Susane Colasanti - Now and Forever

By now you’ve probably figured out that I was ready to go. You might be angry that I didn’t tell you. But I wanted us to enjoy the remaining time we had together. I didn’t want to worry you. Not knowing when it would happen was the hardest part. There’s no way we could have prevented or postponed the inevitable. Please forgive me for wanting us to spend our last days together in peace.

Don’t forget your promise to me.

Love,

Gram

A tear drops on Gram’s signature, making the ink bleed. I should have been there for her. I should have been over here every day. How could I have let all that Ethan drama get in the way of seeing Gram more?

I call Ethan when I get home. It goes straight to voice mail. I text him to call me as soon as he gets this. My brain is so scrambled I can’t even remember if he has a show tonight. If not, he’s probably at some important event or photo shoot or doing a meet-and-greet with contest winners. He probably can’t get away. Or even look at his phone.

So I call Damien.

“Hey,” Damien answers. “How are you?”

“Horrible. My gram died.”

“No. I’m so sorry.”

I’m trying not to burst out crying. That’s the first time I’ve said it out loud.

Her house was empty. She left me her wedding ring. I said it out loud.

This is real.

“I thought she was doing better,” Damien says.

“She was. It happened suddenly.”

“I wish I could be there for you.”

Damien is not the type of boy I would normally be interested in. The boy who never went to college. The free spirit doing his own thing. No long-term commitments. Not worrying about tomorrow. But he’s easy to talk to. We can talk for hours and it feels like a few minutes. He really cares about me. You can hear it in his voice. You can see it in his eyes. And he’s always there for me. Which means everything right now.

“Everything will be all right,” Damien says. “You’re going to be okay.”

All it takes is hearing him say that to make me believe it might be true. Damien soothes me in magical ways.

Ethan calls me back a few minutes after I hang up with Damien.

“Why are you blowing up my phone?”

“One call and one text do not constitute ‘blowing up.’”

Ethan sighs impatiently. “What’s going on? I have three seconds.”

“Oh, nothing. Just that Gram died and I thought you might want to know.”

“Crap. That sucks.”

Awkward silence.

“That’s it?” I say. “‘That sucks’? Gram is dead, Ethan. Do you have any idea how horrible this is?” The tears I was fighting when I was talking to Damien come flooding out. “You’re the one person I wanted to talk to the most and I couldn’t even get you. That’s so wrong. I really needed you.”

Muffled sounds of talking from the other end. Then Ethan comes back on. “Sorry, Zeke had to tell me something. We’re sort of dealing with an emergency here.”

“Are you seriously talking to someone else when I just told you my grandmother died? What could be more of an emergency than that?”

“The sound system guys—”

“I don’t want to hear about it! All I’ve done is support you and you can’t even support me when I need you the most. I’ve shifted my entire world to revolve around yours. I’m not . . . It’s time to shift back to normal.”

“What are you saying?”

“We need more of a balance. I need more of a balance. I love you and I want to be with you, but our relationship can’t be all about you. I’m part of us, too.”

“I never said you weren’t.”

“But you act like I’m not. You used to ask about my life. You used to care about what was going on with me. When’s the last time we talked about anything that wasn’t directly related to you?”

More muffled talking from Ethan’s end. When he comes back on he says, “Sorry, I have to go.”

“Did you hear what I just said?”

“Yeah. Look, I know it’s crazy right now. Like I told you, things will calm down after the tour. Then we can focus on you. I promise.”

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on both of us all the time?”

“You’re right. But we’re in two different worlds. That’s just the way it is now. It won’t be like this forever.”

I can hear Zeke yelling something at Ethan. “Hang on . . . I have to go,” Ethan tells me. Maybe he meant to hang up. But I can hear Zeke clearly now.

“Why did you do that?” Zeke yells. “I told you not to be an asshole.”

Ethan: “You need to take your control issues for a walk.”

Zeke: “You ungrateful brat. I discovered you. You should be more appreciative of everything I’ve done.”

Ethan: “You always make it sound like you’re the only one working around here. I’ve worked hard for where I am. I put years of sweat and blood into this.”

Zeke: “Then I came along and made you a star. I work insane hours for you and this is the thanks I get?”

Ethan: “Stop trying to be my dad.”

Zeke: “Hey, kid. Your parents aren’t on the road with you. I am. You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not.”

There are muffled sounds from Ethan’s end, like he’s messing with his phone. Then I hear Zeke say, “We’re done here.”

I had no idea the tension was this bad between Ethan and Zeke. Of course I knew they fight sometimes. But that sounded horrible. Why hasn’t Ethan told me how crazy things have gotten with Zeke? I’m his girlfriend. I’m his best friend. When did I stop being the one person he tells everything to? And what kind of boyfriend can’t even soothe his girlfriend after her gram just died?

[20,587,113 FOLLOWERS]

Ethan’s doing a duet with Taylor Swift. She slinks across the stage to him. All sexy in her skintight dress. Glittery fringe shimmers around her perfectly toned legs.

I can see the glimmer in Ethan’s eyes when he looks at her. The glimmer I thought was only in his eyes when he looked at me.

This is the last night of Ethan’s tour. I wanted to watch from backstage. I thought it would be more special if I could be closer to Ethan for his last show.

That was before this morning.

Zeke is chatting up some VIPs passing through on a backstage tour. He catches my eye. He smirks, cocking his head in the direction of the stage like Ethan and his ladies .

Does Zeke know?

Ethan comes offstage with the band before their encore. He darts to me in a rush of electric energy and adrenaline and sweat. The crowd is going wild for him to come back out.

It’s different when I look at him now. When I look at him, all I can see is this morning.

We planned for me to come in this afternoon. But I wanted to surprise him. I couldn’t wait to see him again. So I showed up at his hotel room early.

A bodyguard was stationed outside Ethan’s suite. He told me I couldn’t go in.

Maybe it was the way he said it. Maybe it was the way he couldn’t make eye contact. Whatever it was, somehow I knew what was going on behind that door.

Ethan was with someone.

He was with a girl.

Deep down, I knew he was cheating on me. But it wasn’t until this morning that I could even admit that terrifying suspicion to myself. It was happening right that second. There was nothing I could do about it. All I could do was perch awkwardly on the way-too-fancy settee outside his suite and wait for it to be over. The relationship quiz Georgia and I took at the gym flashed into my mind. Which scenario best describes the worst relationship ever? This one. Right here and now .

Ethan’s bodyguard must have alerted him that I was there. When Ethan came out twenty minutes later, he apologized for being on a closed-door conference call. I pretended to believe him. We went out for lunch. I never saw the girl.