Adam jolted awake out of a deep sleep, roused by the impact of the plane touching down on the runway. He removed his eye mask and blinked his bloodshot eyes, struggling to memorize the last fragments of his dream as it receded from his mind. What was it again? The back of a limousine. Thighs straddling him on a smooth leather car seat. A discarded tuxedo jacket. A black strapless dress. Tears on her face afterward. No, that was wrong. That wasn’t last night. That was the first night. Why did she cry?

Adam shook himself. He’d think about it later. Right now, he was back in LA, and he had a full day of appearances and rehearsals ahead of him. He switched his phone back on to check his messages, and there it was. A text from Jane.

He felt a burst of pleasure when he saw her name come up at the top of the screen. Jane. Maybe she couldn’t stop thinking about him either. Then he read the message.

“Thx for a great time. Better if we’re not in touch. No regrets.”

The whole world went dark for a moment, and then bright crimson red. If he hadn’t been on a crowded airplane, he might have thrown the phone across the room. She was cutting him off again. He couldn’t believe it. “Goddammit,” he swore under his breath. “God-fucking-dammit!”

He shook his head in disbelief. How could she do this? Everything had been so good – why why why did she always have to do this?  

“Fuck you too,” he typed into his phone, his finger shaking with anger, hovering over the Send button.

He pulled his hand back with a sudden jerk, sucking in his breath sharply as an image struck him. A music video he had once shot: walking through an airport, getting on a plane… a man in a tuxedo, aloof to all the beautiful models surrounding him, unable to connect with the pretty brunette on the phone… the pretty brunette in the black strapless dress—

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. It was the video for Makes Me Wonder, come back to haunt him. Like a goddamn premonition. He heard the words to the chorus playing in his head:

I still don't have the reason,

And you don't have the time,

And it really makes me wonder

If I ever gave a fuck about you.

She could go fuck herself. His phone had gone dark, and he flicked it back on, ready to hit Send. “Forget it,” he said out loud. “Forget her. Move on.” But move on to what, exactly? To the same shit he’d been living for the past 11 years? To a life spent writing songs about a woman who wasn’t even listening?

“I don’t know, Adam. Maybe you should write a song about it.” He could still hear her voice, clear as a bell, uttering those words to him that night – her parting shot, the life sentence imposed on him for his crimes. And what had he replied? Adam Levine, the great songwriter, the pop-star poet – what was his brilliant comeback? “Fuck you.”

“No,” he told himself, deleting the text he was about to send. That was the mistake he made the last time. He got angry and by the time he had cooled off, it was too late. There was something wrong that he had neglected. If he’d taken a moment to figure out what it was, instead of just lashing out in anger, maybe he could have held onto her. It was the biggest mistake of his life. He had to learn from it.

He took a deep breath and tried to ignore the waves of nausea washing over him as he read her message again. Why did she send it? What was going on in her head?

“No regrets,” the message said. He’d heard that from her before. Another memory, another conversation – this one in Central Park, 15 years ago. “No regrets,” she’d said then, too. She and her busybody friend Marcy had talked themselves into believing he was about to break up with her. “There was not a woman there who didn’t want to be with you,” she had confessed to him back then. It was the same thing now. How many times had she done it over the course of their relationship? She was just feeling insecure. Maybe.  

Or maybe not. Other words of hers came back to him – more recent words. “Aren’t you the guy that has his picture in the dictionary next to the word ‘modelizer’?” He felt himself wince as he remembered. Maybe she was just disgusted by him. “You can tell me,” she’d said. “I won’t judge, I promise.” But she had judged. Is that what this was? And now she thought she was just one more notch on his bedpost? Maybe.

He still felt like he was missing something. There was something else she’d said to him this morning – something important. “At the end of the day, I couldn’t see myself married to a star.” That’s why she had left him before. She wanted a white picket fence, a house in the suburbs, a husband who came home every night. She wanted a picture perfect life. That’s what she’d realized he couldn’t give her, and he still couldn’t give it to her now.

That was the heart of the matter. Maybe the other stuff entered into it, but at the end of the day, that’s what they’d never resolved.

He looked down at his phone again. Should he try to call her? His head was spinning, spinning.... 

God damn my spinning head,

Decisions that made my bed.

Now I must lay in it

And deal with things I've left unsaid.

Had it been a mistake, not telling her how he really felt this morning? This whole plan of his to act casual, wine her and dine her – he should have known it was never going to work. That was the same crap he always used on women, the same bullshit he’d been spewing his whole life. She was the only woman who’d ever managed to sneak past it and really connect. And even with her, even when things were at their best, how many times had the connection broken down? Every time the two of them started making assumptions, taking things for granted, leaving things unsaid. Then the static would creep in and the signal would fade. Then the call would get dropped.

He’d been an idiot, playing coy with her before. He needed to make her understand how much she had always meant to him. And then they needed to have it out, get to the bottom of all of it.

He needed to talk to her. But he also knew Jane. Once there were issues, there was no more talking. She just ran. If he tried to call her now, she wouldn’t even pick up the phone. There was only one way to get her to listen.

He made a decision. He didn’t know if it would work, but at least it was worth trying. Adam strode decisively off the plane and headed for his car, typing out a text as he went.

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