It's Better to Burn Out than Fade Away-Kurt Cobain

Chapter 33

February 23, 1992

"Yeah, it was new to us, too," Dave was recalling the first time he and Krist saw Kurt's new red hair. 

It was a real big surprise when I first saw Kurt with red hair. I remember that I was sitting down on the couch and Shelli had grabbed the mail and set it on the kitchen table. I looked through the pile of mail and saw a Rolling Stone magazine with Kurt on the front (Well, all of Nirvana) and Kurt had red hair. At first I thought that it was some kind of joke or maybe it was the lighting, but he had dyed his hair red. I was upset because he didn't tell me, but I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. 

"How are things with Gavin?" Dave asked. 

"Nothing happened," I explained. 

"The fuck?" Kurt glared at me. 

"What?" I asked, then gasped. "No! No!" What Dave said made it seem like Gavin and I were in a relationship. "No, no, I explained to Dave what happened the first night that Gavin came over."

"So he spent the night?!"

I internally slapped myself-I was not handling this well. Thankfully, Dave explained what happened the first night that Gavin moved in. 

"You didn't tell me?" Kurt asked me. 

I rolled my eyes. "Kurt, I think you were busy or something; I don't even remember."

Shelli-being the person that she was-explained the one day that Gavin was at the gym with me while I was working. The same day that the guy kissed me. 

"Shelli told Krist and Krist told me," Kurt explained. "That shit isn't going to happen anymore though, right?"

"We can't tell the future," Shelli shrugged her shoulders. 

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Kurt told me all about the tour I was expecting him to say that he had fun or something like that-typically any musician would-but Kurt isn't any musician. He hated the rockstar lifestyle. So what did he say? He hated it. He didn't like the people he was around, how people were probably only there for "Smells Like Teen Spirit", all of that shit that bothered him.

It sucked that he barely enjoyed himself. I had to miss him for all that time just for him to not enjoy himself. It was selfish of me to be bothered, but why would he go for that long if he didn't enjoy it? Why couldn't he just stay? Or why couldn't we have gone with?

"By the time that our next tour starts, we're going to be in the new house," Kurt told me. 

Shelli and I had been packing non-stop. Gavin sometimes helped, too, but he wasn't that much of help. He would always get distracted. Or he would help with Lorelai and distract her. Either way, he was mostly just a distraction. 

"Oh yeah?" I kissed him. 

"Ruby?" He pulled away. "Can you play me something on the guitar?"

"What do you want me to play?"

"Anything."

"I don't think I know that song," I smiled at him as I walked away and grabbed the guitar out of its case. I sat down on my bed and started messing around, but then played a finger-picking song that I wrote when I was in high school. 

Dave and I were sitting on my bed and Robert was on the floor. Robert was testing me and told me to play "Free Bird". I didn't even know how to play that song on the guitar. I didn't even know the song. I looked straight at Robert and started messing around and picking the same strings over and over again until I ended up just writing a song based on that. Robert thought that it was an actual song, but Dave knew I made it up. He claimed that "no one else could write anything that beautiful." I was a little upset after because Robert didn't say that it was good. He just leaned his head back and shut his eyes. Maybe that was his way of saying that he liked it. 

Halfway through the song, Kurt asked me why I was crying. I didn't even realize that I was crying until he pointed it out. I threw the guitar down on the bed and walked out of the bedroom and out of the apartment. 

I walked onto the curb and started crying. Everything reminded me of Robert-I couldn't get rid of him. I was always thinking about him-even with Kurt. I couldn't keep doing this. Maybe I had to move sooner or maybe I had to go on a vacation or maybe I needed to break up with Kurt to give me some more time to myself. 

I checked my pockets and felt my car keys in there. I jumped in the car quickly and drove. 

I didn't know where to. 

I just knew that I had to keep going. 

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There he was. He was right underneath me. 

His dead body was right underneath my fucking feet. It shouldn't have ended like this. 

I got down on my knees and looked at the gravestone. His name was imprinted on there and so was his birthday and his death date. 

Walking in on him hanging was the worst day of my life. I tried so hard to get it out of my mind, but every time I thought of him, I thought of his dead body, too. It was crazy how easily he just died. One second he was alive and then the next he wasn't. I wondered what I was doing at the exact time he hung himself. I wondered what he was thinking and what his last words were. Maybe he was thinking about Lorelai or I. Maybe he was thinking about he regretted it as soon as he did it. I would never know. 

I hadn't visited his grave since he was buried. I couldn't find the strength to. I didn't know why I chose to go now, but I did. 

I didn't want him to go. No one did. I wondered by he fucking left. He didn't have to leave. He was a selfish prick and deserved to burn in Hell. I slapped myself for thinking that. He was the man I loved. 

He was full of love and joy, but whenever his dad died, he changed. He was never the same. And neither was his mother. His mother used to check up on me, but she stopped. I guess she didn't feel the need to. At one point, everyone started blaming me because they thought that I was abusive towards him. And by everyone, I mean his family. 

When I first saw him, I collapsed on the ground. And when I finally comprehended the scene, I thought of Lorelai. 

I wondered if he thought of Lorelai while he killed himself.