Love You Enough

Twenty

It was a couple hours later, Stevie was looking outside of the window of the very plane that was taking the whole band back home to the States, when her mind wandered back to the heavy conversation she and Lindsey had shared the night before. As she sat there alone, cuddled up underneath a cozy blanket with her dog curled-up into a tiny ball on her lap while most of the other people around her were either asleep or watching a movie, she felt tears stinging her eyes that she tried really hard to bite back. The harsh words Lindsey had thrown at her, the accusations he had held back for so many years without her knowledge, were still ringing in her ears. Of course, she had been aware that she had hurt him over the years, but that it had been to that degree came as a shock to her.

She could still remember how she had just sat there after he had been done, just staring at him, completely still while silent tears had run down her cheeks only to end up as big wet spots on the bedsheets below. Lindsey had not said another word either, almost as if he was contemplating if he might have taken it too far....

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Stevie, I'm sorry, I..-", he stuttered all of a sudden, when he noticed just how much his words must have hurt her.

But she was quick to silence him, "No, it's okay. You were just being honest for once. Sounds like you've been keeping that to yourself for quite some time." The way she said these words with a calm, almost neutral undertone while wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her pyjama top, frightened Lindsey even more than if she had just continued to cry. "God, judging by what you just said, you must think I'm the most terrible person to walk this planet..-"

"Stevie, no.", Lindsey interrupted her before she could continue, "I-I took it too far. You're not a terrible person, I..-"

"Yeah, almost makes me think I was the only one who did a whole bunch of shitty fucked-up things," Stevie said bitterly, "But if I remember correctly, and I apologize in advance if my coked-up memory might be a little fuzzy, it was you who constantly accused me of sleeping around even when we were still a couple and I had only eyes for you, who would constantly lose his temper and say the most disgusting things to me because people were pleasantly surprised by my talent. Wasn't it you, Lindsey, who basically replaced me with the receptionist of the music studio we were working at within just a couple of weeks after our break-up? A girl who I had to see hanging on your lap every single day from then on for the next five years? Who you swore to not have any serious feelings for every time you could squeeze in a couple hours to come over at night when she was already asleep to fuck me behind her back, but who ended up being your fiancé, nonetheless?", Stevie said angrily, all of a sudden, all the mixed feelings from the past Lindsey had brought back up earlier were heavily hanging in the air between them, again, as if all of it had just happened weeks ago. "And excuse me, but wasn't it you who threw a fit like a complete dickhead and called his ex, Cheri, the minute I announced I just wasn't ready to jump right back into a relationship with you after I had just spent the past nineteen years of my life addicted to numerous substances, and I basically had no idea who I even was, anymore? I pleaded for you to give me some time, just a couple months to find out who I was, what I wanted, just a little time to find my true self again, but that was already too much of me to ask of you. You just left me in my misery because I wasn't ready yet, because I wasn't willing to marry you and let you knock me up the second I stepped out of rehab."

"Wow.", now it was Lindsey's turn to be left speechless. He couldn't believe that after the deep, heartfelt conversation they had just shared, and the beautiful tender love-making that had followed, they were now back to their old selves, screaming accusations at each other as if it was 1979 all over again. "So this is what you think of me?! I am so sorry, Stevie. So sorry for wanting to actually be with you."

"Actually be with me?!", Stevie yelled back, "You?! Are you fucking kidding me? You always had a fucking backup plan just waiting in the wings for you, if things didn't go your way. No matter what, there was always a woman waiting for you to come back to, just in case things got a little too complicated. Cause god forbid, I might have some wishes, some dreams, some needs, too."

"What are you saying?!", Lindsey asked back.

"You never really chose me, Lindsey.", Stevie said with a shake of her head, "No matter how much you try to make yourself out to be the selfless knight in shining armor, always coming to my rescue whenever I was once again failing in life, you never, not once, ever since we broke up for the first time, did you ever really choose me, again. So don't try to fool me, you never risked shit for me. There was always someone providing you a warm cozy home somewhere, and right this moment, it's just the same."

After that, she had just gotten up and left. Back in her own room, she had collapsed in a heap of tears the moment the door had closed behind her. She knew that she must have made it to bed somehow, where she cried herself into exhaustion and fell asleep, because Karen woke her up a couple hours later to get her to the airport.

Stevie removed her eyes from the beautiful calm scenery outside to look three rows further ahead, where she could make out Lindsey's figure sitting just as quietly, but apparently also awake, by himself. The bitter expression on his face let her know that he was feeling just as miserable as she was. Last night, back in her own room, as she had lain alone underneath the cold bedsheets, a part of her had hoped that he'd come to her room to make things right, again. Until the very last minute, she had listened into the silence of the night, in hopes to hear some footsteps making their way to her bed to pull her body against his chest, kiss her tears away, and tell her they would find a way. Together. But he never came.

Some things never change, Stevie thought. No matter how much we try, we are still the same two stupid people we have always been. Both too stubborn to do anything to change the situation we are in. Both always feeling as if we are in the right, and the other one is in the wrong.