Prologue

PROLOGUE

Tokyo, may 2009

“I hope this message gets through to you, dear. If you manage to escape, please come find me.”

I felt like someone had thrown a bucket full of ice cold water over my head when I heard that. A thick fog settled on my thoughts and everything seemed to go in slowmotion: the drumming of my dad’s fingers on the wheel , the ticking of the rain on the car’s roof, the wipers that were swishing back and forth like metronomes and I got goose bumps everywhere. My ears swished. The only thing that seemed to really exist, were the words that were still echoing in my head. Over and over.

Please come find me.

With tingling fingers I turned the radio off and stared out the window to the tears of rain that slowly dribbled over the glass. I swallowed my own tears, while I tried to restrain a wave of emotions I suddenly felt and I took a bite of my quarterpounder.

It felt like I was chewing a piece of cardboard.

My dad reached out to the radio and turned it on again without saying a word. The interview was done and the car filled with sweet, pop-like melodies that made me want to vomit. It was still a hundred times better than hearing those recognizable voices. I took a sip of my coke and chewed thoughtful on the straw, a hollow feeling in the spot where my heart was supposed to be.

Please come find me. If I only knew how.

My dad and I sat dead silent next to each other, he was humming to the music, while I tried to look unchanged by what felt like sudden confusion. I started counting the lampposts that flashed over our heads, while I forced back my tears, still not realizing how unreal this all was.

Helicopter Heartbeats were in Japan. Nathan was in Japan. And he was looking for me.

In a dark alley of my consciousness was a door to all the memories I had restrained until now. All the memories I wanted to forget, all those years that I’ve tried to outrun my memories, locked behind a hundred of padlocks. And suddenly that same door felt so much open.

I took another sip of my coke and hid a little farther away in the collar of my jacket, while I fought against the upcoming emotions. I didn’t want my dad to notice anything. I kept staring straight out of the window and tried to hide for the memories that slowly intruded my thoughts and formed images in front of my teary eyes.

In God’s name, how long was it ago? One and a half years? Two? Two and half? I had no idea. That little fact was one of the thousands of things that I had put away on the loft of my memories to forget. Hidden away behind the door with the hundred padlocks, which I tried desperately to keep closed in the same moment, because I was afraid that I would drown in the sudden wave of memories if the door would burst open.

What I knew for sure was, that it had to be a sign. It had to be.

“Do you want any more fries?” my dad asked suddenly, in poor Dutch, pointing at the bag of limp fries that lay between us. He must have seen the tears that were still in my eyes when I looked at him startled, shaken out of my thoughts. But he didn’t ask. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t know anything.

“No, thanks, you take them,” I answered with a watery smile, trying to hold my voice as steady as possible. “I don’t feel well.”

It wasn’t even a lie.

My dad didn’t answer. He was continuously looking at the road ahead of us again and drove through the puddles of light that the lampposts threw down before us. I could see at the buildings that flashed through my window, that we had to be close to home. However – home wasn’t exactly the right word.

The moment I picked my coke cup again, I noticed that the icecubes were splashing against the walls of my cup because of my shaking hands. I thought of the voice I just had heard whispering through the radio, and with that I saw the brown spots on a white skin, the guffaw in the middle of the night and light blue eyes that kept a promise. The emptiness in my chest grazed and something warm dripped over my cheeks.

I had counted 76 lampposts at the time my dad turned in our driveway. When he turned off the motor, the radio fell silent and only the sound of the booming rain remained, like noise on the television. I kinda liked it, the silence in which there was no room left for thinking.

While my dad got out of the car, I collected the garbage of our dinner and the still half full bag of fries. I examined him, how he searched for his keys in the pockets of his jeans, opened the lock and kept the frontdoor open for me when he walked into the house. I didn’t want to go in – and at the same time I wanted nothing more than to start looking. Please come find me. I didn’t doubt the fact that I wanted to find him, I was only scared for the things I would encounter on the way.

Eventually I opened my door and after a deep sigh I stepped out of the car. The rain splashed on my face while I walked to the still open frontdoor, the white pebbles scrunching under my soles. I pulled my hood over my hair and rushed inside.

The rumbling noises out of the kitchen were only audible when I pulled the door closed behind me and excluded the rain with a click of the lock. After I hung my jacket on the peg, I started looking and found my dad, fighting heroic with the kettle, in the kitchen. I smiled to myself for his clumsiness and dumped the bag of fries in the trash. When I turned around to the counter, I saw that my dad had almost beaten the kettle.

“Dad, I’m going upstairs now,” I said, shuffling my feet on the canvas. “If I go to bed early now, I should feel better tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he answered. “Don’t you want tea?”

He pointed at the red light flickering on the kettle, which was finally glowing, and to that he looked so proud that I had not the heart to say no. I nodded with a smile and sat myself on the counter, with my ankles crossed and my eyes on the canvas floor.

We kept silent, while my dad got us mugs; the only thing that broke the silence were the rain tears ticking softly against the blinds that hung against the window. I thought of Nathan and of the fact if he was listening to the storm at that same moment.

“What kind of smell do you want?” my dad asked, his voice softer than the ticking of the rain.

“I would like vanilla,” I answered, knowing he meant ‘flavour’.

When the kitchen filled with steam and the kettle put itself on non-active with a sudden click, my dad poured us two cups of tea and gave me one of them. Even before I could reach to the cutlery tray, he had conjured a teaspoon; he knew I couldn’t drink my tea without a spoon.

“Arigatou,” I smiled gratefully, and I jumped of the counter. “Good night.”

“Sleep well,” he answered.

Once I was upstairs, surrounded by the silence that featured my room, I tried to put together how I could start my search. The thoughts were swirling in my head. That I had to go to the concert, regardless whether I could still get a ticket or not, was the one thing that was certain – but what should happen after that, was a big mystery to me. It wasn’t like Nathan would recognize me as a loner in a crowd of tenthousand people.

I put on my computer and decided I had to start from the very beginning. What would happen if I would arrive there, was something I could think of later. If faith wanted us to be together again, then I trusted my intuition on this one to get me in the right place on the right time.

I opened the internet and started my search for concert tickets. Despite the fact that I had armed myself against the things I would find, it didn’t take very long for my heart to stumble and fall: at the top of every page I found, was a giant picture of Helicopter Heartbeats, including the fake poses and empty glances and I actually don’t know what hurt the most: the fact that the crowd made them like this or the fact that I still found them as beautiful as before.

For a moment I kept staring at the picture and I was astonished by how big they had become, both literally and figuratively. Pip was standing right in the composition; calmly, solid, his arms crossed before his chest; the twins were in the middle and radiated a strange inhibited energy, an explosion of bright colors and movement; and Nathan was standing on the left, with a smile on his face and freckles spread all over his face, as if it were snow that was blown over him. I couldn’t quite describe how much it hurt just to look at them.

I faced away from the picture and stared right into my cup of tea, stirred eddies in the brown water. I thought of Flo and Julia and the numerous afternoons we had hung out with the boys, sitting in the sun, sheltering from the rain, surrounded by music or laughing or love – I thought of Nathans scent and the feeling of his skin against mine, his ginger hair and Julia’s, of Flo’s wise words and of how her personally seemed to turned around completely when you put a guitar in her hands – I thought of the day I first say Nathan, of Jasper and Jim, who made a party of every possible moment. I thought of how they were able to denigrate every philosophical discussion between Pip and Flo and I thought about the day that had made that perfect bubble burst in just one second.

I had the feeling I was being ripped apart by my own misery.

Through a haze of tears I continued my search of concert tickets, but after a short while it was pretty clear there wasn’t a single possibility I would get into that arena legally. The only available ticktes left were being sold on Ebay and next to that priceless.

Consequently I had to find another way to get into that arena, but I hadn’t got a clue how. I had no plan, no design, no single creative intuition, yet I was sure I would succeed. The fact that Nathan was in Japan, had to mean I had God on my side again; and if He had the conscience to rip us apart, He should also have the conscience to get us back together again.

I could only hope I was right on this one.

I shut down the computer and knocked back my now cold cup of tea in one swig. Then i stood up and dropped myself on my bed again. The door to the loft of my memories was leaking images that began swimming in my mind and without thinking I discarded all the padlocks, one by one, my heart protected by a shield of which I knew it wasn’t strong enough. And when the wood broke, when the wave of memories inundated me, drenched me – drowned me, my armor shattered into a thousand pieces and I could only surrender.

I could see Julia smile, could feel her aura made of a rainbow, could hear her voice and see her flaming red hair dancing in the sun on the day everything started.

I heard Flo’s comforting voice on the worst days of my life, could feel her arms around me and her hand in mine, could feel how she would squeeze it softly to let me know she was here.

I could feel Nathan, everywhere around me; his warm skin on mine, his cold breath on my neck and his fingers in my hair when he held me. I heard his voice whispering against my ear and felt his lips on my mouth, smelled the scent of wood that lied between the numerous freckles on his body.

I smelled the familiair scent of my mom and I fell.