8. Leonor

8

LEONOR

T he first thing I notice is the sunlight pouring through the curtains, the warm glow on my skin wrapping me up in a velvety softness. I stretch, my body cracking and moaning in quiet rebellion to all of my slow and foreign movements.

I slept .

I have no idea for how long, but I fucking slept .

No nightmares, no panic attacks, just pure, blissful sleep. Glorious, completely unfamiliar sleep.

I lay here a little longer before I hear the buzzing on the table behind me, so I close my eyes and hope it just goes away, that I don’t have to deal with Justine or my dark reality again.

The buzzing stops then immediately starts back up seconds later, and I pull the comforter up over my head before I notice movement behind me. My heart drops to my knees and kicks back up into my throat as terror begins to rise from the pit of my stomach.

“What?” A deep, gravelly voice answers as the buzzing stops.

“Yeah, it is... Yes, with Leo... Yes, that Lucky...”

I blow out the breath that got stuck in my lungs with immense relief.

I wasn’t totally sure yesterday wasn’t some fever dream I’d conjured up or not but now, hearing Lucky’s voice, I’m fucking ecstatic it wasn’t, and I’m able to relax again.

“She’s sleeping. What do you mean, how? I don’t know, with her eyes closed? Justine, she’s not coming in today, she can’t deal with that dickhead again so soon. Tell them she’s sick or something. No, Leo’s fine, but she isn’t coming in.” Lucky is so annoyed, and it makes me grin.

I forgot how grumpy he is first thing in the morning.

The shifting on the mattress indicates he’s now swinging his legs over the edge of the bed to sit up, too irritated to have this chat lying down. “Look, I’ll have her call you later, ok? Oui. Je vous promets que je vais .”

Then Lucky sighs and sets the phone back on the table with a sharp thump.

Justine must be so fucking pissed at me, definitely pissed enough to make him promise to have me call in French, and scary enough that he actually did it.

Yeah, I’m sure Justine is ready to fly off the handle. I didn’t check in with her after I left work, never called after the boys showed up, so she is probably going to kill me the next time I’m within range.

Choosing to ignore the stupid way my heart fluttered when Lucky spoke in that Parisian tongue, I continue imagining all the ways Justine is going to skin me alive before I hear, “Son of a bitch. Those assholes.”

Lucky jolts from the bed and barrels down the staircase, and though I’m a little concerned, I take the opportunity to sprawl out like a starfish, all four of my limbs pointed to the corners of my bed.

I haven’t slept like that in ages.

A few minutes later, Lucky reappears at the top of the stairs, holding a six pack of beer and a piece of paper.

“ Luck, had to split. Hope you don’t mind we borrowed the beast. Will be back sometime. Can only have beer if you forgive the grand theft auto. Love you both. Moe, Larry and Curly. ” He tosses the note on the nightstand where his keys used to be and sighs. “Can you believe them?”

I take the beer he offers as I sit up, grinning a bit as I do. “Yes, I can. This is absolutely something they would do. Absent or not, I know that shit didn’t change.” I twist the cap and take a drink while glancing at my phone. 9:44 a.m . “At least they got you the good stuff.”

“That just means Norm felt guilty and you know it.” Lucky smirks and shakes his head while scrubbing a hand over his hair. “Looks like you’re stuck with me for a while, cakes.”

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 When by 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 playing The 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 narrowed to 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 about if 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.” That still plays through my mind on a loop sometimes.

“I know what 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 I love 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 he picks 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, killing you, 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. I tried 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.

“I heard a gurgling, an almost feral breath leave your lungs and you started coughing, you opened your eyes, you looked right at me . They started working on you again before they took you out on a gurney, and I fucking panicked. I forced my way into the ambulance and wouldn’t let them touch me even though my face was gushing. I just wanted them to fix you. I begged them to fix you.”

Lucky sighs and buries his face in my stomach again. “I didn’t leave your hospital room for three weeks. Justine told me I needed to go home, I needed to heal and give myself some sort of break, but I wouldn’t leave. We argued for days but I finally agreed to go after making her promise to call me the second you woke up. Before I finally left, I walked over to your broken body lying there, wondering where your perfect soul was hiding while I smoothed your hair back out of your face, kissed your forehead and said?—”

“ Si tu ne reviens pas, je te suivrai de l'autre c?té et je te ramènerai. Je t’aime, my coeur .” The words I thought I’d dreamt come rolling off my tongue as easily as taking my next breath. If you don’t come back to me, I will follow you to the other side and bring you back myself. I love you, my heart.

I always thought it was a dream, that hearing Lucky say those beautiful words, words I’d waited ten years to hear, was nothing more than a hallucination.

Judging by the way his entire body tenses in my lap, Lucky obviously didn’t think I really heard those words either, that my coma kept him safe from me knowing how he felt. And despite my racing heart, I keep stroking his hair until I feel him relax because that’s the last thing anyone needs to worry about right now.

“Well, I think you may have answered one of life’s greatest mysteries; people can hear you when they’re in a coma.” He laughs a little, and I smile.

I say nothing, though, just relish in this moment as I try to process everything he told me.

It’s strange to hear his side of things.

I’ve heard what happened from Justine, heard it from cops and medical professionals, but hearing it come from Lucky, the only other person who experienced it the way I did, is a whole new perspective for me.

After what seems like forever, Lucky nuzzles my stomach with his nose. “I know the possibility of someone else finding my mutilated mug attractive again is way outside the realm. I’ve come to grips with the life I’ve been leading, I’m even happy with it for the most part.” He yawns and chuckles into my shirt. “But I’m glad I was able to tell you how I feel whether I thought you could hear me or not. I have no regrets, no expectations. I’m just glad to have you back.”

My heart skips a beat at his use of present tense.

Lucky didn’t say that he used to love me, he said it’s how he feels .

Lucky loves me.

Not that I didn’t know he has love for me, he’s been my best friend, one of my closest allies for at least a decade, but he’s never once told me he loves me like that. Not in the way he said it back then, or how he said it just now. Lucky loves me the way I love him, the way I’ve always loved him.

Hitting me like a ton of bricks, I finally realize that it felt like my soul had been missing the past three years because it was. I shut it out when I shut them out.

As if the words were a key, another memory from long ago is unlocked and bleeds through the darkest places of my mind, one from that night that wasn’t strong enough to hang onto.

I remember why I thought it was Lucky coming into the dressing room that night.

He had wanted to talk to me, just me, and I was going to take a leap of faith and use the opportunity to tell him how I felt. I didn’t know what he wanted to talk about but I had a hell of a lot to say to him, and I was going to take my chance before the after-party.

Because I fell in love with Lucky the first time I met him.

I sit in bed, still stroking Lucky’s hair while he sleeps, my memories and his confession flooding me with feelings that I buried for years right along with the rest of me.

The idea of love is a wonderful thing.

Being with this man in a completely different way, finally able to give my whole self to him in the way I’ve always wanted. To be with him, to be in love with him makes me happier than I’ve been in such a long time, and it’s almost as if I can feel my heart relax. Like the tomb I’ve kept it locked away in is finally opening up, and the possibilities of using it the way I was intended become limitless.

But then that little voice inside my head, the one that’s been ruling my entire existence for the last three years, yeah, that bastard starts talking.

How could Lucky, how could anyone still want me?

I’m broken, an empty shell of who I used to be.

My body has been tainted; it’s been ruined in ways that go beyond surface-deep. The physical scars are clear, and they’re horrible, but they aren’t the only ones I bear. The scars no one can see run much deeper, and they hurt far worse.

There are parts of my body that will probably never work how they’re supposed to again, things I’ll probably never be able to do, and definitely things I should be watching more closely because of all the physical damage that was done.

Who would want to put up with all that shit?

If the physical isn’t bad enough, there’s all the stuff floating around in my head, too.

I’ve all but forgotten how to take care of myself, and I haven’t put any importance on it since that horrible fucking night.

I live in an almost constant state of fear, hiding money all over the place just in case something happens because I’m so fucking paranoid I don’t even trust banks. I don’t use a credit or debit card anymore. I pay for everything in cash and try like hell to avoid leaving a paper trail.

I have full-blown panic attacks almost daily, and black out more often than anyone should. Not to mention the crippling nightmares, night terrors, and insomnia that could break records.

Hell, I know that bastard is dead and gone, but I still carry around a bag—complete with a fucking gun—in case I do need to bolt.

Damaged goods, that’s what I am, and this perfect soul in my lap deserves something a thousand times better than what I have to offer.

Which is absolutely nothing but a life of misery.

The idea of being in love just turned ugly really quick.