This was written with great affection and love for Bookjunkie, 1975. Belief in a person is a powerful thing.

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The History of Now

Chapter Four – Come to Jesus

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Two years later:

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"Jesus Christ my head fucking hurts. Fuck, Emmett, can you just chill out for a minute? I need some aspirin."

I make my way to the kitchen of the overblown house they've rented for us in Big Sur. We've got three months to write and record, but I know I can push them to six if I have to, and I think I'm gonna have to.

The coastal fog hasn't rolled out yet, and it's cold on my skin. I look down and notice I'm only wearing boxers, the clingy kind, and that's kind of a relief. Lately, I wake up naked with used condoms on the floor and no idea who I fucked the night before, unless she's still in the bed.

"Come on." Emmett grabs me by the elbow and takes me into the bathroom. He closes the door and hands me a tumbler of water.

I take a long drink and realize too late it's vodka. The second the booze hits my stomach, it comes right back up, and brings everything else in my stomach back up with it.

By the time I'm finished retching, I'm crouched over the toilet, shaking, with tears in my eyes and puke on my chin. The bathroom reeks like a bar at closing.

"The fuck'd you do that for?" I ask, leaning back to rest against the wall.

"You needed to puke to feel better."

He hands me a bottle of water and a few Tylenol.

When I reach for them, he grabs my wrist. "You done yet?"

"I think that was everything."

Without warning, Emmett yanks me to my feet. Even at six four, I'm a few inches shorter than him, and he's got a lot of pounds on me – all muscle.

He shoves me into the wall.

"Motherfucker. Are you done? Is it enough yet? Because we're all watching the "Poor Jasper" show, and every one of is us wondering if today's gonna be the day you don't wake up. So I'm asking you again: Are. You. Done?"

"Fuck you." I twist out of his grip and walk to my bedroom. It takes three minutes to get into my clothes and, thank fuck, my keys are still in my pocket.

I walk into the living room and everyone's in there, faces fallen, closed in on each other.

"You guys have a fucking problem with me?" I challenge them, taunt them, dare them to call me out again. Feed fuel to my fire. I've been dying to burn.

Peter finally stands up and stares at me, then sighs and bows his head. "Whatever, man. Do what you're gonna do." He holds his hand out for Char, and they walk past me toward the stairs. Riley follows, and then it's just me and Emmett.

He looks up at me from the couch and his expression makes my stomach flop. The Tylenol threaten to make a reappearance.

"Quit being such a fucking cliché," he says. The he gets up and brushes past me too, and I'm standing there, alone.

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So, a Ducati on a slick, foggy road paired with a hellacious hang over probably isn't the best thing I could have done for myself. Before long though, the cold bites through my jeans and the vibrations of the bike start to soothe my stomach.

I pull over outside of Monterey Bay and get a shitty motel room. Old guy at the desk doesn't recognize me, which is great. I buy a pack of smokes and fifth of bourbon at the convenience store, then go to my dingy, musty room and pass out.

I sleep for hours in the soft gray of the day. It's like time doesn't exist in these coastal towns. The fog rolls in and sometimes it doesn't clear all day. Between that and the marine layer, it's easy to feel sleepy. The cold of the room helps too.

When I wake up, my watch says it's nine. That could be am or pm; I'm not sure.

I walk out the front door and see that the day is light gray. AM.

There's a young Latina girl wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but pushing a maid's cart. I flip the "Do not Disturb" sign on my door, and pocket the key. My stomach growls at me, and I hush it with a smoke, but there's a big flashing sign ahead saying pancakes, and my feet take me where my mouth wants to go.

The diner is small and worn, but clean. There's a few older women running around in support hose and white nursing shoes, and I figure they've probably been waiting tables here their whole lives.

I sit down at the counter and order…everything. Bacon, eggs, pancakes, hash browns and when she asks "You want biscuits and gravy with that?" I say "Sure."

She gives me a real smile. "Good boy."

The coffee is strong, black and good. My stomach kicks a little at the acid, but settles with the first forkful of pancakes. By the time I'm done, I've had a half pot of coffee, a fuck ton of food, and I feel…good.

Getting checked out is the next order of business. I walk toward the path that leads to the motel, but then change my mind when I see a jogging path set down by the ocean. After about half a mile, I find a footpath down to some rocks. I sit and watch as otters poke their heads up, then dive back down to the ocean floor, looking for food. A seal comes and a crowd comes, and for a little while, I'm nervous to turn around and see them. When the seal heads back out to open water, the crowd dissipates.

I don't like being recognized.

When I get back to the room, I run the bath. The tub is clean, though old. The enamel is chipped and showing the black metal underneath. I fill it with hot water and climb in, feeling heavy with sleep and food.

The next thing I know, the water's cold and I'm shivering, startled awake by a nightmare.

It sends a shot of fear through me. I could have died just now. And, god, how long before anyone would have known?

Climbing out of the tub, I notice that my skin is white and my limbs are…thin. I look in the mirror and fuck if I know who that is looking back at me. There's nothing I recognize there.

I run a hand through my hair and spot the bottle of bourbon on the nightstand. I think on that for a minute, Emmett's words shooting around in my head. I think about how it tastes; the cheap bourbon that burns and the good stuff that warms. Easy to get lost in that, I think. Easy as bending an elbow.

Then I look down at my hands, and they're shaking.

Yeah. Fuck that.

The old guy at the front desk says it's cool if I stay a few more days. I hand him a credit card and the charges clear. Is Charlotte still paying our bills? I have no idea. He gives me directions to a strip mall up the road, and there I buy a charger for my cell phone and a couple of novels. My hand lingers over a Louis L'Amour, and I buy that one too.

I grab chips and cookies, and a six-pack of water. I pick up a baseball cap with the city name on it, and a pack of white t-shirts. Carrying all that shit with me, I decamp to my motel room. The door is locked tight behind me. The booze is in the nightstand drawer.

My phone finally beeps about twelve hours later. I was caught up in some spy-on-spy intrigue; I'd forgotten how much I used to love to read to pass the time. When I check my phone, it's a text from Emmett.

You coming back?

I don't know how to answer him. I can't go back there now. It's too much – the pressure of seeing them and who I've become. My chest starts to tighten and I feel my heart pound. I can hear it, in my ears, thudding hard against my chest, and I think, oh, fuck, am I having a heart attack?

Pulling myself into a ball, I start to rock on the bed, waiting for the pressure, this feeling, to fade. When it does, I'm gasping and shaking. The words panic attack float to the top of my mind, and I know without question that I just had one.

Staring at the phone, I wonder what to say. Is there anything I can say to them now?

Thirteen responses are typed and deleted.

Can I have a few days?

I hit send before I can change my mind.

Sound check on Friday at three.

I'm not sure, but I think it's only Tuesday, so that should be okay, right? The show's in San Francisco, and I'm already halfway there.

Will be there. – J

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Three days without a drink feels good. I check out of the motel room and kick the Ducati into gear. We're checked into the Frances Drake for Thursday night, and I don't want the guys to think I won't show. I know I haven't been reliable, and, god, they deserve better.

The ride into San Francisco is quick, and I've got time to kill. It's late September, and spectacular out. It's warm enough and the sun is shining. Everything is green and gorgeous, and I can smell fall mixed in with the brine from the ocean.

Checking into the hotel is easy. I leave a message at the front desk so that Emmett and the others know I made it in okay. Then I take the bike around the city. The way the hills rise and fall have me leaning forward in my seat. My stomach flutters as I kick down to second gear to roll down a huge hill. I can't imagine living here; the way the houses sit upright on the slanting streets makes me a little woozy.

I ride through the Castro and the business district, and up and down the wharf. I finally head over to the Haight, and park the bike. There's a hundred junky souvenir shops mixed in with mom and pop businesses, and kitschy new start-ups. I have lunch at a vegetarian restaurant – an open-faced roasted vegetable sandwich that's so good, I end up scraping the plate. Then I walk across the street to Golden Gate Park.

The sun's hanging low in the sky, and in another couple hours, it will be dark. I don't want to spend my night lost in the park, so I don't wander too far. I go past the playground and the bowling greens, and finally end up near the lily pond. The way is a shaded dirt path, and it isn't long before the sounds of civilization are overwhelmed by something softer: birds and bugs and quiet. Still.

I sit and watch the water a while. Dragonflies, bright blue and green, skim the top of the pond, and I can see algae has grown thick. Across the pond, there's a girl under a tree, doodling something in a sketchbook.

She lies on a blanket and has long, dark brown hair that shines with hints of red in the sun. I stare at her a minute, thinking about Bella and the last time that I saw her.

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"It doesn't have to be like this. We can make it work."

"How, Jasper? How do we make it work when your life is in New York, and mine is in San Francisco?"

"We'll work it out. I'm only going to be in New York for six weeks. You can't wait for six weeks?"

"No. It's six weeks to cut the album and then a few more weeks of post-production and then there's publicity tours and getting your faces out there and before we know it, it's been six months and we've only seen each other a handful of times. Meanwhile, we're both miserable and missing each other. Is that how you want to live your life?"

"No, but I'm willing to sacrifice today for tomorrow."

"I'm not." She can't meet my eyes and I'm angry at her, but I want to comfort her, too. I can't stand to see her cry.

"Bella." She's soft in my arms, clinging. I kiss the top of her head.

"You have to go, Jasper. This is your dream, and you have to chase it."

"Come with me. We can do this together."

She shakes her head against my chest.

"I can't. I can't give up my dream for you, and you can't give up yours for me. It's just…shitty timing."

"I love you, Bella. I don't want this."

"I don't either. But I can't do this all again. I can't…I can't miss you and love you and be afraid every time I go online that I'm going to see pictures of you with some girl."

"Are you really dragging that asshole into this? I'm not him."

"Jas, I'm not saying you are. I just…I can't do it again."

"It won't be like that. I'm not him."

"I know, I know. But I can't."

At this, she cries harder. She cries until she's shaking, until she's gasping for air, and I hold her, pull her onto my lap and rub her back, and show her that I love her. I need her.

"I love you too," she says, pressing her forehead into my chest.

In the end, there was nothing for it. She was right; I knew that. Maybe if she hadn't gotten that scholarship, she would have come with. Maybe if the last musician she dated hadn't cheater on her, she'd be able to trust me. Maybe if I'd met her a few months earlier, we would have been stronger, better able to fight the things that were pulling us apart.

Maybe if….

I'd spent so much time thinking about that girl, turning my love for her around to hate, wishing that she would have given us a better shot. Wishing that she was wrong. But I knew she wasn't.

I walk over to the girl on the blanket, my heart and my stomach doing funny things the closer I get.

"What'cha got there, little girl?"

And there it is. Her teeth grab onto her lower lip and then she turns and squints up at me. I get caught up in her warm, brown eyes and then she's smiling, and then she's hugging me.

"Holy hell! Jasper Whitlock, what are you doing here?"

I shrug and give her a squeeze, then pull away to really look at her. She's the same, but she's different. She's…grown. Not taller, but she looks more like a woman and less like a girl.

"You look so good," I say, because it's the truth, and here in her gaze, I have to be honest.

She blushes…that same blush, and I watch it creep up the neck of her collar and onto her cheeks. Delicious.

"You look…like shit," she says, wincing.

I laugh and hook my thumbs in my jeans. I shrug and she smiles. "Sit down. Catch me up."

So we sit and talk, as dusk settles around us. It grows colder and I take off my leather jacket for her. She slips it on and closes her eyes, breathing in deep.

"Love the smell. Of, uh, leather."

Her cheeks color again and all that hate for her, and all that love for her, they start to battle it out in my heart. I feel raw, looking at her, like those feelings never dimmed, they just got put away.

We spend some more time talking, and when I ask her to dinner, she says yes. We get sidetracked at Amoeba Records, though, and spend two hours playing different songs to each other. I could have played music for her for hours, but someone recognizes me, and so we bail out of the shop and head up the street.

A few steps away, Bella looks at her phone, then pulls me to a halt.

"I have to go," she says. "I have to meet someone, I'm gonna be late." She shrugs out of my jacket and hands it back to me, then leans up into me for a hug.

"So good to see you," she says.

"You too. Hey, you want to come to the show tomorrow? I'll leave tickets at the door – bring a friend."

She shakes her head. "Heading down to LA tomorrow morning for a few days. I wish I could."

I don't know what to say to her now. I don't want to let her go again. Talking to her, these hours with her, were the most comfortable I'd been in a long, long time.

"I don't-"

"You should-"

We both start and stop at the same time.

"Will you keep in touch?" she asks. I nod and she scrawls her email address on a page of her sketch book. It's a picture of a water lily, drawn in charcoal and pastels, the colors bleeding together, and so bright, it almost glows.

"God, you're good." I say, looking at the picture.

She smiles and squeezes my hand. The look in her eyes breaks my heart.

Then she turns and walks away.

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I don't have anywhere else to go, so I head back to the hotel. There's a full bar in the corner and it's calling me, telling me that if I drink enough, I can just pass out. Not pass out – black out, and that's what I want.

But then I think about Emmett's rage, and Bella saying I look like shit, and she didn't look like shit. She looked so goddamned good.

The in-room porn's shitty, but if I don't overdose on lust, I'll overdose on something else, and I realized something in the last few days: I'm not as ready to go out as I thought I was, and given the option between living and dying, I'll take living.

Emmett's pounding on my door at noon, and I stumble to the door wearing dirty clothes. I'll need something to wear tonight, and I wonder if someone at the hotel can just take care of it for me.

When I open the door, Emmett looks at me with a wary eye. He glances at the bar, around the room behind me, and looks back at me.

"You okay, man?"

I chuckle. "Profoundly not, I think." I walk away, leaving the door open and hear him close it behind me.

"What the fuck's going on, Jay?" He sits on the couch across from me, and his words aren't as sharp or accusing as they've been the past few months.

I need his help, and we both know it. It feels like this is my only shot at getting it.

I shrug. "I don't know…I just…. Doesn't it ever feel like it's too much?"

He shakes his head and we sit in the quiet. He looks around the room again, and it makes me sad that he's surprised that I haven't trashed the place. Was I really so bad?

"You trying to clean up?" he asks.

It takes a lot for me to meet his eyes, but when I do, and I nod, his face softens. Not a lot, but it's there, and it makes me feel like maybe I haven't blown everything.

"Just been doing a lot of thinking. The kind that boozing doesn't help."

Emmet nods.

"I saw Bella yesterday."

"Yeah?" His voice is cautious and optimistic.

"She's doing good. She looks good."

"She coming to the show?"

"Nah, had to be in LA, I guess."

"Oh."

"So what's after this show? We're, uh, up in Portland I think?"

"And then?"

He shrugs. "I don't know, man. I think Carmen's got our schedule. We can check in with her tonight."

Carmen was our manager, and she did a hell of a job keeping us busy. Too busy.

Emmett stares at me, and for the first time in a long time, I stare back.

"You need time off," he says, and I nod. "Rehab? Shrink?"

I shake my head. "No rehab. Maybe a shrink. I don't know. I'm burning out. I puked up blood the other day."

Emmett nods; he's seen me do that before. "Can you get through the next few shows?"

"I think so. Yeah."

"Alright. I'll get it done. I'll talk to Carm - she'll get you…whatever you need."

I nod and bow my head. I'm so shaken by him, his simple approval of what I'm doing, his acceptance of my word that I want to get back to who I used to be. Tears sting my eyes and I swallow.

"Thanks," I say, and raise my head to face him. "Thank you."

He smiles at me, that big goofy grin that makes his dimples pop, and it's probably the first time he's smiled at me in months. "Shit, brother. Whatever it takes. We're here for you, no matter what."

I breathe out, and nod my head. I don't want to let him down. I've let them all down enough, up until now. I have some making up to do.

AN:

My betas, who I love, are FDM, Kris and Amery Marie. How I got so lucky, I do not know. Any errors contained herein are mine and mine alone.

Please note that these chapters were beta'd some weeks ago.

On a personal note, I just want to say thank you, to all of you who have be so incredibly kind over the last few days. Truly, this fandom is filled with some of the loveliest people. Thank you.