JANUARY, 1992, SEATTLE, WA
EVER SINCE SHE had seen Kurt's music video on MTV, Lindy had not been able to stop thinking about him.
She figured this was only natural and tried not to be too hard on herself. From her perspective, this new development in Kurt's current state of affairs was not only mind-boggling but just plain weird. Weird in a good way, though.
He had gone from the boy that she loved to the man she could catch on MTV's heavy rotation if she so wished to see him. For the first several weeks after seeing the video, which she later learned was called 'Smells Like Teen Spirit,' Lindy often found herself sitting quietly alone in her apartment and reminiscing on all the times in her life when she had predicted Kurt's fame with precise clairvoyance.
She just never would have imagined it coming true on such a scale of grandeur.
Trae had come to visit her along with Allie shortly after they had both witnessed Kurt's performance. Together, he and Allie did their best to convince Lindy that she was not going crazy.
"He was your boyfriend, after all," Allie insisted. "I'd be a little freaked out too."
"She always knew this would happen, though," Trae had added. "Lindy was always saying that Kurt was going to make it."
And that she had. Kurt's biggest cheerleader, Lindy, was now watching him from the comfort of her own home while he lived up life as a newly christened rockstar. But that was just it. That was the biggest difference in the claims that Trae made -- Lindy had certainly guessed Kurt's impending fame, but she had always pictured herself alongside him as he endured it.
Lindy was beginning to notice now more than ever before how closed off she had become to the cultural world simply because she had wished for so long to avoid potential news of Kurt. Now when she left the house, she kept her eyes peeled for any signs that his success had indeed stemmed even farther than airtime on MTV.
For the first time in months, she truly noticed the smallest things, like magazine covers and gossip news outlets. What came with finally noticing these things meant seeing Kurt's face a whole lot more often than she was used to. She was constantly left shaken, unsure where he would pop up next. Even stranger than that was seeing people on the streets bestowing their support for Kurt and the rest of Nirvana. She saw countless teenagers sporting Nirvana shirts or carrying the Nevermind album in shopping bags.
In an outing with Trae shortly before Christmas, the siblings had entered a record store in search of an album Lindy had been on the lookout for; it was by a newer band named Pearl Jam. In the store, Trae had let out an awkward cough, to which Lindy had turned and approached him.
She had uttered a little choking sound when she saw what he was staring at.
It was rows upon rows of Nirvana's album, the bright blue cover standing out amongst the other slew of records. The cover, which featured an infant boy swimming after a hooked dollar bill, mirrored Kurt's taste in art so much that Lindy felt slightly light-headed.
"Do you want it?" Trae had asked quietly.
Lindy almost said no. She thought that the sound of his voice, spinning on repeat in her home, would drive her back into a maddening depression. But on second thought, she reached out and selected one of the records, holding it up to the light.
"Why not?" she'd asked, a tingling sensation rushing across her skin. She was buying her ex-boyfriend's record. Not weird at all.
"You guys came at the right time," the store owner had piped in, heaving a great sigh as he leaned against a large stack of boxes. Each box was brimming with more Nevermind copies.
