The Way We Fell
The Way We Fell
MJ Fields
Contents
To The Reader
Playlist
1. Rose Tattoo
2. Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
3. Where the Streets Have No Name
4. It’s A Beautiful Day
5. Wild Honey
6. When I Look at The World
7. In God’s Country
8. Free To Decide
9. Ode To Family
10. Linger
11. Nothing Compares To You
12. Every Rose Has Its Thorn
13. What You Give
14. Feels Like the First Time
15. Goodbye
16. It’s A Beautiful Day - 2
17. Opposites Attract
18. Kiss Me
19. The Search Is Over
20. All For You
21. Redneck Girl
22. Daddy’s Hands
23. Meet In The Middle
24. Love Without End, Amen
25. In Your Eyes
26. Almost Paradise
27. Everything I do…
28. Fade Into You
29. A Country Boy Can Survive
30. Have I Told You Lately
31. Into The Mystic
32. I’ll Stand By You
33. Faithfully
34. Love You Down
35. Take My Breath Away
36. Tonight I Celebrate My Love
37. You and I
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Also by MJ Fields
About the Author
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of MJ Fields, except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
1st Edition
Published by Blue Valley Publishing LLC
Edits by C&D Editing
Second Line Editor by Donna Cooksley Sanderson
Cover by Amy Q
To The Reader
Our life experiences, good and bad, mold who we are.
There are times when the hurt and pain we’ve shared with others, through others, causes us to build walls so high that we may not allow those who truly deserve to hold our heart to love us the way we deserve to be loved.
Our heroine, Kendall, is one of those ‘people’ who could have easily never experienced the love she… we all deserve, because of what I now call, ‘Secondhand heartbreak.’
Live, learn, but always love.
XOXO
MJ
Playlist
Rose Tattoo ~ Dropkick Murphys
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For ~ U2
Where the Streets Have No Name ~ U2
Beautiful Day ~ U2
Wild Honey ~ U2
When I Look at The World ~ U2
In God’s Country ~ U2
Free To Decide ~ The Cranberries
Ode To My Family ~ The Cranberries
Linger ~ The Cranberries
Nothing Compares 2 U ~ Sinéad O’Connor
Every Rose Has Its Thorn ~ Poison
What You Give ~ Tesla
Feels Like the First Time ~ Foreigner
Goodbye ~ Night Ranger
Opposites Attract ~ Paula Abdul
Kiss Me ~ Sixpence None The Richer
The Search Is Over ~ Survivor
All For You ~ Sister Hazel
Redneck Girl ~ The Bellamy Brothers
Daddy’s Hands ~ Holly Dunn
Meet In The Middle ~ Diamond Rio
Love Without End, Amen ~ George Strait
In Your Eyes ~ Peter Gabriel
Almost Paradise ~ Mike Reno & Ann Wilson
1
Rose Tattoo
Ben
On four hundred and seventy-two acres of prime farmland in Watkins Glenn, New York sits a four thousand square foot red barn converted into a luxury house.
Amongst the photos displayed on the walls of my childhood home hangs a one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar piece of paper that promised my parents their only child would have a mind-blowing post-college degree life. A life that was purposely captured in photos so that, twenty-six years from now, I could sit back and look at the walls and dozens of photo albums of amazing experiences that my hard work provided myself and my own family.
I would start at the beginning of baby pictures of me taking baths in the sink, my first steps—bare-assed of course—Christmases, birthdays, school pictures and events, which would have my future self asking, “Who the hell was that?”
After getting through them, I would look at the picture of my mom and me canning meat from my first hunt, and vegetables from the huge garden that she and I planted and tended. My dad and me working on my dirt bike, and my ten-year-old self holding up my first trophy won due to my fearless twenty-mile ride through rugged, wooded terrain, navigating that same dirt bike Dad and I worked on through creeks, mud, rocks, and around and over logs for two hours, beating every other kid my age.
Flipping the page, I would then see a picture of my first girlfriend and me, smiling as my mother snapped a polaroid of us before my first homecoming dance, the night I lost my virginity and took hers with it.
The next few would be filled with family vacations, hunting trips, more dirt bike races and trophies, and parties at the pond with me and my buddies. I would reminisce as I looked at all the pictures and newspaper clippings of sectional wins, IAC championship games, MVP announcements, and state championships for all the sports teams I was on in high school.
Flipping the page, I would then laugh to myself at pictures of school concerts where I played guitar or ukulele while the chorus butchered some song whose lyricist emotionally bled to write.
Those pages would be followed by me and the many bands I played with, and the girl I sang with on stage, Tessa Ross—Abraham. The only girl I got stupid over and allowed my emotions to fuck with logic and distort lessons my folks had taught me about the heart.
There would be pictures of my studies abroad, my first and only ex-fiancée, and finally, me in a cap and gown, holding a hundred and fifty-thousand-dollar piece of paper.
My folks busted their asses so I could someday step into the dream that they had created for me. They wanted me to fill the house that took the first ten years of my life for them to finish with kids who would have their own redneck version of Disneyworld, and I say that with all the pride a country boy could have. It kicks ass. No place I’d rather call home.
The problem is that it was their dream, not mine.
I never asked for it. I didn’t want to be hunched over a grand oak desk, looking over a pile of bills, trying to make sense of how my life resulted in this after over twenty years of busting my ass to give my wife and kids the best life … my folks imagined for them and me.
Fuck that.
When I told them that I wanted to give my dream a chance, and then someday, maybe, settle down here, I didn’t expect to see my old man look at me like he was disappointed with me. But I did, and it was the very first time in my entire life. Was also the first time in my life that he told me my music career wasn’t a dream, it was a fairytale.
My old man was one-half of the reason I had confidence enough to try anything I wanted to and succeed at nearly everything I put forth the effort to accomplish. I never expected the cold shoulder. F
ucking hurt, too.
Pretty sure he expected me to change my mind, but I didn’t.
For two days, he didn’t talk to me and, for two days, I didn’t give a damn.
Day three, he came to the barn, where he and I had set up a music studio my junior year in high school and told me he’d hold on to the place for two years after college graduation. If I succeeded, he’d talk to his brother about his boys taking over the farm. If I decided I wanted it, then it was still mine. But he’d been adamant that two years was all he would give me.
That was a little over three years ago.
Looking out over the crowd gathered at Whelan’s in Dublin, Ireland, guitar in hand, a smile on my face, filling in for my new buddies, the Murphey Brothers, bass player Aedan, wailing out a new song that I helped write is surreal.
I always thought the best feeling on earth was playing in front of a sold-out crowd of half shitfaced locals, singing and dancing like nothing else mattered except the music the band covered until their first full-length album was complete.
I was wrong.
The greatest is when they start singing along to lyrics you penned.
Surpassing greatness was last week, when the band’s latest Indie track released, flooding the airwaves, and they got signed.
Tonight is the last night they would be playing without the label’s backing, and Aedan, who I’m filling in for, is missing it.
A true win-win is I get to play a song that I wrote to a sold-out crowd, and he gets to hold his Irish Rose. His longtime girlfriend gave birth to their daughter, Rose, this morning. But shit will get even more real when the full-length album is released with the label, and my name, Ben Sawyer, is inside the flaps of that CD jacket, right after the word songwriter.
I received twenty grand for the originals I wrote, and a twenty-G bonus for my work still to come for the album. When it takes off, I get a share of the royalties. And it will take off.
Bought my dream bike, a Ducati; paid rent for the next year; and was gonna use the rest of the money to pay property taxes on the farm that Dad still won’t let go of, because he doesn’t believe this could be the life I want and doesn’t want me to regret it.
Truth is that he can’t let go. Same reason my grandfather, who worked on farms all his life but never owned one, still shows up at five fifteen every morning to drive around the property.
When I was younger, I asked him why he did it everyday when nothing changed, and he told me, “The land is alive and needs tending.” It’s what farmers do.
Although it’s in my blood and part of my soul, I’m not a farmer.
My folks don’t know about the money or about the fact that I succeeded at yet another dream. They will fight me paying the taxes, but I won’t back down.
For the first time since that day, the one when I saw Dad’s disappointment, disappointment that still haunts me when I allow it, I feel like I can keep his dream and mine alive.
I’m one hundred percent sure that they’ll get used to it, and I pray I can give them back at least part of what they have given me.
2
Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Kendall
Out of all the things I love about the 90’s, music tops the list.
What do Sinéad O’Connor, The Cranberries, Van Morrison, and one of the biggest rock and roll bands of all time—U2—have in common, aside from me being a super fangirl?
Talent and style?
Yes … but also no.
The answer is: some of my all-time favorite bands, singers, and songwriters hail from the city that I’ll be spending three more glorious days and nights submerged in.
Dublin.
Even though our group tour is planned around exploring the history, architecture, and castles in Ireland and Dublin is just one stop, this small-ish city is rich in musical history.
Did I know this before I booked my trip with the same July travel partners I’ve had since I graduated high school six years ago?
No.
But I researched it, and even though this travel group is not at all interested in rock and roll, I am.
Today, when we finished our tour of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a street band was playing in a local park that we happened to be walking through. We all stopped to listen for a beat. I dropped a couple Irish pounds, or punt Éireannach, in the open guitar case beside them.
One of the folks near them handed me two tickets to a freaking U2 concert at Whelan’s! I, of course, googled and found out it was, in fact, a place where live music is played.
And now, as I stand and look in the mirror, I’m kind of freaking out and minutes from deciding that I will just pop my headphones on and listen to U2 in the comfort of my cozy room at the Skylon Hotel tonight.
Flopping back on my bed, I hit my iPod, close my eyes, and hit shuffle, hoping to find my answer via lyrical guidance or assistance.
Weird?
Yes.
I mean, how many people use their iPod like a pre-teen would a magic 8-ball?
Probably just me, but it hasn’t steered me wrong yet.
As Dad would say, “If it’s not broke, no sense in fixing it.”
Proof the random shuffle is accurate?
When I broke things off with Jòse, my first real boyfriend because he wanted a long-distance relationship and I knew … from secondhand heartbreak … that it would never work, Fleetwood Mac told me via random shuffle to “Go Your Own Way,” so I did.
Two weeks later, I decided Fleetwood Mac and the random shuffle could suck it. I missed having a boyfriend. I was sure I missed us. I would tell him that he had been right when he said, even if he was traveling around the United States playing football, we could make it work. But when I called him, he was true to his character. José told me that he had slept with someone. He then told me it was just a one-night stand and that she had bailed in the middle of the night. That was when I realized how right Fleetwood Mac and the “random shuffle” were. And true to my demons, caused not by my love life but those created by my older sister’s, Tessa’s, heartbreaks, as well as my parents, I bowed out.
No thank you. Not for me. No way.
Love isn’t for the faint of heart and, well … I’m trying to overcome my aversion to my heart fainting like a myotonic goat whenever I feel like maybe “he could be the one,” that I should allow myself to feel heartbreak firsthand … again. So, I go to the source of all my best decisions—the random shuffle—and I bow out gracefully.
Again? you ask.
It wasn’t José who caused my first heartache; it was the boy who picked a thorn from my finger when I was far too young to remember. But for some sadistic reason, that moment has been allowed to stay etched in my memory ever since.
“Don’t be afraid of picking roses; just be careful.” Then he kissed my finger, and I kissed his cheek.
My tiny little, pre-k heart had been sent into the biggest tizzy it had ever experienced and has never been the same.
“Ben Sawyer,” I sigh his name while looking at the ceiling. He was the one boy in a herd of many who hung out on the family farm from time to time. And he … well he made my little girl self—weak in the knees.
Until he and my sister dated briefly, and then that one-dimensional romantic bubble burst.
I hit play.
When the sound of the keys begin then the tambourine, guitar, and drums all work together to create the epic interlude of the song by my favorite rock band, U2, that was featured in my all-time favorite movie, Runaway Bride, I smile to myself as I accept the fate of the random shuffle.
“I have climbed the highest mountains, I have run through the fields, only to be with you, only to be with you.”
As faint a heart as I carry inside the walls of my chest, as many hearts I have seen break before my very eyes, and not only seen but felt, I still believe in love. I know that somewhere in this great, big world that I have traveled over the past six years that one day, I will, in fact, find “what I’
m looking for.”
At ten o’clock at night … alone in a strange city, I make possibly the bravest move in all my traveling journeys, maybe even my entire life, as I step outside the Skylon.
Pathetic, I know, but it is what it is.
And what it is, is being a typical, twenty-four-year-old college student in a foreign land, wanting to act the part for once.
My traveling companions for the last six summers, Jay, his wife Debbie, and Minister Maureen, or Moe, as we call her, wouldn’t be interested in going, and there was a great possibility that they would tell my parents. So, here I stand, free tickets in hand.
“Look at the state ‘o you,” I hear from behind me and turn to see our guide, a local woman about my age, Dana. “You looks to suffer from a double dose of original sin.”
“Oh. Is it bad?” I look down at my outfit. A baby blue, jersey, cotton tank dress that’s not overly revealing, especially since I have a denim jacket on, paired with white high-top Chucks, but it’s certainly much different than what she saw me wearing today.
“’Tis only a stepmother would blame you.”
I have no idea if that’s good or bad, but stepmothers are often referred to as a protagonist, so I’m guessing it’s okay.