"We need to talk." I said quietly to Chris as I approached him from behind. He turned around with a sad expression etched across his features.
"Yeah, I think we do." Chris replied soberly as we both headed slowly over to a picnic table set up at the edge of the grounds. I was tired of lying to Chris. It was time I came clean.
"I should have told you something about me when we met Chris, but I was too ashamed and more than a little scared when you walked into my life." I stated simply as he just leaned back on the bench before tapping his fingers on the table.
"It's fine if you want to call it quits, Jude. You don't have to explain." He replied almost huffily before standing up. I grabbed him firmly by the arm.
"Yes, I do." I remarked fiercely as his eyes widened at my stoic response. He sat back down reluctantly.
"It's not that I want to call it quits, Chris. It's just that when you came into the studio four months ago, I needed the attention and the affection you offered me. I even craved it because I had been abandoned by so many people—so very many people in my life. I hadn't realized how much that hurt me until you showed up, and I grasped the opportunity. I just kept telling myself what the harm was in letting us have a long distance relationship—enjoying the love I felt from you but not really letting myself get to know you all that well because of the distance. It was perfect. And it was wrong of me. I think I learned my lesson from Tom Quincy too well because he did that to my sister. I don't want to hurt you more by telling you there's nothing going on between Tom and I because I'm not so sure there isn't. I just don't know. I need to figure that out. But I also don't want him to know that we broke up. I don't want him to think he won." I stated quietly as Chris just shook his head.
"I guess it's my fault for letting myself think you could love me after so little time and so much distance between us. But, Jude, you need to stop and think for a moment about what you're doing. Do you really want to give him another chance?" Chris asked quietly as I just stared over at him a moment in silence.
"Chris, I couldn't call myself an adult if I didn't. Because adults don't run away from their problems. They face them. Jamie keeps telling me that—the stubborn little bastard." I stated with a grin as I recalled the night in Mason's hotel room when he had come to fetch me. Yeah, I definitely needed to face them. Sometimes it took me a while to realize these kinds of things, but hey eventually I start to listen to my head a little.
"Besides, what Tommy doesn't know won't hurt him. He won't know I'm giving him another chance. No, he deserves a little more hell than that." I replied on a small smile as Chris shook his head again.
"I can't pretend to be your boyfriend, Jude. I'm having a hard enough time realizing that I might have made a mistake with you." Chris answered as I just perused him with surprise.
"You didn't make the mistake. I did. And I'm not asking you to pretend anything. But I still want you to be my friend Chris. I need that. You've become indispensable to me." I said softly as he grinned at me suddenly.
"I'm starting to feel like that guy off that movie Pretty in Pink who adores the ground Molly Ringwald walks on despite the fact that she loves someone else." Chris replied sardonically as I just grinned.
"See, I never knew you had even seen that movie. Makes me wonder about you." I said with a raised brow as Chris just threw his hands up into the air.
"Would you believe me if I said an ex-girlfriend made me watch it?"Chris asked as I just laughed. The man was priceless. He rolled his eyes.
"Maybe we can do the friend thing. I have secrets too, Jude." Chris said softly as I just glanced over at him warily.
Maybe we used each other." He replied as he lifted up the arm of his shirt to point out something I had never noticed before. Why hadn't I noticed? He had the scars from old track marks.
"You were a user?" I asked him in a whisper as he just shrugged.
"You're one of the lucky ones, Jude. It runs rampant in the music industry. The press doesn't cover it enough. It's ugly business and it's overlooked by the glamour" Chris stated simply as I stood up to walk around the bench—sitting down next to him slowly before looking at him in amusement.
"Am I your muse?" I asked him teasingly as he rolled his eyes. I couldn't help but laugh.
"Muse is such a strong term. Maybe we should just say we've been each other's shoulders to lean on." He replied with a shrug. I winked.
"It doesn't hurt that yours is a pretty good looking shoulder too." I stated wryly as he laughed along with me. It felt good to open up—to let someone else know my problems. I glanced over at Tommy then. That was another problem altogether.
