Fallout: Part III of The Journal Series

Chapter Twelve: Anxious Goodbyes

 March, 1998.

The house key was hardly in the lock when I heard the phone ring through the door.

"Oh, are you fuckin' serious?" My agitation hissed with my murmured gripe. "Can't even get my fuckin' foot in the door. Ain't even home for one goddamn minute! Fuckin' ridiculous."

Still muttering fiery, unintelligible grumbles I jammed my key in the lock with a scorching roll of my eyes, shoulder shoved the door open, and lurched myself into the darkness of my home, oh so thrilled to be bothered after such a dragging clusterfuck of a day.

I wasn't in a bad mood, per se. It had just been a, "Fuck! What now?!" kinda day, if you know what I mean, and I'd had enough. It was just a lot of little things, really: a shitty plane ride home where I couldn't get the amount of booze I wanted and this old, rich bitch who'd apparently bathed her wrinkly ass in some cloying, flowery perfume kept hogging the arm rest with her bony fuckin' elbow, luggage misplacement issues (that took two fucking hours to sort out--hooray!), and of course Los Angeles' notoriously wretched traffic was as infernal as ever. Though my plane had touched down around noon it was damn near fucking six in the evening when I got home.

I just knew it was gonna be someone who wanted to pester the fuck out of me. Mostly I figured it was my manager who had been bitching that he was gonna call to iron out some additional tour dates and book some studio time within the next few months. The motherfucker had impeccable timing, whether I had just walked into the house or I was busy fucking some groupies on the road. I swear the guy had a button on me primed to go off whenever it was most inconvenient for me to deal with his bullshit.

So, imagine my pleasant surprise when it wasn't my manager's name on the Caller I.D.

Poor Max almost got squashed I threw my bag on the couch so damn fast. He darted away with a startled yelp, much more dog-like than cat-like, and shot me an infuriated, indignant glare I completely ignored as I plopped my happy ass on the couch.

My cheeks lightly cramped from my first real smile of the day, I eagerly snatched up the phone and answered, "Hey! Good timing, man! I just walked in the door. What's up?

Now, imagine how my lovely surprise soured the instant I realized the person on the line was most certainly not Duff.

"Hey, Slash? This is Susan."

I pulled the phone from my face, squinting at it in repugnance, my upper lip curled. ...the fuck?

"Why the fuck are you calling me?!" I wanted to bellow with all the suppressed hatred that boiled in me the second I registered her voice. Instead, thinking better, I kept my cool. For Duff's sake, not mine, just to clarify. "Hey, yeah. How are ya? What's goin' on?"

Forcing politeness made me wanna puke out my rage with the unacceptably low amount of liquor in my stomach. My body was physically repulsed by the extension of...courtesy, and my calm vocal demeanor was completely betrayed by how violently my fingertips were boring into my temples.