Moving on Up

Things have been moving slowly for me. It’s like I’m underwater but no one else around me is so they’re all talking and moving like normal while I’m struggling to breathe.

I miss him.

Adam's Big Move

I was sitting on Heather’s couch and we had been arguing for nearly an hour. I was so over this conversation. To me, the decision had been made but she wanted to make sure I was making it for the “right” reasons.

“Adam, you’ve been wavering on moving back here for months and suddenly Molly calls you and tells you Faith needs you and all of a sudden you change your tune? Do you honestly expect me to believe that it has nothing to do with her?” Heather was standing with her hands on her hips, seemingly to take a break from pacing across the living room.

I sighed.

Melee

It was date night and I had invited Mike over to my apartment for dinner. Molly was at Calvin’s for the evening which I was relieved for because it meant I wasn’t going to have to worry about being judged for hanging out with Mike. He was standing in my kitchen with a light blue long-sleeved shirt on but had the sleeves pushed up as he worked with a skillet. I took it in and smiled internally.

“You know, I think Sasha and Dolly would get along really well. We should take them to the dog park sometime.” He said.

I agreed and we were trying to decide on a good day to take them out when there was a knock on my door.

“What are you doing here?” I was shocked and looked back at Mike who was focused on the stove in front of him. I gently closed the door and stepped into the hallway.

A Change in Perspective

I found myself totally spacing out on the couch thinking about the fight we’d had a few days before. I know it’s normal for roommates, and especially roommates who are also best friends, to fight sometimes but it seemed like we’d been fighting a lot more often than usual. Neither one of us had said anything to the other about the fight we’d had, we just sort of ignored it.

I was supposed to be paying attention to the gorgeous man in front of me but I was just too distracted.

Morning Mash-Up

I woke up to an empty bed and the sounds of Adam cooking in someone’s kitchen.

“Good morning.” I said giving him a hug from behind.

He was standing at the stove making scrambled eggs in his pajama pants and his hair was disheveled from sleeping.

“Good morning to you.” He pulled me around, put his arm over my shoulder, and gave me a kiss.

L-O-V-E

I got to the bar Sean’s band was playing at about 5 minutes before they ended up being done and taking down their instruments. Karen was there and it was the first time I’d ever seen her. You guys…she looks almost exactly like me. Her hair is a little shorter (and platinum blonde) and her nose is kind of different but we could easily be mistaken as twins if our hair colors weren’t practically the opposite of each other (I’m a brunette with natural mahogany highlights thank you very much). She came over to me while I stood next to the bar and watched the band wrap up their set.

“Faith? Hi, I’m Karen. I just wanted to thank you for the lovely gift you sent me over the holidays.”

“Oh, you’re very welcome.” I said shaking her hand, “It’s so nice to meet you, Sean’s mentioned you a lot.”

“Did he tell you about the tour?”

I looked at Karen, startled.

“No. He didn’t.”

“Oh.” Realization came over Karen’s face and she made an excuse to go help Jake put his keyboard in its case before walking away from me. Sean walked over with his guitar case.

“I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

“Neither did I, really. I just think we need to talk and the sooner the better.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I think here is fine.” I motioned towards a booth towards the back of the bar.

We sat down and both got glasses of water from the bar before I felt like starting.

“Look, Faith I’m sorry. I-”

“Sean, I need to talk and I need you to listen to me, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean really listen to me.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t be with you if this is how things are going to be. You always say that I think about others too much, well, now I need to think about myself and I can’t be with you if you’re going to punish me for what happened. I won’t be able to get better or come to terms with what happened while you treat me this way and if you can’t come to terms with the damage that Kevin, “Sean flinched at his name, “ has done, then I’m going to need to take a break from being with you because I already feel bad enough and I don’t need you to make me feel worse while I’m trying to deal with this. I have been nothing but supportive of you in this relationship and I’m asking you to do the same for me. If you can’t do that, then we need to end this because I’m exhausted. We do nothing but fight and I really don’t need more negativity in my life, especially from someone I love. I can’t keep fighting with you and feeling guilty about it. I won’t do it anymore. You don’t get to shut down or walk away from me when problems come up because both of us are in this relationship and I feel like I’m the only one who actually works or compromises for it.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been going through some pretty difficult stuff in therapy and I haven’t been doing a very good job of dealing with it.”

“Do you want to talk to me about it?”

“No.”

“Is it partly why you’ve been so damn angry for the past few weeks?”

Sean nodded.

“I think you should probably tell Dr. Deerhorn that you need some anger management help.”

He nodded again.

“So can you please stop resenting me for everything?”

“Yes.” Sean held my hands across the table, “Faith, I really am sorry. I should have kept my promise to talk with you more about things that are bothering me and I didn’t. I need to do a better job of listening to you and what your needs are. If you’re ready to try being intimate again I really need to stop thinking about myself in that regard. You’re the one who went through it, not me and I should trust you more, that’s really what it comes down to. Not everything is about me and what I want, we’re in this together.”

“So, when were you going to tell me about the tour?”

“I’m not sure.”

“When is it?”

“We’re leaving in March and we’ll be on the road for about 9 months. I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

“How long have you known?”

“Only for about a week. We hired Karen at the beginning of January and she got the record label to agree to it, she thinks it’s better for our careers if we tour. We’re getting so much notoriety now, she doesn’t want us to be a local band anymore, and neither does the label. They’re still booking venues and working on the set and lights, I figured I had more time to let you know.”

“Oh.” I was overwhelmed with this information.

“I’ll be able to come back every month or so for a few days. I’m planning on subletting my apartment so I don’t have to lose it…we’ll be okay.” Sean said that last part more for himself than to reassure me, I think.

“So we have about two months to get to a good place before you have to leave?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, we better get started, let’s go to my place.”

I got up and grabbed Sean’s hand to pull him outside. We waved at Karen as we left and on the way home, Sean held my hand. I know it probably seems like a juvenile gesture, but I really appreciated it. When we got to my apartment I fed Murphy and my boyfriend, because apparently he was going to die if he didn’t get to eat all of my chocolate chip cookies. We caught a late-night movie to watch on cable and snuggled under a blanket on the couch. I was leaning up against him on the verge of sleep when he unknowingly snapped me out of it.

“I love you.” He kissed me on the forehead.

“You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that.” I said snuggling into his side even more.

(Author’s Note: this is the blog’s 150^th Faith-related post!)

Icy

I was eating a pint of ice cream in my flannel pajamas, with my hair in a messy bun, and watching a repeat of a trashy reality show when Sean finally showed up. I heard him enter my apartment and hesitate outside my bedroom while he contemplated the best plan of attack. When he came around the corner he had a scared smile on his face that fell at the sight of me.

“Flannel?”

“Yeah. Is there a problem?”

“Well…flannel isn’t very sexy but I can make do.” He went to slide next to me and kiss my cheek. I turned away and put my cold spoon up against his face.

“You’re really trying to go for the comedic approach?”

“Not anymore.”

“Best decision you’ve made all night.” I said putting my ice cream aside and crossing my arms.

“What did I do?”

“I thought you said that the band fired Gerry.”

“We did.”

“No you didn’t. Why are you lying me to me and not even attempting to hide it?”

“Faith, what are you talking about?” Sean could sense my anger coming to a head and his voiced was tinged with desperation. Murphy, sensing a fight, got off the bed and slinked out of the room headed for the sanctuary of his kitty castle. I’m pretty sure Sean watched him leave with jealousy.

“Gerry was there tonight, Sean. I saw him!”

Sean’s face was frozen with confusion and concern for a second before he started laughing. Hard.

“Why are you laughing at me?” I hissed.

“Because, I thought you understood….”

“Understood what?”

“That the music business doesn’t work the same way HR works, Faith. Firing a manager involves a lot more than a severance package when you work in any form of the entertainment business.”

I started blushing and felt incredibly stupid.

“Gerry’s contract isn’t up until January, when I said we fired him I thought you understood that it meant we just wouldn’t be renewing his contract to represent and manage us when it was up. I’m sorry I didn’t think to explain it more…”

“Does Gerry even know? I asked.

“We told him tonight, which is why I was so late. He didn’t take it well.” Sean looked down at his hands, he looked a little ashamed.

“Oh.” I said quietly, “does…does Gerry have a family?” I didn’t mean to ask Sean that, it came out before I could stop it.

“Gerry is a workaholic; he lost his family a long time ago. We’ve given him enough time to start looking for a new band to replace us.”

I didn’t really know what to say. Suddenly, Gerry’s hatred of me was understandable and I started to feel bad. Gerry has been with Sean’s band since the beginning, Sean and his band mates are the only family he really has at this point and he saw me as a threat, not just to his career like I thought, but to his family, as well. I totally get it now.

“So…you gonna share that ice cream?” Sean asked eyeing it on my end table.

“Hell no. Get your own.” I started giggling and Sean pretended to pin me down like a wrestler while he reached for my ice cream. As he went to reach, his belt buckle ripped my pajamas.

“You ripped them! Now I’ll never be able to wear them again!” I said holding the spoon for ransom.

“Good, you should never wear flannel, it should be a fashion crime.”

Sean was able to get the spoon away from me by distracting me with a really steamy kiss but we didn’t end up using it to eat the ice cream. We put it o better use on each other.

Note to self: Cleaning ice cream out of sheets quickly becomes a sticky mess. Invest in rubber sheets….