by J. L. Brooks
I fell once and never recovered. Each time I found myself drawing close, I took another trip to the tattoo parlor and reminded myself of why it was a tragic sentiment. The body was a temporary vessel, which I could give easily without thought. Counting down the days until I ended up in the grave, I sought to distill every moment of pleasure imaginable. If not between the sheets, there wasn’t anything a bottle of tequila or a rail of cocaine couldn’t achieve.
This was the cycle I lived repeatedly. If I had the privilege of being anonymous it wouldn’t be such a hassle, but one careless image of me in a compromising position could damage my reputation in a way I couldn’t afford. My reputation preceded me, and I did a damn good job of making sure there was never proof. The agents knew I chewed these boys up and spit them out, yet eagerly accommodated every request. Vida, my manager-slash-partner in crime, earned every penny making sure it all looked flawless, even when I wasn’t sure what day it was. She was the savviest bitch I knew, and I trusted her with my life. Before sliding my keycard into her door, I pressed my ear against it to make sure she wasn’t mid-coitus—though I have purposely walked in on her a few times to scare the men she’d seduced for the night.
Hearing nothing, I gently pried the door open and saw her hand waving at me as she lay sandwiched between two well-muscled bodies.
“You are such a whore, I love it.” I laughed quietly.
I slid myself up behind one of the men, who I knew would be absolutely delectable. Vida didn’t slum. We had different taste, but I would often see them doing the walk of shame . . . or should I say pride. From what I’ve seen and heard, Vida was a fuck you never forgot or denied.
I tried my hardest not to laugh as I skimmed my hand across his naked chest and down to his groin, freezing when it reached his erection. Knowing where it had been, I wiped my hand on his thigh, causing him to roll over. Surprised when he opened his eyes to someone other than Vida, he jolted for a second, then smiled broadly when he realized who I was. Fuck, he was gorgeous. If he hadn’t just nailed my friend, I would be half tempted to snag him for myself. Messy blond hair tousled perfectly against bronzed skin that peeked through the colorful palate inked across his chest and limbs, and a beautiful smile of blinding white teeth. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
As if reading my thoughts, Vida spoke up, saying, “He’s Kai, the drummer for Mistaken Identity.”
I raised my eyebrows and pursed my lips. That’s where I knew him from. My band Protest had done a show with them a few months back and I had a fling with the lead singer, Levi. I was curious as to who was on the other side, and a small part of me was really hoping it wasn’t him. I couldn’t imagine guys in the same band tagging a girl together, but then again, I had been known to do some weird shit with my crew.
“Who’s over there?” I pointed to the body on the other side of Vida.
Kai cringed a little and shrugged his shoulders.
With wide eyes, I mouthed, “Seriously”?
He gave a devious grin. I could have had a lot more fun with him than I did with the kid.
As he pulled me closer into his arms, I shook my head. “You should have waited; you could have had me instead.” I pouted my lips and tried to act indifferent.
Not giving in, he continued to squeeze me tighter to him, making his arousal known.
“No, no, no, Don Juan. I don’t do sloppy seconds.”
Vida must have grown annoyed with our conversation, because she used her legs to shove Kai, kicking us both off the bed, with me landing on my back and him above me.
“Owe! What the fuck was that for?” I looked to Kai for an explanation, but Vida rolled over and looked pissy from her perch.
“He was waiting for you, hoebag. He wouldn’t fuck me.”
Looking up, I stared at the gorgeous man skeptically for confirmation. “Um, so why are you naked if you didn’t do the nasty?”
He chuckled hard while keeping me pinned beneath him and smiled at Vida. “Because she told me that you would be getting into bed with us and I better be ready. I thought she was talking shit, but I couldn’t risk the chance. Sure enough, here you are.”
I smiled lazily and reached my fingers up to run through his hair. “Good boy. Get your pants on. You’re coming with me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with pleasure.
For the next few hours, we created a song so loud and obnoxious, Kai and I were asked to leave the hotel. Vida was none too pleased, as she knew it would hit newsstands and tabloid magazines within a few hours. I was supposed to be snowboarding solo for the rest of the day, but plans changed. Kai was dying to tackle the slopes, and jumped at the chance to attempt my favorite run. Portuguese Gap was an exquisite double black diamond that never failed to get my heart pumping. With my tolerance to things that excited me growing dim, I was always looking for ways to enhance the rush, and Kai was happy to join the party. Pushing far enough away from the crowd to avoid our actions being too obvious, I pulled the small vial necklace out of my jacket and twisted off the plastic lid attached to a metal spoon. Holding my hand gently around it to prevent the powder from blowing away, I took a scoop and offered it up before taking two of my own and giving him one more.
Our teeth gritted eagerly between the cocaine and the rush of what we were about to do. Licking my finger, I coated it with a little more coke and rubbed it across his lips before kissing him deeply. “Let’s do this!”
Snapping our boots to the boards, I went first and screamed loudly as I dashed down the side of the peak, sliding back and forth as the trees raced by me. I was unable to see how far behind Kai was, but I didn’t care; the feeling of soaring through the air was all that mattered. My heart felt like it was about to burst from beating so hard, and my bones wanted out of my body. I almost couldn’t handle the surge of adrenaline. I loved every second of it, because I felt alive.
I came to a place where I could stop and watch as Kai careened down the run with just as much enthusiasm as I’d had. His presence was completely unexpected, but thoroughly welcome. Although we had known each other for a grand total of about four hours, our lifestyles gave us a sense of kinship not found elsewhere. He did not know me, but he got me. He did not have to ask questions, because he already knew. There were no strings or awkwardness. We simply were, and it felt almost as good as the cocaine coursing through my veins.
He approached me with that same devilish grin, which he dropped quickly as he came to a stop. “Fuck, Stella. Your nose . . .”
As he reached into his pockets to look for something, I wiped my hand under my nostrils and studied the thick crimson liquid soaking the fabric. My face was so numb I had failed to feel the blood pouring down. The sound of a twig snapping stole my attention. Thinking it was a deer or animal in the woods, I glanced over and quickly realized I was wrong. “Fuck, fuck, fuck . . . three o’clock.” I coiled my head toward Kai’s chest and started to shake while pinching my nose.
I heard him growl loudly while rubbing my back. Reaching underneath his jacket, he ripped part of his tee-shirt off and wadded it into a rag for me to wipe my face.
“Damn it! Kai, I’m sorry, you should go. You don’t need to be a part of this. I can explain it later. High altitude, nose bleeds, shit happens all the time. Really, it’s cool.”
I was lying through my teeth, making up a story about high altitudes when really it was from the drugs flowing through me.
“Stella, you’re crazy if you think I am going to leave you like this. Let’s get you down the mountain.”
I looked up into his hazel eyes. His pupils were enlarged, even against the glare of the snow, and he smiled.
“Thank you.”
He held my face gently and wiped a little where some blood must have smeared. I removed the cloth and looked at him with hope. “Yes? No? Am I good?”
He took the cloth and pressed it up to my nose again. “No, it’s still going. Here, try this.” Kai ripped a little more from his shirt into two small ba
lls of fabric and encouraged me to shove them into my nose as temporary plugs. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it had to do. Before going down, I sent Vida a text and told her that a paparazzi was on the hill, I had a nose bleed, and she needed to find out who it was and get it taken care of. Before she could respond, I shoved my phone in my pocket and refastened my boots.
I refused to look at the camera and moved as quickly as I could past him. Upon hearing the motor of the snowmobile start up, I shouted over to Kai and pointed. There was no one out here to protect us. This wasn’t like being somewhere I could go and hide. This asshole had a fucking snowmobile, and was chasing us down like animals. One day of peace, one day of fun. One day I want to be fucking normal again. No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I turned to look at Kai—but he wasn’t there. I screamed his name, but heard nothing back. The world went black.
~ The Great Pretender ~
“I don’t know what makes these rock stars think they are so damn invincible. They have the same flesh and blood as us normal folk. One day they are trashing a penthouse at some swanky hotel, next day they are in a hospital bed getting their asses wiped by people like us.” The woman’s voice was harsh and full of sarcasm, though what it had to do with me I wasn’t sure. At first it was muffled, but then it became a little clearer. I thought I’d heard my mom talking to someone earlier, but it wasn’t me. It had been seven hours since I woke up, if that’s what you call it. The only reason I knew that was the radio playing soft classical music and the announcer stating the time every few songs. I wanted to scream, but nothing would move, not even my eyelids. It wouldn’t do much good, anyway. I could tell I was hooked up to a ventilator, and there was a small tube running down my nose. Every time I swallowed, the muscles in my throat constricted around it. I wanted to cough, but once again, zilch. I had so many questions. What happened? Why was I here? I knew it was some hospital, and something was wrong.
I didn’t want to believe this was permanent, being able to hear everything around me but not respond. It had been less than half a day, and I already wanted to die. I couldn’t cry, couldn’t do anything. I started to feel the fingers that touched me as they took my pulse and changed my bedding. The sheer embarrassment of soiling myself without any control was the worst. The only thing that made it any better was going back and thinking about the last thing I could remember.
My mom and I had just been in a fight.
Yet that, too, was dismal.
She’d received this great opportunity to take over a private practice in Mooresville, North Carolina. She found a house right on Lake Norman, and apparently, several famous race car drivers lived nearby. However, it was my senior year of high school. I wanted my mom to be happy, and this is what she had been spending her whole life working toward, so I didn’t have a choice. I had to go. My father was an elder at our church and found another parish to take him in, so there was nothing to stop us. We were supposed to be moving in a few weeks. Summer was just beginning, and I couldn’t remember leaving yet.
My heart was breaking, thinking about all of my friends that would graduate together. Starting over somewhere new so late scared me. I would not have the teams I had played soccer and cheered with for years. No best friends. No boyfriend. I was alone.
All those things seemed so trivial at the moment, since I could not even breathe on my own. It was hard to tell if I was awake or asleep. I was praying this was a dream, but I knew it wasn’t. Hearing the time again, I realized the nurses should have been on their next rounds. Just then, at 6:14, the door clicked and soft footing glided along the floor toward me. I felt a little jerking on the tube before the cool liquid poured down into my stomach. I had not felt it before now. She pressed the stethoscope onto my inner elbow and the chill caused a shiver through my bones that hurt.
Canon in D Minor came on; the song so many walk down the aisle to when they get married. I felt tears rush to the surface. Knowing that day would probably never come for me ripped at my gut. As the violins got stronger, the tears pooled and fell down the sides of my face, dripping into my ears. It was uncomfortable, yet for the first time that day, it was a sweet victory. I could actually feel something from within.
Throughout the night, I savored every nerve that began to come alive in my body. I still could not move, but I could feel. In the beginning, it came in slight twitches, and then eventually, I was able to will a more forceful jerk. At 10:13 in the morning, my eyes finally opened. The light was blinding, and I immediately shut them before slowly cracking them open again. I took my time to look around the room to assess my surroundings, and my eyes widened in horror at the ink-covered limbs covered in medical tape and heplocks.
This wasn’t my body.
I didn’t have tattoos.
This was some horrible nightmare, like the Twilight Zone, a really bizarre dream or hallucination. I could close my eyes for only so long once I had opened them. I didn’t understand. When the nurses would come in, I pretended to sleep. I wasn’t ready to find out what kind of freak existence I had become conscious in.
A sharp pain tore through my head, triggering some type of alarm. My heart rate must have elevated as a team rushed into the room.
“We have a response, she’s waking up. Stella, can you hear me?” Loud snapping and shouting came from all around. My eyelids were ripped open, aiming a bright beam of light shining down in them.
“Pupils dilating. We need to calm her down. Blood pressure dropping, she’s going into shock.”
Shock? Why would I go into shock? Before I could think much more, a warmth crept through my veins and over my confusion. The black abyss I had grown to know so well opened up and took me under once more.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but when I awoke, I was no longer hooked to the ventilator. The NG tube, however, was still shoved down my nose. I willed my fingers to curl, and to my surprise, they did. I could move.
I lifted my arms and brought them closer to my face to inspect the designs etched into them. Once I got past the hysteria of my condition, I realized the tattoos were beautiful. They had to be mine, as colorful gladiolus flowers wrapped around in a bouquet of multicolored ink on one arm. Additional random depictions looked like they told a story I didn’t remember. On the other arm, angels and demons wrestled amid stars and other celestial objects.
Anger at my incoherence took over and I wanted out of the bed, away from the hospital, and to find answers to why things were this way. I slowly pulled the tube out of my nose, and gagged as it slid out of my throat. Realizing I was hooked up to a monitor, I reached over to turn it off so it would not sound an alarm, but I misjudged the distance and fell onto the hard concrete floor. Surely enough, the alarms sounded. Several nurses came in and immediately moved me back into the bed. I could not pretend I wasn’t awake any longer. A battery of questions came at me and once again, my head began to hurt. I could shake my head and nod, but had not tried to speak. The small bursts of motion were exhausting.
A doctor came in and quickly realized I was overwhelmed. He asked everyone to leave, then dimmed the lights and took a seat in the recliner to the left of the hospital bed. He introduced himself as Dr. Gleason, a neurologist at Park City Medical.
“I know you have a lot of questions, Stella, and we will answer them all to the best of our abilities, but you need to be patient. First, I have a few questions, is that okay?”
I nodded my head, tired, yet eager to find out what was going on.
“Okay, good. We will start out slowly,” he said as he opened a small laptop and began typing. He asked all the basic questions. How old are you? Do you know what year it is? Do you know why you are here?
His face stilled for a moment as I tried to respond. I could feel my brain telling the muscles in my mouth to move, but nothing would come out. My eyebrows furrowed and my jaw began to quiver in frustration at my inability to communicate.
Dr. Gleason smiled and gently placed his hand over mine. “It’s okay
, Stella. You are already showing remarkable progress. Sometimes certain motor skills take a bit longer to come back. I have noticed you move your arms; do you think you could tap on a button?”
I calmed down a bit, and my eyes widened when I saw him remove the screen from his laptop. Never before had I seen a person touch a screen, much less a laptop you could take apart. I hesitated, and looked to him for confirmation that he wanted me to touch the tablet that held multiple keys and buttons in the window.
“Stella, tell me what year it is.”
I reached up to tap the screen, which responded to my fingertips with a slight vibration. I jerked back after the first one, but he encouraged me to continue. Slowly, my shaking hand pressed in the current year: 1997.
I did not have to see his face to know I gave the wrong answer. He remained silent and asked if I knew where I was. Typing in Ohio was also incorrect, as he had stated earlier, and his badge confirmed, that we were in Park City. He stopped asking questions and put the screen back on the keyboard to type a few more things before setting it down.
In a practiced voice, he calmly gave me the news I was dreading, the truth. “Stella, I know this may be hard to hear, but you are not seventeen. You are thirty-three years old. The year is two thousand thirteen. You were in a snowboarding accident. You hit a tree and suffered a major blow to the head. For the past two weeks, you have been in a coma. Do you remember any of that?”
Shaking my head furiously, the screams that had been contained finally found a way out and rattled my body as they moved, evoking the growls of the monsters that lived in my skull. Now I knew this was a dream. I was not in an accident. That was impossible. The tattoos on my body were not real. The anger once again caused a headache unlike anything I had experienced before. Grabbing my head, my hands prickled against the short stubbly growth and roughness of thick skin sewn together.
