She's Only Seventeen: A Novel of Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll (30 page)

James and I were still at odds, although I felt for him; I knew it could never be.

“I don’t know why you just don’t start fresh; you’re only doing this because of what Tom said!” he voiced loudly after practice one day.

“Don’t get angry at me,” I told him

“You refuse to admit that you still have feelings for me, that’s true isn’t it?”

The words were like déjà vu as I had heard Tom speak them what seemed so long ago.

“Fine, you’re right, I do, I’ll admit it, but it doesn’t change anything,” I admitted to him

“It changes everything, Kat. I want you, I could have made you happy,” he sighed.

“You don’t know that at all.”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll never know now,” he said sadly.

I took his hand and kissed it, “don’t be like this, I need you now more than ever.”

“You’ll always have me, Kat,” he whispered, his face closes to mine.

I smiled at him; breaking his serious face. He pulled me into a tight hug, “love you, Kitty Kat,” he said into my hair

“Love you too,” I said softly.

He pet me on the back and asked if I wanted to play a little bit.

“Sure,” I responded as I picked up one of Tom’s guitars.

His grey eyes flashed while I strummed and sang his smile wide and warm.

Darla and I became especially close as she was getting ready to begin her freshman year of high school. She was nervous, and I tried to teach her how to wear makeup, but she refused.

“It’s like a mask,” I tried to tell her

“I don’t need a mask, Mom.”

“Well it’s always helped me, on stage you know?’

She wasn’t buying it.

For her fifteenth birthday, we had everyone over. Gary told her if she was good she could have his custom made Aston Martin next year for her birthday. He had driven it to the party to please her. She had a special love for him, not unlike I did at her age. Much more innocent though.

Much
more.

I had made peace with Drew and Tammy. They were over quite a bit as Darla was best friends with their girl. I even became friendly with Brian and his new wife. Nick and Alex had welcomed me back into their lives as well and it was as if the past ten years or so never happened. I felt like I was twenty again, just starting out with life. Only Thomas wasn’t there and my little girl was fifteen.

Shane

September 2001

“What do you think?” Kat asked as she showed a spreadsheet to Roy.

She had been helping him out with our newest music video and it turned out she had quite the knack for it.

She had someway been forgiven by everyone. Even my mother welcomed her back into her life. She had that way of making people love her I guess.

I heard her laughing; it was music to my ears.

“Drew, you can’t keep bending that way, we can’t see Alex,” she said.

Drew threw his hands up and gave her a smirk.

She walked over and positioned him correctly, “Bossy now are we?” he said to her.

She raised an eyebrow, smiling widely.

Sometimes it was strange to see them interact after everything that had happened. Especially with Brian, she liked to flirt with him jokingly. I suppose the two of them had a special friendship which I really couldn’t understand.

“You know you have nothing to worry about,” she would say to me.

“I love you more than anything, Kat, you know that right?”

She looked up at me, the light dancing in her eyes, “I love you too.”

Ian

September 2001

“I feel like shit,” Kat said to James and me.

“Do you want to stop?” I asked

“No, I love coming over and playing with you and I haven’t in a couple weeks, I’ve just been so busy with helping Roy, it’s just my head I think, I’ll grab something for it,” she said as she headed to my bathroom.

“You okay?” I asked James

“Yeah, man, why?”

“I dunno, you’ve been through a lot this year, Tom dying, your wife leaving you, the divorce and now Kat got married to Shane again…”

He shrugged, “I think she would have been happy with me,” he said

We all knew that they had a “thing” or at least they did before Tom and apparently after him also.

Kat walked back in the room, “I couldn’t find anything,” she sighed

“I could have sworn…”

“It’s okay, I’ll just go home and rest, sorry,” she said to us both

I kissed her cheek, “see you soon,” I said

She went over and hugged James who pulled her onto his lap, “James,” she shrieked as her foot hit one of the symbols, she started laughing, he threw me a toothy grin.

“I’ll call you later, okay?” I heard him say.

“Yeah,” she breathed out. She met his eyes for a moment before unwrapping his arms from her waist and standing up, readjusting her shirt.

She gave us both a reassuring smile before exiting. Everything seemed so normal.

Kat

September 2001

I began getting bad headaches one afternoon after a
Neptune
get together. Although we decided we wouldn’t be doing any projects any time soon, we would still get together each Wednesday and fool around with chords and lyrics, like we used to when we were kids.

When I got home, I had begun to bleed with heavy cramping. It was a bit early for my period, but I was never regular anyways. Not after the miscarriage, so I grabbed a pad and a handful of ibuprofen like usual and went about my day.

“Kat, can you help me with some of this paperwork?” Shane asked when I walked through the door.

“Yeah” I began to walk over to him. “Fuck,” I said clutching my side.

“You okay?” he shouted back

“Yeah just some cramping, just that time of the month…”

“Right, take something.”

I went to help him, the cramp started again. “I did, I think I just need to lie down,” I told him.

He helped me into bed and wrapped me up.

“Need anything? He asked.

I kissed him. “Come get me in an hour, I have to call Gary I forgot to yesterday.”

Shane smiled at me as he got up and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Darla

September 2001

“How was your first day of high school?” Dad asked as I walked through the door.

“It was alright, where’s mom? I have something I need to tell her.”

“You can’t tell me?”

“Its girl stuff.”

“Ew” he said with a face playfully. “She’s lying down, I was supposed to wake her up like an hour ago but I was letting her sleep”

“Can I go wake her up?” I asked.

“Sure, she’s probably gonna be mad I let her sleep this long!”

I walked upstairs to her bedroom and opened the door. She was lying on her side. I got closer to her, she wasn’t moving.

“Mom?” I said touching her. She was cold.

“Mom,” I said again frantic now.

“Mom” I screamed.

Dad appeared in the doorway. “What’s wrong?” he said catching his breath.

“She’s…” I started to cry.

He came over to her and felt her.

“No, no, no, Kat.”

He pulled back the covers.

Blood. Blood everywhere coming from in between her thighs, I had ever seen so much. I let out a scream. My father covered her back up and sat on the bed. He put his hands in his hands as he began to weep.

I grabbed her cell phone.

“We need to call 911!” I shouted.

He nodded his head slowly.

When the ambulance arrived, Dad and I could only point and stare. Dad went in the ambulance with her leaving me home alone for the first time in my life. I had never felt so lost.

Shane

September 2001

She had been pregnant and it had become ectopic. Her right tube had exploded resulting in her losing six and a half pints of blood. There was no way she could have survived. She had thought it was her period and taking the ibuprofen had only sped up the process. I couldn’t believe it. She had been so
alive
hours before, now she was… gone. I didn’t know who to call, what to do. My whole self seemed to collapse into uncertainty.
Kat
.

Drew

September 2001

I didn’t believe it when I first heard it. None of us did. It seemed impossible…

James

September 2001

I dropped the phone.

“Kats dead,” I told Ian.

His mouth dropped open. “Our Kat?”

I nodded.

“Oh my god, how?”

“Shane didn’t say, he just said she was gone.”

“Not Kat,” he whispered.

I stared at her microphone with the gold and black scarf around it that Thomas had given her one year for her birthday, blinking away tears. She would never use it again.

Darla

September 2001

“Are you ready, Dar?” Dad asked softly.

I nodded looking at the window of the limousine. There were crowds of people outside the church. Some holding signs, others flowers, photos, all honoring my mother.

Today, she would be buried; today she would be gone forever six feet under, leaving only memories. I had worn lipstick today, when Dad told me to wipe it off I had started to cry like a baby. Mom always complained I never wore makeup. He seemed to understand then and let me keep it on. My mother had loved this color.

Dad got out of the car first and then I followed him, taking a deep breath. We got inside the church where I saw everyone from
Neptune
and
Arctic Circle
come together again for yet another funeral in less than a year. Gary was there also with his latest wife. Dad and I took our seats at the front. I didn’t even blink when I saw my mother’s body in the coffin; it affected my father much different as tears ran down his cheeks.

I watched as those who had loved and hated my mother grieved for her. When we went to the cemetery, Dad told me he had a surprise. Getting out of the limo and standing next to her gravesite, I realized I had been here before.

He had laid her next to Thomas.

I shot him a look, “What about you?” I asked like a child.

“She was always him,” he confessed. “Plus,” he pointed, “There’s always room for me next to her of that’s where you want to put me.” He kissed my cheek.

Brian

October 2001

“You sure you’re up to this, man?” I asked Shane

He nodded. “Yeah, Kat would have wanted it.”

We stepped out on stage as Shane smiled and waved at the crowd.

I looked at him in awe as I began the first song.

Maybe he was stronger than all of us put together.

Darla

November 2001

Kids treated me differently after that at school; they said that my mother had killed herself like her father. They said other horrible things to, but I tried not to let it affect me. I knew her and had seen it all, well most of it.

She and Thomas’ house sold after her death. With two major music markers gone, it made it very valuable. I remember walking through the gardens one last time which she had worked so hard on, going to ruin. I wondered if the new owners would revive them.

Dad managed to start performing again. He was a broken man, but let his sorrow flow through his lyrics. His heartfelt words making stranger feel what he felt deep inside. The loss of my mother would wound him for the rest of his life.

Sometimes I visited her grave with my father. He would bring her flowers. Sometimes I would go after school, and I would see Gary, James or Ian, or a member of
Arctic Circle.
I even saw Roy once. Life went on for them, even without her, as it would me.

On her birthday I visited her, “I miss you, Mom.” I said quietly.

I looked up at the sky. I bet she could hear me, her and Thomas. Blinking away tears I turned to head home. I would make her proud.

2016

August 2016

“Dad you didn’t have to do all this for me!” I laughed, hugging him hard.

I had turned the big three-oh and he had brought me a cake like I was a child again. I smiled brightly as I took Theresa’s hand; turns out we were more than just friends after all.

Arctic Circle
had finally retired a couple years ago when Roy had passed away.

Dad had been depressed after Kat’s death. He put it all into music as
Arctic Circle
released their greatest album to date after she died, dedicated to her of course. He didn’t marry again and I never saw him with other women, although I suspect he wasn’t completely celibate.

Drew had turned to alcohol after Kat’s death, making him become bloated and ruddy beyond recognition. Maybe he had truly cared for her. He was still married to Tammy and they spent most of their time out in L.A. now in their newest home.

Brian and his wife divorced shortly after my mother died. He had taken a new one who was less than half his age.

Nick was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2005 which made it difficult to play bass. When he passed last year, as the first member of
Arctic Circle
to go, I believe we all felt mortality.

Alex got arrested last year for drug use and is currently serving a short house arrest. He had been becoming more an interest in recreational drugs and began growing in his house.

Gary died shortly after my mother did. It had been drug induced, deemed an accident of course, but was kept undercover as much as possible. I did inherit his Aston Martin.

James stopped performing after my mother passed. He took to alcohol and drugs; and needless to say, it too caught up to him as he was found dead in 2003 with a bottle of whiskey in his hand and my mother’s lucky scarf in the other.

Ian had joined a new band and was playing bass still. I was in contact with him to this day. “You look so much like your mother,” he would say. I believe he was one of those who knew her best, and as the last surviving member of
Neptune,
he was something special to me.

Theresa and I became more than friends as we went to college and entered adulthood together. I believe I had found the same passion and love my mother had in her.

Neptune’s
sales soared after my mother’s death, making them one of the best selling bands of all time. Finally, my mother had done what she had always wanted to do, be the best, and she was.

About the Author:
K.M. Ellis is a graduate of Albertus Magnus College with a B.A. in History and a minor in English. She lives in Houston Texas with her husband and daughter.