Jon died today in All Good Things

Actually it was yesterday, but I haven’t slept yet so I can pretend that I’m still living in a day that he was alive in. It hasn’t been 24 hours yet. 24 hours ago he was waking up and preparing for the last day of the tour, a day in which he was starring in the evening performance.

He was killed on his way to the theatre. A car hit his motorbike. He was dead by midday and nobody knew, none of us knew as we made the most of the matinee....and then the awful news was broken between the shows.

The best thing - if there can possibly be a best thing when Jon is dead - is that we were all together when it happened. Annette told me. We already knew something terrible was wrong when we got the news that the evening show had been cancelled, and she called me and said I had to come quickly because she couldn’t tell me over the phone. And then I knew. It could only have been him. When we reached the theatre, she said, “It’s Jon.” I demanded, “Is he alive?” And she said simply, “No.”

Shock is a strange thing. This is the third time it’s happened to me, when I was 11, when I was 24 and now, and each time it’s exactly the same. I was aware of sliding down onto the concrete outside the theatre. I was aware of shaking violently and I could hear my voice saying, “He can’t be dead, he can’t be dead, he can’t be dead, he can’t be dead,” and I couldn’t stop it. It was just pouring out of me, even though I knew he was.

Then I was in Chris’s arms. Two hours earlier we’d been crying in the matinee at each other, his final performance as Luca (Jon’s role in the evening show), and his eyes had been full of tears and tears had been streaming down my cheeks because I love Chris’s Luca immensely and that was the last moment he was going to exist. I had no idea that our other very beloved Luca already no longer existed and neither did the dancer who played him. Neither of us knew. It was just the usual sadness of the end of a tour, the end of a world, the end of a character.

I saw him. After Annette told me. Chris, I mean. I remember surging upwards all of a sudden and rushing to the stage door and he was there and he turned around and I don’t know who moved or how it happened but I was wrapped up by his arms and his body and he wouldn’t let go of me as I sobbed. And sobbed. And sobbed.

The others were all there. The people who loved Jon best had to be told. I wanted those not there to be told by one of us and not find out when it hit the press because I know from experience that that’s the worst way to find out. My memories are flashes. I saw Sam. He and his wife had come to celebrate the final show and instead stayed to mourn. I remember a volcanic rage sweeping over me at the site of him because how dare he be alive when Jon was dead. It was stupid, and I knew it was as I felt it, but in that moment I hated him with a passion. Liam blew us sorrowful kisses from behind dark glasses as he left because he couldn’t talk. Eva, after not talking to me for eleven months, flung herself down beside me and pulled me into her arms and kept stroking my back or my hair for what felt like hours. I could see the audience members all arriving for the show and being turned away - the official word was that the show was cancelled due to a “tragic accident” - and they kept looking across at all of us huddled around the stage door in various states of shock and tears. A lady asked me if she could get me some water or do anything else for me. Most people just stared, curious.

An hour passed. Maybe two. I was usually enfolded in someone’s arms but often I didn’t even know who. It didn’t register. The shock and grief came in waves. I’d be fine and then it would crash through me again and I couldn’t breathe and the sobs would erupt. During the worst assault, suddenly I heard a deep male voice saying, “Come here,” and I blinked through the blinding tears to see a dark purple shirt and didn’t even know who was wrapping their arms around me until he pulled me against his body and I knew it was Danny. Danny has been my comfort all through this tour, whenever I’ve been most needy and broken, he’s been there for me with his hugs and his love and his cheeky grins from the stage. And, just like with Chris, he clung to me while I sobbed and refused to let go for the longest time.

Eventually we left the theatre. It was hard, because everywhere I looked I had memories of Jon. So many from the past four weeks but also from before. And there, right there, was where I’d last seen him just the previous afternoon after the matinee he’d done with Liam.

I’d cried all through that matinee without knowing why. There was no reason for me to, but every time I’d looked at Jon I’d started crying. Andy was in a bad way (he’s recently broken up with his boyfriend) and so I’d focused on trying to cheer him up and I remember clearly thinking, “I can do something for Andy but I can’t do anything for Jon. I can’t reach him.”

I couldn’t see him. On the stage. He was there and performing and I couldn’t see him. He was already leaving, but I didn’t understand. Afterwards I wanted to go and talk to him but the moment I saw him I knew that if I went near him I’d be able to do nothing but sob at him. It made no sense. I remember standing there, a few metres away, while he was talking with fans and signing autographs and he wasn’t clear, he wasn’t fully visible. He was smiling and laughing and yet all I felt from him was unbearable grief.

And right there, right there where I last laid eyes on him, 24 hours later I was grieving in Chris’s arms because Jon was dead.

I loved him. I loved him so much. I’ve loved him for 12 years and the more and more I’ve got to know him during the past year and a half after becoming friends, the more deeply I have loved him. We’ve been such a solace for each other during the four months of this tour, which have become ever more traumatic. On Wednesday night, after he returned from injury at last for a very triumphant show, we celebrated together afterwards in each other’s arms. We hardly needed to say a word. Eyes and touch said it all.

I can’t believe he’s dead. That he’s gone. I’ve been sitting here all night with various friends reliving memories of him as tributes to him poured in on social media, and I’ve realised just how lucky I’ve been to have so many very wonderful memories of time spent with him. He was a very amazing, wonderful, inspiring man and I got to spend most of the last year and a half of his life with him. I will, for the rest of my life, be unendingly grateful for that. And I got to watch him dance probably more often than anyone else on earth.

I can’t imagine how his girlfriend is bearing up. They were so, so happy together and now.......he’s gone.

It’s felt so much like the day I found out Jordan was dead. Except then I was alone and I could tell nobody. Today I was surrounded by love, the love that Jon himself brought to me. As my mother said afterwards, when we were talking about the way Jon always looked after everybody, it was so like him to make sure we would all be taken care of when we got the news because we’d all be together.

I’m still in shock. I can’t process any of this. One of the best men in the world is dead, we’ve lost him forever. I’ll never again watch him dance, never hear his laugh, never gaze into his twinkling eyes or be enveloped in one of his warm bear hugs. I’ll never again feel his hand squeeze my shoulder in support or never .......... never so many many many things ever again.

I love you, Jon. Thank you for everything.