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AFTER THE GAME

“Where are you staying tonight?” I asked AJ as we left holding hands, Lisa following on her cellphone talking to my producers about the game and how many great pictures she took for the website. Everything I did now was for charity or for promotion. We walked up to he and the guys’ limo.
“Some hotel, why?”
“I live here now silly man, you can stay with me in my house…”
“You have your own place now?”
“I do, and it’s a house, not an apartment anymore…Since singing and everything I make my own good bucks.” He smiled at me and pulled me into him.
“I’m really happy you want to be with me, Mary.” He kissed me. “I’m not the same man without you.”
“I love you, nothing will change that ok?”
“I love you too.” I hugged him and stood there with my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. I loved having someone. But more than that, I loved having him to be my someone.
“Want me to leave with you?” He asked.
“If you don’t need to do anything else with the boys.”
“They’ll call me if they do.” He leaned in and told the boys he was leaving with me. They were happy, which made me happy. He took my hand and shut the door and we all went back to my car. Lisa sat in back still talking on the phone. We got to my place and got out. Lisa, still on her phone, got in her car left with a good-bye wave to us. She didn’t really like AJ. He looked at my house. “You know…” I unlocked the house and we walked in. “Oh my God. It looks just like our…” He faced me. “old house.” I nodded. I put my hands in my back pockets. I had it made that way. Everything is pretty much the same, from the bar stools to the direction of rooms. The night before I had this made I had dreams about it, I needed to be somewhere I knew was safe, and safe for me, was our old place.” He smiled.
“It’s a little different decorating though…”
“I heard your taste changed, are you gothic style now, like I read in a magazine.” He nodded.
“I am indeed, it’s a better taste and style I think. And plus it’s always been something I liked.” I laughed.
“Sure.”
“So, what’s been going on for the three years we didn’t talk?” I looked at him and cocked my head to the left and spun around to follow it. I walked down the hallway and he followed. The room that would have been his in the old house was now mine. He walked in and smiled wide. It wasn’t the same, everything was in different places, but there was a mirror on the wall in the same place as it was in his room. I stared in it and looked at him.
“Do you remember that conversation we had in front of your mirror that one night?” He thought for a minute.
“Vaguely.” He walked up behind me. I took his shirt off and pants, he was stunned. I put him in front of the mirror and stood behind him. He looked in the mirror and looked down. “I do now, I’m sorry.” I handed him his pants and shirt. He put them back on.
“Nearly every day I have looked in this mirror and thought about that moment in time. You were helpless and needed me. You didn’t want help, but you wanted me.” I touched the glass that reflected my image. “The reflection has changed a little for us, but I see that moment in a clear image. I wanted to help you; I wanted to be there for you. It’s killed me knowing I wasn’t there for you when I should have been.” I turned and faced him.
“It’s ok. Somehow I think it was better you weren’t there you know? I didn’t want you to see me the way I was when I was in rehab and getting out of all that stuff. I didn’t want you there when I left the band either, you loved the band and if you had been there the day I left, you would have been so disappointed in me, and that was the last thing I needed.” I took his hand.
“There’s something I want to show you.” We walked out to the kitchen and I opened the familiar basement door. We walked down the stairs and turned to the right, there was a studio, a little bigger than the one he had, but he gazed and smiled at it just the same way he had done to his old one. “What happened to your old house?” I asked him.
“I sold it…There were too many memories in there for me. I moved out a few weeks after you left. My mom told me to do it, I was in there day in and day out not moving, not doing anything, not going anywhere. You left your perfume.” I laughed and choked up. “I must have smelt it every day. When you hugged me today, you smelt different than what I was used to.” I went into the bathroom upstairs and brought out the little jar of perfume I loved for him. He took it and grinned, he smelt it. And put some on me. “That’s the you I remember…”