The memory failed; the moment faded. She sat up, feeling even more alone. The now-familiar dull ache settled upon her heart and she wished for the millionth time she hadn’t walked out on him, that he hadn’t pushed her so. Was it only three nights ago that she had slept in his arms? It felt like a lifetime ago. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She really hadn’t, but nothing could change the fact that she had.
She was filled with a deep longing to find him, to make it better. But did he even want to see her? It was so hard to know what to think. Caroline believed he did, but what if she was wrong? What if the time away brought him to his senses and he realized he wanted nothing to do with a moody bitch like her?
She drew her Gibson into her lap. A memory of his words returned to her, surprising her. “My home is yours,” he had told her that morning. His words comforted her, even as she questioned them. Did he still feel that way? Could he understand that she had just needed time? Could she somehow make things right with him again?
As her fingers begin idly picking out a tune, she laughed softly to herself. What exactly was “right” for her and Darcy? The moments when they were together and happy seemed dwarfed by all the times they were fighting or angry. She wished they had shared more good times together, but with a surge of regret, she realized how much of it was her fault that they hadn’t. He had said it; he had loved and admired her for months. How had she missed this? Why had she been so dead set on disliking him, so blind that she missed the warmth he offered her? It was mostly because she misunderstood him. And a moment of fairness made her admit that he was so very hard to understand. But she realized that the fact of the matter was that she had been prejudiced against him from the start.
She felt stupid now. Stupid and unworthy of anyone’s love or admiration, and yet, even as she felt she didn’t deserve it, she craved Darcy’s love more than ever. She longed for the warmth in his eyes when he spoke to her, the dry jokes that made her burst out laughing, and his soft, deep voice saying her name again.
Her hurting and sorrow were too much, and she found herself stringing words together into a song. It was rough and unfinished, but it expressed her feelings better than her heart could.
Tears ran onto the paper on which she wrote the words and chords. On a whim, she created a song file by recording it on her computer. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she just needed Darcy to hear her song, to know that she was hurting too, and to maybe feel better. She agonized a moment, questioning her actions. Was she being a fool? The file sat on her desktop for a long time as she stared at it and thought. If she sent it, she would be committing herself. She would have to trust him.
That thought made her stomach turn over. Trusting others had never been her strong suit. She was much more comfortable trusting herself. But then she looked at her small, lonely, empty room and realized that she didn’t want this and that if she were ever going to move beyond it, she would have to trust him. In a rush, she sent the file to Caroline, with a request for her to forward it to Darcy. She bit her lip, wishing she had Darcy’s email address, but this was the best she could do.
Then she sat back on her bed and pulled her Gibson tight. It was done, and she hoped that he would understand.
“Hey!”
Charlotte’s heart lurched in her chest as she recognized the voice on the other end of the line. It was last person in the world she expected to hear from.
“Richard?”
He laughed, a warm, rich, touchable sound. “Don’t sound so surprised, Char. I can dial a phone, you know.”
Charlotte grinned. “I know. So how are you?” she asked, puzzled by his call.
Richard sighed. “I’m good. I’m kind of missing all the company of the tour. You get used to living in the middle of a hive of people, you know? It’s hard to readjust to the quiet when you’re home.”
“Oh, so that’s why you called? You’re lonely for the tour?”
“Something like that, Char,” he said, in a way that let her know that it had nothing to do with his call. “What have you been doing? Keeping busy?”
Charlotte struggled to steady her breathing as she answered him. “I’ve been hanging out mostly. Getting caught up with things at home and going to some of my old haunts.”
“Going out with Lizzy?”
“No, she and Jane have gone off to stay with their cousins for a week.”
“Oh, that explains it.”
“What?”
“Jane,” he explained. “Charles isn’t speaking to Darcy right now, so instead he’s been calling me to moon over Jane every night. He can’t find her.”
“Oh,” Charlotte said, not sure how to take this information. “He’s taking it badly?”
“He’s crushed, Char.” Richard’s voice held sympathy for his friend. “I’ve never seen him like this.”
“That’s too bad,” Charlotte replied. She felt an awkward pause in the conversation and asked, “So what else have you been doing?”
Richard chuckled. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“Tell me,” Charlotte replied.
“I’ve written a song.”
“Really?” Charlotte was surprised. “Can I hear it?”
“That depends on if you come back on tour or not,” Richard said in a deceptively easy way.
“Ooooohh, I see a carrot dangling before me.”
“Char,” Richard’s voice was relaxed and sincere, “the song is not worth you coming back for, but I do hope you come back. I miss you.”
Charlotte’s lip was trembling as she heard him speak. “You do?”
“I do. More than I can tell you. Please say you’ll come back.”
“Richard,” she said, her voice ragged.
“I know,” he hushed her soothingly. “It’s not just your decision. I’m sorry; I didn’t plan on calling you to ask you to come back. It just slipped out.”
Charlotte nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. She pulled herself together and tried to think of something safe to say. She opened her mouth, and her heart defeated all the rational plans her mind had made. “I miss you too,” she whispered.
“Char,” his voice was heavy with emotion. He wanted nothing more than to drop the phone and run to her.
“Richard?”
“I’m here,” he said. He took a deep breath and blew it out. This was so hard, but every second convinced him it was right. “Can you just talk to me a little, Char?”
“All right,” she said, oddly touched. It was so infrequent for him to ask her for anything. “I almost got into a fight Saturday night.”
Richard listened to her dear voice as she talked about her adventure at the local bar. He smiled as he pictured her face, telling her story. He was breaking his promise to himself by calling her, but he had to. He had missed her too much, and he was terrified she and the others would not return to the tour.
He’d promised himself at Hazelden that he would remain celibate for three weeks. He figured that if he could do that, he could then go to Charlotte, tell her he loved her, and ask her, hell, beg her to forgive him. He wished he could offer her more. He was hardly a prize. She deserved so much more. But he had tried to let her go, to push her away, and still she loved him.
What else could he do? He had wanted so badly to tell her how he loved her that last day of the tour. But he couldn’t then. First he had to prove to himself that he could love her, that he could stop sleeping around and be true to her.
But he was weak. Seeing her at the VMAs had been his undoing. She was so beautiful that night. All he wanted to do was hold her and kiss her again and again. Instead, he had been terrified by the idea that LBS might be leaving the tour.
In the end, it didn’t matter. He still would go to her, even if she didn’t come to him. But the fear had haunted him and he had, in a moment of loneliness, called her, to hear the sweetest voice he knew. And now he knew he was hooked. She had told him she missed him!