Page 124 of To Belong Together
Bryan was the technician who’d worked on John’s car at Rodney’s. As far as she knew, John hadn’t tried to get him fired, but he’d lost his job nonetheless. Erin still felt a mix of emotions about it. Mistakes were easy to make, yet the stakes were high. She said a prayer for him and his family.
What did the pictures of John after the accident look like? Were they from the day she’d seen him or sooner? Had someone dared to photograph him at the scene? And how was he doing now? Would the video show that?
As curious as she was, she didn’t want her cousins breathing down her neck while she watched. She dedicated herself to small talk for the remainder of lunch.
When she was alone in her car in the Hirsh Auto lot, she found the video.
The clip started with the beeping of a heart-rate monitor and a close-up of John’s face. Either the footage was old, or he’d gotten a haircut. Wait. The scar was by his eyebrow, so he’d finally seen a barber.
“People think everything’s come easily to me. That I’m unbreakable. That Awestruck’s unstoppable.” Forehead furrowing, John looked up to focus on the interviewer.
A guitar started while the video showed a picture of John in a hospital bed. Gannon sat next to him, holding his hand with palpable concern. And no wonder. This must’ve been the night of the accident. John looked like death.
The clip cut to Awestruck rehearsing as the first verse played. Erin, too impacted by what she’d seen, didn’t hear the lyrics. She hadn’t realized until seeing the picture how close they’d come to losing him. Even if she couldn’t fix their rift, she found some comfort in knowing John was still alive, drumming, hanging out with Gannon, chauffeuring his dogs in his sports car. If they’d lost him then … she trembled at the thought, despite the knowledge that, if they’d lost him in the wreck, she never would’ve fallen in love with him.
Love. Her first real love was a rock star.
She’d spent all her life feeling different from other women, but in the area of her feelings for a celebrity? She was such a cliché.
For the chorus, the band played in real time with the footage, each of them showing signs of the same anger-tinged power Gannon’s voice captured so well. “I’m wrecked at your feet. Broken and beat down, don’t know what it takes to heal me now. The bones you’ve broken scream your name.”
A sudden stop in the song gave way to a short video of John being wheeled to the door of the hospital, presumably to be released. On spotting the camera, he turned his bruised face away.
The footage skipped to the band working on the song as the music picked up force again. John must’ve had a rough time adjusting to drumming one armed. At one point, he lost his grip, and the stick went flying. Another video caught Gannon and Philip exchanging worried looks.
After the next chorus, John was back in the interview.
“What does the song ‘Wreckage’ mean to you?” The woman’s voice came from off-camera.
“We all crash and burn. Life events or our own actions sideswipe us. The important part is what comes next, how the wreckage is redeemed. If it can be.” He flinched, and then the chorus repeated.
Though most of his injuries had healed before this interview, it was clear he’d been in bad shape emotionally. Did that have anything to do with her?
The next video sequence showed less frustration. The band seemed to be working well together, and John appeared to be contributing again. Even joking around with the other two.
John’s interview returned. “My Redeemer lives. Any wreckage can be salvaged. Even if things look mangled and broken.”
The last round of the chorus echoed the hopeful note, getting a little closer to quoting the phrase they’d borrowed from Scripture.The bones you’ve broken sing again.
One last shot after the song ended showed John, the heart-rate monitor sounding beneath his voice. “There’s more to success than talent. A lot of it comes from the kind of persistence that doesn’t know when to die.”
Words appeared on a black screen.See Awestruck live.
That faded, and then a date appeared. Saturday.
No information about where.
Erin did an Internet search and found threads of people speculating about the show’s location. Some diehard fans had booked flights to northern Wisconsin on the guess that the concert would be in or near Lakeshore because the band lived there, but Awestruck could easily jet somewhere else.
The fans’ loyalty stunned her. Plane tickets were quite an investment, especially when there was only the chance of seeing a show. Why not simply wait until Awestruck’s next tour and buy tickets when the band passed nearby?
Her gaze fell on a comment with dozens of replies:
“One Man Left Behind” gave me hope when I was at my lowest. I owe these guys my life.
The replies read much the same, only one or two of them mentioning the God Erin knew John would point them to.
At least Erin had that.
