Urgency. | Matthew Healy

c/seventeen. girls

A/N: the next chapters might be delayed as well. P.S: We are nearing the end of the story!
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Matty's POV.

I was still bewildered at Valerie's intense desire to know about Kate. I partly understood her, I mean, we did talk about her in front of the poor girl, and maybe that made her feel that she deserves to know. Either that, or the fact that we had sex and the closure we've had in these last few months.

But on the other hand, what happened with Kate has taken me years to get over, and I still haven't gotten over her fully. Mainly because one, she's not dead, and two, she doesn't hate me, she just doesn't remember.

We had been together for three years. Kate had developed early onset dementia, a condition similar to Alzheimer's, but not quite. She was twenty-two, I was twenty-four. We had been dating for a year at that point.

My heart broke at the news, but I stayed as much as I could and took care of her, until I couldn't anymore.

Seeing her slowly forget me – forget us – was heartbreaking. She did no longer recognize me, she was terrified of me. There were some good days, but the bad ones outweighed them.

Kate's family decided to take her to a nursing home at the age of twenty-five. Her symptoms got worse too quick. She now knows nobody. I used to call every now and then to know how she is, but when news only got worse and worse, I stopped. I only call her family maybe twice a year, they had been great to me after this.

She was everything I wanted. Balanced, smart, beautiful, and had her life planned out, most importantly, with me.

When she lost herself, I did too. I started doing heavy drugs, and bringing girls to the bus every night.

I started reading Allen Ginsberg poems. One caught my eye, specifically because I found it portrayed how lonely I felt, how lonely Kate must have felt. It read:

Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to

shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in

driveways, home to our silent cottage?

During the poems and heavy drugs, Valerie came along and helped me with my drug problems. Suddenly, there were less and less girls, it was only her on my mind. I didn't want to be with her, I didn't want to break her, so I dated Jacqueline, who was terrible to me, only introducing me to more bad habits, but I forgot about everything. She was great at sex, especially when I pretended she was Valerie.

Until Valerie and I had sex. Then, I couldn't pretend anymore. I wanted to throw Jacqueline in the past and forget about her, but she has issues she can't deal with on her own. She's a known kleptomaniac, which is why she stole from us and I justified it. She's also a drug addict, hence her finding herself alone in the middle of nowhere and needing someone all the time.

I wanted to help Jacqueline. Even though I never loved her, we became close. But the girl is stubborn, and I risked everything with Valerie by getting with her again.

Thinking about all of this only makes me feel guiltier about the way I've been treating her lately. Still, she had sex with another guy, and knowing that just ticks me off.

I decided to go talk to her so we could sort all of this out. We were stopped for gas, and all the boys popped out of the studio to go get snacks, booze and lighters. I had been standing in the hall the whole time, having an internal debate with myself.

I finally started walking toward the bus' door, stepping out and walking to the gas station, where Valerie must be.

I walk in and she's nowhere to be found. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

I walk to where the bathrooms are and knock on the ladies' bathroom to see if she was there, but the door opens with the force of my knock.

I run outside of the gas station, looking everywhere, but I still can't see her.

"Have you seen Valerie?" I ask Jonathan, after going into the station again.

"She said she was going for a snack, I don't know. She was being all weird and carrying her bag, saying she was going to stuff the snacks in there to save the planet or some shit like that." He answered, shrugging.

Shit.

I took my phone out of my pocket and dialed Valerie to no avail. I got sent straight to voicemail. She turned off her phone.

"Jonathan, she left."