Here Is Gone- Chapter One: The Day the Music Died
AN: This is going to be a relatively short story, about three to four chapters. This first one is going to be kind of short because it's more of a teaser than anything else. It's the night of Jude's 21st birthday so I think Tommy is about 28 or 29, and I don't own any Instant Star stuff. So no suing. By the way, the italics stuff is from Buddy Holly's autopsy report.
"I am no solution
To the sound of this pollution in me, yeah
And I was not the answer
So forget you ever thought it was me, yeah"-Here is Gone by The Goo Goo Dolls
It'd been four years since she'd seen him, since he walked out on her that night. And she hadn't looked back since. She didn't cry like she thought she would've. Maybe she was just all out of tears for him. She thought it'd be agonizing, maybe even a little ironic. A fall from grace. A bit more "The day the music died." But it wasn't. Not at all.
She just quit caring. Jude Harrison became the quintessential ice queen. She kept making her albums long after he had gone. She shot to the top of the charts; hell…she was the chart. She sold more records then she ever had before. She went platinum twice before she even hit twenty.
And she did it all without Little Tommy Q.
She was harder now. No longer the bubbly teenager she once was, she bore the weight of impending adulthood like a battle scar. In Jude's eyes, her twenty-first birthday wasn't really going to be a celebration of her birth. It was more a celebration of the fact that she'd made it there alive. Of course there would be a party, wasn't there always? Nothing was too good for "His Jude" Darius would say. And Jude would smile. A smile that implied "Of course nothing is too good for the artist that literally put G-Major on the map. The artist that made you even more filthy, stinking rich than you already were. But let's not make things personal. It's all about the music, right?"
Whatever happened to "The Day the Music Died?"
"Omigod Jude, I like so totally found the most awesome dress for your party. Can't you just picture it?..." E.J. rattled on. Jude wondered if it was possible for someone who talked so much to actually say so little…
"Yeah that's totally awesome…"
The body of Charles H. Holley was clothed in an outer jacket of yellow leather-like material in which 4 seams in the back were split almost full length. The skull was split medially in the forehead and this extended into the vertex region.
"I know! Right? Up on the stage all the lights hitting you…singing "Time to Be Your Twenty-One"…which is like, so totally apropos, since you're finally 21!" E.J. squealed. Jude felt sick.
Approximately half the brain tissue was absent. There was bleeding from both ears, and the face showed multiple lacerations.
"Omigod. You're not getting sick are you? Jude! No way. You cannot get sick. Do you how much bad P.R. that would be? Hellloooooooo…it's my job to make you look awesome, Jude and you're not making it very easy…"
The consistency of the chest was soft due to extensive crushing injury to the bony structure. The left forearm was factured 1/3 the way up from the wrist and the right elbow was fractured. Both thighs and legs showed multiple factures.
Where's a plane crash when you needed one?
Fingerprints were taken of the deceased for purposes of identification
Lights. Camera. Action.
"Happy Birthday, Jude!"
The party was a blur. Ice fountains that spurted champagne, flashing cameras, the persistent thump thump thump of rave music.
"Omigod. I can't believe you're finally 21!"
That's funny, because she couldn't either.
"Sing, Jude! Sing! Sing! You have to sing!"
So she did.
"You never lied to me not once; it's not your fault that I can't trust…"
Stop. Pause. Rewind. She blinked. A flash of messy brown hair and deep blue eyes. And it was gone.
Not really there at all, she decided. So she finished the song, which was like, so totally apropos. Everyone cheered, and danced, and got completely and utterly trashed.
A party is a party is a party, right?
Jude felt sick.
Home at last. It was below freezing outside, and all Jude wanted to do was make herself some tea and curl up on her futon. Because frankly, she felt like shit. Walking up the steps to her tiny condominium, she fumbled for her keys, only to find that the door was already unlocked.
"Great. Just great. That was fucking dumb…" Jude muttered as slammed the door behind her.
"No kidding," A male voice answered from inside the living room. Oh my god. Someone had broken into her house…wait. She knew that voice. And sure enough, when followed the source of the noise, there he was.
Little Tommy Q, back from the dead with that cocky smile and those damn blue-bell eyes…
Jude tried to speak but no words came out.
Tommy chuckled.
Jude felt sick.
"You look like you've seen a ghost…."