“I thought most places had, like, a green room or a dressing room or a fucking couch for the bands to hang out on.” I cracked open my bottle of Coke and poured half of it onto the gravel loading area behind the Masquerade.

“Well, this isn’t most places, princess.” Trip winked and tipped his bottle of Korbel in my direction.

Baker snorted in agreement and handed me the fifth of whiskey I’d asked him to buy. I smiled at the round face peeking out from behind that curtain of dirty-blond hair, but my smile fell as soon as I realized that he’d gotten me Southern Comfort.

SoCo.

Knight’s fucking brand.

I could almost hear the sound of his latex gloves snapping into place as he readied his piercing needle. I could practically smell the antiseptic and taste the sweetly astringent shot of “SoCo” he’d given me to dull the pain. Over and over, I’d bared myself to him, and each and every time, I’d come away scarred.

Some were just deeper than others.

I quietly snapped the fingers on my free hand, shook the unwelcome memories from my consciousness, and filled my Coke bottle the rest of the way up with whiskey. So. Much. Whiskey. I squealed when it began to bubble over and immediately wrapped my mouth around the entire opening of the bottle to keep from losing any of the precious alcohol-caffeine mixture.

“Yeah, girl. Take it all,” Trip teased, humping the air.

Hans slid the bottle out of my hand and tipped it back, swallowing the caramel-colored liquid like it was sugar water as Trip congratulated him on his girlfriend’s deep-throating skills. Hans managed to both smirk and flip him off mid-chug.

I pulled the Coke bottle out of my mouth with a slurp-cough combo that was anything but dignified, then laughed in embarrassment.

“Dude. I heard a scout from Violent Violet Records might be coming out tonight,” Louis said, sitting on the hood of the van, twirling a drum stick in one hand and pinching a freshly lit joint in the other.

“No fucking way.” Trip belched from the champagne. “That’s Love Like Winter’s label.”

“He probably won’t come. They say that shit all the time.” Hans tucked a finger into the waistband of my pleather pants and pulled me into his side.

It had only been a week since I moved back into my parents’ house, and the distance hadn’t been easy on either of us. I’d seen Hans every night that week, called him on my lunch break at school and again on my smoke break at work, but I still missed the shit out of him.

I couldn’t wait for him to start coming to school with me. I did my best to make Hansel David Oppenheimer sound like a goddamn musical savant on his GSU application, but even if he got in, he wouldn’t start taking classes until January. Until then, all we could do was try to comfort each other and wait it out.

And drink. We could fucking drink.

By the time the guys got the green light to start setting up, our bottles were empty, our laughter was loud, and our auras were a fizzy caramel brown.

“Break a leg.” I hiccupped into Hans’s ear with a kiss as I left him backstage and wandered out into the sea of rock fans beyond. I wriggled my way to the front of the stage, grateful for the crush of people who were helping me stay upright.

Triple X sauntered out first, grabbed the microphone like a lover, and screamed, “What’s up, Atlantaaaaa?” into it.

The crowd replied with a shit-ton of noise while the rest of the band quietly took their places.

Trip was fired up, even more so than usual, but my eyes were glued to Hans. Other than a few stolen glances and tiny smirks cast my way, he hardly looked up at all. He really had no idea how beautiful he was. Hans didn’t see every girl in the audience—and probably some of the guys—staring at him the way I did. He was completely absorbed in the music. Just like he had been the first time I laid eyes on him—eyes closed, head down, playing in Steven’s living room for no one but himself.

They started off with a bang, playing their heaviest shit first, which got the mosh pit going, then they brought it down a notch to give people a rest before playing their more danceable, alternative stuff right before the kiss contest. It was their best show yet. Absolutely perfect. So perfect that my drunk ass bounced up and down until my stomach felt like an acidic, carbonated volcano of SoCo and bile.

The lights were suddenly too bright. The air, too thick. The room, too spinny. My mouth pooled with saliva, and the edges of my vision got fuzzy. I didn’t want to miss the kiss contest—I’d worn my cut-off Phantom Limb T-shirt in preparation—but I’d felt that way enough times to know that I had about sixty seconds to sit the fuck down and get some fresh air before I either puked or passed out.

I pushed my way out of the crowd and made a mad dash for the fire escape. As soon as the cool October air hit my face and the screaming fans were quieted behind the heavy steel door, the nausea and tunnel vision began to subside. Thankful that I hadn’t just barfed in front of my boyfriend and about five hundred other people, I sat on the steps high above the loading dock and dug a cigarette out of my purse.

I noticed all of our empty bottles stacked in a cute little row on the half-wall below—champagne, Coca-Cola, Southern Comfort, Miller High Life, and Jägermeister. Poor Baker. We had all asked for something different. I smiled, picturing him pushing a little shopping cart through the aisles of the liquor store, cursing our names as he fulfilled our wishes.

But he hadn’t fulfilled my wish. Not really. I’d asked for Jack and Coke. So, why was there a bottle of Southern Comfort staring at me?

It wasn’t like Knight had personally switched the bottles in Baker’s cart, but the simple coincidence still gave me the creeps. I never saw him, never heard from him, but I felt him. I felt his zombie eyes watching when I walked to my car after work. I smelled his cinnamony cologne on the breeze during my smoke breaks. And whenever I saw a number on my caller ID that I didn’t recognize, I always let it go to voicemail on the off chance that it might be him.

I didn’t feel like I was being stalked. I felt like I was being haunted.

My deep, drunk thoughts evaporated the moment I registered the unmistakable beat of the cancan song vibrating through the wall.

Fuck!

I stood up and yanked on the door handle, but it didn’t budge. In a panic, I rattled the handle and banged on the metal surface, but nobody was going to hear me. Shifting to plan B, I scurried down the fire-escape stairs, ran around the side of the building, and flew through the main entrance, flashing my orange paper wristband at every security guy along the way. I ascended the industrial metal staircase in the center of the converted old factory as fast as my spindly legs would carry me and up through Purgatory to the top floor where I was prepared to leap onto that stage and secure my title as the ass-flashing, high-kick champion of the world.

But, instead, I stood frozen in Heaven’s doorway as my whole world came crashing down around me.

The cancan song was over.

The contest had been decided.

And all I could see was red, red, red.

Hans’s red bass hanging upside down on his back.

Glossy red fingernails gripping his shoulders.

And glossy red lipstick smeared on the side of his mouth when Little Red Riding Ho finally pulled away.

I stumbled backward, as if I’d just taken a sucker punch to the gut. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes stung. My knees buckled. And the vomit I’d just successfully tamed shot back up into my throat with a vengeance.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to take one of my steel-toed combat boots off and bludgeon her pretty little face in with it, but my limbs were moving of their own accord. My right hand clamped over my mouth while my legs turned and sprinted back down the stairs.

Back down into Hell.

Where I fucking belonged.

As soon as the soles of my boots hit the cement floor below, I bolted past all the day-glow-painted ravers and welcomed the slap of the cold night air across my face.

But I didn’t stop there. My feet kept pounding the pavement, carrying me away from there, up the poorly lit sidewalk to the street where my car was parked. Evidently, my body had decided it was time to go. My brain, on the other hand, was spinning out of control.

He kissed her! I can’t believe he fucking kissed her!

Technically, she kissed him.

He kissed her back!

You don’t know that.

He’s a fucking guy, BB! He’s drunk, he’s onstage, she’s super hot, AND his girlfriend had just left in the middle of his show. Of course he fucking kissed her back.

Oh my God. He totally kissed her back.

And even if he didn’t kiss her back, this is just gonna keep happening. Every show. Every kiss contest. You’re fucked.

The sound of my own voice was replaced with Goth Girl’s as her warning replayed over and over in my mind. “He has a girlfriend. He’s a flirty drunk.”

Great. Now I’m the girlfriend. How did I get to be this fucking stupid?

I breezed right past Old Willy as I rounded the corner, lost in my own spiraling thoughts. He jumped up and hobbled after me, but I hardly even noticed.

“Missy! Miss Missy! Don’t go down there! That truck I’s tellin’ you about, it’s ba—”

Old Willy’s voice disappeared the moment I looked up and saw it. There, at the end of the block, parked on the curb with its lights off, was the Battle Ram Chariot itself. Satan’s steed. The bearer of all things evil.

Knight’s rusty white monster truck.

Adrenaline flooded my alcohol-stream. The sound of my own heartbeat pounded like Louis’s kick drum in my ears. I knew I should run. My car was right fucking there. I could make it before he caught up to me. But on that particular night, my desire to scream at someone was even more powerful than my desire to stay alive.

So I stomped straight…fucking…over there.

Honestly, I had no idea what I thought was going to happen, but marching up to Knight’s truck to find it completely empty was not it. I circled the entire vehicle with my senses on high alert, just waiting for the big, bad wolf to jump out and try to eat me.

I knew he was watching me. I could feel it. The idea of him snickering as I stood on my tiptoes to peek into the window of his truck made me even more livid.

I tipped my head back and yelled into the overgrown tree limbs stretching out over the dimly lit street. “Where the fuck are you? I know you’re here!”

Standing behind his truck, where I’d started, I swung my head from left to right, peering into the shadows surrounding every dilapidated bungalow and crumbling Craftsman on the block, until a tiny orange ember caught my eye. A faint stream of smoke trailed up and away from it, carrying with it my courage the moment my gaze landed on the pair of ice-blue eyes glowing behind it.

Zombie eyes.

Knight was standing on the tilted porch of the tiny house his truck was parked in front of. The lights were off and looked like they had been for years. The windows were boarded up. The roof was sagging. And there was a tattered white piece of paper affixed to the splintered front door.

“Your boyfriend let you walk back here by yourself?”

Knight’s voice sounded exactly the way I remembered it. Clear. Deep. Simmering with rage. Begging for an excuse to boil over into madness.

I could relate.

“That’s none of your fucking business!” I yelled.

“You will always be my fucking business, Punk.” Knight pointed the lit end of his cigarette in my direction. “Always!”

“No! You lost the right to give a shit about me the moment you told me you were going back to Iraq. Which, as we can clearly see, was complete bull—”

Before I could finish my accusation, Knight leaped off the porch. He stomped toward me in his military-issued combat boots and camouflage pants, fallen autumn leaves crunching violently under every footfall. I held my breath and froze like a fawn as Knight stepped out of the shadows and into the street.

Wrapping a thick, hard hand around my mouth and jaw, Knight pointed the end of his lit cigarette at my face and hissed, “You don’t get to fucking tell me who I can and can’t give a shit about.” Knight sucked in a deep breath through his nose, causing his nostrils to flare. “You are mine. I don’t know what it’s gonna take to get that through your thick fucking skull, but you are the only person on this entire shithole of a planet that I care about. That makes you mine. You will never be my girlfriend again, but you will always be my fucking girl.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and mumbled something into his palm. Knight removed his hand from my mouth and flicked his cigarette butt into the street.

Working my jaw for a second, I said, “If you care about me so goddamn much, why did you lie to me about going back to Iraq?”

“I never fucking lied to you.” Knight gritted his teeth. His undead, ghost-colored eyes mere inches away from my mine. “I signed up for another tour of duty the second that ambulance took you away. I ship out next week. October through May, just like last time.”

I stared back at him, steam billowing from my nostrils. “So, you’ve just been hanging out, shooting the shit, I dunno, stalking me for months while I was worried sick, thinking you were off in a war zone this whole time?”

Knight’s stare softened. “You were worried?”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me? Fuck me? Do you have any idea how hard it’s been for me to stay away from you, Punk? Fuck, I can’t!” Knight began pacing back and forth in front of me, rubbing his hands over his buzzed blond head. “I watch you leaving work. I watch you at the train station before school. I watch you walk to your car after your pussy-ass boyfriend’s shows.” He thrust a hand in the direction of my little black Mustang. “I watched them cut your lifeless body out of a car that I ran off the fucking road!”

“A car that I only climbed into because Harley put a gun to my head! You were trying to save me, dumbass!”

“And I’m trying to save you now—by staying the fuck away.”

“You know what?” I took a step toward him and stood up a little straighter. The alcohol and anger and adrenaline weren’t done with me yet. “You’re right. You should stay the fuck away. Because I’m happier now than I ever was with you. I’ve found somebody who treats me like a fucking princess. He tells me I’m beautiful every day. He buys me flowers and writes me songs and doesn’t put his fucking hands on me when I say something he doesn’t like!” My volume grew. “Somebody who can touch me without making me bleed! Somebody who’s not fucked up like you!”

The second those two words left my mouth, I clamped my hands over it, wishing to God that I could shove them back in. My protective bubble of anger popped, leaving me completely exposed. My eyes widened in horror while Knight’s narrowed like a laser scope. My breathing ceased altogether while his nostrils flared and his muscular chest heaved under his tight black USMC T-shirt.

I shook my head as tears pricked my eyes. Not because I was afraid of him, although I was. I was petrified. But because I knew nothing was more hurtful to Ronald McKnight than those two little words. It wasn’t his fault that he was fucked up. I knew that. I knew every dark secret and unspeakable trauma that ate at his once-innocent soul. I knew that, in an alternate universe, Knight could have easily grown up to be just like Hans. A sensitive artist who poured himself into his craft and loved with every ounce of his soul.

But, unlike Hans, nobody had ever loved Knight back.

Not until me.

And now, I was calling him fucked up too.

I opened my hands enough to speak. “Knight…I…I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that. You know I—”

“Flowers?” he snapped, cutting me off. “You want fucking flowers, princess?”

Knight’s wild eyes landed on something next to me, and he stomped back into the leaf-littered yard in front of the abandoned house. I watched in suspended terror as Knight stopped in front of an azalea bush by the front porch. It was dotted with dark pink blossoms and looked as though it hadn’t been trimmed in ages. Bending down and grasping the center of the shrub with both hands, Knight came unglued. He grunted and yanked and twisted and pulled the bush in bursts of superhuman power until the earth conceded the fight and released the damn thing, roots and all, into the clutches of a madman.

Turning, Knight’s crazed gaze landed on me. Veins bulged in his neck and forehead and powerful arms, which were weeping blood from a dozen or so raised, red branch scratches. I thought about running as he stalked toward me. Pictured myself turning and sprinting toward my car. I begged my feet to cooperate, but it was no use.

All I could do was wince and wait for Knight to uproot me too.

Stepping back into the street, Knight threw the bush on the ground between us and spat on it. “There’s your fucking flowers, princess. Happy now?”

Hot tears spilled from the corners of my eyes in unison. I was so scared and so sad. Sad that I’d hurt Knight. Sad that he was too fucked up to be fixed. Sad that every romantic gesture he attempted ended in bloodshed.

Sad that Hans had kissed somebody else.

Knight cocked his head to one side and studied my face. That predatory stare sent shivers down my spine. Only one of two things happened whenever Knight looked at someone sideways like that, and both were a form of attack.

“What’s the matter, Punk?” Knight took a step toward me, kicking the bush to the side with his boot. “You don’t look very happy.”

I took a step backward and flinched when my lower back collided with his bumper.

“That is what you said, isn’t it? That you’re so much happier now?” Knight took another step in my direction, stopping right in front of me. Reaching out, he wrapped his hand around my mouth again, this time pushing the corners of it up into a forced grin. “Smile, Punk. Show me how fucking happy he makes you. I wanna see it.”

More hot tears slid down my mortified face as I tried to slap Knight’s hand away. “Fuck you!” I mumbled through my misshapen mouth, shoving his hard chest with both hands.

Knight shook his head from side to side. “Tsk-tsk. That’s not very ladylike, princess.”

“Stop calling me that!” I yelled, kicking him in the shin.

The asshole didn’t even flinch.

“But you like being a little princess. You said it made you happy.” Knight’s grip on my mouth tightened, pushing the corners of my mouth up even higher.

I closed my eyes, causing more tears to spill down my cheeks, and whispered through my clenched teeth, “I hate you.”

Knight leaned in and pressed his forehead against mine. He smelled like Southern Comfort and Camel Lights.

Just like me.

“Good,” Knight whispered.

Without releasing my distorted smile, he slammed his mouth against the upturned seam of my lips.

I waited for the spark. The zap of electricity that coursed from my head to my feet like a lightning bolt seeking the earth whenever Knight’s lips touched mine.

But it never came.

Instead, all I felt was humiliated. Violated. Weak.

No! I thought in my small voice inside my small head. Let go of me! Stop!

But Knight didn’t stop. Instead, he loosened his grip on my phony smile just enough to deepen his kiss. His assault on my mouth. I wanted to bite his tongue off, but that was something a big girl would do.

And I wasn’t big. Not anymore.

Knight had made me small.

I realized that he was right. I did belong to him. I was his favorite little doll. He could play with me, burn my hair, tear off my dress, and leave me out in the rain, but as soon as he wanted to play again, there I’d be, waiting in the same puddle of sorrow that he’d left me in.

I let him slide his hands up inside the shirt Hans had given me. I let him shove my bra up under my armpits and palm the nipples he’d impaled himself with steel barbells two years before. I let him do whatever he wanted with my body because I wasn’t there anymore. In my mind, I was standing a safe distance away, imagining more satisfying scenarios than the one playing out on Mable Drive.

I pictured myself shoving Knight off of me. Kneeing him in the balls. Screaming at him for touching me when I wasn’t his to touch. I fantasized about Hans showing up and rescuing me from my tormentor like the fairy-tale prince I imagined him to be. Maybe he would sneak up from behind and bash Knight in the head with a fallen tree branch. Or his bass! That would be so poetic. Or maybe he would just pull up in his BMW, I’d jump in, and we’d speed away, hand in hand.

I was so wrapped up in my inner world that I hardly noticed when Knight unzipped my pleather pants and shoved them down around my ankles. When his hands grabbed my ass and lifted me onto his back bumper. When he freed himself from his camo pants and rubbed the head of his cock against my slippery flesh. My traitorous body was wet for him, ready as always, but my mind was far, far away, my heart was in hiding, and my pride was in pieces on the ground.

When Knight pushed his way into me, I stared over his shoulder at my car. How different the night would have turned out if I had just left when I had the chance. I daydreamed about driving down the desolate back roads to my parents’ house. How peaceful they were at this time of night. Nothing but twists and turns and tall, tall trees. I wondered what I would have listened to on my way home. The Cure maybe? Hole? No.

Jimmy Eat World.

Knight clutched me tighter and buried his face in my neck as the pace of his thrusts quickened. My legs dangled on either side of his, bound at the ankles. My hands gripped the edge of the rusty chrome bumper I was perched on, and black tears leaked in steady streams from my dead eyes. Knight could have my rag-doll body, but that was all he was going to get.

My heart belonged to someone else.

With a frustrated growl, Knight pulled out of me and shoved his brutal erection back into his pants. “Fuck!” He stomped away from me, rubbing his head and muttering before unleashing his rage on the azalea bush in the middle of the street. “Fuuuck!”

I watched Knight rip the shrub limb from limb as I slid off the bumper and pulled my pants and panties back up, unsure of what had just happened. What was happening.

A dark pink blossom landed at my feet as I shimmied my bra back into place. I stared at the beautiful, dying thing, and it stirred something in me. Reignited my anger. I wasn’t capable of feeling anything for myself at that moment, but I felt rage for that flower. The injustice of it all. The unfairness. That flower was just a baby. It hadn’t even had a chance to reach its full potential before Knight isolated it from its friends, intimidated it into submission, hurt it, scarred it, then cast it aside in the street when he was done with it.

Well, fuck that. This flower’s not gonna die on my watch. This flower’s about to get a whole new life, a better life, in a sunnier yard, with more room to grow. This bitch is gonna thrive because of what happened tonight. Aren’t you, Mable? Come on, let’s get you the fuck out of here.

I leaned over and scooped up the azalea blossom and my purse, which had fallen off my shoulder at some point during the altercation, and tucked the tiny, traumatized bud inside. Then, I did what I’d been wanting to do since the moment I saw those zombie eyes again. I turned and power-walked the fuck away.

“Punk,” Knight called after me, dropping what was left of the mangled bush and falling in step beside me.

I didn’t look at him. I didn’t respond. I kept my eyes on the prize and marched straight toward my car.

“I’m sorry. Fuck! I didn’t…you didn’t say anything. Why the fuck did you just let me do that? Why didn’t you tell me to stop?” His voice wavered and cracked, remorse leaking from the fissures.

“Would it have mattered?”

“Yes, it would have fucking mattered!” Knight screamed. “I’m not a fucking rapist!”

I nodded slightly, still staring straight ahead. “Okay.”

One foot in front of the other, girl. You’re almost there.

“BB, stop.”

I kept going.

“BB, fucking look at me.” His voice broke, and with it, so did my resolve.

Stopping beside my car, I turned to face him.

Tears shone like diamonds in the corners of his crystalline-blue eyes, but his jaw was clenched in anger. “I would never—”

“What?” I snapped, surprising myself. “You would never do anything to hurt me? Well, guess what? That’s all you do, Knight. That’s literally all you fucking do.”

Knight nodded once. “I know.” His deep voice was barely above a whisper. His features were sharp. Severe. “That’s what I’ve been fucking telling you. That’s why I’ve been trying to stay away from you. That’s why I didn’t fucking tell you when I’d be shipping out.” Knight’s volume rose steadily as he spat his words at me through bared teeth. But for once, his eyes didn’t hold the same venom.

They held tears.

“And that’s why I’m giving up my freedom, my whole fucking life, to go back to the desert. To go back to sleeping on cots and eating fucking dog food and getting shot at and watching my buddies get blown up because that is still better than the hell I go through every time I make you cry.”

Knight’s jaw flexed and his chin buckled as he reached out to wipe the mascara from under my eye. Without thinking, I flinched and pulled away. Such a small gesture—the twist of my neck, the fractional lean backward—but so significant. The heartbreak on his face made my heart break as well but for myself. Because I’d spent two of my seventeen years on this planet in a relationship with someone I was afraid of.

“Punk, please look at me. I love you.”

Since meeting Hans, I had learned a lot about love. What it was. What it wasn’t. What it felt like. How it healed and delighted and made me glow. For years, I’d thought Knight loved me because he’d told me he did. He’d screamed it at me. He’d scrawled it in his psychotic all-caps handwriting in his notes at school and his letters from Iraq. But now I knew better. I knew that Knight didn’t truly love me, because true love didn’t hurt. It didn’t humiliate. It didn’t take everything you had to give, suck you dry, and then discard your lifeless body when the guilt made it too hard to look at your corpse.

I wanted to tell Knight that he was wrong. That he wasn’t capable of loving anyone, but I couldn’t. Whatever he felt for me, it was the closest thing to love he’d ever known. So I let him keep it.

Without it, he’d have nothing but his hate.

Staring at my hand where it rested on my door handle, I took a deep breath, looked back over my shoulder at Knight’s tortured face, and I lied.

“I know you do, Knight. I know.”

Then I opened the door, climbed inside, and pulled it shut.

As I drove away, I glanced one last time at the man in my rearview mirror. I will never forget the way he looked, standing in the street, illuminated by my taillights. Knight was red, red, red.

Inside and out.