12. Lars

12

Lars

“That was one hell of a show you put on, Billie Goat.”

“Fuck you, Lars,” Billie spits as she shoves her legs in her pants. She gazes around the room, and I toss her the T-shirt she was wearing. She pulls it on before burying her head in her hands. “I can’t believe I did that.”

“Who cares?” I ask, pointing to the mask still on her head. “No one knows who you are. They probably assume you’re some rando groupie lucky enough to be fucked by us.”

Billie rips the mask over her head and glares at me. “That’s great. I love knowing I’m just your whore.”

“You’re special,” Cain says, lighting a new joint. “We don’t cum in groupies. We wrap our shit tight. Don’t want any diseases.”

She doesn’t need to know that we’ve never done any of that shit with groupies. It will only give her more power over us.

“You’re such a sexist pig. You’re out here fucking any girl who looks your way but have an issue with them doing the same.”

Cain chuckles, raising his hand in the air, the joint dangling from the corner of his lips. “No one’s judging a girl who likes to fuck, Tinkerbell, but I’ve got no idea where they’ve been. Safety first.”

Billie steps toward Cain, bending as she shoves her index finger at his bare chest. “I’ve fucked a lot, but you didn’t need to wrap it up with me. You see what I let you do to me? You think you’re the only ones I’ve done shit with? How do you know I don’t go to clubs and let random men run a train on me so I can push their cum out in a glass and drink it like the bourbon Lars loves so much?”

Billie still has her fire. I’d bet my cock and balls she’s never done the shit we did to her with other men. That’s what attracted her to us because Billie would’ve told us to get lost had it not been for the itch she was desperate to scratch. She’s always been wound tight, playing whatever game her parents set up for her. Even today, when she came in pulling that cardigan tight against her chest, I knew she was full of shit. So I played along to see what buttons I could unleash. “Maybe I’ll drink my bourbon while watching you drink a glass of random cum.”

She turns, eyes glaring pure venom at me. Her adorable nose crinkles and exaggerates the Roman bump I love so much. “I’ve got a freshly fucked pussy with remnants of Satan’s cum. I’m pretty sure I could run downstairs and get one of those guys to lick it up. I saw how they went wild for your cum leaking out of my pussy.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” I spit, jumping off the sofa.

Billie picks up the black mask from the floor and shoves it over her head. “Watch me.”

With three steps, I’m in front of her, my hand around her throat. “No one gets to touch you but us, Billie. No one!”

I release her throat and crumble to the floor as she viciously kicks me between my legs.

Billie glares at me. “You fucker. You gave up your claim on me when you told me to get lost. You’re sorely mistaken if you think you can tell me what to do now. You don’t own me, Lars. You gave up that right ten years ago. You think all this was something special? That you’d give me a few orgasms, I’d fall to my knees in gratitude, and forget how you broke my heart?”

“I was hurting,” I whisper.

“Yes, asshole, so was I. You think you’re the only one who loved him? The only person who had a piece of their heart ripped out. You only lost Trevor when he died. I lost all three of you.”

I rise from the ground. Taking one step, then another, until Billie is cornered against the wall. She flinches as I bring my face toward hers. I want to kick my ass for making her flinch, but I need to say the words that have been burning in my throat for a decade. “He died. I fucking love how we all keep saying that. People die in car accidents, from cancer and heart attacks. Trevor didn’t die. He fucking took a pistol to his temple and blew his brains out on his mother’s cream carpet. Because of us. Because we were so selfish that we forgot it wasn’t just the three of us. He was a part of our family, and we left him behind. Because we fell in love with you.”

“You’re not the only one who loved him, Lars. I beat myself up over it. You assumed I just said, ‘Oh, well,’ and moved on. It’s been ten years, and that pain still shatters my heart. Some days, I miss him so much that I curl into a ball and cry for hours. I loved him, too, but it’s not my fault I didn’t love him the way he wanted me to. Had I known, I never would’ve started it with the two of you. I would’ve been sad, but at least I’d have him.”

Cain gets up. “You think he wanted you?”

“Cain, shut up,” I warn.

“She needs the truth, Lars. Fuck that, she deserves the truth. We can walk away, but she’s spent ten years thinking it was her fault. It’s not her fault. It’s ours.”

“What do you mean?” Billie asks.

“Trevor wasn’t in love with you, Billie. He was in love with Lars. Don’t get me wrong, he loved you like a sister. But Trevor was gay. When he saw us and ran that night, he didn’t go straight home. After I took you home, I headed back to the shack. Trevor and Lars were there.”

Billie turns her gaze from Cain to me. The anger in her face vanishes, replaced by something else, something much worse. Pity.

My face falls into my hands as I try to cast out an old ghost who never stops haunting me.

Trevor gazed at me. His eyes were wild and bloodshot. He was on something.

“What did you take, Trev? You’re on something. What is it?”

Trevor ignored my question, repeating the same words over and over like a mantra to an invisible god. “What’s wrong with me? Why don’t you love me?”

“Trevor, I’m trying to help you, brother. Tell me what you’re on.”

“I’m not your brother. I’ve never wanted to be your brother. It wouldn’t hurt so much if I knew you weren’t into guys, but I’ve seen you with Cain. I’ve watched you suck his cock, let him fuck your ass. What’s wrong with me?”

“What are you talking about, Trev? You sound out of it. Bro, go home and sleep it off.”

Trevor walked up to me and dropped to his knees. I wasn’t sure what he was doing until he pulled down my sweatpants and palmed my dick.

I stumbled back and fell on the sofa. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I just want to love you.”

I shoved him away. “Trevor, bro. I don’t want this. Not with you.”

“I’m worthless. No one wants me.”

“Trev, that’s not true. I’m with someone. There’ll be other people. You’ll meet so many other people in your life.”

Trevor rose, his face contorting in pain and something I couldn’t put my finger on. “They won’t be you. I’d rather die than be with anyone else.”

I was tired of all of it. “You’re being a fuckin’ baby. Rejection happens. I want to be your friend. Continue playing music. But you gotta accept that the rest isn’t gonna happen, and being dramatic about it isn’t gonna change shit.”

Trevor nodded. “I’ll be gone, and you’ll regret this.”

My eyes meet Cain’s. “I told him I didn’t want him. Two hours later, when we went to check up on him, we found him dead.”

Billie whimpers. I turn to her. She’s in tears, hand over her mouth. “All these years, I thought it was my fault. That I’d done something wrong. You’re a fuckin’ coward, Lars.”

Anger and shame are volatile emotions. They cloud your vision and force you into rash judgments that impede your happiness. But when the two emotions get twisted, they’re far more dangerous. They’re a ticking time bomb bound to explode, causing devastation and casualties in their wake.

Every part of me wants to fall on the ground ay Billie’s feet and tell her I’m sorry. Admit that I was a fucked-up kid with nothing who feared having even less. I didn’t know that losing her would be the worst thing I ever experienced. Withdrawing from Billie is the most brutal thing I’ve ever been through. For the first two years, I’d disassociated and spiraled into dark places.

But as I stand here with the opportunity to tell her my truth, I don’t. Instead, I say words to push her away. Again. “Yes. I’m a fuckin’ coward. So run, Billie. Run from me while you still can.”

Billie doesn’t look at me. Her palms glide down her T-shirt as if trying to cleanse herself of what happened in this room. “You’re going to finish this interview. Then I’m getting on a plane, going home, and I never want to see you two again.”

“Why bother with the interview?” I scoff.

Her eyes snap up, brimming with tears, and I hate that I’m the reason. “Because you’ve already taken too much from me, and I’ll be damned if you take anything else. I’ve worked hard for my career, and this interview is hard won.”

I nod and watch as Billie Richmond storms away from me again.

“You’re a fuckin’ idiot,” Cain says as soon as the door slams behind Billie.

I frown. “You could’ve told her what was up back then. Why didn’t you?”

“So many times I wanted to run to her and tell her, beg her to come back and forgive you, but you needed me more than she did. She had her father and her wealth. You had nothing and no one. I was sure you’d crumble if I didn’t stick by you, and there was no way I could live with myself. She was stronger than you, and I knew it. So I got stuck choosing between the two pieces of my heart.” Cain steps toward me and grabs the back of my head, bringing his forehead to mine. “You gotta make this right, man. You know how much it’s hurt us without her all these years. Make this right.”

“We don’t need her,” I whisper. My lie sounds pathetic to my own ears.

“You can lie to them,” Cain says, pointing toward the balcony. “You can even lie to yourself, but you’ll never be able to lie to me. The pain our fans love, that soul-crushing sorrow, is all from her. She’s in everything you do, in everything we do. The struggle to succeed came from her, to be someone worthy of her. Sure, we love the music and all the shit that comes with it, but her memory has fueled us these past ten years. Maybe we’ve used Trevor as an excuse because we’re terrified that our love for her could crush us under its weight.”

Every syllable of Cain’s words hits me like bullets from a firing squad, with dissemination as its goal.

“I hear you at night, Lars. When you think I’m sleeping, you take out your old guitar and play that song. A song that makes you irate when you hear it on the radio or in a bar. The same song you practiced at rehearsal because she was there.”

“I love that song.”

I turned and watched Billie enter the shack. “You’re like a cat, you know that?”

She smiled, and I swore the sun burst through the clouds, radiating heat. I sounded like a chump, but that was what Billie did to me. She turned me into a sentimental fool. “It’s a good tune.”

“Yes, it is. The lyrics are almost haunting. You can sense his pain.”

I strummed the guitar. “It’s about his parents. Their abuse of him and substances. I can relate. Knowing that your parent, who’s supposed to love you more than anyone else, loves a chemical more.”

I closed my eyes as I sang the lyrics, pouring all my rage and love for my mother into them. As I hit the chorus, Billie joined in. Her voice was soft but held power. I guessed it shouldn’t have shocked me that my angel also sounded like one.

The song ended, and I placed the guitar down before leaning into her and brushing my lips against hers. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Billie asked.

“For making me feel a little less alone.”