when I first met you, Charlie, I think I felt something that I hadn’t before.’
He pauses. I try not to gasp.
‘And I also know that I haven’t felt the same with anyone ever since, no matter how I tried to convince myself otherwise,’ he continues. ‘That probably sounds ridiculous but it’s true, Charlie. I find your talent, your presence, everything about you just so mesmerizing, which is why what your brother thinks of me just can’t get in the way any more. Not this time. Not ever.’
I inhale this moment. Could this really be happening? Is it true what they say, that when you know, you just know? What is it about the two of us that makes this all feel so unique and real? When I see him, I want to touch him, to hold his hand, to take every part of him in. When I speak, it’s like he hangs on every single word and answers in exactly the way I want him to – actually no, he answers even better than that.
I swallow hard. ‘Thank you,’ is all I can say. ‘I’m really honoured you think I’m so talented. I’ve always feared my songs might be a bit twee and simple.’
He looks at me in disbelief. ‘You should be shining brightly, Charlie Taylor,’ he says, leaning closer, touching my face. ‘You absolutely impressed me and have rarely left my mind ever since that day, no matter where I’ve been or who I’ve been with.’
I want to ask him why he didn’t come and find me back then if his feelings were so strong. What stopped him from looking me up and saving us both from all this misery for so long? Even if it hadn’t worked out, why didn’t he try and make it happen in the first place? And so I take a deep breath and ask him just that.
‘I think you broke my heart that day,’ I confess to him in an outburst I’ve been trying so hard to hold back on. ‘My heart went to pieces when I saw you with your girlfriend, not to mention all the different girls I saw you with after that.’
He bites his lip, then runs his fingers through his hair.
‘I think that when you’re ready you should ask your brother why I never made that move,’ he says to me, and for the first time since last night I see a different look in his eyes. A little bit bitter, maybe.
‘Matthew?’
Oh no, not this again.
‘Or I can just tell you now some of what happened, and you can make your own mind up if you want to see me again?’
We sit together, in a slightly uncomfortable silence, each acknowledging the dip in the mood and the onset of reality. I can almost hear my heartbeat. I don’t know if I want to hear this or not.
‘Just tell me,’ I say, closing my eyes as I concentrate on breathing. I’ve a feeling my whole world is about to be pulled from beneath me, just when it was all going so well. ‘No matter what it is, I’m sure it can’t be that bad.’
He swallows, holds my hand a little tighter, and I can see that this is just as difficult for him as it is for me, but it’s like an elephant in the room now and we have to get it out of the way.
‘The girls I was with back then, they never meant a thing and Matthew knew it,’ Tom explains to me. ‘It used to irritate him that I got all this stupid attention. Not that he was jealous or anything, but more that he wanted me to focus on the band itself, or him at least, rather than the women who followed us. Then, one night after a gig, I got the courage to ask him for your number. I made some excuse about wanting to hear more of your songs and he flipped, like, totally flipped, and told me that he never wanted to see me near you again. Called me a womanizer and a … well, you can imagine the rest.’
I shake my head and smile a little, but Tom isn’t smiling at all. This is a big thing for him to tell me and even talking about it is really opening up old wounds.
‘I can imagine.’
‘I totally got that he was your big brother and of course he was worried, but no matter how much I tried to explain to him that to me you were different, he wouldn’t have it,’ says Tom. ‘He was the big boss at the time, it was his band and I had to do what he said if I wanted to keep my place. We were really going places and he made me choose – go after you like I wanted to or stay in the band. At least he said that was why he was mad.’
I bite my lip as it all falls into place. Maybe this isn’t as bad as it seems. Unless there’s more?
‘But there’s no band now, right?’ I say to him. ‘There is no band so none of that matters any more, does it? We can be together now if we want to. It’s nothing to do with Matthew any more.’
I think of my brother and all the times he seemed to stand in my way when in his head he was standing up for me. He was always so super protective and I hated him for it, but maybe he had a point. He saw Tom as a Casanova who would break my heart. He was looking out for me as any big brother would, but that time is over now. We are where we are now. We can live in the present.
‘No, there is no band now, and I’d a big part to play in that too,’ says Tom, dropping his head and looking away. ‘That’s when the story ends, and it wasn’t a happy ending, as you know.’
Oh. So I haven’t heard it all yet. There is more …
‘Why did you guys break up?’ I ask him. ‘Please don’t say it was over me?’
Tom wets his lips with his tongue and exhales long and slow. My stomach hits my mouth.
‘We were having silly rows up until then,’ he continues quickly. ‘There were cracks. Me and Matthew were clashing left, right and centre. He wanted to be the star of the show, I wanted to have more say in what direction we were going in. It was a clash of ego, of power, a real-life case of too many chiefs, and I told him he was jealous, but I always had a feeling it was more than that.’
I dab my nose with a tissue as I try and absorb my part in all of this.
‘Jealous? You mean, jealous of you?’
He bites his lip. ‘Yes, I guess in a way he was jealous of me,’ he says, his eyes heavy now and sad. ‘But not just jealous of me. He was jealous … he was jealous of what me and you could be if we got together.’
It all starts to make sense now, even if it seems so petty and ridiculous on Matthew’s part. He used to make every excuse he could think of to put me off Tom Farley. He used to love to tell me that he’d a woman at every gig, a different one every night, and because he knew I fancied Tom he’d remind me that I’d always just be the same to him. I’d offer to help out at gigs, but Matthew would have anyone but me come along and hang out with them. He would never let me get close.
‘I felt there was something deeper going on with him, something I couldn’t control, and I just couldn’t work around his negative energy any longer so I stormed out and we all became history after that,’ says Tom. ‘It cost me my whole musical future, but it also lost me a very good friend and any chance of seeing you again. Maybe that was a big mistake. Maybe it was a selfish, childish move that backfired as it broke up the band and it broke … well, it broke Matthew too, I suppose, didn’t it? I never imagined he would take it so badly.’
I can’t think straight. I put my hand to my forehead. Do my parents know this? Did Matthew tell them he was jealous of the idea of me and Tom getting together? I still don’t understand why. My family have been to hell and back with Matthew for
