Give Me A Reason | ✔️

i. Give me a reason to turn and run

"This isn't working."

My heart thuds in my chest. "What isn't working?"

She looks up at me. "Our relationship."

I hear the sound of something shattering. It's probably my fragile little heart breaking into pieces hearing those words from Naomi. "What?"

She doesn't meet my eyes. "You're always out, Adam." She says bitterly. "Either you're on tour or you're making an album. It's hard, you know, to be the supporting wife when you're hardly around. There're the Skype calls, but they're just not enough."

Oh, God. That's what had been bothering Naomi for the past week.

Now that I think about it, she's right.

I keep quiet.

"This can't go on." She tells me firmly. "It's not up for debate - I want a divorce."

My world falls apart with those words.

"W-What?"

"You heard me."

She's throwing away years of friendship and love and marriage. I feel angry at how she seems to let it all go so easily. "Tell me what to do!" I say desperately, not wanting to let go of her and everything we had created. "Please don't leave me."

"Face it, Adam. If the choice was between music and I, I wouldn't even have a chance." Not true, I try to convince myself. I love you too much for that. "We're over, and that's final."

I turn away so that she can't see my tears and mock me for them. "Is this what you really want?" I say, hoping to heaven and hell that she'd joke about how she got him and he'd berate her about how much she'd scared him and how she mustn't do it again.

"It's too late, Adam." She says the very words that were the opposite of what we'd written together and I'd gotten tattooed. "This is what I want. I'm done."

She places the divorce papers in front of, the paperwork signed on her part.

And here I am; wishing it's not too late, it's never too late.

~*~

"Adam?" Someone asks. I think it's Brad.

I say nothing.

"Adam?" Brad waves his hand in front of my face. I barely register it, as I was in the initial stage of shock.

Oh, god. She really left me.

"Adam Wade Gontier!" Brad shouts in my face. My head jerks, none too gracefully.

"Yeah?"

"You seem out of lately." Brad says, concerned. I'm not being fair with him, or anyone, lately. I can't seem to sing like I used to. "Are you alright?"

"I'm okay, Brad." I try to look cheerful for his sake. "Just thinking a bit."

Brad chuckles. "Adam Gontier, and thinking? Never thought I'd hear the two in the same sentence without being separated by not." Brad jokes.

"What's that supposed to mean, Bradley?" I cock an eyebrow. Two can play that game,

He scowls. "You know that I hate that name."

"Which is precisely why I use it, Bradley."

"Oh, come on!" Brad groans. "Cut it out!"

"Not a chance, Bradley." I mock him some more.