"PLEASE GO OUT with me tonight. I really don't want to go out with Ms. Do-Gooder Betty Crocker again. She doesn't even drink."
Lindy laughed, raising the cigarette that she held between her fingers to her lips before taking a long drag off of it, blowing the smoke sideways into the cool, October air.
"Well, maybe that's a good thing. She's like a good influence."
Lindy's friend Beth grunted, also taking a pull off of her own cigarette. She leaned against the wall of the back of Virginia Mason, rolling her bright blue eyes skywards.
"Yeah, because what I really need in my life is a good influence," Beth quipped sarcastically.
The two women were currently on their break, having both just worked the graveyard shift at the hospital. Though they were not supposed to smoke on break, let alone smoke at all within a twenty-foot radius of the hospital, both women had coerced the other into doing so.
Beth Ansley had unequivocally become the best female friend Lindy had ever had in her entire life.
She'd first met Beth during her starting month at Virginia Mason, since both of them worked as labor and delivery nurses but always tended to run around doing much more than just that. Ironically enough, they had bonded over smoking.
Beth had seen Lindy's pack of Marlboros in her purse as the two women had gathered their belongings one night after a shift.
"You smoke?" Beth had asked conversationally. She'd been meaning to strike up an excuse to speak with Lindy for awhile, having been intrigued by her quiet yet bold personality.
"Yes. Doesn't that make me a shitty nurse?" Lindy said, smiling wryly.
Beth had proceeded to hold up her own pack of Marlboros, grinning.
"You're not alone."
This interaction had sealed a bond between them both and before either of them knew it, they were meeting for secret smoke breaks out in the hospital's back parking lot, discussing everything from music to Seattle culture to more personal things, like when Beth had a rash in an unfortunate place and wanted Lindy's opinion on its rather gruesome appearance.
Beth had been the kind of person that Lindy had always wanted in her life. She was strong-willed and similarly to the new Lindy, refused to put up with anyone's bullshit. She was from Tacoma and was a year older, but this made no difference in their friendship. They both found the same things funny, gushed over the same film actors, and the winner, in Lindy's opinion -- they both shared a love for classic rock albums.
Never in her life had Lindy connected so well with another female. She'd been undeniably close to Shelli, but that relationship had been more of a motherly dependence than anything. With Beth, they were equals, two souls who felt free to vent openly on whatever bothered them about the world and rejoice in little things, like how Meet the Beatles! was undeniably one of the best records of all time.
Beth knew almost everything about Lindy but did not know of the person who had impacted her life so hugely only years prior. Lindy had never discussed Kurt with anyone except Trae, and despite having nothing except the utmost trust in Beth, she was nowhere near ready to talk about the person who still crossed her mind every night before falling asleep.
"Just go out with her instead of me. I'm tired," Lindy complained, flicking her cigarette to the ground.
"Ugh Lindy, you are the worst today," Beth pouted. The woman in question that they were discussing was another nurse who worked on their floor named Jaimie. She was nice, but had strong, morally-charged beliefs against smoking, drinking, good music, and otherwise good fun. This did not stop her from pursuing Lindy and Beth's small but exclusive group of two.
"Come on, we've got another hour and then we can go home," Lindy chided. She produced a bottle of hand sanitizer and perfume from her bag, squirting the sanitizer in their hands dousing them both with The Body Shop's White Musk scent. If they had even a trace of smoke clinging to their scrubs, they would be in big trouble.
"We're terrible, you know," Beth said, rubbing her hands together vigorously. "We're fucking nurses for crying out loud, but here we are, standing outside smoking like truckers."
"I'm worried about their health," Lindy said stubbornly, jerking her thumb towards the hospital in reference towards her patients. "Not mine."
"Oh, you sad, little Gothic girl," Beth jested. Lindy shoved her shoulder playfully.
As they walked back inside to the bustling hospital, Lindy could hear Beth humming something under her breath that was hardly melodic.
"What in the world are you humming?" Lindy asked incredulously as they both clocked back in inside their designated break room.
"Oh, come on, you know that song! The one where he's singing about albinos and mosquitos? Or at least, I think that's what he's saying."
"Never heard of it," Lindy laughed, shaking her head. Beth gawked at her.
"What, do you live under a rock? It's been playing nonstop on the radio! It's like the biggest song in the world right now."
"Whose it by?"
"Dunno'. Forgot their name. But the lead singer is cute as hell."
"Well, when you find out, we'll buy tickets to their next show so you can figure out what's he's singing," Lindy said, taking her hair out of it's ponytail only to re-tie it back up again.
"Think he likes nurses?" Beth grinned, flipping her hair in an attempt to be sultry.
Lindy scoffed, unable to imagine a famous rock band singer shacking up with a random nurse when there were groupies galore circulating in the music world. Besides, what nurse actually had time to be a groupie?
"I wouldn't believe it even if I saw it with my own two eyes."
_________
When Lindy arrived home, her phone was ringing. She struggled to get through the door, holding her lunch bag, jacket, nursing bag and purse, and also trying to block Freddie from escaping out the door.
"Get back Fred," Lindy said irritatedly, stopping the cat from darting out into the street with her foot. The whole time, the shrill sound of the phone reverberated around the living room.
Lindy had left her college apartment earlier in June, deciding to move into a nicer part of Seattle that was closer to the hospital. Her place now was by far more upscale, but at least she could afford it with her generous salary. Despite it being ritzier than the last place, it still held the same cozy charm that Lindy herself possessed. Nothing in the apartment suggested that she had been living lavishly.
The phone stopped ringing as Lindy stumbled inside, slamming the door and trying to decide what to put down first. Her wrists were screaming in protest as she carried her plethora of totes. To make matters worse, the phone started ringing again, clawing at her eardrums.
"Shut up, shut up, I'm coming!" Lindy shouted, throwing her things down by the couch and straightening her scrubs before stomping towards the phone. She picked it up and angrily stuffed it against her hear.
"Hello?" she snapped.
"Lindy," Trae breathed. "Turn on your t.v. right now. Turn on MTV."
"Trae, you little shit. Why are you blowing up the landline? I just got home!"
"Did you hear what I said? Turn on MTV, NOW!"
Lindy, irritated to be bossed around after such a long shift at the hospital, sat down and leaned comfortably back into the couch, examining her cuticles.
"No, thanks. All I want to do right now is make myself a nice lunch and go to sleep --,"
"Lindy, please, for once just stop being stubborn and do what I say. You're going to want to see this."
Lindy sighed heavily, reaching for the remote. "I swear to God, Trae, this better be good. If this is anything but news that John Lennon has resurrected himself from the dead to get The Beatles back together I'm going to kill you."
She flipped on the television, and immediately a local news station popped up. She started scrolling through the channels.
"What's the channel for MTV again?" she asked.
"Lindy, are you fucking serious? What are you, ninety years old?"
"I'm a busy person!" she yelled in protest, but on the inside, she felt a twinge of embarrassment. Lindy's whole life had revolved around music from the time that Trae had gifted her her very first album. She had never, not once, neglected to know the best of the best in the music scene, and if her seventeen year old self could hear her now, she would have shook her head in disgust.
Finally, Lindy landed on MTV. From the looks of it, a music video had just began playing. A loud, violent guitar riff was being strummed, one that sounded vaguely familiar to Lindy. The camera panned to the drummer, who was banging his head and slamming his drumsticks with wild intensity. The scene changed, showing rows of teenagers sitting in bleachers, nodding to the music.
"What is this?" Lindy said in a bored voice.
"Just watch," Trae whispered, sounding like he was waiting for some sort of apocalyptic reaction out of her.
The lead singer started singing, beginning on the word 'load.' Lindy's blood ran cold.
She would have known that voice from anywhere. She could have heard it from miles away and still been to identify its owner.
And then the camera moved and it was on him, the lead singer and guitarist. He was wearing a shirt striped with green, the strange orange hue of the video making his face hard to make out along with the fact that his blonde hair hung in a disarray.
But Lindy still knew. She knew, without even a sliver of doubt in her heart, who this man was.
She jumped up from her spot on the couch, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She still had the phone glued to her ear, though Trae was silent on the other line.
"Oh my god," Lindy choked out, clapping her hand to her mouth in shock.
And then came the chorus to the song, backed by that raspy, powerful, unmistakable singing voice that had seared itself into Lindy's brain from the moment that she had first heard it as an eighteen year old, standing in the midst of a house party in Raymond. It was his voice.
Lindy slowly realized that the song she was hearing was the same one that Beth had been humming earlier as they had clocked back in to work. She recalled what Beth had said, her heart beating so hard that her chest ached.
'It's the biggest song in the world right now . . .'
Even though the song was only a minute in, Lindy already knew that it was earth-shattering. This song was not of human nature. She had never heard anything like it, and if it weren't for the fact that she was dumbfounded by who was on her television screen, she probably would have been enthusiastically bobbing to the beat, allowing the astonishment over how good the song was to flow over her.
At one point, he came into the best view she had seen him in yet. He was strumming on his guitar before he looked into the camera, screaming out the lyrics with a desperate, enraged look in his eyes. She knew those eyes so well.
"Kurt," Lindy heaved, his name strangled by her throat's vapid attempt to gasp for air.
"I know," Trae said quietly.
They both sat in silence, watching as the music video progressed further. Lindy saw him as he bounced around, Krist there too, flanking his right side. She knew with every fiber of being in her body that this was it. This was the fame that Kurt had so wished to achieve, marked by this legendary piece of work blaring from her television speakers. Her whole body was tingling. It was a sign, a sign of massive proportions. This was not just some song -- this was to be the song of an entire generation.
And the man she had loved more than her own life was singing it.
He probably wrote it too, Lindy thought, unable to remove the palm of her hand from remaining clasped over her mouth.
A mosh pit broke out on the screen. Lindy could see Kurt, slinging his guitar around and banging it to the ground as teenagers swarmed him, reaching out to touch him as if he were a mystical god come down to earth speaking prophetical truths.
The video came to a close with a closeup of Kurt's mouth, broken wide open into a crazed smile, the final word of the song ringing out of it.
Neither Trae nor Lindy spoke for some time, even after MTV began to play the next video lined up. Lindy felt trapped in a cool block of ice, her limbs frozen in place, her voice completely taken from her. There was nothing she could say to summarize what she had witnessed.
"He fucking did it," Trae said, finally breaking the dead quiet between them. "He really fucking did it."
Lindy did not know whether to feel proud, devastated, annoyed or confused. All of these emotions swirled within her, each fighting for dominance but none winning. Of course she would be proud of him -- how could she not be? But it was so strange to see him on television, succeeding in what he had dreamt of doing except in a universe where she did not exist alongside him.
"Linds? You okay? I'm sorry I made you watch," Trae apologized softly. "I thought you might want to see it."
Lindy's hand, which had been stuck against her mouth, jerked to life. With quick fingers she found her arm, pushing up her sleeve. On her wrist she wore a multitude of bracelets, but somewhere in the mix, she found the weathered blue and black corded one with the dangling K charm. Since breaking up with Kurt, she had yet to ever take it off.
When she pinched her fingers around the silver K, a jolt ran through her body, like she had been zapped with invisible energy. She blinked and even though everything remained still, she could feel her world turning slowly. It was inverting itself, dumping out everything that she had come to know so that it could be filled with something new. A new era in her life.
For the first time in over a year, Lindy felt Kurt's presence again, haunting and powerful, making its existence known not only in her mind but all over her body in the same places that his lips had once touched.
This time, the feeling was stronger than ever.
[ listen i love you all so fkin much, like i want to gift you guys something for sticking around and supporting me for this long. i'm brainstorming ways to give back to you guys. it will be coming soon. i love every single one of you ]