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NOTE: Told from Guy's POV.
We were getting ready to go back on the road, after a two-week delay. Our label was furious with our antics and Phil wasn’t exactly thrilled either, but the tabloids were like pigs in mud. I don’t even remember some of the headlines they churned out - “Alcoholic Frontman of Coldplay Takes Out Aggression On Nearby Civilian!” “Siamese Prostitutes Involved with UK’s Favorite Stars Speak Out!” “Guitarist of Coldplay Unable to Hide His True Violent Self!” - but I did get a good laugh from the ones I saw. Our “perpetually nice” image had been shattered, and I think we were all a little bit relieved.
Certainly, mindless reporters would hound us about our “exceedingly violent ways”, but that was better than forever having to watch what we said or did because of certain expectations we’d have to live up to. Chris said it best in an interview a year or two ago: the music industry is completely fucked over. It’s isn’t about music, it’s about marketing, image, sound, demographic - it’s about finding the jackpot, making your way to the top of the charts, and holding on as long as the public will buy your records. You're fine that way, as long as you never tried to veer away from your set niche. Those who did have the guts to change themselves for themselves and not for an extended contract were hailed as gods. Those were the ones who *created* music, not just manufactured it. Those were the ones I envied. The ones we all envied.
And these days, Chris was certainly trying to reinvent himself for himself, though I did not envy him for it. He was changing, shedding old skin, because his former self held too much pain. His old self was sensitive, thin-skinned, beautiful on the inside and the out - and old. Much older than his years and made a hundred years older by the grim light of a bare bulb in a nameless pub, as the length of a pool cue cracked his ribs. A thousand years older as he lay, limp and pale and touching death, on a narrow hospital bed while Jonny sat ashen-faced outside his door. The two of them had been through different things that night, but all they could think of was each other. It made me a little jealous of the bonds they shared, but I suppose it was inevitable. I, for one, am grateful just to be able to see the loving smile that breaks like a gentle wave over Chris’ face as he and Jonny laughingly pass crude jokes back and forth. Their friendship, I have a feeling, will last forever.
Especially now, it seems. The two weeks Chris spent at Jonny’s flat did them both good - the color quickly returned to Chris’ taut cheeks, and though it was a while before he could laugh without wincing in pain and clutching his ribs, the two obviously had a grand time. I noticed a few of the racier tabloids had a field day with that, too: Jonny and Chris, out to dinner in a fancy restaurant, minus me and Will - it must be scandal! A friend of mine brought me a copy of one where a picture of the two of them, sitting together in a little café, was actually on the cover. I showed it to Chris, expecting him to tease Jonny about it or crack some joke about how the two of them were eloping to Hawaii to form a Perry Como cover band. Instead, he looked slightly unnerved, annoyed, and guilty - like a child who’d been caught torturing the neighbor’s cat.
“Throw it out,” he told me, shaking his head in disgust. “Throw it out now.”
I tossed it out and didn’t ask him any questions. I wanted to tell Jonny, gauge his reaction, but I knew that would be meddling and would most likely get Chris pissed off with me. So I let it go and didn’t say anything more.
But now we were back on the road, ready to perform again - albeit with Chris’ temporary disability in mind - and Chris himself had become anxious and irritable. We were beginning the tour from where we had left off, though Phil had put the lid on about four dates in America. So we had fifteen to go, and then we could take about six months off to write and begin work on the third album. After that, we didn’t know; Chris didn’t seem quite ready to put 2002 behind him and think about 2003, and truthfully I think the rest of us just wanted to get the tour over with so our lives could get on, and we could all begin to forget about that night.
I knew the most important thing was that Chris forgot what happened. We tried our hardest to either not get close to the subject, or if we had to, we would never refer to it by any other title than “that night” or “tragic event” or something equally tentative. The rest of us could deal with it - but Chris was the one who had been in a coma for two days. I have to admit watching him get brutalized like that… even thinking about it now, nearly a month after the fact, makes me physically sick to my stomach. We all had to try to forget, for our own good and the good of Coldplay. Otherwise it would chase us down and find us lost, awaiting its arrival, like sheep turned loose from familiar pastures. Directionless, homeless, sick.
- - -
“What time is it?”
Chris yawned widely, his jaw making a funny popping sound. He scrubbed at the back of his head with his palm and glared blearily at the clock. “Nearly nine. What d’you want?”
I fidgeted slightly, briefly wondering if my presence here was actually necessary. “Um… Well… I heard that you were packing up your stuff to move in with Jon.”
Chris looked guilty for a split second. “Where’d you hear that?”
My indignant anger returned and twisted like a disease in my stomach. “A magazine, Chris.” A bloody magazine. So now the press is suddenly on a first-to-know basis, and Will and I aren’t? Something has gone wrong here, and I am determined to right it.
Chris shook his head, though not convincingly. “Well… I mean… It’s a long story, Guy.”
The anger intensified and I pushed off the doorframe, where I had been leaning, and stopped in front of the bed. He sat up, eyes downcast. “It’s a ‘long story?’” I spat. “That’s some bloody excuse! Some bloody fucking excuse for shoving me out of the loop!" I stopped, my heart nearly breaking as Chris flinched slightly away from me. I softened: “I know you’re having a rough time, mate, but the way you’ve been acting… It’s unlike you. And it hurts.”
He swung his long legs off the bed and stood before me, nearly a head taller but his powerful presence diminished. The look in his eyes was ill, tortured, anxious. “Guy… I…” He stopped. “Sit down.”
I did so, my anger fading away and being replaced with childish anxiousness. Chris was rarely, if ever, this serious. There was something else in his voice that confused me… Shame? Broken pride?
Chris took a seat opposite me, resting his chin in his steepled hands, inhaling and exhaling. His face was weary and tinged with frustration. Then he straightened, shook his head, and looked at me directly. “Jonny and I are moving in together because the two weeks I spent with him… They were… well, I mean…”
There was a long silence, in which Chris glared at the floor, chewing his lip. I had no idea what to say. The tabloid covers ran through my head - blurry, bad-quality pictures of the two of them walking together, out-of-focus shots of them in a café, their faces so distant they were nearly illegible. Were the rumors true? For once, were the tabloids actually right?
“Guy,” Chris started again, softly. “I mean, as a band, we all know each others’ quirks, right? You know how Will talks in his sleep sometimes, and I won’t eat anything with mushrooms in it, and Jonny’s paranoid about cutting people off when he’s driving and you go mad if someone leaves their dirty socks lying around. I mean… you get the point, right?”
I secretly glanced around his room to search for dirty socks left strewn about. Upon finding none, I nodded, wondering where this lecture was leading.
“Well… I mean… There are some things about Jonny that I didn’t know. And those two weeks with him showed me that he’s a very different person than I thought he was. It’s making me see things in a different light.”
I nodded again. So… the point was…?
“And, I mean, I’m not saying that the person he actually turned out to be is anything bad… I just really want to get to know him better, because he and I have become closer over the past month or so… I mean, well - maybe more than a month, right? Like a month and a half. So, what I’m saying is that… I feel as if I need to reassess things with him. Sort of.”
I started to nod, but then I noticed Chris was suddenly shaking - his hands trembled in his lap and his voice quaked.
“Oh, hell, Guy… Jonny and I… I’m moving in with him because... Well, fuck - it's 'cos I love him.”
Admittedly, this took a moment to register. I looked at him blankly. Well, of course he loved Jonny; they were best friends. But the shame, the reluctance, the awkwardness with which he spoke… Two and two came together in my head to make a devastating four.
The tabloids *had* been right.
I pushed back my chair and it scraped loudly across the floor. Again Chris flinched. I knew he was waiting for the worst.
“You mean… you’re… a couple?” I asked, my voice sounding squeaky and choked to my own ears. Face still cast down, Chris nodded. His hands were clasped white-knuckled in his lap. I wanted to take them in my own hands, hold him until he relaxed, until he realized that no matter what I would always be there for him and I would always accept him and all that cheesy cliché rubbish. I tried to imagine Chris and Jonny, trussed up, going out to dinner at an upscale restaurant. Afterwards, they’d take a walk along the beach or something - Jonny was that type of guy - and they’d return to his clean flat and make slow love on a soft, warm bed, and fall asleep in each others’ arms. When they woke up, Chris would make breakfast, Jon would sit on the kitchen table and pick out a mournful tune on his guitar, and they’d murmur their “I love you”s as they kissed.
I cleared my throat uneasily, trying to quell the one emotion that flared up in the pit of my stomach. Not anger, not disgust, not disbelief…
Jealousy.