Chapter 45
The band had broken up.
'Legendary rock icon Edward Cullen' had dismantled his namesake group, and neither Edward nor his manager were giving statements.
The world found out from a not-so-cryptic message Jake had uploaded to Instagram that morning.
"Holy shit!" Emmett proclaimed, shaking his head. My blood ran icy at the news, even if I was relieved it wasn't something worse. Emmett pulled his phone out to see the post they referred to. It was a solitary picture of Edward's smashed guitar from the bus. My hand flew to my mouth as Emmett read the caption.
"Selfish pricks leave their own band (and mess) behind. Good riddance, asshole."
He searched Jaspers insta, a few crew, but there didn't seem to be much else. He did a quick Google search and it came up with the same thing we just heard, breaking news on Rolling Stone's website. He went back to Jake's post.
I sat tongue-tied, looking at the picture he held out to me. There were my shoes. A pair of my pants. My fucking underwear. All mingled in with Edward's broken guitar. Glass, wood… it was all there shattered into a million pieces.
Emmett mourned the loss of our favorite band, of the music that would never touch our ears.
But inside, I was mourning the loss of the best time of my life. In that bus, with them, with him, rolling down the road.
Maybe there was a part of me that still had the hope of it all.
We both kept pouring over the internet and TV for days after that. Emmett called all the crew he knew, but there was little more information to be had. Emmett told me to call Carlisle and didn't understand when I told him I couldn't. When he pushed, I yelled, and he started to question my leaving prematurely, my sadness when I arrived in Denver, my distant relationship with an uncle I loved.
It was killing me, keeping it all inside, keeping it from him, the only friend I had.
So I told him. About the early banter, the flirting, the Dragon fingers on necks. Picnic tables and card games. Baby baby baby and the frustration and pain and anguish of his coldness. Finally, I told him about the euphoric three days and the endless mind-numbing ones after.
I didn't tell him I knew the real reason Edward disbanded them. Didn't tell him about Edward's secret. It wasn't mine to tell.
Emmett went back into his room that night, not mad, not angry. Just resolved that I didn't need whatever we were on top of feelings I still hadn't sorted out.
And what a bad idea it was obviously, he'd said, for both of us to get involved with a co-worker. He got a laugh out of me on that one, and closed my door after giving me a brotherly wink.
I pulled up the photo on my phone, the first time I'd looked at it since my bedroom at home. Tried to recapture all the feelings I know we both had right at that moment. My stomach flipped a little, but the memory of his touch was fading, much like every mark, every sting and every scar he'd given me had already done.
I let myself cry that night for the Edward I had lost, the one that was mine for three days.
And then I deleted the only evidence we existed.