The memories came again, and she couldn't help it. The memories were of later, though. A flashback to new year's eve, but not that new year's eve. The one before.
The New Year after her graduation.

She spent it at an old school friend's party, drinking just enough to get drunk, but not drowned in sorrows. She was buzzing, that night. She felt on top of the world. She didn't have a single prospect in her future, but her boyfriend was there, and everything would be okay.

He had her arm around her. She was sipping at some sweet, fruity drink, with not much alcohol in it, but just enough.

Luke was beyond tipsy, and kept trying to kiss her on the cheek sloppily.

It was a couple of minute to midnight, and he started to talk about wanting to go outside with her, needing to go outside with her. She just laughed and took her drunk boyfriend onto the balcony out the back, looking out at the host's clear blue pool.

"What is it?" She asked, once they were away, and Luke kissed her. She giggled, because he tasted like alcohol and cigarette smoke, and bizarrely, breath mints. Yet, despite her giggles, the kiss kept going, and soon enough it was deep, and she was meant over the balcony rail as her boyfriend attacked her lips with such ferocity she almost felt dizzy. By the time he let up and she could take a breath, her mind was spinning with lust, and she didn't want to let up.

She took a deep breath then went back in herself, push against him this time so they were moving towards the bright blue wall of the house. They were locked together, moving against each other, lips gnashing together with an animalistic need.

Then the kiss softened. The lust gave way for love. They were touching and kissing, and his hand was tangled in her hair and she was clutching at his shirt, and everything was soft, and needy.

So, so, needy. They needed each other desperately, as though they hadn't been together for days and days. Or it was as though they wouldn't be together for days upon days, or perhaps even months. They grasped for each others being, trying desperately to collect something they could use for the time they would be apart.

Then, they were panting. Gasping for air, clutching at each other, closer than ever before in more ways than one. It was close to midnight. Incredibly close.
She could think about her future, and the uncertainty of it all. With Luke in her arms, she whispered, "Can you promise me something?"

Luke looked her in the eyes curiously, and for a moment, it seemed as though sobriety had hit him. "What is it?"

She leant her head on his shoulder. "Can you promise me that this time, next year, we'll be together. Whatever happens?"

Luke nodded, and lifted her chin lightly with his finger. "I promise. I also promise something else. Regardless of what happens next year, whether the band takes off, whether you get a job, or whatever, this time, next year, we'll be together, and if I haven't already, then I will get down on one knee, and ask you to marry me."

Her eyes filled with tears. In a soft voice, she whispered. "You promise?"

He nodded. "I pinky swear, on my honour, that I will stand by my word. You're my forever, Brooke Keller. You are my forever and always.  I promise."

Inside, people started chanting the countdown, and the two tipsy teenagers joined in. Then, when 'happy new year' rang out across the lawn, they kissed, and sealed the deal.

In her hospital room, overtaken by this memory, K screamed.

Because Luke hadn't proposed the next new year's night, nor would he ever propose. Nothing had gone the way they had planned it to. Luke's tour had gone just like they had hoped it would and K had not found her purpose. He leapt ahead of her in life, soaring high, hitting billboard charts and going on tour after tour. She had barely seen him that year, and with each brief visit, they had grown more and more distant.

He took off, and she was left standing in the dust, just the fragment of his glory, the high school sweetheart of the rock star with the superstar disposition.

She was alone, and she didn't have a choice but to accept it.

She didn't try to run after him. For a while it was because she thought that he would come back for her. She believed what she'd been told, that the distance would only be temporary.

But as more time slipped away, she believed less and less in that, and she remained where she was simply because she didn't have the energy to try catch up.

Their wildfire love gradually came undone, but they didn't end it. It just strung along behind them, like a chain, dragging them down through an abyss of unreciprocated feelings.

Then, one evening in late June, it all came undone.

It was a cold day. She had been alone all day, working on a painting. Every so often that year she would paint. Just for something to do.

Her artwork wasn't done, but she didn't want to finish it. She hated the way it looked, and didn't know how to fix it. So she just left it unfinished, sitting on her easel by the balcony.

She was eating dinner. Nothing special. Mac and cheese, stirred in with bacon. She wasn't exactly going to go on Masterchef, but it tasted okay. She was enjoying it, and scrolling through her Instagram feed.

Then the food was suddenly tasteless. Her blood ran cold and her fingers froze. She sat still, spoon in mid air, staring at a post from Luke's account.

The spoon fell, clattering against the marble bench top loudly. She remembers the sound ever so clearly.

It had been a horribly lit photo, probably taken with iPhone flash, but there is no mistaking the subject of the image. Luke, who was currently off on the other side of the world, having a whirlwind summer in the USA, was sitting, his hair an absolute mess, a beer in his hand, and another girl under his arm.

He was kissing her.

In her hospital room, K sobbed. She sobbed and screamed, and tried to get the memories out of her head, tried to escape. She was vaguely aware of someone holding her, trying to calm her down, but she just screamed. She couldn't escape.

She heard Luke's voice, distorted over the phone, late that night, when she was drunk.

"Oh god, you saw it. I'm so sorry, Brooke, you weren't meant to see that."

She saw the vodka, felt it sliding down her throat. She cried the way she had cried that night.

"You weren't meant to see that."

She remembered the regret, and the guilt she felt the next day. It's your fault, She had told herself.

She remembered lying in bed, all day, just feeling remorseful, because it was her fault she hadn't been around to stop him. It was her fault she wasn't good enough.

The post had been taken down, it never should have been put up in the first place. But the press already had taken wind of the story.

Who's our sweetheart's new sweetheart?

She wasn't part of the story. No one even knew about her. The press would have a field day if they did, but Luke had always been careful. He was never seen in public with her. He  was always careful not to post pictures of her on his Instagram. He'd said he was 'protecting her' from the press, even though she'd had plenty of experience with them already, with her parent's being millionaires.

She had thought it was sweet, anyway, that he cared for her so much. But perhaps it wasn't care so much as a silent move in his game of celebrities.

She remembered the anger. The longing for revenge. Wanting to hurt him the way he'd hurt her.

So that night, she got out of bed determined, dressed herself in the hottest dress she had, put on a full face of makeup, including a mask of red lipstick, and went out.

The boys fawned over her. She was drunk within minutes, they were all far too eager to buy her drinks. Once she was drunk, she pulled the cutest one into a corner, and began to kiss him. She took a picture in the darkness of her lipstick smeared on his cheek, then continued kissing him.

She doesn't remember much after that. She remembers a bed, the mattress hard, and the springs creaky. She remembers heat, and someone shouting.

She remembers coming home the next day, to an elaborate array of flowers waiting by her door.
With them was a note, reading, in elaborate cursive, I'm sorry.

But it was too late. The deeds had been done. What has been seen can not go unseen.

She had sent the picture. They had both committed acts of infidelity. They couldn't take it back.

It was all downhill from then.

Sober, she was regretful of what she had done, but she couldn't say the same for him. They didn't break up, though. They never officially broke up, leading to confusion and upset on her end. The one time he was home between then and New Years, was only for a few days, and he seemed to avoid seeing her.

Everything had changed. She had changed.

That was when she started calling herself K. Brooke didn't feel right, it never really had, it had just taken her so long to see it.
She started introducing herself as K. She told the few people she trusted to call her K. She cut her hair, incredibly short, and started listening to weird alternative music.

She didn't think of herself as a hipster, obviously. She thought of herself as broken. Completely different, and shattered in thousands of pieces.
She woke up feeling spaced out more and more often. Some days she simply felt empty. Sure, she had experienced these days before. Most people had. The difference was that before it was one of these days every once in awhile. For her, it wasn't one of these days every once in awhile.

She tried to go to a therapist, but all they did was tell her to eat a better diet and sleep more. So she did.

It didn't help, so she never went to the therapist again. She didn't have the willpower to find a new one. Besides which, her parents didn't approve.

"If the press find out they'll have a field day." Her mother had said, after finding out from K's bank statement. She had then made her daughter swear not to go again.

K had been alone. Her friends from school were off living their lives, and she was never that close to them anyway. The only person she had to talk to was Pete, on the few occasions she left her apartment. Sometimes she called him up, told him she'd make him breakfast or lunch, just for someone to hang out with. He was always kind, and never minded being there. On the days K wanted to be alone, inside all day, he would go off and see his daughter, or an old friend somewhere. Never too far, though, just in case K changed her mind.

He was patient like that.

Then there would be the days K wanted to go out. The odd days that she felt good, and right. She would go out, to the beach, or to the city, or one time out to the cinema. It was a very relaxed life, though lonely. She managed, oh so barely.

Like that New Year's Eve day, hours before everything changed. When the sun was high, and her spirits rose with it.

She didn't have a plan for things to change. She didn't have a plan to find a purpose or fix her relationship, or her mind. She didn't have a purpose, and she wasn't longing for one. She simply existed, and held out to the moment her life became more than that.

Then came New Year's eve and once again, everything changed.

K could feel someone shaking her lightly, and her eyes drifted open briefly. She caught sight of a nurse above her, and felt herself being lifted from the floor. She was acutely aware of being laid down, the mattress beneath her soft.

Then the blurred room around her faded, and the memories disappeared.

She felt herself fall into a deep abyss, and everything went dark.

Authors Note
Hello my cool beans, I started writing this note being like, "hello my lovely readers!!!" But then I was like, wait no, that's not how I talk, ever.

So clean slate, let's be real here. Most of you probably already know me anyways.

For purposes of flow, I really shouldn't be starting Author notes now, but whatever.

Anyways the reason I started this note was because I want to let you know I have a schedule now!

I'm updating every Tuesday on this crazy whirlwind story, for consistency.

Additionally, I'm in another country right now, and next Tuesday I will be on a plane, so said Tuesday update will be a little difficult.

Please comment as much as you want, but don't feel fussed. I'd love some feedback though if you're up to it!

See you next week my frens,
Amelia Rose