It's Better to Burn Out than Fade Away-Kurt Cobain

Chapter 83

January 24, 1993

I laid down in the hotel room couch, staring up at the ceiling. I fell asleep in the bed Kurt and I slept in, but then I woke up in the middle of the night and saw him lying down next to me, so I went to the couch in the living room. 

I was disgusted with him-his behaviors from last night and the way he treated me. I didn't even want to go there in the first place. I should've trusted my gut. If I trusted my gut, I wouldn't have been in the situation that I was in. I could've helped Kurt instead. I did a horrible job with helping Kurt and I needed to step up my game. 

"Hey," I heard someone softly say. 

I looked to the right of me and saw Dave crouched down. 

"You alright?" He asked me. 

I shook my head no. "I hate this so much."

"I know. Scoot over."

I reclined the seat and scooted over so that he could lay down, too. "Hey Dave?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think I'm overreacting?"

"No. Absolutely not. It's scary seeing someone you love act like that, you know?"

I knew what he was hinting at and I didn't like it. He knew that I went down a spiral after Robert killed himself. He tried warning me and everything, but I never listened. I was a hypocrite. I was trying to do the same thing with Kurt, but he wasn't listening to me. 

"Yeah, I know," I looked away from him. 

"You know that I haven't gotten over his death fully either, right?"

"Either? What do you mean 'either'?"

"I know that you haven't gotten over his death, either."

"Suicide, Dave. Suicide. Not death."

"Same difference."

"No, it's not. Death is more like you didn't want to die, you know? His death was his fault. It was all his fucking fault." I wiped away my tears. I didn't want to cry. Not that early in the morning. "This year is going to be so hard, Dave with you guys going to be gone all the time and everything."

"You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"Do what?"

"Be with Kurt."

"I want to."

"Sometimes what you want isn't what you need."

"Dave. I can't imagine a life without him. He makes me feel whole, Dave. And I can go on tour with you guys sometimes."

Dave nodded his head. "You do what you want, okay?"

He walked back into his bedroom, leaving me all alone. It gave me some time to think. I was about to commit to a relationship with someone that would be gone most of the time. Was I going to be able to do it?

"Ruby," Shelli came into the room and sat down next to me and handed me a camera. "Look at what I found."

I took the camera out of her hands and saw that there was a picture of Kurt looking at me. I was talking to Lorelai and he was just staring at me and smiling. 

"That's my favorite picture of you guys," She said. "Just the way he looks at you."

I flipped to the next picture, but to my surprise, it was a video. 

"Look at them," Someone in the video said. "Look at how cute they are."

The screen showed Melissa and Lorelai next to each other. Then, you could hear Kurt's voice that was muffled, stomps coming from the stairs, and then Kurt and I walking down our stairs came into view. All of a sudden, I started falling down the stairs.