude was at the very top. He hesitated for a moment, then his heart hardened and he pushed the button to delete the number. Continuing on his rampage, he went through his entire cell phone, throwing out every text message he had ever gotten from her and saved, and all of his missed calls that came from her. He even changed his ring tones, all of which were different Jude songs. Thanks be to technology, it didn't take very long; but when he finished, he still felt quite accomplished. "Out of cell, out of mind." At least, that was his hope.
A/N: I'm sorry for the italics being double-sided, but it fits the best that way to me.
