When I finally stumbled into my house that night, Dad was already in bed. I fell into a fitful sleep while the neighbors cussed each other in Spanish and the interstate traffic played its familiar lullaby.

After that, the week flew by in a haze of getting high and playing in Finn’s garage. It wasn’t long until we were setting up for our Friday night Pit show. The stage was small, but it was our favorite place to play. The crowd was wild and a lot of the people came out just for us.

The Pit couldn’t have been named more perfectly. It was a large, concrete, underground space. It looked like a vandalized parking garage with a bar, a stage, and a bathroom. The owner allowed graffiti as long as it didn’t look like shit, so the concrete walls were covered in large, colorful pieces of art and jagged words. There was even a special spot on the far wall with our band’s name in red and black.

After we set up and the horde came rolling in, we played our asses off. The crowd went wild after my guitar solo as Finn belted out a Chevelle song. Tiny, who was at least three hundred pounds, hit the room hard with his bass playing. I looked back at Chet who was playing the drums. He was so high his eyes were thin slits on his face. He nodded at me with a smile, tossed his drumstick in the air, and then brought it down hard. It was a damn good night.

After an hour of playing, we took a break.

“Watch my strings,” I said to Finn as I set down my guitar by his mic.

I drank more when I played and I was going to spill over if I didn’t take a piss. I cut across the crowded space as the DJ took over and blasted loud techno music. The place lit up in laser lights while the dance floor crawled with dancers that jumped up and down, wigged out of their minds.

“You sounded good up there, Zeke,” some random chick said as I walked by.

She reached out and boldly grabbed my ass. This was a normal thing for me and nothing caught me off guard with the girls at The Pit. I turned and was met by a hot redhead with cleavage spilling out of a too-small top. Most of the redheads I’d had were wildcats under the covers, so I was definitely down if she wanted to play later. I leaned in to make sure she could hear me over the loud music.

“Nice tits.” I grinned down at her as I ran a finger across her bulging cleavage. There was a jagged tattoo just under her lacy bra line that I wanted to have a look at. “Meet me beside the stage later.”

I wasn’t asking. I was telling. My blunt nature was something I was known for and that suited me just fine. Dishonesty wasn’t my thing and I was born without a filter around my brain. Anything that crossed my mind came out of my mouth, whether it was hurtful or not. The no-filter thing initiated some pretty bad fights in my life. It also didn’t help that I had no idea how to bite my tongue.

I pushed on the black door to the bathroom. There were no men’s or women’s; there was just this room with stalls lining one wall, urinals on the other, and a single sink with a smudged, cracked mirror. It wasn’t a hygienic place, yet there were still times when you’d walk in on some dude wall-banging the shit out of some chick. It was no big deal to take a piss next to a couple going at it.

I zipped up my jeans and went to the sink to rinse my hands. There was never soap in the dispenser so I didn’t bother. Using my shirt as a towel, I turned to go. A flash of white stood out against the grimy wall and I stopped in my tracks when I noticed a miniscule blond girl balled up in the corner. She was rocking back and forth with her knees drawn up to her chin. Her platinum locks were plastered to her sweaty face and her glazed, red eyes rolled back in her head.

I knew a geeked-out broad when I saw one. I’d probably find out tomorrow that some chick overdosed in the bathroom. It’s happened often, but no one really paid attention, so neither did I when I turned and walked away. The least I could do was stop by the bar and let someone know she was in there before I got back on stage.

Before I could make it to the door, she spoke.

“Please help me.” Her voice shivered.

She had a soft voice. Not raspy and deep like most women I knew. They all smoked, and hacking up a lung had changed their voices. Instead, her voice was smooth and as small as she was. I turned back to her and she looked up at me with glistening blue eyes. They weren’t rolling back in her head anymore; now they were wide in fear.

It was then that I took in her clothes—khaki pants and a white button-up collared shirt. Definitely not the low-cut jeans and high-cut tops the girls I knew wore. She had clean fingernails and no makeup.

How had I not noticed her there before? She stuck out like a whore in church. Except in this case it was the direct opposite. She stuck out like an angel in hell.