metulji - jan peteh

Making Peace - Jan POV

After that concert, I destroyed the sunglasses. I took them in my hands and stared at them, condensing all of the feelings and thoughts and opinions I had into the red frames. Then, I proceeded to bend them as far in half as they would let me. The plastic turned pink in tension,  twisted beyond repair.

I only had to wait a few seconds until I heard the satisfying snap.

I exhaled heavily as they split into two, making a pair of uneven halves that I then discarded into one of many plastic bags littered around the floor. Even if I changed my mind, decided that I did actually want them back, I would soon forget which one I'd put them in. I wouldn't be able to find them if I searched the whole night.

'Jan?' My heart skipped a beat at the sudden noise. I recognised the voice as Nace, who was clearly just outside the door. Although I definitely needed a few more moments alone, I headed to the corner of the room to let him in immediately, not wanting to make him wait. Pulling open the latch, which I had shut before to prevent any intervention, his figure was revealed in the doorway.

'Are you alright?' he asked, instantly noticing my red face and nervous stance.

'Yeah.' I replied, although my pulse was still high in apprehension.

Deciding not to press me further for a genuine answer, he began to speak. 'What was going on out there? You seemed really...' he searched for the words, obviously not wanting to upset me. 'Off.' he finished. As soon as he concluded the sentence, he turned around to avoid my reaction, and instead, wandered over to the chair on the opposite side of the small room and sat down.

'I'm just fucking stressed. Kris is off with me, Bojan is off with me, but I'm the one acting abnormally?' Nace went silent, looking down at the ground sheepishly. I hadn't meant to have this effect on him with my words, but all of my thoughts had just slipped out of my mouth before I'd had the chance to drag them back to my mind, where they belonged. 'Sorry.' I apologised immediately.

'I'm not sure what you can do. You've called her.' He looked straight into my eyes, changing the tone a little as he built on his point. 'Many times. She just hasn't answered.' he offered helpfully.

'I just don't know what they want from me.' I said defeatedly, sinking against the wall and landing on the carpet. I buried my head in my hands, initiating a state of pensive thought from the both of us.

'Fuck knows.' he answered finally. A few more seconds passed by, before he began to speak again. 'What happened to the glasses?'

'I broke them. It's time to give up and actually try to move on.' I answered honestly. Of course, this wasn't how I actually felt - all of me just wanted to resolve the situation. Yet that wasn't practical; it was dragging me and the rest of the band down.

'I suppose so, yeah.' he agreed. This pained me a little - he had told me that he'd liked Lilia. Maybe he too was on her side, and just didn't want to confide in me about it.

'Maybe one last call?' I queried, now lifting my posture up a little, making direct eye contact with Nace. I wasn't sure what I wanted his answer to be, since so much of me was hanging onto the dream that she would come back to forgive me.

'No.' he answered firmly before I had a chance to decide. Although my heart sunk a little, I knew he was right. 'I liked what you did tonight, by the way. It was brave.' he changed the topic.

'Bojan's going to kill me.' I sighed, pinching my brow in annoyance at myself for making that impulsive decision. 'But thanks.' I smiled a little, however ingenuine it was.

'Don't get me wrong, he's a little pissed, but the crowd loved it, so he's not as bothered as you're expecting.'

That was an instant weight off my shoulders; I had been mentally preparing myself for a shouting session with him about that.

'Who knows, maybe she'll see it and know I still think about her.' I added hopefully.

'I'd love to know that someone cried the whole night because of me.' Nace commented sarcastically, letting out a laugh at the end. 'It's probably best she doesn't know. Plus, it's not like she's going to see it anyway. She didn't even know who we were.'

However low the odds seemed, I hoped she would find out about tonight somehow. I prayed that she would acknowledge me just one last time, so that I could make total peace with the situation and begin to take steps towards moving on.

~•~

That night, we got blackout. You'd be surprised to find out that Bojan wasn't fluent in Finnish, given the amount of energy he put into performing 'Cha Cha Cha' every time he had one too many, without fail.

Usually, I was the one to play the guitar, but Kris had taken this role tonight. The rest of us sort of chanted along in broken words; none of us could speak the language, nor had lyrics up for us on our phones.

This was the way we ended most concerts. Sure, we were all drunk out of our minds, and the group was pretty tetchy at the moment, but this felt normal.

They say that drinking amplifies your emotions, and I had already been on the verge of breaking down before I'd had a sip. But still, I powered through the song, to avoid suspicion.

'Has she answered yet?' were the first words blurted out of Bojan's mouth once we'd finished.

'No.' I struggled to say.

'Man, I think it's time to end it.' he replied.

'I think it ended a long time ago.' I was now facing tears forming in my eyes; I blinked them back.

'We have to stop giving him false hope. I'm sorry, Jan, but I don't think she's ever going to reply.' Kris input, his face falling a little.

'So what do I do? Just forget.'

'Pretty much. Unless you're going to turn up outside her door.' Bojan replied absentmindedly, dancing around to whatever song was playing.

'Of course I'm not fucking doing that.' I scoffed dramatically at the suggestion.

'So it's done, then.' Jure said, knocking the room into silence.

'I'm sorry, Jan.' Kris glanced at me apologetically. 'I don't want this to affect us any more than it already has. The truth is, she was absolutely fucking distraught when she was leaving. She'd wanted you to come back but was too scared about what you'd say. So she ended up leaving.'

'So she doesn't hate me?' I asked, voice breaking.

'I don't think so.' Bojan shrugged.

'But she won't pick up the phone?' None of this made sense.

'She's had issues with guys in the past, she told us.' Kris said, looking to Bojan, who agreed.

'She told me that too.' I nodded.

'Look, I don't think you actually did damage to her. The damage was already there and just resurfaced when she got scared.' he explained. Although he messed up his words a few times in the process, the message was clear - I hadn't done anything. The accusations were false, she was just hurt and terrified of abandonment. The only mistake I had made was not telling her about our return to our home country sooner.

'So, if you don't think I'm in the wrong, you've been avoiding me this whole time because of what, exactly? I barked.

'Because I knew if I told you this, you'd hate me more. And I wasn't exactly sure if what I thought was true, but saying it out loud, it's the only rational explanation.'

'Hate you more? I was never mad at you, Kris.' My face softened slightly as I said this, glad that we were finally getting to the bottom of the issue, but irritated that he thought I had harsh feelings towards him.

'So, what's the plan?' Jure asked excitedly, clearly ready for a movie-style ending. The other guys clamoured around, waiting for my answer.

'There is no plan. If neither of us are in the wrong, like Kris says, then I don't need to make peace with the situation. It's already made peace with itself.'

However intoxicated I was, my words were genuine. It was time to get over Lilia Zena.