Joe's alarm went off at five. Meg extricated herself from under his arm, hoping to simply be rid of the awkwardness between them. Her luck had run out, though she didn't know it. Joe was awake and silently watching as she eased off the bed and took several timid steps forward, testing out her hip. Her shirt was a wrinkled mess; he could see the twists where he had grasped it before he kissed her. Meg turned to look at him. 'Fix the blanket, dumbass. He's going to know you're gone if his side is cold. Keep him in bed so you can get out of here and Randy can get in here.'
Cat-like, she crept back to his side, adjusted his covers, and let a small smile creep across her lips. "Like this," she whispered, "You're not half bad. Your hair is going to be the end of me, though." She brushed a few stray strands away from Joe's face, allowing her touch to linger along his cheekbones. He felt something in him break as her fingers trailed along, feeling something further inside himself stop moving entirely.
Inching over to Randy's room, suitcase in tow, Meg woke him and directed him to Joe with a set of instructions to keep him functional and get him on the plane. As for Dave; Meg pushed him into their rental car and drove as far and as fast from the hotel as she could. Breakfast anywhere, a plane ride much later in the day, and back on the road in the US.
Back at the hotel, Randy nudged Joe into semi-alertness, then plopped himself on the same end of the loveseat Meg had occupied earlier. He couldn't help but smile as her fragrance came up from the fabric. 'Well, at least they behaved themselves and she stayed over here. There's my girl.' The smile faded from Randy's face faded as watched Joe's face race from one emotional extreme to another. "Uh, Joe? You okay? You need something? I can get you some Motrin or whatever…"
"Just get me out of here."
Randy cocked an eyebrow, but acquiesced, knowing they'd have plenty of time to talk on their flight. Which was unfortunate, because it ended up being plenty of time for stony silence, and nothing was brought up, either to Randy or to Joe's fiancee.
Joe's fiancee returned to his life, to hotel room after room, to being frequently hung over and demanding sex before she showered after her long nights out. Her sickly-sweet jasmine perfume mixed with the smell of a hundred cigarettes and fruity alcohol, and Joe found himself drifting off mid-coitus to memories of winter-cold hands, field roses, and caramel whispers. If he closed his eyes, or just fucked her from behind - 'Is that where I am now, really? Fucking? Can't I look at her? Or don't I want to?' - he could push the memories down long enough to finish, but it was never satisfying. Something gnawed at him for months, and watching Meg walk around backstage, a strange glaze over her eyes, making paper cranes out of caramel wrappers, sometimes ducking into corners with her phone, always leaving a trail of rose perfume in her wake, did nothing to help him.
In the months that passed since Joe kissed her, since he told her everything was fine between him and his fiancee, she had locked him out. Not spoken with him, not waved hello or goodbye, made no effort to run in to him – everything he needed had been run through Dave, right down to the last puny Tylenol. Dave hadn't given any indication he knew what happened, so Joe had to assume Meg's one-woman embargo was all of her own doing. He looked for her, and then looked for ways to stay away from her, believing it was what she wanted and trying to make himself believe it was what he needed.
Joe felt himself tighten, coil, tamped full of buckshot. Days of irritation turned into weeks that boiled and then months filled with pathetic, directionless wrath. It begat and became a physical ache. He pushed harder in the gym, drove himself harder and harder into that thing – that fiancee – in his bed, worked stiffer and stiffer in the ring, locked himself away. Nothing came to him. No solution, no crack in the wall of misery around him.
Strangely – or not – his fiancee didn't push him on the issue. She came to him when she needed attention, wanted to shop, or was ready to fall into bed with him. Joe noticed she started to travel with him more often. At first, he appreciated the renewed attention, but it all became so repetitive. Wake up, get laid, work out, get laid, do whatever promotional thing the company wanted him to do, perform, back to the hotel, get laid, collapse into bed feeling like he was crawling out of his skin and vacuous monotony was crawling in to replace him.
There, Joe thought, was the issue. His fiancee. She showed up, came, came again, on top of him, under him, and then went as she pleased. Her body was toned, but always reminded his hands of hot, waxy plastic. Her perfume was rancid and cloying; Joe could smell it even after he showered. Her face was beautiful, but Joe counted the minutes, then hours, she spent painting layer after layer of cosmetic garbage onto it. He started to notice the sideways glances that were directed at him in the halls, at arenas, in the gym – he wasn't hearing anything specific, not yet – but knew he had to tell her to cut back on the clubs, stay in with him...and ask why she didn't want to in the first place.
Meg wasn't faring any better. She hardly slept, lived off of Diet Dr. Pepper and whatever food Dave put down in front of her and demand she eat instead of shove from side to side of the plate, and rarely spoke unless it was to Jackson. Despite her crumbling exterior, her talent in triage was unparalleled. Meg could have had five minutes of sleep and still been at the top of her game when it came to taking care of the performers. Dave, however, could see the explosion roiling under her surface. He knew better than to push the issue, and experience taught him it was likely something having to do with her heart's resident imbecile – her boyfriend, Jackson. He didn't know how wrong he was.
Eventually, Meg started to bum cigarettes from other interns and then finally, buy them herself. Her already thin budget was stretched further when her Dr. Pepper was suddenly being mixed with Southern Comfort, though Dave took solace that she kept that vice strictly off-hours. He began to wonder if her derailment was more than just Jackson, but every time he asked her how she was doing, Meg simply smiled thinly and shrugged. Dave resigned himself to having a deaf-mute for a working partner and told her he trusted her to come to him when she was ready.
'Am I ever going to be ready to tell you how stupid I am? It's easier for me to implode like I'm supposed to, and let you blame Jackson. None of this should fall on Joe. He said things were fine. Why do you even care, Meg? Why can't you get him out of your head? Because you're a guilty, dirty bitch, that's why. Because you still see every line in his tattoo, because you can't touch hotel soap, because you always keep the hotel curtains closed.' Meg gave herself the same speech every time Dave questioned her, every time she laid eyes on Joe, and loathed herself for how little of her internal pep-talk she believed.
From what Meg could tell, things really were fine for Joe. The company continued to push him, he was constantly busy at corporate events, and his fiancee was with him on the road more than ever. It even seemed like he was actively avoiding her, and that was well enough, too. 'Meg, you're a liar. It's not fine. You stupid, spiteful little girl. You want to ruin everything for him, don't you? Selfish. Why aren't you happy with what you have? '
Meg tried to call Jackson more often, but the conversations typically turned from idle chatter to him berating her for her job choice, for not leaving and coming home, for her horrible hours, for not acting like a 'normal girlfriend.' That was usually when Meg would disappear around a corner, so nobody would see her slouch to the floor and rest her head on her knees, refusing to cry, but feeling like her world was falling out from under her. 'I want to love you, you asshole. I want to say that to you, too. And somehow you're going to hurt me if I tell you.' Instead, she'd stare at her phone and go numb as Jackson's voice oozed out of it and crawled across the floor.