THE SEATTLE CENTER Coliseum was brimming with people, bodies spilling every which way from the streets and walking up in droves to the huge stadium. Anticipation buzzed through the air like an electric live-wire, whipping everyone into an excited frenzy.
Lindy and Beth walked up to will call, nudging their way past all kinds of rowdy teenagers and adults alike. Lindy had dressed down for the occasion, choosing an outfit that reminded her of her teenage years — jeans, a long sleeved back shirt and Converse sneakers. Beth on the other hand stuck out in pumps and a pretty blouse.
"I'm over-dressed," Beth complained as the two woman approached the will call window.
"You're fine," Lindy mumbled. She had been numb since six o'clock that evening. The thought of being in the same vicinity as Kurt, inhaling and exhaling the same air that he breathed, was daunting to her.
Upon receiving their tickets, Lindy nearly collapsed when she read the fine print that indicated Krist's choice to put them in the front row.
"He's lost his mind!" Lindy moaned, nearly crunching the tickets in her iron grip.
When they entered the Coliseum, walking (Lindy had to be dragged by the arm by Beth) up to their designated seats, Lindy automatically turned to a young couple sitting a few rows back and asked if they would like to trade spots.
Beth gawked at her, unwilling to believe she'd give up such amazing seats, but as Lindy sat down in her fifth row chair, she said nothing. She didn't want Kurt to see her. She didn't want him to look down and see her face staring back at him. It shouldn't have played out like that and she wondered if it would have been enough to scare him to death, seeing her at one of his shows in the audience.
When the lights dimmed and Nirvana came out on stage, rambunctious shouts punctured the air and a wave of energy rippled throughout the crowd. Lindy felt faint when she saw Kurt up close, slinging his guitar over his head and walking up to the microphone.
She tried her very hardest not to hold onto Beth's arm, feeling the wind knock itself out of her lungs. It was hard to look at him that way. For once, she was seeing him not through the screen of a television or on the pages of a magazine, but in real life. She silently commended herself for moving their seats back -- if she had been any closer to him, she might have bounded out of the arena at light-speed.
The show itself sounded phenomenal to her ears, but Lindy would not have known what it was like to watch it. She spent the majority of the night with her head bowed, staring hard at the toes of her sneakers. The sound of Kurt's voice, ringing so loudly in her ears, was enough of a show for her. She didn't need to see it leaving his mouth to know that it was real. The sound of it alone was burying her under the weight of a thousand memories, all of them crushing her as they replayed through her head like a flip-book.
She told herself that did not need to raise her eyes and see him that close, as close as he had been to her in two years. It would have rattled her too much to know that despite their close physical proximity, they had never been farther apart from each other.
Once Nirvana ended the set with a raucous encore, closing the show with Territorial Pissings, Lindy felt her legs growing weak. She knew that Krist was expecting her to greet him and she of course wanted to thank him for the tickets, but she feared the possibility of seeing Kurt. She was unsure that she would be able to handle the confrontation of meeting the man of her nightmares and dreams all over again.
"Come off to the side here. We should probably tell Krist thanks for the seats," Lindy said to Beth, but her voice was leveled at such a whisper that she was surprised Beth even heard her.
