Bettie rode back to her apartment in a cab that Brad had called for her. He had offered to drive, but she declined, — she wasn't certain that she could handle being next to him for that much longer. The guilt just might have suffocated her, along with the question that she was too afraid to ask: "after everything that's happened, are you and I strangers again?"

So she shoved a ten dollar bill into her driver's hands before stumbling onto the hot pavement outside of the Seaport Apartments complex.

She climbed the stairs on shaking legs. Once she reached the third level, she stopped in front of her door, fumbling through her purse in search of her keys.

A gust of cool air greeted her once she pushed the door open. This should have been quite the relief, — even in early autumn, the humidity  was unbearable in Fort Lauderdale.

Alas, the change in temperature was the absolute last thing on Bettie's mind as she shut the door and headed straight for the sofa.

She collapsed onto the thrift store couch unceremoniously, dropping her bag onto the floor in the process. As her body sunk into the creaking cushions, her mind began to race, finally allowing her to process exactly what the fuck had happened over the course of the day.

The most obviously pressing event: she had seen Brad for the first time in seven years.

That simple thought was almost too much for her to wrap her head around.

Not only had she seen him, but he was doing well.

He looked good, — different, but good. Older, but more-or-less healthy.

That was much more than she could say for herself.

Then came the more baffling aspect of the situation: he seemed to have forgiven her.

Despite the fact that she had left him here nearly a decade ago, choking on her dust while she took his place, he was merciful enough to smile at her as she stood nervously at the back of the art gallery.

Once the crowd thinned out, he walked right up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her into him as though she had never left.

He greeted her like an old friend, — which, in the absolute loosest of terms, is what she supposed she was.

And then, in an even more dumbfounding turn of events, he decided that he wanted to catch up.

She climbed into the passenger seat of his car without protest, — an upgrade from the one she had so badly busted up a decade prior.

They wound up at an old hole-in-the-wall burger joint. They squeezed into a beat-up booth in the back of the restaurant and ordered their respective cheap, greasy meals, then sat in relative silence as the waitress nodded and headed back towards the kitchen.

Finally, Brad broke the silence. "Hey, Bets, look." He pointed at something behind the booth, the grin that Bettie had come to know and love eleven years ago lighting up his face. "I think she's staring at us."

Bettie peered over her shoulder, only to notice an elderly woman sitting alone at a table on the other end of the restaurant. Surely enough, she seemed to be focused on their booth, taking bites of her sandwich with a troubled expression on her face.

Bettie turned back around with a shrug. "Maybe it's because I look like I just rose from the dead and you look like some sort of deranged hipster scientist."

"Damn." Brad looked back down at the table, chuckling to himself. "I thought that we were famous."

It was meant to be a joke. She knew that.

Still, she found herself tensing up in her seat as the quiet seemed to swallow them whole once again.

Once the waitress brought out their sodas, Brad seemed to decide to go ahead and rip off the Band-Aid. "So," he started, "what's been up with you? I mean, ever since..."

Bettie ripped the paper from her straw before dropping it into her Diet Coke. "LA fucking sucks," she declared.

Brad's blue eyes went wide as he pulled back from a sip of his own drink. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She crossed her arms across her chest, focusing on the freshly wiped-down tabletop in an attempt to avoid looking him in the eye. "Once you make it to the top, everybody's just waiting in the wings to stab you in the back. So, if you ever get the chance to go... don't bother."

"Is that why you ended up back in Florida?"

She looked back up at him, offering a half-hearted smile. "Something like that, yeah."

More quiet. Then...

"You heard from Brian lately?"

Bettie wrinkled her nose. "I don't care if I never talk to him again," she said. "He's a fucking cunt."

"Can't say I disagree with you there." Brad frowned, swirling his straw around in his drink for a moment before offering his next question. "What about Trent? Don't hear much about him anymore..."

Bettie made a sound in the back of her throat that sounded something like a laugh, though she knew that the information that she was about to impart couldn't be any further from funny.

"Between you and me, last I heard, Trent was holed up in rehab somewhere." She shook her head. "He snorted a line of china white overseas. Happens to the best of us, unfortunately."

Brad raised his eyebrows. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Bettie shrugged. "I went down that road myself a couple years ago," she replied, perhaps a bit too readily. "I got pissed off and stole a friend's coke. Luckily for her, I was the one who realized it was cut with something. Not-so-luckily for me, they had me locked away for the better half of a year afterwards."

Brad's frown deepened, his eyes softening. Bettie felt a knot growing in the pit of her stomach as she took in his expression.

It was a look she knew all too well: worry.

Brad was always worrying about her way back when, always trying to look after her and protect her from all the people who were dying to take advantage of someone.

And now, here they were.

They weren't kids anymore, — both of them had somehow made it long enough to be pushing thirty. The world had chewed them up and spat them out.

Both of them had done things they vowed they never would, become people that would surely disappoint their younger selves.

Then again, Bettie could only speak for herself.

Looking at Brad's face right then made her heart feel as though it was splitting itself in two.

Bettie hurt people. She was so fucking good at that, — she could do it with her eyes closed, without even trying.

At the end of every day, she couldn't help but wonder if she had hurt Brad the worst of all.

He had loved her.

He loved her in a way that she was uncertain that anyone else ever had, before or after. He always gave more than he took, never seeming to expect anything in return, — and for good reason.

What had she ever done for him?

She put out, of course, but she did that for all of them.

It had been different with Brad, — he touched her like she was more than an object, like she was exactly who he wanted her to be, nothing more, nothing less. Like he wanted to be with her.

That's part of the reason why the two of them had stopped doing that, near the end of it all.

It felt real, and that scared the living shit out of her.

Aside from the sex, Bettie hadn't been able to return his efforts. She never thought twice about it back then, — not until she kicked him out of the band and jetted off to California, taking the bass he had taught her to play and a seed of guilt that seemed to grow and grow as the years went by.

For a few years after that, she thought she was somebody.

She wasn't just some little nobody from Florida.

She was Bettie fucking Wournos: a rock-and-roll sex symbol, record label founder, up-and-coming producer, esteemed bassist, — or "the girl from Marilyn Manson," at the very least.

But then...

There were the drugs. They were there in the beginning, sure, but there were more of them. Everywhere she looked. She could have any kind that she wanted, at any point in time. When had she ever been anything but an opportunist?

There were also the people: all the knuckleheads that she had come to LA with originally, their heads growing larger from both acclaim and ridicule, until Freddy and Scott couldn't take the heat, then the revolving door of Timothy, Ginger, and John.

Then there were the Flyboys, — mainly Prudence, who she hated just as passionately as she loved, always either her best friend or her worst enemy.

And how could she forget Trent?

She fucked with his head for five years straight.

She also spent most of those five years in his bed.

They may have spent a good portion of their waking hours spitting venom at one another, but they had each somehow become permanent fixtures in each other's existences, whereas everyone who had come before served solely as a placeholder.

Of course, she fucked that up, and he let her know as much.

He hated her guts. She didn't have to have spoken to him over the last two years to know as much, — the lyrics spoke for themselves, along with that stupid fucking music video.

That seemed to be Bettie Wuornos' final title: starfucker.

Her stomach twisted as it replayed in her mind for the millionth time.

She could see it so clearly: Trent, in the back of a limo, and next to him, in a blonde wig and stockings...

Brian.

The mere thought of him made Bettie dig her nails into her palms, fury burning up her insides.

It was difficult to believe that the two of them had once been friends. As time went on and the records kept selling, he had become more and more of a stranger to her, — a cruel one, at that.  

They used to harmlessly bicker and make music together. Now, she couldn't think about him without feeling sick to her stomach, without remembering that day before she went back to the house on the beach, without remembering her one-word dismissal from the band as a whole.

Bettie might have been an expert at self-sabotage, but Brian had certainly done his share in helping to ruin her life.

And he had the nerve to say that she was the fame whore?

"Bets?"

Brad's voice startled her back to the current moment.

She was back in this shitty little diner in Fort Lauderdale. The waitress had just sat her plate in front of her, a hamburger sat on top of a gracious helping of French fries.

She looked back at Brad, whose eyes were still filled with that terrible look of anxiety. "Did you hear me?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I got distracted,— what were you saying?"

"Are you clean now?"

She nodded, picking up a French fry and popping it in her mouth. "Yeah, pretty much. My therapist put me on anxiety meds, and I like a good drink now and then. But other than that, I'm good."

Knowing that she had always been the one to twist the knife in the wound, she couldn't help but follow up the question, — "and how about you?"

She could see Brad swallow hard, even though he had just picked up his burger. "Yeah," he said. "It didn't exactly... take the first time, though. You know... after you went to Cali." He took a pitiful bite of his sandwich before continuing. "I relapsed. Twice."

A feeling of panicky guilt rose back up within Bettie. "I'm sorry, Gidg—" She cut herself off, — who was she to come in and use nicknames, after all these years? "I'm really sorry to hear that, Brad."

He shook his head. "It's okay," he said. "I set myself straight after the third rehab stay about a year ago."

Though she knew she should have left it alone, all things considered, Bettie's curiosity got the better of her. "How?"

He grimaced, putting his burger back down. "I was, uh... a bag boy, let's say..." He lowered his voice before finishing that sentence. "For the coroner."

Bettie stopped pulling apart her fries. "Oh. Um..." She giggled nervously. "Holy shit. That's..."

Brad nodded. "Heavy, I know." He reached for a napkin. "But that'll do it. It's horrible, really, — staring down a dead body. Not just because it's gross, — which, don't get me wrong, it is, — but because you start to think... that's gonna be me one day."

"Jesus," Bettie muttered.

"That's what knocked some sense into me," Brad continued. "I didn't want that to me, — not yet, anyway. Not at twenty-eight, when I wouldn't have anyone but my poor old mom to come identify my body. Not because I had gotten closer to a fucking needle than I had to another person in a decade."

He smiled, — a ridiculously lighthearted gesture, after everything he'd just said. "So I stopped. For good. It was kinda hell, but I think it turned out for the better. It meant that I ended up here in this booth with you, after all."

He gestured towards the hamburger baskets. "Now... dig in. These are hardly good hot. Can't let 'em get cold."

After dinner, she got back in the car with him without questions. He turned the radio up, — college radio, rather than the Beastie Boys albums they had wasted the days away listening to before, — and drove them to an apartment complex that Bettie was surprised to find was nicer than her own.

"Cool place, right?" He laughed. "Well, don't get too excited. Only reason I'm able to afford it is 'cause I share it with Al, — and we've still had the power cut off once or twice." He opened the driver's door before glancing over at her through the growing dark. "You coming?"

Knowing she had no other choice, she followed him inside.

"Speaking of Al, he's gone for the night," he continued once they stepped through the door. "So we've got the place to ourselves, pretty lady." He turned towards her. "So, what'll it be? Warm beer? Whatever the fuck is on antenna television? There might be a pack of Oreos in the pantry, if you really wanna get wild..."

Before she could come up with a response, Bettie noticed a vague flash of light from somewhere beside her. She turned around, only to take note of a shiny black bass, positioned on a stand in the corner of the living room.

Brad followed her gaze. "Oh," he said with a slight giggle. "That. Luckiest pawn shop find I've ever had." He turned back to her. "You wanna go check it out?"

Though she knew that hearing Brad play bass after all these years would certainly make her feel even worse about the whole situation, Bettie nodded. "Sure."

"Great." Brad walked across the room, stopping to pull out a small amplifier that Bettie had somehow missed during her first cursory glance over the room. He plugged it in, then picked up a cord, which he ran over to the bass.

"We've been working on some new stuff, Al and I," he began as he took a seat on the couch and began to toy with the tuning pegs. "We put out some stuff a few years back, but we haven't caught on quite yet. But, y'know, if at first you don't succeed..."

He plucked a familiar chord, causing it to ring out throughout the apartment.

"The acoustics are great in here," Bettie remarked, coming to take a seat beside him.

"Aren't they?" He looked up at her, and her heart skipped a beat. So much had changed, but, in the moment, she could swear she had travelled back in time. She had spent so many evenings by his side, listening to him mess around with his bass, the two of them easily joking back in forth.

The painful nostalgia only worsened when he held the instrument out to her. "You wanna play me something?"

She shook her head. "I don't — I haven't played in almost two years," she said.

"I'll help you." Brad pushed the bass into her lap, forcing her to hold it. The familiar weight in her arms brought an odd sense of comfort. She adjusted its position on autopilot before sliding her fingers up the headstock.

She began to pick out a vague line, — somewhat shabby, but still recognizable.

Even when she wasn't looking, she could feel Brad's eyes on her. "Is that "Dogma?" "

Bettie stilled her fingers. "It is," she admitted. "I miss playing that one. It was always one of my favorites." Feeling her face go red at such a confession, — when had she ever said that she missed being in the band? — she brought her attention back to the strings, attempting to start over.

Once again, she stopped. "I'm not doing something right..."

"Here." Before she could even register what was happening, Brad placed a hand over hers, moving it a bit lower on the headstock. "Try it like that."

She obliged. Surely enough it sounded better.

He continued to guide her until she had properly played the line through a couple times. He pulled away. "See? You've got it!"

She could hear the pride in his voice, — just like when he taught her this the first time.

She knew that she didn't deserve it.

She continued to mechanically work her way through the line for a bit, even as her mind wandered elsewhere.

Why was she even here? All this could possibly do is open up old wounds. Even if Brad acted like he wanted it all to be water under the bridge, she knew that she could never allow herself to have closure. Every time she looked at him, she would feel like the shittiest person on the face of the earth.

She left him behind. And for what?

To get famous, then throw it all away? To fall in love with someone else, then fuck it up just as badly as she had the first time? To be Brian's new right-hand man, then experience firsthand just how awful he could really be?

Tears began to blur her vision until she couldn't see the strings anymore, leaving her hand falling away as a sob broke up from her throat.

"Bettie?"

She sniffled again, not replying to Brad's concerned inquiry.

"Hey." He picked up the bass, placing it haphazardly off to the side as he grabbed her by the shoulders. "Bettie, — Bets. Come on, look at me."

She swiped at her eyes angrily. "I'm sorry," she managed. "Brad, I'm so fucking sorry."

She meant it, in every sense of the word.

Bettie was just a sorry person.

"Sorry for what?" He reached out, pulling her to him again. Now her face was buried in his shoulder and she was sobbing even harder, both because she had missed this so much and because she didn't deserve to have what she wanted, especially when it came to this.

"Bettie..." The rest of his sentence hung there in the silence, unknown, until he finally decided to let it die, simply holding her tighter. "It's okay."

For what seemed like the longest time, he just held her, until her sobs grew so quiet that she couldn't hear them anymore. She felt his thumb brush against her cheek, swiping away a tear before tilting her chin up to look at him.

She met his eyes, feeling her already-shuddering breath hitch. He leaned in closer, leaving Bettie's heart running wild inner chest.

His lips pressed against her forehead before he pulled back.

"You can stay here, you know," he murmured as he reached to tuck a loose lock of blonde hair behind Bettie's ear, — another old habit that made her heart ache. "It doesn't have to mean anything, of course, but..." She saw his face go slightly pink at the implication before he went on with a sigh.

"I'm worried about you, Bets," he said softly. "It's been so long, and you..." He trailed off before shaking his head, dyed red hair falling in front of his eyes. "Something's off. There's something you aren't telling me."

All the things she could have told him popped into her mind.

She could talk about how the Mechanical Animals sessions went down in flames. She could mention what happened with Travis. She could tell him about her mom or when she was lying motionless on the bathroom floor listening to  Prudence scream bloody murder or when she woke in a bathtub full of blood with Trent begging her to stay with him, please.

Of course, she didn't.

She pulled away from him. "I'm okay," she said. "Just... feeling a little lost now, is all."

She stood up, hoping that he wouldn't follow her as she headed for the door. Of course, she had no such luck.

"You aren't staying the night?" he asked."It's dark out there, Bettie, — I wouldn't want you walking alone, some lady got robbed around here last week. Can I at least give you a ride back—"

She turned around to face him. "You can call me a cab," she said. "I'll be fine, Gidge. Don't worry about me."

He stared at her for a while longer before nodding. "Yeah. Okay."

With that, he walked across the room, checking some guide stuck to the refrigerator before punching a few numbers into the phone and calling a cab company. After that, he stalked back off to the bedroom wordlessly. Assuming she'd seen the last of him for the night, Bettie had her hand on the doorknob, ready to head out and wait for the taxi.

"Hold on."

She turned around, only to find Brad standing right there, shoving something into her hand. "My number," he said, "because I want you to keep in touch. And..."

She held the piece of purple plastic up to the light. "A pick?"

He grinned. "My little attempt to give you the incentive to start playing again," he said. "You're so good at it, Bettie. You can't just go and give up. Who knows? Maybe the two of us can jam sometimes..."

"Maybe," she agreed halfheartedly. "I gotta get going. The taxi will be here any second."

And so she left his apartment and went out into the streets. Now she was here, in her own living room, staring at the pick once again.

The Dali Gaggers, read the black text printed across it. Brad's new band, she wagered.

She put it down with a sigh before standing up, beginning to pace across the floor.

Many would surely argue that her crossing paths with Brad was a sign, — a second chance, even. That the two of them could try again, start anew.

She just saw it as the final nail in her own coffin.

Bettie was dying. Not so much physically, — though she saw what the drugs had done to her, as well as the consequential things that came along with the drugs. She looked old and haggard, and she was only two months out from her twenty-eighth birthday.

She had just seen her mother die a month ago, — that horrible old bitch that she despised with all of her being, the monster who caused her to become what she was.

Still, when she watched her take her last breath, looking so frail and thin, she couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

She understood what Brad was saying when he talked about working with the coroner.

Bettie was disturbed, knowing that death may come to her in the same way that it came to her mother. She didn't want to imagine herself that way, — old and disease-ridden and so horribly still.

Then again, she wasn't sure that she was meant to last that long.

Bettie had seen her heyday, if she could even  call it that.

She had traveled the world.

She had been in love, twice, and damn near killed both of the men who were unfortunate enough to love her back.

She had made plenty of friends and lost every single one of them in some way or another, mostly by her own design.

She had the opportunity to be a mother, and Trent could have made her his wife.

She could've settled down, or even made the decision to keep living fast for a while, — although it would have been ideal for her to stop popping pills and snorting things and take a look around for once.

But she destroyed all of it. It was what she did best.

She lost all of it, far quicker than she had gained it.

Now, she thought it would be only fit for her to destroy herself.

She headed towards the kitchen, swinging open the cabinet to retrieve the whiskey bottle. She picked it up and unscrewed the cap, taking a long, hearty sip as she plotted her next move.

First, she'd go and call Prudence. If there was anyone she would like to speak to one more time that she figured would actually pick up, it would have to be her.

She took the bottle back to the couch with her, reaching for the phone on the coffee table. She picked it up and punched in the number to the home phone that Tess had given her.

Much to her chagrin, the voice that greeted her was not Prudence's, but Chino's. Even worse, it was prerecorded.

"You have reached the Morenos! Sorry you missed us, — Pru and I took Kristian down to Hawaii for a week or two. Leave a message after the beep, and we'll get right back to you."

As he had promised, a long beep sounded after his words. Though she knew she shouldn't have, Bettie opted to leave a message.

"Well, hello, Morenos." She delivered the surname with a hint of malice, — she just knew Prudence hadn't married that smug fucker yet.

"This is Bettie. Just letting you know that, by the time you listen to this, I'll probably be under the ground already. I was actually calling to tell Prudence goodbye, and..." Much to her disdain, she choked on another sob. "...and that I'm sorry. For everything. I love ya, Pru. I know I was a godawful friend, but... you were like my sister. I'm gonna miss you." She swallowed. "That's it, I guess... and tell the rest of the girls I said goodbye. Who knows? Maybe I'll see you guys on the other side."

With that, she stood up, carrying the bottle off to the bathroom.

She immediately headed for the medicine cabinet, digging out the Atavan that her therapist had prescribed. She stared at the label,  explicitly instructing to take just one, before heading back for the leaving room.

She sat back down on the ugly sofa and unscrewed the cap on the orange bottle. She shook the pills into her hand and counted them out, — ten, — before leaning back and popping them into her mouth.

Mouth dry, she immediately flooded herself with whiskey, sucking it down so fast she immediately felt sick. Finally, she pulled away, feeling the warmth wash over her first, — then, to her shock, panic.

She shouldn't have done it. She realized that much sooner than she thought she would.

As her vision grew hazier, Bettie found herself reaching back for the phone and dialing three-numbers.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"I'm... dying."