MARIGOLD // Dave Grohl

IV. The Tragic Irony of it All

Seattle, WA

April 10, 1994

Part II

Sarah knocked on Dave's hotel room door continuously until he opened it, leaning against the doorframe with a bottle of beer in his hand. "Hey," he smiled, moving his hair out of his face.

"Hey? That's it? Where the hell were you today?" Sarah pushed past Dave and walked into his room, where she saw beer bottles lining the windowsill. This had obviously been going on for a few hours. "Have you met Courtney?" Dave protested, following Sarah so he could clean his mess of a room. He picked up three bottles at a time, walking back and forth to discard them. She sat on the right side of the bed, her head on a pillow and her feet kicked up in front of her.

"So you weren't invited?" Sarah asked, and Dave nodded, sitting on his bed next to her, his back up against the headboard. "She hates me. And I've never liked her. She enabled Kurt's behavior when the rest of us were growing more and more increasingly concerned."

"Does this concern have anything to do with why you're partnering with Tom Grant?" Sarah questioned, and Dave immediately snapped his head to look at her, his eyes wide.

"How did you know about that?"

"My brother told me. Dave, I know Courtney is a whole handful, but do you really think--"

"Yes, okay?!" Dave exclaimed, tossing his hands up in the air. "Yes. Tom's work is just something I'm keeping in mind. I'm not saying it's true, but not totally discounting his efforts, either. I'm just saying that if Courtney had enough motive, most of us know what she's capable of. She is a wicked, evil, conniving--"

"Listen, I know it's difficult to process," Sarah told Dave, and he shook his head, unwilling to listen to her. He had to, anyway. "Believe me when I tell you that when I heard that Kurt..."

"Don't say it..."

"Killed himself, because that's what he did, I was in denial. But seeing everyone at the funeral really brought things into perspective for me. I mean, the service was filled with people he grew up with, friends, crew members... There's a 1:1 ratio of people saying he was depressed and others who say that he was incredibly optimistic." Dave nodded, opening his mouth to respond, but Sarah shushed him before continuing.

"In order to have some peace of mind, I'm opting to not dig deep and try and find a way to blame Courtney. As much as I hate her, she's grieving, too, albeit through promoting her next album, but--"

Shit. Sarah froze and stumbled on her words. She had accidentally told Dave. And now Courtney was going to come for her and strangle her with her bare hands.

"You've got to be kidding me," Dave muttered, running a hand through his hair as he stood up, pacing the room. "Not even a day after he's found dead in a greenhouse and she's giving out copies of her next album? That woman has no soul!"

"Yeah," Sarah admitted, picking her nails as she watched Dave continuing to lose his mind more and more each minute.

"Where is it? I know you brought a copy," Dave stopped pacing to collect himself, and Sarah dug through her bag to find the CD, handing it to Dave. 

"You can not tell anyone about this, I completely blurted it out," Sarah demanded,  and Dave replied, "Yeah, yeah." He held it up to read the title, and slapped his hand to his mouth, hysterically laughing amidst tears.

"Live Through This? Jesus fucking Christ!" he yelled, incredulous. "That's so ironic!" Dave took one more look at the CD before going back to sit on his bed, his head falling into his hands as he broke down. Sarah was never good at comforting people, but she couldn't just sit there and watch Dave sobbing. She inched over to him, wrapping her arm around his hunched shoulders as he cried. He eventually regained the ability to control his breathing, and Sarah kept her arm in its place, not sure what to do next.

"I can't move on from his death not knowing what truly happened," he said, leaning his head against the headboard, glancing in Sarah's direction, the sunlight from the crack between the curtains reflecting in his eyes.

"But you do know what happened, it's just too difficult to wrap your head around right now, and that's okay. And you don't have to process this all in one go, you just lost a good friend and bandmate," she replied, and Dave took her arm from around his shoulders (which was kind of getting crushed between his back and the headboard, so she was silently thankful) and took her hand in his.

Dave sighed. "You did, too," he said, and Sarah grimaced, nodding.

"Do you have any support?" Sarah asked, and Dave shook his head. "Courtney turned everyone against me a long time ago. What about you?"

"My brother. And Kurt's mom. But let's be honest, whenever I see her, I just see Kurt's childhood. And it hurts to remember what he went through. So my pickings are slim," Sarah said, and Dave squeezed her hand comfortingly.

"What if we could be each other's support systems? We can't get through this alone, so we might as well do this together," Dave suggested, and Sarah smiled, squeezing his hand back in agreement.

"Sounds like a plan."