The day after Christmas, Bettie was off to a slow start.

Reluctantly, she pulled herself from her bed, shivering as she dug a set of clothes out of her chest of drawers before walking to the bathroom. Winter had decided to finally rear its ugly head just the previous week, and, not too long afterwards, the heating in her apartment had gone out.

The people in the management office had assured her that they would have someone out to fix it soon, which she sincerely doubted.  Of course, this shitty apartment was all that she could afford, so she bit her tongue and wrapped herself in an extra blanket at night.

Once she was somewhat presentable, she grabbed her coat and headed out into the foggy morning, the sun barely in the sky.

Pleased that her car started up fine, she turned the radio up as she began her commute to the mall.

Of course, the traffic was godawful, — the world was reeling, still recovering from the previous day's holiday.

Many were heading home from family members' houses, she supposed, —  a concept that she found unreasonably alien.

Christmas had never been a big deal to her, of course.

In the few years that her mother was present, she couldn't remember receiving any notable gifts, if any at all.

After that came the girls' home, where an identical gift bag was handed out to each resident, — a well-meaning but impersonal combination of socks, a fast-food gift card, and maybe a tube of lip gloss.

Of course, she had been at Brian's place the night before, but it wasn't much of a Christmas celebration in a traditional sense. And why should it have been, when the party consisted of six broke twenty-somethings, — five atheists and a Jewish guy, — who just wanted an excuse to spend the day getting fucked up?

All in all, Christmas had been a rather uneventful affair for Bettie, — just another day that had passed like all the others.

She observed the evidence of it now as she drove, passing by endless lawns with decorations still strewn across them, — proof that it had, indeed, happened.

After making a quick detour to McDonald's for a coffee, she pulled into the parking lot of the Coral Square Mall.

As she walked through the mall's automatic doors, it was clear that the place was already teeming with life, — people anxiously waiting to return recently-received gifts and spend certificates. They swarmed around yet-to-be-opened stores with palpable fervor, all too happy to return to the beating heart of retail overindulgence after a couple days' absence.

She stopped in front of the record store. Pleased to be the first person to arrive, she lifted the security gate and stepped inside.

The first hour or so passed by rather slowly.

The store wasn't anywhere near as busy as she expected it to be, giving her plenty of time to twiddle her thumbs between the occasional trade-in.

A teenage girl came in and pulled a Backstreet Boys album from her bag, placing it on the counter with a rather-impressive eye roll.

"God," she drawled. "My parents really don't know the first thing about me, y'know it?"

Bettie nodded as she pushed the tape off to the side. "Oh, I know," she said, — and it was technically the truth.

The important difference between herself and this girl, however, was that one likely had over involved parents, smothering her with their presence, whilst the other hadn't so much as heard from her mother in nearly seven years.

"You can trade that in for store credit," she continued after scanning the album in quickly, "or I can give you cash back."

"I'll do the credit," the girl replied quickly. "I at least want to go back home with something to listen to."

Bettie grinned at her. "Alright, then. Feel free to holler for me if you need help finding anything."

Less than five minutes later, the girl returned with a Nirvana tape. Once Bettie rang it up and threw it in a bag for her, the girl left, leaving the store desolate once again.

Another hour passed. One of her coworkers arrived and took up residence in the back of the store. A few more customers came in, milling around and browsing absentmindedly. Bettie took the liberty of finally changing the radio from the station that was still exclusively playing Christmas carols.

During the dry spells, she found her mind wandering. Of course, the holidays were waning, — once the New Year began, life would resume without fanfare, — but one event still played on her mind.

That being her twentieth birthday, which happened to be the next day.

It was hard to believe, really, that she had somehow managed to make it on this earth for two whole decades. At the same time, she figured it made sense, — her teenage years had been full of events that most adults likely wouldn't be able to wrap their minds around, adding up to much more than twenty years worth of experience.

Of course, she didn't like to ruminate on that fact for too long, — more than once, these sort of thoughts had sent her spiralling.

Instead, she forced her mind to shift back to a couple years earlier, when Brad had surprised her here, right before closing time, stating that, since she already had a date to the Guns 'N Roses concert she was attending the next day, he would do his part to make her birthday memorable a day in advance.

The two of them wandered off to the food court and bought Cokes from one of the vendors, sneakily spiking them with the miniature bottles of whiskey that Brad had brought before heading off to see Brad's friend, Pablo, at his place.

She left Pablo's house with Brad's gift to her which would surely keep on giving, — a meticulously-crafted fake ID, listing an earlier birthdate and, curiously, the name 'Elizabeth Stewart.'

She couldn't help but smile at the memory, though a twinge of guilt accompanied the thought. So much had changed since that day, — God only knew how much more it might change as the years continued to go by.

Not long after this thought came to her mind, Bettie was startled by the shrill ringing of the store phone, sitting on the counter in front of her. She was surprised by this, — calls to the store tended to be quite rare.

She grabbed the phone from the receiver, lifting it to her ear.

"Coral Springs Records, how may I help you?"

"Bettie?"

Bettie was surprised by the familiarity of the voice on the other line. "Brian?" she asked. "What's going—"

"Brad's gone."

Those two words nearly caused Bettie to fall out of her seat.

Eyes gone wide with shock, she cradled the phone closer to her face.

"What do you mean, 'gone?'" she murmured, — it wouldn't do for the customers to overhear her talking about personal matters on the work phone, regardless of what kind of panic she might have been in. "Is he okay?"

Suddenly, the implication sunk in. Bettie's stomach rolled over as she felt the color drain from her face. "Brian... He didn't... please tell me he's not..."

"He's not dead. Relax." His voice was hard, — if there was any sympathy there, Bettie couldn't hear it. "Fucker overdosed last night. Again. They resuscitated him, but he's done."

Bettie blinked, still trying to wrap her head around the situation.

Of course, there were really only two things that Brian could possibly mean when he said that Brad was alive but gone. She couldn't decide which of those possibilities was worse.

Though she didn't want to hear either one, she knew that she had to ask. "So this was the final straw you've been talking about?"

Brian gave an affirmative hum. "Afraid so," he said. "He can't say that I didn't warn him. Christ, Bettie... How many times have I told him over the past year to get his life together?"

Before she could police her own response, Bettie let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Do you really think it's that easy?"

"I'm not saying that it's easy," Brian responded quickly. "But if this band fucking mattered to him, he would consider making the sacrifice. He's throwing away everything that we worked for."

There was a pause at the other end of the line. If it weren't for the vague buzz of static that she heard in the background, Bettie would think that the call had been dropped.

When Brian spoke up again, his voice came out flat. "He's as good as dead, anyway."

Bettie attempted to swallow the lump in her throat. "Don't—"

"You know that it's true," Brian cut her off. "This is, what, — the second time that he's done this shit?"

Though she wasn't going to tell him, Bettie knew it was the third.

"One of these days he won't be so lucky," Brian continued. "You know what happens to drug addicts, Bettie?"

At this point, Bettie was starting to feel lightheaded.

She knew all too well what happened to drug addicts.

"They waste away..." The words came out on autopilot, her voice sounding somewhere near robotic, despite the array of emotions currently tearing up her insides.

"And then they die," Brian added. "Brad may think he's fucking invincible, but his luck's gonna run out eventually. Then what will happen?"

Bettie's stomach churned. She didn't even want to think about it, let alone speak of it. Putting the words out there would acknowledge that it was even a possibility.

Brian snorted before answering his own question. "I'll have a dead bassist, that's what."

At this point, Bettie knew that any bargaining she might try to do would surely be a losing battle. That didn't stop the words from slipping from her tongue, however.

"He's sick," she said. "This stuff... it chews you up and spits you out. He's lost himself, Brian. He just needs help..."

"He doesn't want help," Brian spat in response. "In fact, I think he's beyond that. Didn't you hear about him sucking off his hairdresser?"

Bettie felt the blood rushing back to her previously blanched face at this bit of voyeuristic knowledge. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Wake the fuck up, Bets," Brian said. "He's just a fucking junkie. He'll do anything to get his next fix."

Those words hit her like a punch in the gut.

Brad, — her friend, Brian's friend, someone they both loved, — had been reduced to nothing but a 'junkie.'

As if this was something he could just turn on and off.

As if he had never been anything more than that.

Maybe that was what Brian had meant when he said that he was gone.

In his mind, the boy that they met years ago was dead and buried, replaced by some husk of a person that could so easily be shoved aside.

"So that's it?" she asked, though she already knew the answer. "You're done with him? He's out of the band?"

Brian paused again before delivering his verdict. "Not quite."

"Not quite?" Bettie echoed. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, Brian?"

He countered her question with one of his own. "Can I ask you a favor, Bets?"

Bettie's stomach dropped.

Suddenly, it all came into focus.

Brian hadn't fired Brad. More than likely, he didn't even intend to, — at least, not directly. Why would he feel the need to, when he could push the dirty work off on someone else?

Bettie didn't want to do it. She wasn't even sure that she could.

Sure, she had done plenty of shitty things in her almost-twenty years, but this would certainly take the cake.

How the hell could she do that, — stab someone that she loved so much in the back? Execute a decision that wasn't even hers to make?

"Visiting hours at the hospital are from twelve to three," Brian went on. "You could swing by on your lunch break. I know you'll let him down gentler than I would..."

The very thought made Bettie feel sick.

Still, — for whatever reason, — she didn't say no.

-

On the way to deliver the bad news, Bettie considered turning around several times.

It would be so easy, she thought as she stopped at the umpteenth red light. I could just go ahead and get out of it before it becomes anything. Keep my hands from getting dirty.

Still, she kept driving, following every road that lead to the hospital.

By the time she arrived, Bettie was struggling not to immediately heave the contents of her stomach into the parking lot.

Smoke signals were going off in her head, alarms blaring, something deep within her screaming to turn tail and run, even as she walked up to the receptionist's desk.

The woman behind the desk looked up at her expectantly. Bettie cleared her throat.

"I'm here to see Bradley Stewart." Her voice came out quiet, meek. She sounded like a fucking coward.

The receptionist nodded before reciting a floor and room number. Bettie nodded, offering her a quiet 'thanks' before heading towards the elevator.

Once she found herself in front of that door, she knocked. Part of her hoped that nobody would answer, or that he'd be asleep, and a nurse would tell her to come back some other time, to which she would smile and nod before leaving, only to tell Brian that she couldn't do it.

Alas, that wasn't what happened.

Almost as soon as she had knocked, a fresh-faced nurse appeared in the doorway, offering her a kind smile as she stepped aside, holding door wide open. "Looks like you have a visitor, Mr. Stewart."

Bettie stood there in the hallway for a moment, waiting to be beckoned.

As she suspected, this didn't take long.

"Let her in."

It was all she could do not to wince at the simple sound of Brad's voice, — 'half-dead' was the best way she knew how to describe it.

She knew that seeing him could only be worse.

She did her best to mentally prepare herself before walking into the room.

Of course, nothing could prepare her for the image in front of her.

Against the washed-out backdrop of the bleached bedsheets, Brad looked something like a ghost.

Somehow, he seemed infinitely more pale than he was when she had last seen him, less than twenty-four hours ago. His eyes were ringed with black shadows and appeared somewhat glazed over.

As soon as she stood in front of him, though, he cracked a weak smile.

"Wouldn't you believe it, Bets?" he said. "It seems that I'm immortal."

Bettie just blinked, unsure of how to respond. The nurse scurried back over to his bedside.

"Should I leave the two of you alone?" she asked.

"Please," Brad responded.

The nurse nodded. "Alright," she said. "But only for a while." She turned to Bettie before leaning in closer to speak to her. "Could you maybe see if you can get him to eat something, honey?"

She motioned in the vague direction of the nightstand next to the hospital bed. Bettie noticed the tray then, seemingly untouched.

Seeming to have fallen into a pattern of fulfilling promises, Bettie gave her a quick nod. "Yeah, I'll try."

"Good." The nurse headed back towards the door. "Press that button if you need anything!"

The door clicked shut behind her, leaving Bettie on her own to face the inevitable.

"Come sit down, Bets," Brad said.

Wordlessly, Bettie crossed the room, seating herself in the stiff chair next to the bed.

The silence returned.

How was one supposed to start this sort of conversation?

"You're pissed off, aren't you?"

Bettie considered Brad's question as she forced herself to meet his eyes.

Figuring she had nothing to lose, she shrugged and answered honestly. "A little bit, yeah," she said. "I mean, honestly, Gidge..."

She stopped, staring at him for a bit.

His near-dead eyes. His arms, marked up and down and stuck with a seemingly endless number of tubes. His face, familiar yet distorted, features that she had spent so much time admiring previously, becoming less defined as he grew more gaunt.

The next words out of her mouth were laced with venom. "How stupid can you be?"

The weak smile that Brad had plastered onto his face quickly faded. "Well, I never claimed to be a genius..."

"It doesn't take a genius to learn from his mistakes."

He blinked at her. "Is that the reason you came here?" he asked. "Just to give me another one of your famous talking-tos?" His frown deepened. "We went down that road last time, Bettie..."

"And it didn't change anything. I get it," Bettie snapped. "It just adds insult to injury, seeing you laying here, looking like a fucking corpse..."

"You think you're the one who's insulted and injured?" Brad cut her off. "Yeah, — call me when they're pumping you full of Narcan."

Bettie's mouth clamped shut. She kept staring him down, — at this point, she couldn't tear her eyes away.

"Who the fuck are you, Bradley?" she asked him.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Brad shot back.

"It means 'where the fuck is my best friend?'" Bettie replied. "When did the guy that danced with me at the club all those years ago turn into..." She stopped herself short, feeling the term that Brian had used earlier, threatening to pass her lips.

'Junkie.'

"Into... this?" She gestured vaguely towards the bed. "You aren't the same person, and it's not because you're playing some fucking character."

"Bettie..."

She didn't stop, though hearing him say her name with that pleading in his voice threatened to derail her train of thought.

"Why the fuck would you even start using?" she continued. "Did you just want to throw everything that you had away? God, Brad, — I know you didn't have everything that you wanted, but you had the band. You had your art. You had..."

You had me.

She fought back a sob. "So why the fuck would you need smack?"

"Bettie."

By this point, more color had drained from Brad's face, if that was even possible.

"Please don't do this, Bets," he begged her. "I know that you're upset, but... Seeing as my heart stopped last night and all..."

At that point, she couldn't hold it back any longer. "Brian says that this is the last straw."

He fixed her with his blank blue stare. "He always says that," he said dryly. "What else is new?"

Bettie stared back at him, convincing herself that she was looking at a stranger. "He means it this time."

For a while, the room went quiet.

Finally, Brad let out a wry chuckle. "Well, this is just wonderful," he said. "Not only am I getting fired, once and for all, but Brian sent my ex-girlfriend out to do it, — while I'm dying, no less. Life's just lovely, isn't it, Bets?"

Bettie stood up from her seat. "Don't call me that."

"Don't call you what?" Brad pressed.

Bettie shook her head. "Your ex-girlfriend. Or Bets. Any of it."

"Right," he said. "I forget that I was just a notch in your bedpost, right? The in-between while you worked your way through all of us?"

His words ached like salt in an open wound. Still, Bettie turned around, heading towards the door. "You were the one defining it at all," she said. "Not me."

Brad laughed. "Unreal," he said. "You're really something, you know it? Un-fucking-real..."

Bettie turned the door handle. "Goodbye, Brad."

With that, she closed the door behind her, heading back towards the elevator.

Once she was behind the wheel again, she expected to break down sobbing, maybe let out some form of primal scream. Instead, she started the car up, her insides still utterly numb.

Just an hour earlier, she had told Brian that Brad wasn't a lost cause, — he had simply lost himself.

Looking back at it, Bettie figured that, as soon she drove away from that hospital, she started losing herself, too.