Adonis

My phone began to ring and I reached for it. Glancing down at the identity of the caller made my stomach tighten with anxiousness. It was the last thing I needed just before a concert. It rang again as I took a deep breath while I held it in my hand. And then I answered.

"Hey," I greeted.

"Have you been trying to avoid me?" Alex asked sharply, not bothering to beat around the bush.

I let out a sigh. He was my best friend and he knew me well. There was no point in trying to hide it.

"It's just easier," I said, feeling the weight on my shoulders.

It had been three long months since Lacey had survived a risky surgery and defied the odds of pulling through. But as miraculous has it had been, her memories of me and what we'd shared had been lost.

When I thought back to that first moment she'd looked at me without the warmth of what she'd felt was like a knife twisting in my heart. In that moment everything we'd shared had been ripped from me.

The urge to fill the gaps in her memory was superseded by the fear of the impact it would have been on her. When she'd woken up after surgery she'd been so confused and upset. After a talk with the doctor it had been decided to give her time and see if the memory loss was permanent.

Permanent was something I hadn't been able to contemplate.

"I get it," he said and I lifted my eyes to look through the large window of my hotel room at the dark city below. London was beautiful at night and I had a view of the London Eye and the Thames. But even the view couldn't ease the sadness inside of me.

"I want to be the person she needs me but it's too hard," I tried to explain. I didn't like talking about it because it made my heart ache and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Hell even when I wasn't talking about it I was thinking about it. The pain was constant.

"Just give her more time," he said gently but I was already shaking my head.

I couldn't go on like this. It was tearing me apart. Holding on was like being trapped in time. I couldn't go backward or forward. Stuck in the short time we'd had together and every moment I was there faced with the memories only I could remember was sucking the life out of me.

"It's been three months," I began to say. I swallowed the emotion that tightened my throat. "Like the doctor said if she was going to recover the memories it would have happened already. The fact that she hasn't regained any of the lost memories... it means she isn't going to remember."

Lost forever. I closed my eyes briefly feeling the familiar pain sweep over me.

Initially in the days that followed her surgery I had been optimistic but every day that had passed without her remembering had chipped away at the hope that I would get her back. Now, three months later, I had little hope.

There was a knock at the door.

"I have to go," I said turning away from the window.

"Promise you're going to make it to my birthday party next week," he said. My hand tightened around my phone pressed to my ear.

For a moment I stilled. To see her again and not be able to touch her like I used to made me hesitate. It would be torture. He knew even though I was on tour I had a break coming up. I could make it but the question was did I think I could handle seeing her again.

"Gray," he said and there was another more insistent knock at my door.

He was my best friend and I couldn't avoid him just because I was in love with his sister and she couldn't remember.

"I'll be there," I assured him, regretting my words already.

I would do it for him.

"Great. See you then."

He disconnected the call and I stood staring at the phone contemplating what I'd agreed to. I had to find a way to deal with it. So far I hadn't figured out a way to stop the pain.

"Come on man," Link said through my hotel room door. "We're going to be late."

That snapped me out of my pity party and I grabbed my jacket and opened the door. My work schedule was the only thing keeping me sane.

"You're worse than a girl man," Link whined and I brushed it off.

"I was on a call."

The sombreness in my voice made him stop. I slid my leather jacket on as I turned to face him.

"How's she?" he asked.

I let out a sigh and ran a hand through my hair.

"She's the same," I replied with a shrug.

All that should have mattered was that she'd survived and she was still with us but I'd wanted more, so much more.

I'd been given heaven for a few precious moments and now I was living in hell.

We'd spent years getting to the point of admitting our feelings for each other. Ours was a love story that had spanned most of our lifetime and to have it taken away just as we were starting was more than I could bear.

Seeing my obvious lack of eye contact as a sign that I didn't want to talk anymore he dropped the subject. We joined Sage who was waiting downstairs at the back entrance of the hotel.

The smile that tipped my lips didn't reach my eyes and it was hard to copy my bandmates easy going mood. Alex's call had brought back the raw feelings of being in love with someone who didn't remember they loved you.

That night on stage I tried to keep thoughts of Lacey from playing on my mind but when I sang the words of a love song, even with thousands of screaming fans, she was the only girl on my mind and the only one I wanted.

A couple of times in between songs when the lights on stage darkened I felt the harp pendant I still wore beneath my shirt and closed my eyes for a moment savouring the moment I could think back to the few moments we'd shared.

Usually it gave me the strength to keep on going but that night it had felt like it was weighing me down with the reality that I'd lost her already and there was no getting her back.

Later that night when the guys wanted to go out clubbing but I didn't join them. My mood was dark. I couldn't go out and pretend things were fine when they weren't.

Back in my hotel room I shrugged out of my jacket and threw it on the closest table. Inside the bathroom I stripped my clothes off and showered. Once I had a change to clothes on I grabbed a beer that the hotel stocked in the room for me. I switched off the lights and sat down on a chair that faced the large window that over looked the city.

Looking into the stars above the city I took a swig of my beer.

I couldn't do this anymore. I couldn't try and numb my pain with alcohol and hoped she was going to remember how much she loved me. It was time to be realistic and accept that she wasn't going to remember.

I swallowed hard as the pain ached in my chest.

But I didn't know how to move on from here. How did I get over my feelings for someone I had loved for so long? It was like I'd been given a glimpse of what my life would have been with her but then it had had been cruelly taken away.

I'd hoped that she'd loved me once and even if she didn't regain the memories that she would be able to love me again but as time had passed that hope had died.

That night I spent most of the night looking at the stars thinking about how she liked to lie on the roof of her house and watch the sky. For that brief time I let myself feel freely as my mind wondered through my memories of our brief time.

**********

Lacey

I sat on my bed looking out of my window feeling unsettled. I rubbed my hands over my face for a moment to try ease the feelings of anxiousness I was experiencing. Letting out a sigh I stood up and began to pace my room.

My reflection in the mirror caught my eye and I stopped. For a moment I studied the girl looking back at me. I touched my hand to my hair. I hated how short my hair was. It was a constant reminder of what I'd overcome. It should make me feel triumphant but it didn't, instead I felt like I'd lost a piece of me and it went deeper than the strands of my hair.

I knew it was only superficial and my hair would grow back. I reached for the cap on my dressing table and pulled it over my head. It was easier to wear a hat and hide it. If strangers couldn't see my missing hair than they wouldn't see I was missing a piece of me.

I had been upset at how much of my hair had been shaved off for the surgery. It shouldn't have been a big deal but Reece had understood. She'd hugged me before wiping my tears away.

"I've always wanted to cut my hair," she had said with a smile.

"You don't have to," I had replied hoarsely.

"I want to," she had insisted and began to list the advantages of having shorter hair.

She was a true friend that would do anything to help me with the process of healing.

Her sharing the hard step with me had made it easier. My brother on the other hand had teased the both of us constantly. He told us we made cute boys. The death glare from Reece hadn't stopped him.

My diagnosis had been so grave that no one believed there was a chance I would survive. But by some miracle I had and I was tumor free.

I should be the happiest person but since I'd woken up from my surgery and looked into Adonis' concerned eyes I'd felt like I was missing something and the more time that passed the stronger the feeling grew. It made me restless and it was becoming harder to relax.

At my post surgery checkup I had discovered that I had some memory loss. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly how far it went. The missing pieces of my memory made me feel like there were pieces of me missing. I hadn't told anyone about my inability to feel whole. I felt that I had put them through enough and didn't want to add to it with something I couldn't even understand myself. How was I supposed to explain it to them?

A knock at my door pulled me out of my heavy thoughts.

"Hey," Reece greeted as she breezed into my room.

I wiped the heaviness from my expression and gave her a smile. While I felt practically naked with my short hair hers framed her face perfectly showing off her perfect features.

"I'm so looking forward to tonight," she said excitedly as she set her duffel bag on my bed.

I took off my cap and threw it on the bed.

"You okay?" Reece asked, she was looking at me with a watchful expression.

This was the perfect opportunity to tell her what was going on inside and I bit my lip as I contemplated whether to tell her not. The frown and the deep concern in her eyes made me stop myself. I had put her through enough. I kept hoping that the feeling would go away and I would go back to my normal self but that had yet to happen.

"I'm just a little tired," I said, letting the little white lie roll off my tongue.

She frowned and took a step closer touching my arm with her hand.

"Do you want to stay in tonight? I don't mind. We can watch some movies and eat some junk food?" she suggested but I shook my head.

"I want to get out a little," I assured her.

I was feeling agitated already and staying home would only make it worse. Even feeling self conscious about my short hair wasn't enough for me to stay home. It was like I was looking for something I couldn't find.

"Do you know if Gray is coming to Alex's birthday party?"

Just the mention of his name was enough to tilt my axis and I felt unsteady.

"Alex called him. He said he'd be here," I replied with a shrug trying to disguise my reaction.

What Adonis did or didn't do shouldn't matter to me but it did. Just the thought of seeing him again made me feel a flutter of excitement and dread at the same time. It was hard to love someone that not only didn't feel the same way but went out of their way to avoid you.

Reece watched me closely and I gave her a tight smile that never reached my eyes. She was my best friend so she knew about my crush on him. But I didn't want to tell her how much his indifference to me had hurt over the last couple of months.

I had loved him from afar for as long as I could remember and he'd only ever treated me like his best friend's sister. Things hadn't improved after I'd been released from hospital, in fact it had worsened. It was like he couldn't stand to be near me and had made every excuse not to be around.

Initially, when I'd come out of hospital he'd visited regularly to see how I was but as time had gone by those visits had lessened until it had gotten to a stage when he'd stopped coming to the house all together. I couldn't explain it. Sometimes I would go back through every encounter between us to figure out if I'd said something to upset him but I came up with nothing.

Why he was going out of his way to avoid me? Waking up with memories lost and an increasing feeling of missing something had only worsened with his behaviour. My fragile feelings for him had been harder to carry. I had no way to explain why, all I knew was that it was killing the love I felt for him. It wasn't like I'd expected him to profess his undying love but the avoidance had been hard to take.

"How do you feel about seeing him again?" she asked.

"I don't know," I replied, unable to hold her gaze. I let my eyes drop to the floor.

"What if he felt the same about you?" she asked quietly and I had to suppress a hollow laugh.

"Don't be ridiculous," I told her. "If he cared he wouldn't be avoiding me."

She bit her lip as she watched me, it was like she wanted to say something but she didn't. "We don't have long to get ready," she said, steering the conversation away from Adonis and I was relieved.

Talking about him was worse than thinking about him. I had accept the reality that what I felt for him was a crush that I needed to get over because he would never be more than my brother's best friend.

There was one thing that helped to feel the hole inside of me. Alcohol helped numb me so I didn't feel so lost. That's also one of the reasons I needed to go out. After a couple drinks I could feel normal even if it didn't last it would give me a reprieve for at least one night.

"What are you going to wear tonight?" Reece asked as she steered me to my wardrobe.

"Why don't you pick something for me to wear," I suggested. Her face lit up and she started sorting through my clothes mumbling to herself as she tried to find me the 'perfect' outfit for the party.

It gave me the opportunity to sit down on my bed and sort through my chaotic thoughts as I watched my friend rifle in my wardrobe.

"What about this?" she asked showing a black mini skirt.

"Okay."

I'd go out and have a few drinks. For the night I would be able to forget.