—Lord Byron

To say that Tanya was annoyed at the fact I didn't complete the story on the jazz gig would have been an enormous understatement. Although I tried to explain how a pressing, personal matter came up, and that I would take any other assignment, unpaid if necessary, to make up for it, my new editor was the definition of uncompromising. The kicker was that Eric completed a short interview with the jazz musicians on my behalf, with plenty of usable quotations, and he could have briefed me on the show itself, but Tanya refused to run joint bylines.

"I'm concerned that we are not getting off on the right foot, Ms. Fray," she had told me in our meeting on Tuesday. "I'm going to let it slide this time, as a courtesy, but next time I will not. I'm not sure what kind of ship Mr. Simon ran here, but I like to run a tight one."

Julian's phone remained off until that Thursday. Each time I called, the line went directly to his voicemail, which I had filled with messages, pleading for him to call me back. It eased me a bit to know that he had called after the jazz event—even if it was only once, and even if we didn't get to speak that night.

But since he didn't call me back after we disconnected, I became more convinced—through each passing hour since—that he had most likely accidentally dialed me from his pocket, and perhaps didn't want to speak to me yet after all.

Or maybe his phone died and he lost his charger.

Or maybe the phone was damaged somehow.

Or he dropped it in water.

Or he was in the air.

Or he had no reception.

Or a crazed fan stole it.

Or...

I drove myself crazy with the what ifs, and it didn't help that work was quickly losing its appeal for me. Tanya—the closest thing to a real life, fire-breathing dragon that I'd ever known—was micromanaging my every move. She nitpicked my stories relentlessly, always demanding unnecessary revisions. I tried not to let it happen, but this started to chip even further away at my self esteem. Oh how I missed Burt, and his relaxed confidence in me.

My schedule was flipped around, due to Tanya requiring me to attend a few local concerts a week. I was traversing between somewhat normal work hours and graveyard shifts. Because of this, my sleep was suffering terribly.

I could have rested easier if Julian had just taken a moment to call me, and say goodnight or good morning. In my imagination, I could hear his deep, accented voice telling me that everything was going to be alright. But it wasn't the same to just imagine it. I desperately needed to really hear it from his lips.

Only his lips could silence my mouth and my screaming mind.

With the arrival of the week's end also came the end of my final shred of sanity. Friday was when everything changed for me, for us. Even though it would have destroyed me on any day—or at any hour—of the week, Friday night was strangely the worst and the best time for it to have happened. It was the best, only because it allowed me to grieve in my bed all weekend without worrying about any work related responsibilities. It was the worst because, without those responsibilities, I had absolutely nothing to distract me from the tornado ravaging my life.

As soon as I got home from work on Friday, I started boiling some water for dinner. I wasn't sure if I wanted to make spaghetti, potatoes, or eggs, but preparing the water would've been useful for any of the three, I told myself. I threw some salt in the pan and waited for bubbling noises as I decided.

For the hell of it, I tried to call Julian while the water heated up.

My hopes were in the air when I realized that the strange voice which had answered wasn't Julian's, but rather an automatically generated message.

We're sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.

And I did.

I tried back five times, then ten. Ten turned into twenty, then I sent a text.

Julian?

Almost instantaneously, I received a reply. My heart drilled against my ribs.

SMS Error 198. Delivery has failed.

No.

Wait, he did slam his phone on the ground on New Year's Eve. It could've been that he still just needed to get a new phone, I thought. Yeah, that sounded plausible. Julian was just really busy with the shows and he didn't have time to get a replacement yet—that had to be it. He wouldn't leave me like this.

While pacing the linoleum tiles of the kitchen, I remembered that I had Mason's number.

Hey, Mason. Could you please have Julian call me when he gets a second?

Who is this? He wrote back after several minutes.

Brooke. I replied. Strange, I thought Mason had my number saved. No, I knew he did.

After a few more minutes of awaiting Mason's reply, I ran to plug in my laptop. My fingers slammed against the keys, as the machine wheezed upon starting up. I could try to write to him on the messaging program, I thought. If his phone was defective, he had probably tried to reach me there already. Why hadn't I thought to log on before? As soon as the home screen appeared, I signed into my account, only to find Julian's name grayed out on my contacts list.

This user has not shared contact details with you.

He blocked me? He wouldn't have blocked me. But Julian appeared permanently offline, and I wasn't able to send a new contact request.

Maybe it was a misclick. Maybe he didn't mean to do that. Maybe it was just something wonky with his account or mine. There was no other explanation.

Before long, I realized that I didn't even know where Julian was in the world, and it bothered me to no end. Quickly, I checked the band's official website and found that they were in Greece. According to my phone, it was very early morning there. I hoped I hadn't woken Mason up with my probably unreasonable, useless worrying. Just ridiculous anxiety that I was creating within myself, that was all.

I had the mind to surf over to his social media page, only to find that I couldn't access Julian's private Riley profile anymore.

You are blocked from following and viewing this person's updates. The otherwise blank page read this.

That was it.

All the proof that I needed.

I could make no more excuses. Julian was undoubtedly upset with me.

I drew the logical conclusion that this had to be over Eileen and Riley. Inadvertently, I had taken the last bit of his hope for connecting with his family and pulverized it into the ground. Julian had enough of the heartache. It was never my place and I thoroughly recognized that I had overstepped my boundaries.

No, more importantly, his boundaries.

My Julian—my exceptionally strong, incredibly brave, massively talented, endlessly intelligent, impressively funny, immeasurably generous, breathtakingly handsome Julian—had given up on me, because of my obtrusion into the most private parts of his life.

Devastating pain trampled over me, pulling me to my knees on the hard floor. I gasped for breath, but each intake of stale air left me more oxygen deprived than the last. My wobbly legs would not cooperate, so there I stayed on the ground. He was really done with me.

Jules. NO. PLEASE.

A text came through at that very moment. My fingers couldn't fidget the buttons quickly enough to open the message.

He's with Devon. Want Dev's mobile? Mason kindly offered.

He was always so sociable, trusting, and welcoming. Even in my desperation and despair, gratitude filled me for the fact that Julian could entirely rely on Mason as his best friend.

Yes, please. I answered him.

As soon as the number came through, I dialed it. It rang and rang and rang until, finally, Devon picked up... sounding a little more than slightly intoxicated.

"Hello?" Devon slurred into the line.

"Hey, Devon. This is Brooke. I got your number from Mason." It was nearly impossible to control my nerves. Even as I tried to explain it slowly, I could still hear the blood rushing in my ears. "Could I talk to Julian for a minute, please?"

"Wait, who are you?" His question rattled me to the core.

"Brooke." My voice broke. "Tucson girl."

"Mason gave you my number?" Devon sounded entirely thrown off.

"Yes. I'm trying to reach Julian, and Mason said he was with you." Right then, I heard what sounded like girls laughing loudly.

"Oh, yeah, Julian is here," Devon said. "I don't think he can talk right now, though. We are a little busy."

"Doing what?" I demanded.

It made no sense that Julian would've been out that late, and with Devon of all people. Why would Julian want to be hanging out with a drunk Devon well past midnight, into the morning hours? Worse yet, who were the girls laughing with them?

"I don't really think that's any of your business," Devon replied coolly. "You don't need to get snippy. Just remember, you're the one that rang me. Mase shouldn't have given you my number."

"Well, I just, I—" The heat in my face was beginning to circulate throughout my entire body as anger and irritation overtook me. "I'm sorry for calling. I won't do it again."

Female voices chimed loud and clear in the nearby background, erasing any remaining question in my mind. If Julian were there, he was with them. Doing who knew what. But, if Devon was involved, I had a pretty good idea of what was happening.

I couldn't stand to hear their bubbly, giggling voices anymore, so I hung up and flung my phone across the tiles.

I should have known this would happen when he refused to discuss his sexual history with me. My mind conjured up excruciating images of another woman, or women, gliding their painted fingernails down Julian's sweltering chest. Knots tied themselves in my stomach to picture anyone else kissing his full bottom lip, or breathing in his leathery, woodsy, spicy cologne. Bile rose in the back of my throat to envision his rough hands tangled through a faceless stranger's soft flowing hair, while she called his name between deep breaths. I couldn't stop the sickening thoughts any more than I could stop myself from vomiting across the cold kitchen floor.

Through the expelled sludge, I carried myself toward the nearest wall, sat my back against it, and pulled my quivering knees to my billowing chest. I breathed in deeply, rocking back and forth, trying to shake the thoughts from my body. Trying to shake his hold on me. But the more I rocked, the greater the waves of dejection grew, threatening to pull me completely under.

If just one of the anomalies of that night had happened, maybe I could have brushed it off and given Julian the benefit of the doubt.

If I was just blocked from one of his accounts.

Or it was just his phone being powered off.

Or he was just with Devon, in a place he probably shouldn't have been.

Maybe I could have tried to reason with myself and offer sensible excuses.

But all of these things, together, convinced me completely that Julian Miles was exactly where he wanted to be—out of my life, for good.

Julian could have easily used any one of his bandmates' phones, or a hotel phone, to call me at any point, but he didn't. If he didn't have my cell phone number handy, he could have called me at work, but he didn't. It became crystal clear that Julian decided long before I left London that he was never going to see or speak to me again. He must have known from New Year's, while I stupidly sulked around his apartment, making him coffee and lunch and crying into his shower drain.

Suddenly, I wondered if anything had been real between us at all.

Why did I allow myself to trust him?

To love him?

I was better off keeping him at arm's length, just like I always had with everyone else, until he barreled in and knocked down all of my walls.

I was blinded by the light of him and, in turn, couldn't see what was happening around me. Had he really used me? Even then, it was churning my stomach to think of him in that way. It didn't feel real.

I would've been the first to admit my huge mistake. No, I shouldn't have ever involved myself in his personal family affairs. But didn't Julian understand that I had only been trying to help?

Instead of hearing me out, Julian was writing me off.

All at once, I learned how quickly bridges burned when set aflame at both ends.

Perhaps he just needed some time. Maybe, if I was just able to see him once more, we could hash things out. Maybe we could have come out of this even stronger than we were before. As unlikely as that was, I had to have one single, positive thought in order to garner the strength to rise from the floor, clean up the mess around me, and rinse off my tired body.

I turned off the stove and ignored the boiling water that squealed at me, begging to pour over the edges into the fiery depths below. My insides begged for much the same.

I just had to wait until March. March would've likely brought more answers, but I wasn't sure if I was ready to hear them. Frankly, it terrified me to think of standing in front of Julian again, but it had to be done if I desired any portion of a normal life after him.

Ascend the Stars would be back in Tucson, but I wasn't planning to attend the show. The only person I could go with, Laina, was coincidentally flying to Chicago for Wes's sister's wedding that weekend. Beyond that, tickets had been sold out for months. When Julian and I were together, I simply assumed I'd be in the green room with him, so I didn't bother to try for tickets.

It was too late for that, anyway.

I didn't need to go to the show. I only needed to have five minutes of his time while he was in town. Hope remained alive in me that he would feel compelled enough to give me those five precious minutes, before or after his concert.

A fading glimmer of faith also remained that perhaps we could work through this.

...

Square boxes on my wall calendar began filling up with X's, each one signifying another day without hearing from him. Stinging pains turned to dull aches, which were altogether worse. Somehow, though, Valentine's Day passed, as did Julian's twenty-third birthday. My imagination ran wild at what he was doing, who he was with, and how much fun he was having while traveling around the world with his bandmates and best friends, while the shell of me missed every part of him.

Every now and then, I would hear Ascend the Stars on the radio. Though I would get the urge to turn the volume off, I always listened to the song, all the way through to the end. So soon, as local radio stations reminded me, they would be back in America. The concert was being hyped up as the show of the year, and ticket scalpers were cashing in on it.

That was why, in the last week of March, when I returned to the tenth floor newsroom at the Tucson Telegram for a regular day of work, I was completely caught off guard by Tanya's next big assignment for me. Almost as soon as I took my seat, the blonde dragon came trotting over with a paper in her hand. She plopped the competitor's newspaper on my desk, and the front page read:

"I hope you didn't have any plans this Saturday." Tanya smirked. "This is going to be a big one."

"Maybe there's someone else who would be better suited to write this story." My voice cracked as I said it.

"Nonsense, you can handle it." Tanya's hand was at her hip, as she pulled out the envelope with tickets. "You will, however, need a partner, since that will equate to better chances at interviewing multiple members."

Was this not the same woman who had recently refused to run joint bylines?

"Since you and Mr. Harpen seem to work well together, I'm sending him with you to the event," Tanya said. "I believe that he'll be able to assist you the best."

Eric perked his head up from his desk and smiled approvingly, essentially accepting the offer to attend with me.

Now I needed assistance to secure interviews? Maybe my boss had lost all faith in my abilities as a columnist.

"I'll be speaking with an arena employee this afternoon. So long as you wear your press passes, you should have special permission to roam certain areas of the backstage halls. Just keep a reasonable distance from the private dressing rooms, unless explicitly invited," Tanya explained in a shrill voice. "I'll try to secure definitive appointments to speak with the band directly, although it's not certain whether I'll be able to this time. Regardless, do try to catch as many members as you can."

If I wanted to get out of doing this, all I had to do was claim a conflict of interest. Tanya would've been ethically required to let me off the hook.

An interview? Done.

If I wanted an interview with four of the five members, I could have had it done by that evening, most likely.

But the only interview I wanted was with one of the five guys, and since the show was sold out, this might have been my only chance to have it.

"Okay, sounds great." I offered her a small smile and a nod. "We'll get it done."

"I trust that you will, Ms. Fray," Tanya said, with the hint of a threat in her tone, as she pranced away.

"So... Saturday." Eric rolled up his sleeves and stretched back in his office chair. "This is a big opportunity."

It struck me then that Julian might not have liked the idea of Eric going with me to his concert, even as business partners. But the more I thought about it, I almost laughed. Why in the world was I concerned about Julian seeing me with anyone else, especially harmless Eric? Julian had left me. He changed his number, blocked me online, and dropped off the face of the earth, in order to avoid interacting with me. I was never even his "girlfriend," so what would it matter to Julian who sat next to me?

Not that Eric saw me in that way, anyhow.

"Ms. Fray!" The receptionist called to me, as I was exiting the building after my shift. A frazzled Grace was waving her arms by her desk, motioning for me to meet her there.

"I apologize, Ms. Fray, but you have not been in the office as often, so I wanted to be sure to speak with you before you left today." Grace rushed the words. She almost sounded breathless.

"Sure." I waited for her to continue.

"Are you receiving calls at your desk at all?" Grace asked. "A young man calls for you sometimes, and I transfer him, but when there's no answer at your desk, it returns back to me. I always ask to take a message, but he never leaves his name or callback number."

My mind immediately went to Julian, then sanity returned to me. Julian wouldn't be calling me there. He didn't want to speak to me. It had to be Caleb. It made the most sense, especially because Caleb wouldn't have wanted to give his name. He knew I wouldn't call him back.

Caleb was probably just trying to catch me off guard, to mock or harass me some more. Maybe he was trying to get me in hot water here, just as he had at Channel 4 in the past. I couldn't let that happen.