Page 127 of To Belong Together
Gannon spoke again. “We’re grateful God spared him, but you’ll see he’s still wearing a cast. We could’ve filled in with recordings—”
John leaned in. “Recordings are for wimps.”
Gannon chuckled, as did the audience, but Erin saw no humor here.
Why hadn’t she met this version of John before? Who was this smiling, talking man?
“Tonight you get a real show of this man’s talent, because everything you hear from the drums, he’s managing one-handed.” Gannon released him.
John retook his place at the back of the stage, where Erin only caught glimpses of him around the drum kit unless she resorted to the screens. He instigated the next song with three pops of a drum.
He had been so worried she would see him as nothing more than a member of this band, but until now, she’d struggled to comprehend that someone she knew was responsible for the songs she heard so often on the radio, the albums she’d downloaded to her phone. Even as the familiar music blared loudly enough for her to feel the beat hit her body, she kept straining to see him there, on stage, behind the drums.
It was the man she knew, but it also wasn’t.
This performer wasn’t the one who’d confided in her in a hotel hallway or helped pack her kitchen. He wasn’t the one who felt deeply and said little.
When was he putting on an act? With her, or with the audience?
She threaded her way to the side, where the jumping and shoving wasn’t as intense, and wove closer to the stage. From her new vantage point, she could better see John without the help of cameras. Gannon had been right. He was good at his job.
At the end of a song, he stood up. She hadn’t realized how much time had passed until Gannon bade the crowd good-night.
John stepped from behind the drums. His gaze skimmed the crowd and stopped on her.
Her heart froze.
Had he picked her out among all the people? In the dark, with the stage lights aimed his way? Approaching had been a mistake.
With his eyes locked on her, the enthusiasm he’d cloaked himself in all night fell away.
This was the truth.
He was exhausted, and she suspected the fatigue went much deeper than could’ve been credited to the show. She’d felt as though she’d been watching a stranger, but that one look revealed the real John Kennedy.
He wasn’t some untouchable rock star.
He was a man who needed belonging and acceptance as badly as she did.
An onstage camera closed in on him, and the mask took over again as John left the stage.
The crowd cheered them back out for an encore, and Awestruck returned. Erin stayed put as they began another song, but she heard nothing from the speakers. She’d come for a new perspective, hoping that seeing this side of John would reveal a way to fix what had broken between them.
But if Erin’s deepest need for acceptance could only be met in God, the same held true for John. Even if she won a battle by somehow repaying him for the house payments, she didn’t stand a chance in the war against all he’d come to doubt over the course of a lifetime.
The realization would’ve brought despair not so long ago, but God had reached her at her lowest, and He would do the same for John.
Would that healing facilitate a second chance for their relationship?
She didn’t know. But she did know she wouldn’t want a customer tinkering with an engine she was working on. She wouldn’t even want them looking over her shoulder, asking questions as she repaired their vehicle. If she deserved trust in her work at the garage, God more than deserved her trust in the realm of the human heart. John’s heart.
She allowed herself one last look at the man on stage. With a silent prayer for him, she backed away one step and then another. Others pressed in, filling the gap she’d left, and soon their lifted arms blocked her view.
Once John had spotted Erin,he couldn’t stop seeing her every time he lifted his eyes. And every time, she watched him so intently, he’d known, even through the roar of his headache, that she’d find her way to him. The idea had filled him with a skeptical kind of hope.
He felt like he was stuck in tar, unable to wade out.
He would listen to whatever she said on the chance that she’d stumbled on a way to put this lost, stuck feeling behind him. But what solution could she offer? Nothing that would restore the broken trust between them.
