Andrea set the guitar down, pulled the pencil from behind her ear and began to scribble the notes she'd just played onto her sheet music. It had been ten months since Julia had walked away from JC's life, leaving Andi to pick up the pieces. Ten months since his promise to share another completely mind bending kiss like the one in her kitchen that night while JC was still an emotional wreck. Two months since he began seeing Lauren. As always, Andi pushed aside her own feelings and urged him to take the number Lauren had set down next to his beer as she'd wiped down the bar.
Twelve years of helping JC with his love life had given Andi two binders full of songs expressing the feelings and thoughts she could never share with him. So there she sat, alone on a saturday night while JC and Lauren caught the latest action flik at the theatre, strumming her guitar and composing a song no one would ever hear. Setting the pencil down and reaching for her guitar, Andi didn't notice that she'd acquired an audience.
JC stood in the door way of the solarium, hands in his pockets as he leaned against the door frame and watched as Andi put every ounce of her being into the song. This was a side of Andrea he'd never seen. He'd known she was a passionate woman who's spirit had nearly been broken by a self serving bastard. But in the five years after Noah had walked out on a pregnant Andi, he'd never seen her cry the way she was needing to at this moment. The anguish in her voice scared him.
"So I'll give up giving in, quit playing this game I can't win. I wish I could stop, but I don't know how to begin. I wonder how you slipped away. I wonder why. I always wonder if there's a chance that maybe you'll know what this is like. It's like a bloodstain. And it's spreading across my chest. And I've been bleeding for so long I think this heart of mine needs a rest. And now the wolf is at my door. And it's never gonna be like it was before. And I've cried 'til I'm insane. Now my head is getting cloudy. It's shrouded in this pain."
Andrea's shoulders began to shake as she tried to force the tears to stop. JC was by her side in seconds.
"He's not worth it, Andrea. He's not worth your tears and Noah is certainly not worth your pain..." Her head shot up and she scrambled to get away from JC's embrace.
"You think I wrote that for him?? None of the fourty songs in those binders are about Noah!" She turned away from him and started walking out the door when his voice stopped her.
"Andi, please..."
"Please what, Josh? Please tell you that every song I've ever written is about you?" Her back was facing him, so she didn't see the shocked look cross his features.
"About how I've loved you since you stayed with me in that delivery room after my mother disowned me and then stayed with me to support me as I gave that beautiful girl up for adoption cause I knew I wouldn't be able to give her a home? About how a piece of me dies every time you come to me for advice after fighting with your current love interest? About how you'll never again look at me the way you did the night Julia left you? Is that what you wanted to know? You were never supposed to know the same way I was never supposed to care." Andi crumpled to the floor with a sob.
"Andrea, look at me."
"Just go, Josh. Please just leave me alone for a while. Allow me to preserve one shred of my dignity," she said quietly. JC knew he needed to give her space and time and truthfully, he needed to process how he felt. He stood and walked out of the room.
"I love you," Andrea whispered to his retreating figure. And he answered her just loud enough for her to hear.
"I know, Andrea, I love you too."
(**song used is performed by Amanda Marshall**)
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