Page 27 of Heart Strings

Chapter Twelve

Alejandro

I set down Abigail’s luggage on the pavement beside the car, ignoring the truck behind us that waited impatiently for me to pull forward. The truck’s idiot driver should have known that the airport was a place for goodbyes, and my goodbye with Abigail had to be special. I needed this memory of her to keep me sated until I could see her next.

“Got everything?” Maybe she forgot her phone at the condo. Maybe we would have to cancel this flight to go back and get it…

“I think so.” She lifted the bags out of the passenger drop-off lane and onto the sidewalk.

“Great,” I said with an enthusiasm I didn’t feel. “Then come here.” I pulled Abigail into my arms, letting the scent of her sun-drenched hair melt away the world as our heartfelt hug turned into a passionate kiss. There was no one else, just her and I taking comfort in this moment realizing soon it would be her and I - apart.

The horn of the truck behind me shocked me out of this last moment of bliss. I couldn’t resist sending the driver a childish middle finger as Abigail turned away to collect her luggage. “Fly safe, okay? And call me when you get home,” I told her, wondering if I could be charged for kidnapping if I pulled her into my car and zoomed away.

“I will. Bye, Al.” Her tongue lingered over my name.

“Bye, Abby.”

If I closed my eyes, I could still picture the way she had said my name, her lips slightly apart, pink and full.

It had only been a few hours, and already I missed Abigail more than I had ever known it was possible to miss someone. We had spent every single day of the past week-and-a-half together. She had filled my life with pleasure, fun and happiness, and now that she was gone, a disconsolate ache in my chest was all that was left of those things she had given me.

That was why I was here at the condo instead of at home, even though Sierra was gone for good now. I wanted to relive the memories we had here - and do a little thinking.

My parents were Catholics, and I was too - to a degree. The short of it was that although I had been raised in a family that followed all the Catholic traditions, as an adult, I had never had the time or the opportunity to attend Mass. When you traveled all over the country, participating in the parish I grew up in just didn’t work out. Most Saturdays and Sundays when Mass was held, I was rocking a stage somewhere.

Yet, even if I was usually too busy to show my faith, I still believed and considered myself to be a Catholic. I respected Catholicism and all its traditions.

When I thought of Voodoo, I imagined people in robes hunched over strange, dried plants and glyphs drawn in the dirt with candles all around. That wasn’t Catholicism no matter how Abby had tried to spin it.

Well, you didn’t really let her finish, did you?I reminded myself. To someone who just wasn’t overtly religious, her admission had been…a lot. I hadn’t asked any intelligent questions to understand Voodoo better, so all I had right now were preconceived notions that may or may not be accurate at all. I tried to imagine Abigail in the place of those robed and hooded figures in my imagination. It just didn’t work. I couldn’t see my talented, beautiful Irish pianist there.

Maybe if I had just let her talk or asked some more questions, I wouldn’t be slumped over on the couch in the condo with a lot of thoughts I didn’t want.

And there was so much to think about - a lot of things that should have been on my mind before. Abigail lived in New Orleans. She had a dream to become a concert pianist for an orchestra located there. I lived in Miami, sort of, but spent most of my time traveling around the country to shows.

I had given myself this week…to do what? Get to know Abigail? Get rid of Sierra? Get Abigail to like me? I had done all those things, but I felt like I had accomplished nothing. Our time together had ended and we had gone back to how we were before - separated by where and how we lived.

Voodoo had raised so many questions, but it had answered one at least in the process. Now I knew why Abigail was so determined - why she had refused to go on vacation unless there were pianos for her to practice on, why she wanted to become specifically a concert pianist and didn’t consider any other options, and why the orchestra she played for had to be the Louisiana Philharmonic.

After everything she had told me, it sounded like she was hardly even living her own dream - she was living her great-grandmother’s dream for her.

I still had that crazy idea I had come up with during band practice. It was my trump card, my last hope, and my new dream…but Abigail was so determined and set in her path. She believed in fate, and to her, playing for that orchestra was her fate. My idea would fulfill my dream and bring us together, but it would take her away from hers. A week with me wouldn’t be enough to change her mind and convince her to choose me over her fate.

I reached for the phone on the couch beside me, lay on my back and held it high over my face as I texted Abigail. For now, I wanted her to keep talking to me. That way, she would remember our good times and keep me in her mind - and maybe miss me just a fraction of how much I missed her.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, we did keep talking, and we talked a lot. I went back on tour and bounced from city to city, and Abigail went back to being a model college student intent upon graduating. We sent each other pictures to keep us posted of what was going on in our lives, held long text conversations, and video chatted at least once a day. It wasn’t anything like seeing Abigail next to me where I could reach out to touch her, but it was better than nothing.

At first.

Slowly, Abigail began taking hours to reply to my texts. When I video chatted her, she only answered occasionally and always had some excuse as to why she had missed the others - even though she had answered every single call almost immediately for two weeks. In the evenings, she was always busy working or spending time with the sorority girls, she had class and practice during the day, and I could never seem to catch her in the morning before she left the house.

I could only draw one explanation: she was avoiding me. I didn’t know if it was the physical distance between us, our diverging futures, or just that she was getting bored with me - but it was something, and I could feel the distance growing with every excuse she made.

It drove me insane. I was slowly losing her, and I didn’t know why or how to stop it. My mental despair bled over into my life as Alejandro Devera, lead singer of Vaporized, and my bandmates directed sharp words at me more than once when I spoke badly to press, skipped practice or just disappeared for hours on end.

I wondered if it would do any good to talk to her about Voodoo or my impossible idea to bring us together. But lately, it had been so hard to speak with Abigail without hearing her leave-a-message statement. So, I couldn’t talk it out with her even if I wanted to.

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