Lost in Hollywood

Bad Day at Black Rock

The breath wheezing in her windpipe. Burning tears on her cheeks, their salty taste filling her senses, choking her.

Sobbing, Sky burst out of the room, ran to the hallway. The fast, heavy beat of the music, the sounds of people whooping, yelling, laughing hit her in the face taking away the last of her breath. Down the stairs, her bad leg dragging worse than in ages, her blistered feet hurting, and Where are my shoes? Where did I leave them, and my purse, and my heart?

She was fleeing. Through the lobby, into the living room, mindlessly pushing through the crowd of teenagers, her tears and her hair flying in the air. Running— not to get away from Eli, but to get away from herself. From the room with the couch and the thing she had almost done. Running, to get out, to get some air, because God, she was choking, something was squeezing her chest so that she couldn't breathe, her vision was blurring, she would faint—

Out.

She had to get out.

But oh, how it hurt, the hole in her chest was a bottomless well of pain and darkness. Kissing Eli had been so good, so perfect, it had felt like a dream come true, and she had been falling, falling again and falling hard, falling into his eyes, his kisses, falling in love—

Until the moment when he had started asking questions about the condoms, or being on the pill, and in that instant it had all come crashing down on her, like a landslide, an avalanche, an earthquake, destroying everything in its wake.

The couch.

The sex.

The pleasure.

The guilt.

There was blood on her hands. It wasn't Eli's short, fuzzy hair she felt under her touch anymore - the bones of his skull were sharp, moving pieces, she could feel his head shattering, the blood pouring onto her hands, its heavy, rich smell filling her nostrils, coating her tongue.

Cody—

Not Eli's blood, but his. It was always on her hands like his death was always on her soul, a weight she would never be able to shed.

She had just wanted to forget about it, all of it, even for a short moment, just to forget and feel good—

Because hadn't she said she would, that she would try to go on living, to move on? So was it really too much to ask that she could kiss the boy she liked, that she could have him press her down on the couch and make love to her, so that even for a moment, for a minute or an hour or a night she wouldn't have to think about the things she had lost, that for a moment, no matter how short, she could forget the hole in her chest?

The flashbacks about Kat's death were rare nowadays. Sky couldn't even remember when was the last time she'd gotten one. But these new ones were just as bad, the ones where she felt Cody's head falling apart in her grip, felt the hot blood gushing out of him, coating her fingers, her palms, her forearms and saw the light going out in his glassy, hazel eyes.

It was a punch in the face. Every time it felt so real, as if it was all happening again—

Because it was real.

It was real.

It was his blood on her hands, always, and there was no way to wash it off. The only thing she could do was to try to drown it, to drown herself so that instead of feeling everything, she would feel nothing.

She stopped in the living room, trying desperately to catch her breath. Her hands were hot and sticky with blood and she kept wiping them on her dress, but it didn't help, she still couldn't breathe. The room was packed with partying people, noise, and music, and the chaotic scene felt like a gut-punch. She needed air. She needed more booze, she needed a lot of it. God, she needed pills—