San Francisco: December 12th, 1996
Marc dreamed.
He slept poorly, dipping in and out of sleep. Cal slept in the bed with him, but they did not touch. A shell seemed to have grown around the young man's mind, an impenetrable field that resisted all his attempts to break through it, or even figure out what lay on the other side. Cal had said practically nothing since the studio, but seemed to have entered into a numb and thoughtless half-life. He moved as directed, hardly looking where he was going.
Marc could not stop that gnawing sensation of guilt from eating into him. Had he done this? Was it his fault?
Was Daphne right about him in the end? And Dance, and Roger, and all the others. Was he only a selfish asshole in the end, just using Cal to prop himself up? He thought that he had changed, that he had opened up, experienced something new. This time, he had been so sure that it was real. But maybe he wasn't capable anymore of telling the difference between real and false.
So for a long time he remained awake, mind racing and desperate. He felt like a man sliding over the edge of a precipice, clutching at fistfuls of sand as he tried to drag himself back up onto firmer ground, but never able to gain any traction. He replayed it all in his head, all the events of the tour so far. Meeting Cal, following him, finding him, loving him, everything.
And what had he really done? He'd lied, concealed his identity long after they'd met. He's stolen Cal from his own band and gotten him to play in Cashmere before he was ready for the pressure of it. He'd pushed them into the studio more or less against their will. Cal had only done it because he knew that Marc wanted him to. He had insinuated himself into their existence, first by lying and then by dazzling them with the power of his celebrity. He hadn't meant to do it, hadn't meant to conceal his name, hadn't meant to compel them along. And now he had destroyed something beautiful and new, killed it in its infancy.
Wilderlands was dead. He'd come to realize that Dance was the animating factor, the impetus behind all of it. It was Cal's music and Cal's talent, but Cal never would have played a single show if not for her. And a part of Marc knew that he wouldn't be able to play again without her. If she didn't have a change of heart, didn't come back, then the band was effectively over. Their only legacy would be the sparse handful of shows they'd played and one half-finished demo. They would fade and be gone forever, and no one but Marc would know the whole story.
A part of him was glad, in a certain way. He had Cal all to himself now, without anyone competing for his attention. They could truly be together. He hated himself for thinking it, for finding any satisfaction in Cal's obviously immense pain. Just the thought that he could feel such a thing only made him question himself even more.
So, when sleep finally took him, it came only fitfully, in vague and indistinct moments between woozy half-dreamed wakefulness.
He dreamed of his childhood. Of walking down the old railroad tracks that led out of town. He stepped from tie to tie, always forward, following an endless rail. Somehow they kept leading him back into town, looping in a great spiral that allowed no escape. He ran and ran, further and further down the track. But he could not get away.
He dreamed of Cashmere, of the band playing a show that never ended. Performing until the end of time as the audience left one after the other, until finally they were playing to an empty hall, completely abandoned. And then the band started to leave. First Roger then Tony and then finally Joanna too. And Marc played on alone in a rising silence that finally choked out his own voice and left him mute on the stage.
His final dream was of the tour bus. He dreamed that as he lay sleeping Cal rose from the bed and crossed the room. He dreamed that Cal found Marc's jacket draped on the back of the little chair. That he reached into the inside pocket and removed Marc's cocaine. He dreamed that Cal dumped it out on the table, weeping as he did so, rocking unsteadily to the motion of the bus in movement, and that he did every last line of the white power before staggering back to bed and falling into a dark and troubled silence, rocking and crying. He dreamed that he tried to comfort the Cal, but that his arms were too weak to lift. He couldn't reach. Though the distance between them was only a few inches it may as well have been miles.
He dreamed many more things that he did not remember when morning came. Endless terrible dreams.
* * *
"So this is it."
He nodded slowly. "This is it."
The four of them sat around the table, none of them looking at each other. Tony and Joanna and Marc and Cal.
The food still hadn't come. The bowl of warm and buttery bread sat untouched, cooling as the last wisps of steam rose and faded.
Tony lifted his glass. "Here's to Roger. Absent friends."
Marc felt a catch in his throat. "Here's to Roger," he said, choking out the words. He didn't entirely blame Roger for what had happened. But he didn't entirely forgive him, either. If he hadn't made a move on Marc at just the wrong moment, Marc and Cal wouldn't have had make-up sex in the recording studio, Dance wouldn't have found them, none of this would have happened. Things could have been so much different. But he couldn't really put it all on Roger. The guy had been wasted on booze and pain pills, and he and Marc shared a great deal of history.
They all clinked their glasses.
"And here's to Cal," Joanna added. "For stepping in to save our asses."
"To Cal," Tony added.
Marc nodded.
"Thanks," Cal murmured, taking a sip and lowering his head. He'd hardly said a word, just sat in a kind of stunned daze.
"Last show of the tour," Joanna remarked.
Tony lifted an eyebrow. "Then it's time to tip our hats and ride off into the sunset, eh?"
"Guess so," Marc said.
"Been a good run."
"Yeah. It has."
Joanna looked around the table. She sniffed softly, suddenly misty-eyed. "I'm going to fucking miss you guys."
Tony chuckled. "Oh, don't get excited."
"I mean it. And Roger. I wish Roger could have been here for this."
"I know." Marc shook his head slowly. "Me too."
They didn't talk again, just sat back in their chairs, waiting for their food to come.
* * *
"Talk to me, Cal. Please. I need to know what's going on. Please." He sat hunched on one knee in the back of the tour bus, holding Cal's hands and staring up at him.
Cal took a deep breath and he looked up. For the first time since that day he returned Marc's gaze. They looked at each other. "I promised her, Marc. I promised."
"Promised what, Cal? I'm sorry, I just don't really get it. Why was she so upset? What happened, I mean, what really happened?"
Marc sat for a long moment. His licked his lips and he steadied himself, and when he was composed he spoke. "She loved me, Marc. She's always loved me. And... I promised."
"Loved you how? You mean as a sister, right?"
He shook his head, a tear forming in his eye and rolling down his cheek.
"You mean loved, loved? Like really loved?"
He nodded sadly. "It's not like it sounds. We didn't even grow up together, we're not related by blood or anything. She was adopted when she was fourteen. I was sixteen. We were both practically adults already, weren't ever kids together. We never even lived in the same house, really. But I was... protective of her and she... Well... she loved me. I didn't realize it back then. We were close. I was really shy then, really quiet. She kind of woke me up. I never would have been able to even leave the commune if not for her. The world was so big and scary and I was just... afraid."
He sniffed, wiping at his nose with the back of his hand. The words kept coming, spilling out in a rush.
"When she bought that bus she said that she was going to travel the whole country, and she wanted me to come with her. She said that she would always be with me, that we could get through anything together. She wanted me to play my music, share it with everybody. Become something. And... the first night away from home, she..." He turned away. Marc could see by the look on his face that Cal was no longer with him, he was back in that moment, alone in the Texas desert night with Stardancer.
"What happened, Cal?"
"She came to me. Undressed. Naked. She... wanted me. She held me..."
"And?" Marc could feel his breath caught in his throat, his heart squeezed in his chest, feeling like it might burst at any moment.
"And I told her I couldn't. I couldn't be hers... not that way. I told her that I loved her, but not that way. She just hugged me and said that she understood. She said that we could just be brother and sister. We never called each other that before. Not until after that night. She told me that she had always loved me, always wanted me. And... I..."
Marc waited.
Cal licked his lips again and went on, halting and slow. "I told her that I would never have anyone else. I would always be hers, never love another person. She couldn't have me, but she wouldn't ever lose me. I'd always belong to her. I... I just didn't think I could ever find somebody I really loved. I didn't think I'd ever feel this way. I didn't think I'd ever break my promise, didn't think I'd ever want to. I've always been lonely. Always been waiting until finally I just... gave up."
My sweet boy. My sweet lonely little boy. Marc thought the words but he didn't speak them. He reached up and he caressed Cal's cheek.
"We agreed to always belong to each other. Just her and me forever. I'd be nothing without her, Marc. I would never have been able to leave home, never. And I broke my promise. I broke it. She didn't need me, Marc, she could have left me behind and found someone else. Anyone, somebody who could love her back for real. But she stuck by me, even when I rejected her. She gave it up for me. And I promised."
The silence was deafening and vast. Marc could feel a lump growing in his throat.
"And then she saw me like... that. I... I think I broke her heart, Marc. I don't think she'll ever forgive me, and... I can't ask her to. I can't. I don't deserve to." He looked up, and his ice blue eyes were swimming with tears, pierced with pain and a bottomless empty longing. "I tried not to love you. I tried so hard. From the first moment I saw you, before I even knew who you were, I didn't want anything else. Just you. But... I'd promised her, and she gave everything up for me. I tried not to fall in love, but I couldn't. I couldn't not love you." He slumped to his knees, falling against Marc, his forehead lowering down to lean against Marc's shoulder.
Marc wrapped his arms around the younger man and he held him close.
Cal began to cry, he cried and cried in the half-dark of the tour bus cabin, great wracking sobs that shook him to the core.
Marc held him, and as he held him he felt his own heart cracking open inside his chest.
What have I done to you?
* * *
Marc's fingers closed tight around the microphone, his fingerless leather gloves creaking. He lifted it from the stand and he looked out at the crowd before him.
They were an audience like any other. A great sea of faces. They each had their own individual pains and hurts, their own joys and fears. Their own dreams. Hundreds of faces, and each one a whole universe, a whole galaxy of love and hurt. They had come here to see him, to hear him. To be lifted up, transported away from their lives if only for a little while. To live in his music with him, all dancing mindless and formless like angels in heaven together.
He swallowed hard.
The first notes of Tony's bass rumbled through the speakers. They sounded cruel and ominous to Marc now, a great thundering fearful doom crashing down on him. The relentless rumbling monster rising.
And Joanna's keyboard, the rising synthetic sounds lifting electronic and sweet.
And Cal's guitar, a low buzzing building note.
He turned back, and he looked at them. He looked at Tony and Joanna. Mostly he looked at Cal. Cal looked back at him, and he seemed so lost, so alone. Marc felt something break inside of himself. He felt is break and fall to the floor and shatter into a million jagged pieces.
It was a cool evening in San Francisco. Not ten minutes ago they had all been standing in the dressing room, about to go on stage for the final night of the tour, the four of them together. Joanna had squeezed his hand and smiled.
Then Marc made a fateful decision. It had seemed utterly insignificant at the time, nothing at all. He was dressed in his tight leather clothes, his face painted and his hair slicked back, the white lock hanging loose across his brow, his lips dark and eyes bright, jewels glittering at his throat. He decided that he would go out with his jacket on, his black leather jacket. He'd toss it aside after the first few songs, once he was warmed up and getting into things. So he'd grabbed it off the back of the makeup chair and shrugged it on.
He didn't know what had prompted him to do it, but he reached into the inside pocket of the coat. His fingers touched the little plastic bag, and he had frowned. His hand closed into a fist.
The crowd roared, and they were announced, and they all went out, storming the stage for the last time, rushing out a sea of cheering fans screaming their names up at them.
Marc had stepped up to the microphone. "Hello, San Francisco!" he'd shouted, lifting both hands over his head, "Did you miss us?"
And they all shouted back.
Marc lowered his hands. Then he'd looked down. He had unclenched his fist and he looked at the object in his palm. A little plastic bag. Empty. He'd frowned. There was cocaine in this bag. The last of it that he'd been carrying for so long, through the entire tour. There had been a half a dozen lines worth left in there after the incident in Las Vegas, he was sure of it.
Then he remembered the dream. Cal.
Cal had known where it was, he'd seen Marc put it away there after sweeping those lines away from the balcony railing. He'd known. It hadn't been a dream. Cal had snorted the cocaine in the darkness. Weeping over his lost sister, over what he saw as his betrayal of her, he'd done the coke to numb himself to the pain. The pain that Marc had caused him. He saw in that moment Cal's entire future spiraling down out of control, whirling into Marc's diamond-strewn gutter. Everything inside him was going to die, everything innocent and good. Cal couldn't survive in Marc's world, and Marc could not escape the thing which he had become. He was trapped here, and he was dragging Cal down with him.
No one wants you here. No one has ever wanted you here. Nothing but a used-up piece of garbage too stupid to roll over and die.
It's just desperation then. It doesn't mean anything anymore. We're just whores. Never again.
I know what's happening, and it worries me. Just don't fuck the kid over, alright?
You're destroying everything he has so that you can have him all to yourself. I've heard stories about you, you know. The way you treat people. Use them and throw them away.
He looked at Cal, standing there playing guitar between Joanna and Tony, looking back at him with the sorrowful eyes of a beaten puppy dog, and he knew what he had to do.
He looked back out at the crowd. He lifted the microphone to his lips, and he tried to sing. He couldn't sing. He couldn't even speak. His throat went dry, and he felt a great and terrible fear rise up within him, and consume him.
He felt like he was stepping out of his body. His hand opened, and the microphone fell to the floor. It hit the stage with a squeal of feedback, and it rolled on the floor. He caught it under the toe of his boot, and he looked out at the crowd one last time.
Then he turned his back on them and he left the stage.
Cashmere doesn't cancel shows, Marc.
He pushed open the door and he went backstage, into a great swirl of confusion and rising panic. He felt like he was outside of his body, watching himself as he moved through the great sea of technicians and support and crew. No one tried to stop him. No one seemed to know what to do. He went to the table in the green room and he picked up a bottle of whiskey. Expensive stuff in one of those stupid fancy bottles. Probably here for Tony. He popped the cork out and lifted the whole bottle to his lips and he took a long harsh drink. It burned in his throat as he swallowed. Then another swallow after that.
"Marc! Marc! What the heck is going on, Marc!"
He had one more swallow, and he turned. Gregory. Of course. He just shook his head.
"Marc, you've got to get back out there! They're waiting for you!"
"I'm not going, Greg."
The tour manager stepped back a pace, looking like he'd just been smacked between the eyes. He was completely flummoxed. "B-but, you have to go!"
Marc just shook his head. "I really don't. And I'm not. Tour's over."
"But... your contract!"
"What about it?"
"If you leave now you forfeit your bonus, Marc. You'll get nothing. I thought, all your debts, your loans, how are you going to...?"
Marc took another long swallow of whiskey. He made a face. Damn, it was strong stuff. He gave his head a shake. "Well, that's my problem, isn't it? Guess I'll lose the houses. Guess I'll lose the cars. Right now, Greg, my friend. I don't much care. Thanks for everything, and you have a good day now." He popped the cork back in the whiskey and tucked it under his arm. He walked away, leaving Gregory stammering and staring.
The crowd outside was chanting his name, and chant turning angrier and angrier with every repetition. He kept on walking, stepping out into the long hall that led back out towards the street entrance. He was almost there when he heard feet pounding on the floor, someone coming after him at a dead run.
"I told you I'm not going back, Greg."
"Marc!"
He froze, his hand on the metal bar of the door. Don't look back, Marc, don't look back. He turned back.
"Cal," he said, popping open the whiskey bottle and taking one more drink.
The kid stared at him, eyes wide and confused and hurt. He spread his hands out, palms up. "Where are you going?"
Marc hooked his thumb back. "Out this door, I figured."
"But... but why?"
"You know why, Cal."
"No I don't. I don't know a fucking thing!" he said, his voice turning angry.
Marc opened his hand, and he left the empty baggie fall to the floor. He pushed it with the tip of his foot, scooting it a little closer to Cal. "You recognize that?" he asked.
Cal flushed. "I guess."
"You took it, didn't you. You took it all."
"I... got rid of it. I didn't want you to-"
"I saw you, Cal," Marc cut him off. "I saw. You were waiting for me to fall asleep, weren't you? Didn't wait quite long enough. I didn't realize it at first, but I saw you."
Cal flushed, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Marc shrugged. "Fine, nothing to talk about then." He started to turn towards the door, but Cal rushed closer.
"Wait, wait! Okay, fine. So I snorted some of your goddamn cocaine. Big fucking deal! Why do you care? You can get plenty more, and I'm sure you've done worse."
"Sure I can. And sure I have. But that's not the point."
"What's the point then, Marc? What the fuck is the point?"
Marc drank the last of the whiskey. He let the bottle fall to the floor. It landed heavily, but did not break. "The point is that you're not me, Cal. And if I have anything to say about it, you never will be. Not ever."
"So... what? You can do whatever you want and the whole world is just supposed to bow down and worship you anyway? But I don't even get one little mistake? Just one slip up, and that's it? You're dumping me? Throwing us all away?"
Marc turned away and he grabbed the door handle. He could feel the tears springing into his eyes, feel his limbs start to shake. He stood there a moment, waiting to regain control over his voice. When he spoke, his voice was steely calm and hard, revealing none of the anguish he felt surging through him like a great overwhelming tidal wave. "Go home, Cal. Find your sister, and go home. You never should have come here. I was wrong. You don't belong here."
He pushed open the door, not giving Cal the chance to reply, and he stepped through it out into the evening street. It slammed shut behind him. There was no handle on this side, just an impassive metal face. For a second he wanted to throw himself at it, wanted to claw and pound on it and wrench it open. But he didn't. He just looked.
He half-hoped that Cal would follow him, would push the door open and come out after. They would embrace there in the street, weeping and sobbing like children, and they would run off together into the gathering darkness, away from all of this.
But the door didn't open. It remained, faceless and cold and shut. He waited another moment, what felt like a lifetime. Then he turned and he walked away.
* * *
The winter night fell fast and deep. Marc found himself lost in the city, wandering. It slowly crept up on him, the enormity of what he had done. He'd burned it all down, self-destructed so totally that there was no going back. Cashmere was gone. Cal was gone. He had no money, only debts. No future, only regret.
He saw himself in the mirror-glass storefront of a pawn shop. We Buy Gold! proclaimed the signage painted on the glass. And he stood there reflected, standing in a pool of lamplight in leather and silver, his face pale and his lips and eyes dark. The hazy image staring back to him brought to mind nothing so much as a skull suspended in darkness, grinning humorlessly back from the void.
"That's him! That's the fucker!" He heard the scrape and patter of shoes, a dozen boots and sneakers scuffing on the sidewalk. They surrounded him swiftly, seeming to come from nowhere. A half-dozen grim-faced punks in garish outfits with shining studs in their ears and noses and lips and expressions of twisted rage.
One of them, a six foot man with a sleeveless vest and a scarlet mohawk like the spine of a venomous lizard, stepped slowly forward, cracking his knuckles and grinning. "Hey chickenshit," he said, and hawked a glob of phlegm at Marc's feet. "You're the asshole who fucked us all over, aren't you?"
"Yeah man," another of the group added, "We just came to see the fucking show, man. Just wanted to rock out, right?"
"But, oh no!" the first one said, "This fucker here decides that he's got better things to do. And let me tell you something. I do not appreciate having my night fucked with. Or wasting all that money we spent on tickets. Am I right, guys? I mean, I'm not the only one thinking it, am I?"
There came a chorus of agreement, darkly murmured as foul looks all turned in Marc's direction.
Marc lifted the toe of his boot and watched the thick saliva slide off onto the filthy sidewalk. He looked the guy up and down, then sneered. He spat back, his lips twisting into a defiant snarl. "You want a fucking refund, talk to the promoter."
The lead punk smirked. He crossed his arms and glanced to one side then the other. He looked up and down the empty street. There was nobody else around save his own companions. And Marc. "Naw, you know what? I think we're just going to have to get our entertainment some other way tonight. What do you think, guys?"
"I think that sounds choice," said one, a bruiser with a heavy brown and an overbite.
"Yeah. Real nice," added in a girl in the back of the group, a lithe little minx with a pierced tongue.
"Let's quite talking and kick his fucking ass," another shouted, and that proved to be all the encouragement that the gang required.
They came at him together, all at once raining blows down on him with their fists until he hit the sidewalk, then with their feet when he was down. He tried to fight back, by he was outnumbered six to one and they were all younger and stronger than he was. He didn't stand a goddamn chance, and he knew it. He curled on the ground, arms wrapping over his head. He felt their boots strike him in the chest and sides and kidneys and arms, again and again and again.
"Okay okay," the lead man said. "Don't kill the fucker."
He felt hot spit hit his face and the back of his neck as the group began to disperse, walking slowly away from the whimpering crumpled form on the sidewalk. His eye was filling with blood from a gash on his brow. He struggled to see out. He thought he glimpsed something through the tangled view of legs and feet which was all he could make out from where he lay.
He thought he saw a slender young man with long dark hair, a guitar slung under his arm as he watched Marc. He thought he saw ice blue eyes filling with tears. No. It couldn't be. Just a hallucination, wishful thinking. He was blacking out, Marc realized, and he might be fucking brain damaged for all he knew. But he wanted it to be real, even though he knew it couldn't possibly be. He reached his hand out, trying feebly to catch the attention of the distant specter. "Cal..." he groaned.
His field of vision went dark as the lead punk stepped in front of him again. "Adios, fucker," he said, laughing, and he lifted his booted foot above Marc's head. He brought it down with a grunt. Marc felt an explosion of staggering pain, saw a kaleidoscopic whirl of color, and then nothing.
Only darkness.
* * *
Marc slept the sleep of the dead, drifting in and out for three days
He thought he saw faces he knew. Joanna. Tony. Roger. Gregory. Even Daphne. But then, he thought he saw a lot of faces that he knew couldn't be there, like his parents. And Cal.
He saw strange faces too, nurses and doctors one after the other, assuring him through the haze of anesthetics that everything was going to be just fine. He'd be alright.
He wasn't going to be alright. Everything was not going to be fine.
He drifted.
* * *
"It began as the much anticipated reunion tour of one of the most popular rock bands of the eighties, but it turned into a violent nightmare that left half the group injured and unable to perform. Drugs, sex, violence, insanity. The guitarist assaulted after a bar fight and left crippled halfway through the tour. Then lead singer Marc Warner stormed off stage at the start of their final show and found himself embroiled in a drunken street brawl that left him severally injured and in critical condition. One of the craziest groups in rock and roll history, Cashmere clearly lost none of their unique talent for mayhem during their time away. This is our special report on the tour from hell that was the Cashmere reunion. Stay tuned."
Marc groaned. He pawed feebly at the remote control, fumbling at the little buttons with his bandaged and splinted fingers. He finally managed to jab the power button, and was returned to blissful silence.
Well. As silent as it ever got in here with the constant beeping and whirring of hospital machines and the footsteps in the halls and the distant cries of subdued agony.
He laid his head back and stared at the ceiling. At least the cocktail of narcotics was keeping his brain too fogged to risk him focusing on just how fucked he was.
It was only a matter of time before the banks started crawling out from under the woodwork. The sales of the new record had been weaker than projected - though no weaker than it deserved. Without the bonus from completing the tour, he simply wouldn't have enough money to cover his debts. Give it six months and he'd be out on the street with a stack of his golden records in a sack over his shoulder. Royalties from their old albums and songs would keep him afloat, but all that money would probably dry up paying off his debts, which would leave him with little if anything to actually live on.
He hit the button that gave him another dose of pain medication and felt himself drift off on the pale rosy clouds of oblivion.
* * *
He lost track of the time he spent in the hospital. Days turned to weeks. He was starting to despair of ever being released when the work finally came that he was going to be discharged at the end of the day.
"Christ, just out of the blue like that? Thanks for the heads up."
The nurse just smiled serenely at him and ducked out with her clipboard under her arm.
Marc lay back with the groan. For about the six thousandth time he passed a little while longer counting the dots in the ceiling tiles.
There was a knock at the door. Finally. He was going to get out of here at last. "Come in!" he said. He could already feel the fresh air on his face, it was so close now that he could taste it.
The door cracked open, and a slender young black woman in a tie-dye shirt and cutoff jean-shorts stepped inside the room.
He stared at her. This wasn't another of his hallucinations, those had stopped weeks ago. So that meant it had to be real. "Stardancer."
She came slowly inside, gazing wonderingly at all the devices and equipment beeping away. "Wow. Check out the gear, man. That's crazy."
Marc just watched her, unsure what to say.
She wandered in, fiddling with things, touching them as if to assure herself that they were indeed real. That that antiseptic white multi-million dollar equipment. She whistled admiringly. "Did Cal ever tell you about my Mom?"
Marc shook his head.
"Yeah, well. No reason why he would. She died when I was six. I remember seeing her in the hospital, all hooked up to the machines. Nothing like this those. They had her in a room with three other patients. The whole place stank. Smelled like dead people. No fancy private rooms, you know. Guess that's the difference between people like you and people like us."
"Is he...?"
She shook her head. "He wanted to come, but... thought it would be better not to."
He laid his head back down, the spark of hope fading inside him. "Good," he said. It was better that Cal didn't see him. Not like this.
"After she died, I, uh... went to live with my aunt. She wasn't so nice. Went into foster care. Spent the next six years kicking around a dozen different shit-holes before Cal's parents took me. They were okay, but, I mean... it was Cal that made it alright. He was the first person that ever loved me after my Mom died. Like, loved me for no reason, just because. He was just full of love, and he loved me. It was... I didn't think I was ever going to feel that again, you know? It saved me."
"I never tried to take him from you, Dance."
She shook her head, snorting dismissively. "You didn't. Not really. I pushed him away. I just wanted to have him all to myself, right? You get that."
"I suppose."
"Anyway. I'm not going to do that again. If he finds somebody, I'm not going to get in his way. I'll just figure out how to deal. And appreciate the time I have with him for what it is." She turned to him, and her eyes flashed. "But it's not going to be you, stalker. It's never going to be you."
His eyes closed slowly. He felt something inside his chest, something heavy filling him. Like a door that he'd kept open a crack had been finally shut. "Why did you come here?" he asked slowly.
She stepped closer, looking down at him lying there in bed, then she dug into her pocket and took out a rumpled note scribbled down on notebook paper. She put it in his hand and she turned to go.
"Wait!" he called out as she opened the door. "Where...?"
"I don't know," she said, not looking back. "Just wandering. Traveling wherever the road takes us, like we did before. Cal and I are going to find ourselves again. Don't try to follow us, Marc."
And then she was gone.
* * *
"I suppose I should just read the fucking thing."
Marc looked up at the nurse as she leaned over him, her fingers skillfully unhooking the monitors and various fluid drips that had been feeding his system for the last few weeks. She shrugged incrementally, registering no inclination in either direction.
He sighed heavily, and he unfolded the piece of paper.
He held it in trembling hands as the nurse removed the bandages from his wounds. They had largely healed, but the scar tissue remained.
He read slowly, his eyes tracing the curve of Cal's pencil marks upon the page.
Dearest Marc, it began, and his eyes filled with tears. I'm sorry.
It went on for a while from there, more words filling the page. He read every one of them and then read them all again. Over and over he read it, letting each letter soak into his brain.
Dearest Marc. And again. Dearest Marc. And again.
The nurse had finished long ago and still he remained, pouring over the letter. He sat alone in the empty hospital room. All the machines were switched off, and had gone silent. They surrounded him, dead and lifeless with screens dark and panels of buttons unlit. The low winter sunlight streamed in through the open window. Far beyond the great golden gate bridge glowed in a red sunset. It looked like the entire city had gone up in flames around him. Everything burning.
He tore the identification bracelet off his wrist. Marc Warner. He dropped it in the trash can beside the crumpled note and he walked out into the fire.