Decades

Carnage

Stevie was confused, and it wasn't the drugs, though they certainly weren't helping. She and Lindsey were happy. They were together now, finally. And in love again. They wanted each other so much.

Now, it felt less like he wanted her and more like he wanted to play out that old resentment again with a fierce grudge fuck. They'd been there enough times for her to recognize the signs. Why was he drunk and revisiting those feelings? Stevie wondered when they had gotten past that pain.

Lindsey moved away from Stevie on the sofa. He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth as if to wipe away any remaining traces of Stevie and lowered his head to his hands. She reached for him and put her hand on his back tentatively. It didn't have the soothing effect she was hoping it would. He reacted like her hand had been made of hot coals. Moving away from her touch quickly.

With the most unfortunate timing, Christine walked in with a large bouquet, reminiscent of the last one Don had sent. She read the card to Stevie as she entered. "How sweet, look what just arrived for you, Stevie! It says, 'Wanted you to know I was thinking of you today, XOXO Don' He sure knows how to treat a lady." When she put the flowers down and saw the two of them, she wasn't sure what she was interrupting, but she sensed things were volatile and she'd, maybe, made it worse. She exited quickly without either of them acknowledging her.

Lindsey quickly stood and made his way to the door. "Baby! Do not walk out of that door! Do you hear me?" Stevie rose to follow him. "What is the matter with you?" she caught his arm and tried to turn him back toward her, but he brushed her away. "Why are you treating me this way?!" she shouted.

She had his attention now. "Treating you this way? This is one of the things I hate most about you. It's always fucking about you. You're a selfish fucking bitch, and I can't believe that I ever convinced myself you weren't." He looked at the flowers on the table from the man she'd spent the weekend fucking and his blood was boiling with rage, he grabbed the vase and threw it across the room. It shattered and water, glass, petals and leaves were everywhere.

Acting purely on reflex, Stevie charged him, slapping him hard across the face. His hand went to his jaw, and he looked at her with pure loathing and just shook his head. "Always ready to hurt me, aren't you, Stevie?"

The other band members heard the crash and came into the hallway to see what was going on. Lindsey was hurrying away from Stevie who was begging him to stop, to just stop, to please just stop and talk to her. His face was red where she'd hit him, yet she carried herself like the broken victim, crying, chasing him, so disheveled looking.

"Please talk to me, please tell me what's changed, Lindsey, please, what did I do?" she begged, running around in front of him, trying to block his way, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt at his chest.

Lindsey refused to even look at her, instead looking down at her hands with absolute bile rising in his throat, "Don't touch me! Don't ever touch me again, you manipulative fucking whore."

His words took her aback but didn't release him from her grasp. "Why would you call me a whore?" she pounded his chest. " You fucking asshole. What did I do? What's changed between us?"

She was trying hard not to smack him again. She suddenly felt so much anger towards him, the things she'd recently been through and how out of control her life had been all built to a boiling point. Tears of fury streaked her cheeks, and she wanted to claw at him and draw blood. "Get the fuck off of me, Stevie! I mean it," he warned icily. Peeling her hands away from his shirt and shoving them away.

But, a flip had switched, and she was out of control now. "Why are you throwing what we have away, you son of a bitch? Why are you ruining this? Ruining us? Ruining me? You always ruin fucking everything, I should have expected it. You're only satisfied if you're making me miserable. You've never loved me!" she shouted.

Mick came outside and pulled Stevie away from Lindsey, who staggered to his car, all the fight gone out of him. John caught up with Lindsey and offered to drive him since he was clearly too intoxicated to drive himself, which was ironic considering John was the last person anyone looked to to be their designated driver.

Stevie sank to the ground, inconsolable. No one knew exactly what had been going on between the two of them, but they realized this nice period of smooth sailing, the "in love" stage, had come to a chaotic, abrupt conclusion.