It’s just a love that you can’t get back
It’s just a tale of a heart attack
You feel alive, but you’re sinking fast
Just close your eyes, this won’t be your last

It’s not the prayer you repeat at night
It’s not the saint that has seen the light
It’s just the breath that you hold inside
Just keep your, cool it will be alright

Angela’s hair was red, worn in a tangle of long, wiry, synthetic dreads. She had large eyes and a broad smile, and freckles.

The complete opposite of Nora.

She was strong, pretty beneath all the makeup she hid behind. She was the lead singer of an all-female nu-punk band called The Mourning Belles. If nothing else, she was amusing, and her antics both on and offstage took the media’s attention away from him. So as far as he was concerned she was serving her purpose in his life.

Their arrangement had a desired effect on Angela’s life as well. It brought a great deal of attention to her career, if one could call it that. She would do a few shows a week, leave for them drunk, return from them high. Ezekiel was fine with that. It kept her off his back, literally as well as figuratively. She was home, she wasn’t home. He didn’t know the difference.

He still spent most of his time in his room.

“You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” she would say.

“I wouldn’t touch your back with a meat cleaver,” he would reply. She would laugh her ass off.

“Just keep being an asshole. The press digs it. They eat that shit up,” she’d say.

He found her one afternoon dead on the kitchen floor. He remembers looking at her curiously, mulling over whether or not he should dress her as she was lying there in nothing but a pair of grey men’s briefs (not his) and a pink bra. Her eyes weren’t quite closed. Milk from a dropped carton puddled around her head, matting her hair

He thought to himself how strange it was that he could just look at Angela lying that way and feel nothing. The thought of the renewed media attention made him shudder more than anything else. While waiting for the paramedics he wondered how he’d be able to keep things quiet.

Or maybe he’d just grin and bear it this one last time. Maybe not grin. Just let them have their fun, sell their papers and magazines. They’ll forget him soon enough. He is, after all, the former member of a band that no longer exists. If he just lets the time go by, doesn’t try to choke any more photographers or punch any more reporters, he’ll be alright. They’ll forget about him.

Stop feeding the fire.

All this time, instead of beating them all off with a stick, he should have just stopped running.

I really am stupid.

The easy road lies in wait
Takes its toll
and all it desires
Leads you blind
Leaves you there
Takes your heart
and leaves you in silence

Ezekiel watches Faye shimmy across the cot until her stockinged feet touch the floor. Every movement of hers is slow and painful. She doesn’t look at him.

Ezekiel wishes Bea wouldn’t either.

She’s still in the same chair, under her quilt, looking very grandmotherly aside from the green acid of her eyes cutting across the room like a laser straight into his forehead.

He’s almost afraid to be left alone with her.

“Spike’s waiting outside with Jet and Ana. They’re gonna drive you guys out as far as the car’ll let them,” he explains hoarsely. Faye nods then they’re both still.

“Your sister will be alright. I’ll take good care of her.”

She nods again. He clears his throat. His lips move almost unnoticeably, mouthing words he wishes he could say out loud. She stands, eyes on the floor, finding herself very close to him. He breathes through his mouth to keep from inhaling the scent of her. Cruelly, he tastes it on his tongue.

“I’m ready to go,” she finally says, breaking her silence. She zips up her bomber jacket after struggling with it for a minute.

“Is there a bathroom in this hole?” Bea snaps. Ezekiel, without looking at her, gestures to his left. Bea eases herself out of the chair from under the quilt like a fragile elderly woman but proceeds to stomp in the direction of the bathroom like a child in the midst of a temper tantrum. It’s becoming more and more evident that Ezekiel will have to sleep with his hands protecting his genitals tonight.

“You two said your goodbyes?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Faye replies. She won’t look at him any higher than his chin. “I’m ready to go,” she says again.

She seems to pull herself away from him and towards the door. Ezekiel blinks. His breathing starts to quicken.

“Your shoes,” he says, voice cracking.

“Hm?”

“You’re not wearing any shoes.”

Faye looks down, shaking herself out of her trance. She rolls her eyes, looking embarrassed.

“Jesus,” she mutters. She walks back across the room, lowering herself to reach for the shoes she’s left under the cot.

Ezekiel gets there first. He wants to touch her one last time before she leaves without getting too close. He can’t be sure what the consequences would be if he got too close.

“Sit down,” he says quietly. She does.

He loosens the laces on one sneaker, reaches for and cradles the heel of her foot in the palm of his hand. Faye watches silently. She lets out a breath, long and slow. He slips the shoe over her foot then begins tightening the laces.

She was seconds from walking out the door.

He squeezes his eyes shut.

What the hell is wrong with you?

When he opens them again he finds himself holding her other foot, but Faye’s taken the second shoe from him.

She holds it just out of his reach, watching him curiously. Before he has time to think it might be a mistake, his arm is up and across her chest in an attempt to take the shoe back from her. Faye’s back arches ever-so-slightly, increasing his body’s pressure against her breast. He can feel her heart beating.

“Don’t...” he pleads.

Where the hell’s Bea gone?

She’s doing it again. She’s trying to force us together.

Faye remains still, her hand in the air, the shoe dangling from her fingers. Their combined breath hangs heavy between them. His body stiffens and softens in all the wrong places. She slowly lifts the foot he hadn’t realized he was still holding up and out of his hand, snaking her leg around the back of his.

And then the other shoe drops.

She said don't leave us behind
We'll never be here again
Our lives are closer this way
I won't be fooled by the light
I won't be fooled by the lie

“You think I’m a whore,” she whispers. He finally looks into her face, catching sight of the tear rolling slowly alongside the bridge of her nose. “Is that what you think?”

Ezekiel clenches his jaw. Muscles leap beneath his skin.

“I haven't fucked as many guys as you think,” she says casually. Ezekiel tries to look away, “Faye, don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t talk about the others? Don’t say ‘fuck’?” she asks hoarsely.

He feels Faye tighten her hand into a fist around his belt buckle.

“Or don’t move?” she offers thickly. Ezekiel’s voice catches in his throat. He can’t stop himself from leaning into the hair framing her face. He feels his knees rising from the floor beneath him as he pushes off the mattress to get closer to her. His hips move involuntarily against hers.

Spike –

He’s just outside.

Where the hell is Bea? She can stop this. I can stop this.

I just need to...

...stop.

“You were married twice,” she says.

“I didn’t love either of them,” he gasps as her fingers clench, jerking him by his t-shirt further between her thighs. She brings them around him, cradling his hardness, drawing it against her. He groans.

“So which one of us is the whore then?”

Ezekiel wants to grab her and shake her but his arms are the only things keeping him from falling on top of her. “Stop saying that word!” he hisses.

“What? Whore? It just breaks your heart, doesn't it?" she spits viciously, finally tapping into her anger. "I’m not that girl anymore! I'm not sure I know who I am! I just know that this person I’ve become swears and smokes and uses a gun! And yeah, there’ve been countless bad calls in judgement over the years! Just because she’s not good enough for you doesn’t give you the right to judge her! She’s good enough for the man waiting for her outside and that should be all that matters to her now!”

“Does it matter?” he demands. He wants her but right now he wants to hurt her too. He can’t help it. He thrusts against her and she gasps, grabbing a fistful of his shirt, using it in a desperate bid to maintain some distance between them. He thinks about biting her. He’s blinded by it.

“Why won’t you come?”

He groans a second time. She lifts herself off the cot, grinding against him.

“Why are you staying behind?”

“I told you why.”

“Tell me the truth!” she cries. The tears are coming faster now. The hand holding his shirt twists, drilling intently into his chest. “Years,” she shouts “years I spent telling you that nothing else mattered as long as we were together! Not your past, not your I.Q., not what our friends or our parents thought! None of that kept you away from my heart! Just your cowardice, you chicken shit, son of a bitch! You never believing that you were good enough for me...” a sob catches halfway in her throat, “And now you’re trying to tell me that I’m not good enough for you? Give me some fucking credit for chrissakes! I’m not an idiot!”

She suddenly uses all the strength she seems to be able to muster to push him away far enough to give her room to stand. Ezekiel rises to his feet, straightening his jeans across his hips. They stare at each other, both panting for air. Her lips are swollen, her eyes are red. She runs a hand roughly over her eyes, streaking the tears across the whole of her face. He reaches for the shoe that had been forgotten and abandoned on the cot and holds it out to her. She snatches it from him, hopping on one leg to get it on her foot. She heads determinedly for the door.

How he got out of that alive he has no idea.

“Faye...”

Faye’s hand wraps around the doorknob. She doesn’t look at him.

“I hate you,” she says quietly.

It hurts him as much as it did back then. Maybe even more this time around.

“Take care of my sister.”

After a beat, the memory of Bea has their eyes meeting immediately. The two look at each other, suddenly panicked.

Jesus Christ...

Ezekiel bolts in the direction of the bathroom with Faye stumbling after him.

They find her lying face-down on the filthy floor a mere couple of feet away from the bathroom door.

She never made it.

Lyrics from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Need Some Air and Killing the Light. Please don’t sue.