30-Something Reality

Set Up!

We had been focused as a group to make up for lost time. Jeanette and I had felt like we were kids again with all the traveling, pictures, ideas, pranks, late nights, sleep all day, junk food cause we could... It was what we wanted to do when we became "grown-ups!" Geting paid to do what we love!

One night after a concert in Denver, Jeanette and I were going through some of my photos I had taken for a magazine spread I was working on. It was on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. "Check my back pack for that flash drive Jean!"

"The black one?" I hear her yell back from the front of the bus. I was on strict bed rest for the duration of the next seven months. I had almost quit smoking again, but sometimes it was hard. 

"Yeah.... Did you find it?"

"Sarah Elizabeth Carter! Tell me again why you left Shannon?" She yelled at me as she threw a black book at me.

I picked up the book and it had blue lettering on it... "SiReN & SHaNNoN"... I opened the cover and there again, was the photo Shannon had taken of me in D.C. the morning we met. I couldn't even turn the page... I started to cry...

"I know you love him Sarah...every photo of the two of you in there shows me that,,," She sat on the bed next to me.... She tossed on the bed the black file folder with photos in it from the shoot that day in New York. I saw the one of Shannon in his red shirt and how it lit up his eyes. In a way that only I would know... That animalistic side of him... That raw, unadulterated side of his heart... The other photo that fell out was the one of Jared... His eyes and his lips.... That stare... I couldn't break him, he had been there for me.... I just wanted to curl up in his arms and forget that the night in New York had never happened... 

"Why would she do that? She knew I was going to see my boyfriend preform! Why would she fucking do that!?"

"Because people aren't always nice!..." My sister's green eyes filled with tears. She pulled her long hair back and pulled down her small blond curls that we had put in her hair earlier that day.. "Sondra called me...

I looked at her with fire in my eyes... "When?! Why?!" I almost yelled!

"She knows about what happen at the club in New York... Honey, it was her girlfriend that did it... Christy.. is Christine... She had been stalking your pages and found out who you were. Sondra finally came clean with her parents when she left Christy..." My sister looked at me with tears streaming down her face.... "She called me when you were in the hospital because she had found out what she had done and wanted to appologize. She felt like it was her fault."

"WHY!" I looked at her... "What the fuck, did I do to that girl?... "

"Sondra broke up with her and told her parents she wanted you.... " She stopped... "I told her you had moved on and to tell Christine that I would personally make sure that you made it through and that her stupid stunt would brink you and Shannon closer in the end. I told her that so she would leave you alone... Sarah I'm sorry...."

I couldn't believe it... Shannon had been telling me the truth the whole time... I had left him for nothing.... I had risked this baby all over some stupid jealous girl that didn't get what she wanted and blamed me for it? "Sondra and I had been over for over a YEAR! Why would she think I would come back now... After everything.... she put me through... EVEN ME ASKING HER TO MARRY ME!"

"Because she was scared.... Sarah... Look at what you have done to Jared and Shannon... "

"I have done?!"  THEY CAME AFTER ME! THAT PHOTO! SHANNON took that before I even knew they were in TOWN! I didn't even know there was a new concert tour! So HOW did I do this to THEM!?"

 "Jared is in love with you but won't make a move to be with you until Shannon and you have worked through things right... It's been a week and you haven't said a WORD to him! Don't let this bitch fuck up what I know you have wanted for a long time... What Shannon wants from you... is exactly what Sondra wouldn't give you. And it's not fair that you get them both!"

My sister stood up and started yelling... "You are finally getting a second chance at happiness... Something I won't get... Remember... my boyfriend was taken from me to where I can't get him back! He's six feet under from that stupid bitch that couldn't remember not to drink and drive... Or did you forget that is the other reason you and Sondra broke up...it was her stupid mother that killed Jackson!..."My sister was furious! We had been through so much together...

She sat back down on the bed with me and picked up the two photos... "Too much death and not enough happiness...What happened with Sondra and that stupid bitch in New York, honey it's over... It has to be... I can't get the second chance at love your're getting... And damn it... I'm tired of listening to you cry every night in your sleep over one and not the other. Make your choice Sarah... Stop torturing them and yourself!"

With that my sister left... it wasn't until she walked out of the back room of our bus that I saw Tomo in the door way...  "This whole thing is all my fault... I should have NEVER gone to D.C. that day!" Tomo pulled me into his arms.... As he looked down the hallway to the front of the bus to see Jared and Shannon both standing in the 'living room' area of the bus and my sister standing in front of them both like a dear in the headlights.... 

Jared grabbed Jeanette and just held her as she cried... we both just cried... Shannon had sat down on the sofa next to the window. He looked like he was going to pass out. Shannon held his head in his hands and just sat there... It was finally quiet.