Page 23 of Best Friend Burden

Were we really going to go down this road? I guess we were. There was no use fighting it and, on top of that, there was something in me that wanted to get it off my chest. To actually talk to someone about what happened without letting it fester inside me.

“My ex-girlfriend,” I told her, “died a little over a year ago.”

Whatever laughter and mirth were in her voice immediately vanished.

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And on top of that, it was my fault.”

“I'm sure it wasn't actually your fault. What happened?” She said with deep concern in her voice.

“See, if I tell you what happened, you'll think it wasn't my fault. Because I didn't kill her. Not directly. She was hit by a random drunk driver.”

“Just bad luck then,” Melody said, trying to say something to make me feel better.

“Yeah, but she wouldn't have been on the road if it hadn't been for me. We were at a New Year's party, and I was completely wasted. And she was mad at me for doing that to myself. So she stormed out, and then next time I saw her, I was identifying her body at the morgue.”

“That's awful.” I could see tears forming in her eyes.

It had been forever since I'd told anybody that story, but it was always the same reaction: strong discomfort. I could sense it. They wanted so badly to change the subject to anything else but didn't know how to without coming off as dismissive.

“Yeah, well, it convinced me to get my life back together,” I told her, trying to present whatever approximation of a silver lining I could. “I only wish it hadn't taken that to happen.”

“And you've been sober ever since?”

“Not one sip of beer,” I said. “Not a single pill of anything harder than aspirin. No needles except for the one for my flu shot. Pot's legal here, but I'm staying away from that, too, just to be safe. Wendy sacrificed her life so I could be sober. I'm not about to let it be in vain.”

I tried sounding as strong as I could, but I was in a moment of weakness right now, and I don't know what would have happened if Melody wasn't with me. Would I have turned to alcohol? Or worse?

The fact was that I was a different person than the one I was back before the tragedy. And, in most ways, I was better. But there was one way I wasn’t better, and it was the one way that mattered most: I didn't hold a candle to mind-altered Kiefer when it came to music. The old Kiefer would have found the right cocktail to stay up all night and get the part right before going into the studio to record it. And he would have nailed it.

Sober Kiefer was too in his head. I may have been a better person now, but I wasn't as good an artist.

“Yeah, but that doesn't answer my question,” Melody said. “Just because you're sober doesn't mean you need to be joyless, you know?”

“Maybe not, but after what I did to Wendy, maybe I don't deserve joy.”

She put her hand on mine, which was resting on the wheel, and I pulled it off instinctively. I immediately regretted it.

Thankfully she gently put her hand back on mine, “So you're sober because Wendy wanted you to be sober?”

I allowed her to touch me this time. It felt nice. Calming even.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Would she want you to be miserable, too?”

I didn't have an answer to that. Of course Wendy wouldn't want me to be miserable. She would have wanted me to be happy. It just felt so strange to allow myself genuine happiness in a world she could no longer exist in.

“Truth,” Melody said.

“Huh?”

“You answered my question,” she said. “Now it's your turn. I choose 'Truth.'”

In other words, she wanted to move the conversation away from me, which was perfectly fine. The fact was, I had a million questions about her from back in high school. Wondering what she was thinking in a time where the coolest thing to be was aloof. But I had a hard enough time remembering anything from back then, not that it mattered anymore anyway.

"What are you doing here?” I asked. “Out in Los Angeles, I mean.”

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