Her body was strong, but her soul was cracking slowly. 

Perhaps she had always been as cold as everyone said. Or maybe she had always been like molten graphite, burning hot on the inside and rock solid on the outside.

Sometimes, without warning, her mind would conjure up images of a house with a pool, filled with lost phantoms of happiness. She dreams of a place that once meant everything. 

Those are the days when she tends to make bad choices. Bad decisions help her forget.

It was always easier for her to get lost in the chaos than in the pain.

And so she remembers West Hollywood every day for as long as she can recall. She remembers The Planet. Every step feels like a needle, her whole soul is like a contracted muscle that can’t seem to work properly. Her body feels too tight for her emotions, and in the worst moments, she finds herself spilling them everywhere.

All over her life, all over the people she loves. All over herself, trying to fill the ever-emptying hole in her heart. 

Everywhere she goes, she hears Kit’s voice whispering. She was always the heart while she was the mind, but how could she be alive without a heart? She was a living, walking crime scene, a shell of a human with her chest ripped open.

Sometimes she looks at Angelica and has to swallow the urge to sob; there’s so much of her sister in her little girl that it feels like both a blessing and a punishment.

Angie has been her blessing for far longer than she could ever express, and she’s paralyzed by the fear of being the black hole of her little girl’s life. She works every day not to be.

For a while, she thinks West Hollywood remembers her, too. 

She believes it with all her heart because she can’t deal with unrequited love, it hurts too much. It is too much of a reminder of the scars she has kept so close to her chest. The lies she told herself so many times. 

For a while, she’s convinced that her heart is still protected by the familiar streets and the blazing sun. She goes to West Hollywood once a year, every year for almost a decade. She doesn’t tell anyone.