3-22: On The Inside

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Apollo stood against the door to the airport, dialing Harpia's number again. He didn't know what the fuck was going on, and she wasn't really cluing him in. Her voicemail clicked on for the third time in a row, and he started speaking before he thought anything of it.

"I hope you're okay. I'm... I'm worried about you."

Apollo looked down at his phone, but he wasn't even sure what he was waiting for anymore.

"Mr. Hunter? We need to leave right now to get to Maryland on time."

He glanced up at the tiny girl who was speaking, but he wasn't even sure who the fuck she was. Someone on the plane, apparently.

"Alright. Give me a second."

Her cheeks turned pink the moment he met her gaze, and she ducked back inside the glass doors with a nod. He shoved his phone in his pocket after one last look. He made it all the way to the steps of the plane when it started to buzz. He pulled it out, stepping back down onto the concrete.

The girl who had spoken to him earlier seemed disappointed, but she went up the steps without another word.

"What's going on? You haven't spoken to me since you vanished that night."

Harpia's voice was distant, and she sounded nothing like herself.

"Amos... he... he didn't make it.

This is all my fault."

Something slammed into Apollo's chest. He wasn't even sure what it was. It was a foreign mixture of guilt, shock, and... relief.

"I'm sorry, Harpia."

It was all he could manage. The only words he knew how to give. He'd never dealt with the death of anyone close to him. His grandma had died when he was little, but he barely remembered her. The most he knew of Eden was that the car he and Harpia had passed back and forth had been given to him by her.

"He was always there. And then he's just fucking gone.

But... I guess I should be used to be that by now."

White hot anger pushed into Apollo's chest, mixing in with the foreign feeling that was there. It wasn't the time to be mad at her. She was upset, and probably wasn't thinking clearly. 

But he had never been the only one who left.

"Apollo, we have to leave. Now. You're going to miss your own show."

Apollo glanced up at the girl, and he didn't know what he was supposed to do. He felt a pull to stay, to take care of her. To go to her and try and fix it. But Harpia wouldn't even let him go with her that night. She sure as hell wouldn't want him there now.

And no matter what Apollo tried, it didn't change anything.

The pull to leave was overriding any thought to stay in leaps and bounds the more he thought about it. 

He could hear Harpia crying on the other end, and she was saying something, but he didn't absorb it.

"Apollo, are you there?"

He exhaled, looking in the direction of her house. He couldn't see it, but he knew exactly where it was. He could have driven there blindfolded.

"I am. But I'm leaving."

Harpia paused, her breath hitching on the other end.

"Okay... I'm sorry about Baltimore. I really wanted to be there."

"Don't worry about it, Sage. I'll be home in August. Hollywood, anyway.

We'll see each other then?"

"Okay. August."

Her voice had softened, but he could still hear the pain. She had said she wasn't sure that she loved Amos. But the sound of her voice told him that something was there he couldn't touch.

He looked up at the sky, toward the horizon, and something in his chest burned in a way he wasn't sure he had felt before. Riverview didn't feel like home anymore. He'd known that for a while. And he wanted nothing more to be free of it. Of all of it.

"Apollo, now."

The voice snapped him out of the reverie he was in and he cleared his throat, turning for the steps.

He wanted to promise her he'd be there for her. That he'd be back for her. But he wasn't stupid enough to think that he could ever fix this. He wasn't even sure he could help her at all anymore.

There had already been so many broken promises.

"Anyway... Take care of yourself."

The door to the plane shut, and he ended the call, her voice fading out with one last goodbye.

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"I have a surprise for you."

Apollo glanced up from his guitar at Paige. He'd been trying to tune into it, and tune everything else out. The show in Baltimore had sold out, but it was off for him. Because of Harpia. Because she'd completely fucked with his head this last time. And he wasn't even sure how she'd managed it.

Blake had flown Paige in,  and she'd been obnoxiously around since before the show had even started. Her questions about where he'd been and what he'd been doing burned massive holes in his patience.

He could at least thank Hale for not telling everyone what he'd been doing. He had hopes that he could just forget it. Maybe forget this last time with Harpia had happened at all.

It had been two weeks since she'd told him her boyfriend had died, and she hadn't said a word to him. He only called once, but she never returned it. He'd asked Rhea about Harpia. And Rhea had seen her with Casey, one of her other friends. 

Told Apollo that she looked better. She seemed happier.

So was her sadness an act? Or was she just so fucked up on drugs she didn't care about anything anymore?

Including him.

He set the guitar aside, raising his hands.

"Okay. What is it?"

Paige squealed loudly, opening the door to the bus bedroom. 

And Caelum stepped out, the door shutting softly behind her.

And she looked just as she did when he left her in Hollywood. Just as beautiful as she'd always been. More than that, she looked happy to see him. But her eyes started to dim when Apollo continued to do nothing but stare at her.

"Is this a good thing? This whole... You looking at me that way thing?"

Apollo didn't even know. His head had been full of static for days. 

"It's not a bad thing."

It wasn't really a lie.

"You look good, Caelum."

His eyes traveled back to his guitar, and he spoke in the direction of it.

"I'm gonna finish this song, and then you can tell me what's been up with you."

Paige had disappeared, but Caelum stayed right where she was.

"Can I watch?"

Harpia flitted through his mind, and Apollo had to reel in his inherent response.

"Not this time."

Not this time, Apollo.

Harpia's voice wouldn't even leave his head. It was enough to make him want to smash it repeatedly into a wall. He looked back up at Caelum, holding his hand out to her.

"On second thought, the song can wait."

Her eyes widened slightly, but she recovered quickly.

"That's what I like to hear."

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Apollo took his lips off of Caelum's neck, groaning in frustration at the never ending vibration of his phone. He'd been ignoring it for an hour, focusing on her. She was the only thing that was making anything better. Even alcohol wasn't doing it for him.

He'd kept Caelum on tour for weeks, now. He'd told her he didn't want her to leave, and she'd been more than happy to stick around.

He didn't know what the point of it was. Using her to feel something other than white noise was probably fucked up in some way. But he didn't feel the least bit guilty about it.

He pulled away and sat up, watching Caelum's lips turn into a simper.

"If I don't answer it, they're just going to keep fucking calling. And then we'll never get anywhere."

She rolled her eyes, huffing out her next words.

"Just turn it off. Whoever it is cannot be more important than me getting naked."

Apollo smirked, reaching to the bedside table for his phone. He expected it to be Hale. Hale loved to call him when he was trying to hookup with Caelum. He thought it was hilarious.

But it wasn't Hale.

Apollo glanced at Caelum and scooted to the edge of the bed, shaking his head.

"I have to take this. I'm sorry, Caelum. I'll be right back."

She looked less than impressed, pressing her fingertips to her eyes.

"Hurry up, please."

He nodded, making his way over to the door. The moment the line clicked on, Harpia's voice came through. And she sounded like she was ten different types of fucked up.

"Polly! I miss you."

Apollo didn't reply. He leaned his head back against the wall outside his hotel room with a sharp smack. Harpia didn't even seem to notice, and her voice bubbled with her obvious high.

"How have you been? How's the tour?"

He could hear music in the background, and muffled voices he vaguely recognized.

"Why are you calling me, Harpia?"

He asked the question softly, but in the quiet hallway it seemed to echo. She paused before answering, her voice dropping slightly in pitch.

"I told you... I miss you."

Apollo tried to weigh his words carefully, to keep the anger out of his voice, but he was pretty sure he was failing.

"If you missed me so much, where the fuck have you been for the last six weeks?"

Harpia must have walked away from the source of the music, because her voice came through perfectly clear when she spoke again.

"My fucking boyfriend died, are you serious right now?"

"And you can talk to everyone but me? Even Hale?"

Harpia's voice slid into tears in what seemed like microseconds.

"I'm trying to say something right now."

"Yeah... When you're high as a kite."

Her voice broke as she tried to respond, but Apollo cut her off.

"How did you-"

"I'm not fucking stupid."

He shook his head, even though he knew she couldn't see him.

"Actually, on second thought, maybe I am."

Look what I'm fucking doing right now.

"What's your problem, Apollo? Why are you being so mean to me?"

She was crying harder now, her voice breaking on every syllable. He sat down on the floor, trying to come up with a response. One that made actual sense.

"I don't know."

"I didn't do anything, I just... I needed time to heal. I still do. But you're my best friend, and I need you too. 

Maybe this phone call was a mistake. Maybe the drugs are speaking for me, and I don't miss you at all.

I should go."

Apollo closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hand, rubbing his forehead.

"...Maybe you should."

The end of her line grew so quiet, Apollo thought she had hung up. But she didn't, and the hitch in her breath when she finally started talking again twisted his stomach into knots.

"Do you not love me anymore?

Do you not miss me?

You promised..."

Apollo's mouth went dry and his eyes snapped open, glued to the wall opposite him. He tried to force something out of his throat, but nothing came out. Her voice dissolved into so many pieces, he could hear it in her whisper.

"I guess that answers my question. Goodnight, Polly."

And then, she was gone.

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Nothing faster than the speed that you're leaving
A hundred miles an hour
And there ain't no slowing down
But you can't outrun yourself
Yeah, you can say you fit in like a joker in the deck but now
You're skipping like a broken record going round
And you're the last to ask for help