He flops down on the bed, grabs my phone and unlocks it, all without asking me anything. It’s funny that he still remembers my password.
Probably funnier that I use the damn thing so little I never bothered changing it.
Lucky opens up Apple Music and starts scrolling through my playlists so I settle against the headboard and wait, watching him from my peripheral as I sip my beer.
This feels too much like before.
Too much in a good way, but also a little bad, because we haven’t gotten to anything big yet. Big and bad, and scarier than having them show up at my loft randomly in the middle of the day.
Just Say Whenby Nothing More starts to drift through the Bluetooth speakers still littered throughout my apartment, and my stomach twists.
If that isn’t fucking spot on, a definite shove toward the heavy shit, I don’t know what is.
And despite our relaxed positions, the air in my room becomes thick with anticipation.
Lucky wants to have that talk, he’s getting fidgety and shifting around in his spot next to me, his unease clear, unsure how to even begin as he picks at the fraying around the hole in the right hip of his jeans. I know him well enough to know when he wants to talk about something, Lucky is going to do it one way or another.
I decide to give him what he wants.
“I don’t remember much.” I take a hard drink of my beer and thank God I have the ability to cop a buzz quickly at ten in the morning. “From the show or the few months leading up to it. It’s all choppy, like a slide projector, but some of the slides are missing.”
Holding my breath for a moment, I start counting backward from ten. I haven’t talked about any of this in almost three years, and when I did it was either completely detached bullshit, or I’d black out when a real memory got through.
“I remember parts of the show, announcing the possibility of a UK tour after playingThe Kid in the Back Row. Then my brain sort of flashes, and I remember going backstage to change, hearing a door open and close behind me, thinking it was you.”
I kill my beer faster than I should have then hand over the empty while I motion for another, which Lucky provides without a word.
“I remember the way it felt when the knife dug into my back, feeling it tear through my side as I was turned around to face him. His eyes…fuck,his eyes were practically glowing, so ice blue and dancing with malice when he pulled the knife from my stomach. I remember the first stab under my rib cage.”
I take a quick glance at Lucky and wish I hadn’t.
His beautiful face is a mask of almost unreadable emotion, his full lips rolled between his teeth, those stormy eyes narrowedto slits but scanning my face at the same time. I don’t like this part of Lucky. The part that I can’t read, the part that throws up the wall when he’s struggling, the wall I spent ten years trying to bulldoze for good. I don’t like not knowing what he’s thinking, and not having Pete here to help me figure it out only makes it worse.
Peeling the label from my second beer, I continue my morbid stroll down memory lane. “I know he talked the whole time, going on aboutif he couldn’t have me no one would, shit like that, but I actually remember him saying that anyone who wanted me would only have me in pieces.” Thatstillplays through my mind on a loop sometimes.
“Iknowwhat happened next, but I hardly remember much until I fell, and he got on top of me, when he cut my pants off with the same fucking knife he was stabbing me with. More comes through in my nightmares sometimes, him over me.”Inside me. “The knife coming down repeatedly, more of the words he spoke. And he kept saying your names. He was so fucking angry, so frantic and furious, but I don’t remember the context. I just know every time he said your names, I...” I stop myself before I tell him I prayed that every time he said one of their names, it meant they were finally there.
I don’t tell him that though, that I was praying one of them would show up, but not because they were there to save me. I knew I was pretty far from being saved but I still wanted Lucky to come, for all of them to show up. I needed to tell Lucky I loved him, that I had always loved him, that Ilove all of them, and I prayed, I begged for the chance, but it didn’t come.
“He said it was my love for you that made him do it.”
I look over at Lucky, his mask still in place while he stares at the wall.God, I hope this doesn’t drive him away.
“Seeing the way I looked at you, the way you smiled back at me, it drove him fucking nuts.” My eyes snap toward Lucky as hepicks up right where I left off. “He was screaming about trying for years to get you to look at him that way, and if you weren’t going to, then you wouldn’t look at anyone like that.If you won’t let me have you then no one will, not in one piece anyway. He was saying that when I walked in.”
Lucky pulls a cigarette from his pack and lights it with a trembling hand. I don’t normally smoke in my apartment but I’m not about to enforce that right now, it’s totally not the time. I know he needs it.
“I watched him run that knife along your throat then lift it above his head to bury it in your chest again. He was on top of you,killingyou, all while saying and doing horrible fucking things. I had no idea what the fuck I was even looking at for a second but I heard you gasping for air and that snapped me out of it. I ran at him and caught his hands before he was able to...Fuck. I should never have let you go backstage alone.” He hangs his head and fists his hair as he squeezes his eyes shut tight. “I ripped him off of you and threw him across the room, but he was fast. Even slipping through all the blood, he was fast.God, there was so much blood.”
Lucky looks up at the wall again, not seeing anything but that night. “We struggled. He wasn’t as big as me, but he was fucked up on something. I could smell the liquor on him and his pupils were pinpricks. Even without that, I could just tell. I tried to get the knife out of his hand, but the serrated edge caught the hoop in my lip and tore my lip ring out, and as he fought for control he dragged the blade all the way up to my ear.” He lifts his other hand to his scar and traces it slowly. “The boys must have heard us at some point because the next thing I knew Mark had him in a bear hug from behind, Pete had the knife to his throat, and Norm was trying to hold a towel to my face. Then I started screaming for them to call 911. They hadn’t even realized you were in the room, not until I dropped to the floor next to you. Itried to save you.” Lucky swallows hard as a tear rolls down his cheek. “I pressed the towel over your throat and used my t-shirt on your chest. I tried so hard, but there was just so much fucking blood.”
He sets his beer down on the nightstand, drops his cigarette in the bottle then slides down into the bed before wrapping his arms around my waist, his head in my lap and face buried in my stomach. I start running my fingers through his hair and fight my tears because hearing this from his perspective, it fills in so many gaps, and Lucky needs to finally let his wall down.
My beautiful friend is just as broken as I am, and maybe we need to share this in order to try to heal.
“All of the sudden paramedics were pulling me away from you.” He turns so his cheek is resting on my thigh, his grip on me tightening even more as he does. “That’s when I saw them taking the boys out in handcuffs, all three of them covered in blood, not one drop of it theirs. Then I saw that bastard slumped in a pile on the floor, battered, lifeless, hacked to fucking pieces. Justine came in screaming; Pierre was trying to hold her back but they both slipped on the mess the boys made. Then you coded in front of us.”
Lucky takes a shuddering breath that I can feel move through both of us. “I pushed the EMT away from me and crawled back over to you, and I begged you to stay. I threatened you, begged, pleaded, I promised and prayed. I yelled and screamed, begging you not to leave me. They kept trying to tell me you were gone, that there was nothing more they could do, but I kept yelling at you, even when they tried to physically restrain me, but that’s when I heard it.” He slips his hands under the back of my shirt, his fingertips digging into my skin as proof that I’m still here.
