Kiss, Kill Nirvana ⭑ PRETTY PUNK CHERRY BOOK II

The Beginning ⭑ New York, New York.

DECEMBER 2010

"When I reached the airport, my dad gave me the biggest hug and unlike when I first met Harlow I felt alone but loved by the most amazing father who'd do anything for me. Anything.

I wasn't nineteen, living in my moms house and miserable, daydreaming about a punk rock party life and a boyfriend like Gerard Way.

I got that.

I had that, and it was the most amazing experience of my life.

I wasn't sad and pathetic, letting people push me around and tear me down. I stood up for myself.

I was chasing a new dream, just for me and only me.

It hurt, it did, but there was good in that.

The band snapped. Just like that."

"Just like that?"

I blink out of my trance and flick my eyes up to Beatrice, my ears popping.

Memories reel back inside my head like measuring tape on a winding loop and I inhale.

"Cherry, don't mind me saying, but our time together... hearing that story?" She pulls off her glasses and tucks them into her blouse, "From beginning to end. From William, to Axel, to Jess, I... I can't imagine someone going through all of that. It's incredible how you survived. Thank you so much for sharing that with me."

"Well, you're my therapist, it's my job to share things with you. It's the only way I'll get better. All that before, all that... trouble, that was then. This is now. I'm ready to live in the present now. I'm ready to..."

"To get better? So that you can... find him?"

I swallow and look down.

"We're too deep in now for you to start lying to me. I've just heard your entire life story. It sounds like you really loved him."

I bite my tongue. "I did."

"Do you wanna love him again?"

Distant echos of Harlow's laugh pounce across my memory and after shedding my skin here with Beatrice for weeks upon weeks now, they feel so much more raw. So much closer. I can smell his hair and his skin. I still wear our ink.

He'll never leave me, whether I want him to or not.

I sigh and tilt my head back up.

"I do."

Beatrice smiles, "I'm glad to hear that. Let's get started then."

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