Henry
“Hey, Henry.”
Seeing Sophia in her doorway began a tumult of emotions: joy, desire, anticipation, but mainly a sense of peace. While in Toronto, I endured the stress of being with Dree. She was a manipulator, and I had to keep my defences up constantly. Being here with Sophia meant I could relax.
“Hey, you,” I said. I wanted to embrace her but there something guarded about her expression that made me hesitate.
“Come on in.” She wore jeans and a soft white sweater. Her hair was tied back, and she looked fresh and innocent.
I shucked my coat and boots and followed her to the kitchen.
She opened the fridge. “I got some craft beer. Do you like them?”
“Sure. I’m not fussy.” She handed me a bottle with a fancy illustrated label. Then we went to the living room, where there was a spread of sliced meats, cheeses, and fruits.
“Wow. Pretty nice for a weeknight.”
Sophia ducked her head. “I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten or not. How long did you sleep for?”
“I don’t even know. A few hours anyway.” I was still wiped. I hadn’t slept well at Rod’s place, either because of the crap bed or the stress.
Although I had eaten dinner, I still felt surprisingly hungry and loaded up crackers with the various goodies. The food tasted delicious.
“It’s great.”
“And you mocked my cooking skills,” she said.
I chuckled, had another sip of beer, then put the bottle down. I spread my arms along the couch, one hand landing on Sophia’s warm shoulder through her fuzzy top. Finally, a moment to appreciate how much better things were for me now. I had my music back, money was coming in, and I was here again.
“You look happy,” Sophia observed.
I nodded. “I’ve got some good news.”
She shifted to face me, moving out from under my hand. “What is it?”
“I’ve started writing songs again.”
“Oh, that’s fantastic!” Finally, she smiled, and her sunny expression was even better than the words. Sophia’s genuine joy soothed me in a spiritual way.
“When did you start again?” she asked.
“Actually, it’s funny. I got my first song idea at the reunion.”
Her face flushed. “Oh really? Um, when exactly?”
“It was when you were talking about the regrets you had about all the things you hadn’t done. I had this vision of seeing how missing out on those things actually made life better. Going back and forth in time. I’m not explaining it very well.” Luckily, I was more articulate in lyrics than in life.
“Wow. Well, then that makes this perfect.” She pulled a small gift-wrapped box from the side table. “It’s for you.”
“What’s the occasion?” I unwrapped the black and white striped paper.
“I guess we’re celebrating the return of your muse, although that implies I have psychic powers, which I definitely do not.”
Inside was a tiny guitar—an exact replica of my favourite acoustic one. I held it up by the strap and the guitar spun around. “Wow, you recreated Edna.”
“Your guitar is called Edna?”
“Yeah, I named her after my great-grandmother. Legend has it she was quite the partier.” I examined all the little details: the wood grain, the frets, and the tiny strings. I was afraid to breathe on the guitar; it was so perfect. “Thank you, Soph. This is so amazing.”
“It’s a little silly, but I had fun making it. Maybe it can be a good luck charm for you.”
“Sure.” I wondered where I could keep it, so it didn’t get wrecked.
“Don’t worry, if you just want to shove it in a drawer, I won’t ask about it again.”
I reached out and squeezed her hand. “I really like it. And I appreciate all the work that went into it.”
Sophia ducked her head again. She seemed shy tonight, not quite herself. “The main thing is that you’re writing music again. I guess that’s why you dashed off the last time I saw you.”
“Yeah. Sorry, maybe I should have explained, but I felt a bit superstitious—like if I started talking about the music, it would disappear again.”
She smiled, and again her energy warmed me. “That’s okay. I’m just happy for you that it’s back. After all, we weren’t having any luck finding another career for you.”
“Too true,” I said. There wasn’t anything I wanted to do as much as make music. My confidence—missing for so long—was back. Now I had a future again. “But there’s more too. I went back to Toronto with Rod—to talk about a songwriting gig.”
“Oh really? What is it?”
I blew out a breath. “It’s complicated. This deal has pros and cons. The pros are the money, which is really good. And we’re working with Wayne Lee, who’s one of the top producers in the business.”
Sophia watched me, wordless. I kept stumbling on. “But the cons are, well, I’m going to have to work with Adrienne Anderson. At first, I said there was no fucking way. Maybe you don’t know this, but I, uh, dated her.”
“I know.” Sophia’s voice was quiet and uninflected.
“Dree has this way of persuading people. She’s a freaking bulldozer. Anyway, I kept throwing out all these excuses: I needed to be in Ottawa, I wasn’t in the right space to work with others, but every excuse I threw out they overcame.” Inadvertently, I’d become a tough negotiator by not wanting to do this gig.
There was a long silence, so I continued, “So, we’re going to rent a house in Ottawa to live and work together. Me, Rod, Dree, and Jamie, her keyboardist. Wayne’s going to work with us virtually. Ottawa’s probably better so people won’t get distracted and take off the way they would in TO.”
“Is this what you want?” Sophia asked.
“Want? Well, I need the money, and so does Rod. But it’s going to be a huge challenge. In fact, I’m hoping that you could help me in that area.”
“Me?” Sophia’s eyes widened, but her voice was still oddly expressionless.
Should I even be bothering her with my stupid issues? But with all the intense hours of work ahead, I needed to clear my mind. “Okay, this sounds weird, remember how I helped you get rid of Elliott by pretending to be your boyfriend?”
She nodded.
“I’m hoping you can return the favour.”
“What? Why?” Sophia’s face turned solemn, and I hesitated. But if I explained everything, she’d get it.
“Well, I told Dree I had a girlfriend—so she wouldn’t, you know, try to start things up again. And I said it was you. Could you play along? You don’t have to do much. Maybe just come out to dinner with all of us one night.”
There was a long silence. I waited for her to agree and wondered why she wasn’t saying anything. This wasn’t a big ask, was it?
Now Sophia met my eyes. “Why are you so afraid of being with Adrienne again?”
“I’m not afraid. This is just easier. Dree stirs up a lot of emotion in me. To be honest, that’s one of the reasons we want to work together again, to channel all that passion into music. But she’s a shitty human being. I’m not even sure why she went out with me in the first place.”
I hated even admitting this. Dree had made our relationship into a love triangle when she began seeing Tim. Everything blew up spectacularly, and she walked away with a reputation as someone so desirable that musicians were fighting over her. When I’d confronted her afterwards, she told me I should be grateful that Shawville was getting media attention.
And our next album had sold well. But ever since then, I’d had trouble trusting my girlfriends. If you could even call seeing someone for a month or two a girlfriend. And now all I wanted to do was work. I didn’t want any unnecessary drama, and this seemed like the easiest solution.
Sophia stood up and looked out the window. “How long since you broke up?”
I pushed my hair back from my forehead. “I don’t know. Five or six years?”
She kept her back turned to me. “And have you had another serious relationship since then?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Then I think if you still feel so much passion, maybe you should explore why that is. You can’t have a healthy new relationship until you can move on.”
“Did you not hear what I said? Dree is a shitty human being. I don’t want to have anything to do with her, ever again.”
Sophia whirled around. Her softness was gone, and she crackled with energy.
“I heard you. I heard everything you said. You think Dree is a crap person because she’ll do anything to further her career, regardless of the human wreckage. But you’re still willing to work with her because...” She counted off on her fingers. “Money? Better music? The excitement?”
When I didn’t answer, she concluded, “So how does that make you any better than she is?”
“I would never treat someone like she did,” I protested. I’d given up a lot for my music, but I was still a good person.
Sophia stepped closer. “Really? Because you’re coming off as extraordinarily selfish. We had sex. I didn’t think it meant love to you, but I hoped it meant something. Because I care about you. I have for years.”
Her words were like slaps to my face. How could I have been so myopic?
“I’m sorry, Sophia. Of course, it meant something to me too. I just didn’t think...”
I couldn’t even finish that sentence. I’d disappeared as soon as we’d fucked so I could write music. I’d marched in here like nothing happened. And I hadn’t considered what Sophia was feeling or expecting. I was so used to intimacy not meaning anything that I’d forgotten how real people felt.
She continued as if I hadn’t said a word. “All night you’ve been acting like nothing happened between us. Then you ask me to be your pretend girlfriend to protect you from all the passion you feel for your glamorous ex. I don’t want to be a pretend girlfriend; I want to be a real girlfriend. But not with you.” There was a catch in her voice. “I deserve someone who feels passionately about me—who gets stirred up and inspired by me. The way you feel about Dree.”
“Soph, please. I don’t like Dree. And I do care about you. I’m so sorry. I’ve been selfish and stupid—”
She crossed her arms and stood tall. Any questions I’d had about how someone so kind and sweet could be a good lawyer were dispelled by her granite expression. No tears, but something in her eyes was even sadder—emotion locked up where I used to see only tender affection.
“Henry, please go.”
Was there any point to apologizing more? Would she ever see me again? Not being able to come back here—where I felt so comfortable and right—was gut-wrenching.
“Let me make this right,” I pleaded, but her only answer was to walk away, hold out my coat, and then open the front door. As I put on my boots, I tried hard to think of the right words to say.
“Can’t we at least talk this over? Forget about what I asked. I know you’re right. You always are,” I said. Because Sophia had the strongest moral compass of anyone I knew. But she didn’t even acknowledge my feeble excuses.
I turned once more, searching for the right words to make Sophia understand. Had I even realized before this moment how important she was to me?
Before I could open my mouth, she dismissed me with a quiet “Goodbye, Henry.” Her face was as beautifully set as a marble sculpture, but her pained expression tore at something in my very soul.
The door closed behind me with finality.
Sure, I’d stormed out of here before, but I’d never been exiled.
This was far worse than when Dree and I broke up. What I felt with Dree was the humiliation of being publicly dumped. Sophia had offered me something real—a love that was about me. She cared about the real me, not the musician, but the person. Her affection was a jewel I’d carelessly lost before I even realized its value. I’d regained my ability to feel again just in time to experience the pain of losing Sophia.