The Importance of Reading Anne Rice by Rika

You fell in love on a Friday, told the one you loved on a Saturday and by Sunday you were a couple, the two of you lived happily ever after... Wouldn't it be grand if life was that easy? But it wasn't, it never was, it never would be, at least not for you.

You fell in love and you told no one because you were married and you didn't want to hurt your wife, you really loved her. Only... you loved him so much more, in a different way. Daniel.

God you were so freaked out when you realized that you had fallen for a guy. It wasn't the first time but when you were 14 it was a hell of a lot easier to just pretend you were going through a "phase". More than halfway to 50 it was a tad bit more difficult. But you kept it to yourself and struggled on while your marriage crumbled around you.

There was nothing you could do to save it because your wife was smarter than you thought and she had seen the way you looked at him. You wrote a song about your divorce later, a way of telling her you were sorry.

Without your wife around you were actually free to go after him but... but you were afraid. You didn't handle rejection very well and as it was, you at least got the chance to hug, touch, cuddle and rub up against him on stage and during photos. He didn't seem to mind and sometimes, just sometimes, you thought he might be flirting with you.

You didn't drink but one night in London someone offered you English Pims and it was more fruit than alcohol, or so you thought. Turned out that there was enough alcohol in it to get you drunk. Daniel helped you back to your hotel and it wasn't like you were sober enough to act rationally. So you kissed him, he kissed you, you undressed him, he undressed you...

He was a gentle lover, not that you had ever thought differently. Every touch sent shivers down your spine, every kiss made you ache for another one and when he carefully, slowly, entered you, it sent you into a tailspin. It had never felt like that before, you'd never had sex made you feel like crying because it was so beautiful, so right.

He wiped the tears from your eyes, told you you were the most amazing thing in his life and held you in his arms as you fell asleep. It was all you had ever wanted and life was good. The next morning you woke up alone and you didn't know what to think.

When you met up with him again at breakfast he acted completely normal, smiled at you and teased you about your hangover. You were very, very confused. The day went by and you were pretty much lost, but in the evening Daniel came into your room and tenderly kissed you.

You knew you should have stopped him then, demanded an explanation, but you always were weak around him, needed his touch too much. He told you to make love to him, to please love him and you did both, from the bottom of your confused heart. In that dark hotel room you gave him everything you had, your heart, soul, sanity and body.

When you watched him sleep later, his lean body pressed against your chest, your arms tightly wrapped around him, you realized that there would never be anyone else for you. In the morning he was gone again.

It was always the same. He would come into your room and he would beg you to love him. Then he would make love to you or ask you to make love to him. You never said no and every morning when you woke up you hoped that he would be there next to you. He never was.

Finally one morning you had had enough, you couldn't stand the hurt every time you reached out only to find emptiness. You ignored him for a whole day, snapped at everyone, threw diva tantrums and when he tried to calm you down you stormed out because those caring green eyes made you cry, which was really embarrassing.

Daniel came after you though and you didn't have the strength to confront him, so you let him hold you, kiss you and murmur loving words in your ear. When you had calmed down he took you back to the hotel, ordered you something to eat, tucked you into bed and wrapped his body around yours like a Band-Aid. You fell asleep feeling contented, protected and loved and you woke up... alone... yet again.

He went back to Australia and you returned to USA lost in confusion and with an aching heart. When you didn't have him face to face it was easier to stay mad at him, to bitch about anything and everything, so that's what you did.

Some twisted part of you actually took pleasure in hearing the hurt in his voice when you insulted, belittled, him. If you had known then how it would end up you would probably have approached the situation differently but you were so fucking hurt and confused. You decided that it would be better if he stayed in Australia and you in America while you wrote the next album; he didn't object, which just made you hurt more.

The friendship that had formed the first time you two ever met and had always been so easy was falling apart like a broken toy. Every damn song you wrote was sad, about lost love and crap like that. In the end you managed to spit out some that at least didn't sound like you were suicidal but it took a lot out of you.

You sent Daniel the lyrics and he wrote music to them, beautiful music that caused your aching heart to crack around the edges. All you wanted was for him to come back and explain everything to you but you didn't know how to ask for that and you weren't strong enough to try. You even recorded some of the album on different sides of the world because suddenly he didn't want to see you. He never said that straight out but you could tell.

In the end he had to come over to New York and when you saw him you finally understood what you had done to him. He had always been lanky but now he was painfully thin, dark circles around his sad eyes.

You promised yourself that you would talk to him, tell him you were so sorry and explain why you had acted like such a bastard. He beat you to it. In his usual calm and well-thought-through way he told you that he wanted out, that he couldn't handle the pressure anymore. You had known him for so long but you still didn't understand what he was really saying to you, begging you to understand.
He promised to do the tour but after that he would leave. When he walked out the door you cried because your heart, soul and your sanity had just left you all alone. You were ready to run after him, to beg him to at least stay with you if not Savage Garden, but when you peeked out into the corridor you saw him slumped against the wall, his shoulders shaking with sobs and the heart you were so sure you no longer had, died.

The tour started and you tried to act like everything was fine, but it wasn't. Daniel never smiled anymore, unless it was one of his fake, absent smiles that you had always hated. Some days he couldn't even look at you, others he seemed to be trying to engrave your picture on his brain.

You found yourself singing songs to him with tears in your eyes while your broken dead heart festered and rotted inside of you. Night after night you sang 'Hold Me' to him. With that song you begged him to hold you and to tell you it was all right that you weren't strong enough to take the first stand; he either didn't understand or pretended he didn't.

As the tour neared its end you panicked. You weren't ready to lose him, to let him walk out of your life just like that, so you tried to talk to him again. The problem was that he mastered the art of avoiding you so well it was down right scary.

As to make things worse he had started to date some conniving bitch named Kat. At first you thought you hated her guts just because she was pawing, kissing and sleeping next to him but it wasn't only that. She was false, manipulating and she couldn't stand you. You were pretty sure she had figured out how you felt about Daniel and that she would do just anything to make sure that you didn't get what you wanted.

After a really bad day you managed to corner him and you asked him why he never talked to you anymore. When he refused to answer and just gave you a look of pure and utter devastation you wished you had kept quiet. The tour ended and he went back home, so did you.

Your home was too quiet, too big, too white, too small, too dark, too empty. You missed him so much you thought you were going to snap and you realized that you no longer cared. He didn't call, write or e-mail you and he didn't answer when you tried. For a while you just thought he needed some time so you gave him that.

You were soon told to do an interview, spread the news that Savage Garden had taken a break, you were ordered NOT to tell the truth, that Savage Garden was no more. There wasn't much you could do about it so you agreed after they gave you a promise to not air it until a certain date. Sometimes you were just too fucking stupid!

The interview was aired before it was supposed to but even worse, before you had a chance to tell Daniel. You caught a phone interview he did about the break-up and another part of you died. He put the blame on you, made it sound like it was all your doing because you wanted a solo career. That wasn't true at all but you couldn't make yourself feel angry with him no matter how hard you tried.

Desperate to find something else to do you started to record an album and almost every song you wrote was about Daniel. Carefully you sorted out some that were just too obvious, not an easy task and you were pretty damn sure that your fans would see right through you. A part of you hoped he would see it too and understand how much you loved him because maybe then he'd come back and give you another chance.

During a particularly difficult moment you put a song called 'Where You Want to Be' on the B-side of a single. You had had to record that song several times, messing it up over and over again by crying. The album dropped and you received a short impersonal e-mail congratulating you on it. You wrote him back and told him that you missed him, you got no reply.

When you went back to Brisbane to see your family you hoped to see Daniel, if only to remind you of how he looked. His house was empty and his mother told you he had gone abroad with Kat. Your own mother fussed over you, asked you questions you didn't want to answer until you had had enough and went to the place you were supposed to call home.

Feeling like you had a truck permanently parked on your chest you toured your beloved album. It was almost amusing how no one noticed that you had fallen apart, that you were depressed and so lonely it was killing you.

In interviews you were constantly asked if you and Daniel were still friends, you always lied and said that you were. If anyone had known the truth they would probably wonder why you did that and the answer was simple. The truth just hurt too much, it was easier to try to lie to yourself.

Every day another part of you died until your body was nothing but a gigantic gaping wound filled with pain. At one time it got so bad you had to lie to your fans and tell them you canceled a few appearences due to a throat infection when the truth was that you had collapsed and a doctor had put you on anti-depressive meds.

They made you worse at first and then slowly things got a little better, not a lot but at least it was something. The tour went on and the memory of lust-filled green eyes haunted your dreams, stung your heart, but you just kept going.

Weeks came and months went and life settled into a routine where you focused on keeping your voice strong, your health good and convincing yourself that you were over Daniel. You realized that you fucking sucked at the whole convincing-yourself thing. It wasn't until you went back home after the tour that you actually got to see him face to face again.

He looked good, tanned, collected... incomplete. That confused you because you really thought he would be happy now, away from the spotlight, doing what he truly loved and with Kat, who he now was engaged to, attached to his hip like a fucking leech. God, how you despised that woman!

You thought you might want to run her over with a tank or shove her down the garbage disposal. But most of all you just wanted Daniel to smile a real smile at you and hug you. It was painfully obvious that no one and nothing gave a hoot about what you wanted because he barely said hello to you.

When you started to move towards the door you spotted Daniel standing along, bitch-less, by a window so you headed over to him instead. You were suddenly extremely nervous and your hands were sweaty.

He knew you were there way before he could see you and when he turned around to look at you you had to use every bit of will power you had not to throw yourself at him and beg for forgiveness, mercy or whatever the hell it would take to make him love you.

"I... I'm sorry," you stuttered because it was true, you were very sorry, for everything.

"You can't help how you feel Dazza, I never blamed you." Daniel's hushed answer really confused you. Did he know you loved him? And did that mean that he didn't love you back, or what? You didn't understand anything.

"How I feel? About what?"

"Me..." He said slowly and refused to look at you, like he just couldn't bare to see you. "I'm sorry I..." His voice broke off and he sounded so sad, broken, and you just wanted to hold him. But you still didn't understand what he was talking about.

"Danny?" For a brief moment he looked straight at you, green eyes struggling to hold tears, that were already starting to escape, at bay.

"I'm sorry I misunderstood you, that I ruined... everything... I just thought you felt the same way I do. I'm sorry Darren, so bloody sorry," he croaked out and fled from you. Your eyes stung, your chest hurt and you still didn't understand anything, except that something was very, very wrong and that you had missed something major.

You couldn't get it out of your head and when you returned to the States you dragged down two boxes from the attic. They contained just about everything you owned that was connected to Daniel. Photos, lyrics cast aside, music sheets with his comments on them, a t-shirt he had left in your room at some point or other.

On the bottom of the second box you found a book and you smiled sadly. Daniel had given you that book just before everything turned to shit between you, like a day or two before he headed back to Australia.

Frowning you looked at it and realized that he had left it on your bed the last time you had made love to each other. You ordered yourself not to cry when those memories hit you like a brick in the face and it worked... almost. It was 'The Tale of the Body Thief' by Anne Rice. Slowly you leafed through it, wondering why you never read it, never even opened it. Probably because you were confused and... and... stupid?

With a sigh you stumbled to your feet, the book in one hand. When you dropped it onto the couch something fell out, fluttered to the floor. You picked it up gently as if you were afraid it would disappear if treated too roughly.

It was a letter with your name written on it. A letter from Daniel. Carefully you opened it, read it once, read it twice, hugged the piece of paper to your chest while fat tears ran down your cheeks. Now you understood everything.

You ruined what would have been the best thing in your life by not reading a book. You lost Daniel because you didn't read a book. He left it all up to you and you made him think... Crying, you hugged the letter to your face and whimpered in pain.

Darren,

I've wanted to talk to you about what's happening between us so many times but I'm afraid you won't feel the way I do, want the things I want. The first time we made love you were drunk and when you fell asleep in my arms I wondered if you would regret it the next morning. I didn't think I could handle rejection from you so I left.

I've begged you to love me and you have but I'm so scared that it isn't the same kind of love that I have for you so I'm always leaving you every morning before you wake up. I'm sorry, I really am. I've waited for the chance to have you for so very long and now I feel so unsure.

Do you love me like I love you? Because I do love you, I'm in love with you. But it's so hard to say those words to your face, especially when I don't know how you feel.

I can see that I'm confusing you every day, that I'm hurting you when I pretend everything is normal and I can't tell you how sorry I am. I'm trying to protect myself and I know it's a bad excuse and a cowardly way to do it in.

But Darren, I'm putting my heart in your hands and I'm asking you not to crush it. I should just ask you but I'm not strong nor brave enough. Please let me know if you feel the same, please help me. If you say nothing I'll understand and I'll stay away.

Love, always, Daniel

And you made him think you didn't love him back...