The whole world thought of Stevie in a lot of ways.
They thought she was a witch and a gypsy.
They thought she was beautiful and mesmerizing.
They thought she was talented and desirable.
They thought she ruled the world and she was the queen of rock and roll.
But she knew better. She knew who she really was.
She was fragile.
She would fall and shatter into a million pieces and he would be the one left to glue all the pieces back together. He was the only one that could. He was the only one that tried. He was the only one she let get that close.
She was vulnerable.
She bared her soul to him in her weakest moments. She said, "I love you," during their most intimate times and she felt an overwhelming sense of joy when he said it back.
She was a drug addict.
As time passed, she knew that it was quickly becoming true. It helped ease the pain; made her forget about her broken heart and how much she still cared for him. It was an escape. It was easy.
She was a liar.
She told a lot of lies. She said she wasn't an addict. She said she was fine. She said she didn't love him anymore and perhaps that was the biggest lie of them all.
She was a shell.
She was not the woman she was before she joined this band. That was a woman she actually liked. She used to be smart and hard working and she would have given him the world. Now she just takes it from him; makes him weak and that was just the person she had become.
She was angry.
She was so, so angry. Most of the time she didn't know if she was angry with him or herself. She was angry for letting him go and she was angry that he had moved on. She was not afraid to let that anger out. She let it out on him; made him reciprocate. It was easy to be angry with each other. She was angry because she didn't know how to move on and she wasn't even sure if she could.
She was sad.
Being sad was the easiest part. That was where her creativity came from. All she had to do was look at her life; look at him, and she could see everything she had lost. She had given up so much for this band and this life. If she could take it back, well, she probably would.
She lost more than she gained.
The Grammys, the fame and fortune, the fake friends and the drugs, it was all part of this life. She had given up so much for it. She lost the things that mattered. She lost her friends. She missed her family. Most importantly, she lost him and that was a loss that would haunt her forever.
She was dying.
The rest of the world didn't see that part of her, but he did. He yelled at her and tried to soothe her and he cried, God, he cried so much and begged her to stop. The drugs were killing her. She was losing herself. She thought if she just had enough, it would save her. She thought it was the pain that was killing her, but she knew better. She was letting the drugs take away her livelihood. She was letting them take away the light in her eyes and it didn't matter how much he told her that, she had no intentions of stopping. Maybe she wanted him to keep trying to save her. Maybe that was the only way she knew how to keep him around. Maybe she just wanted the drugs to kill her and take it all away. Maybe she just wanted to finally rest.
She was desperately, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with Lindsey Buckingham.
Perhaps the world knew this about her already. They just didn't know how deep it went. They didn't understand how it consumed her. They didn't understand how she felt like she was being torn in half by this need to be with him and the horrible truth of knowing that she could not. They didn't understand that she was crying out for his attention and they certainly didn't understand that she would do anything to have him, including staying sober, even if it were only for a night.
She was pathetic.
The world didn't know that, but she did.
