Dom stared blankly at the splattered canvas. She’d been throwing paint at it for hours and still wasn’t satisfied. She wiped the back of her hand over her cheeks, still feeling the dry tears there that wouldn’t go away. No matter how hard she wiped and scratched at her face the feeling wouldn’t leave. Mikey hated her. She knew it now. He hadn’t called in over a day and Gerard hadn’t said anything to her either. The silence had driven her mad with guilt so she turned the insanity to her canvas. In a fit of anguish she’d trashed her studio, her paintings and supplies strewn all over the main floor. The only one that remained was the one perched on the easel beside the still life. Her toxic cocktail.

Letting her eyes drift down to the martini glass of pills she felt the familiar urge in the pit of her stomach. That urge to make the pain go away. To make the feelings stop. Dipping her fingers into the glass she pulled up three pills and rolled them in her palm. They could make the hurt and guilt eating at her disappear. They’d make her numb.

“But I don’t want to stop feeling,” she whispered to the empty room. “I just want to stop hurting people.”

Dropping the pills back into the glass she dipped her paintbrush in the can of red and splashed it against the canvas with a scream. Fresh tears spilled from her cheeks and she sank to the floor, her body shaking with the force of her emotion.

“Fuck!” she screamed, tossing the paintbrush away from her. She wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed until she didn’t have any tears left to shed. She yanked her cell phone from her pocket and shoved her hair out of her face, dialing a number she hadn’t dialed in three months. Her body went rigid when he answered the phone but she needed something to calm her down.

“Dommie, baby, I’ve been expecting your call.” Luke drawled. “How can I help you?”

“Luke,” she sniffed. “I need something heavy.”

His laughter filled her ears and she shivered. No matter how hard she tried to ignore it, he still made her feel dirty. Fighting the urge to sit under the shower again she closed her eyes and listened to his voice.

“You still got that studio right?”

“I moved,” she said flatly. “But I’ll meet you where it used to be.”

“Lovely, baby. Lovely,” he chuckled. “I’ve missed you, my sober butterfly. I’ve missed you for three agonizing months. I’m glad you decided to fly back to me.”

“I’ll see you soon, Luke,” was all she said before disconnecting the call.

Jogging up to the loft, Dom slipped into he bathroom. She caught a glimpse of her reflection as she pulled on a pair of clean jeans and froze. She looked horrible. Her eyes were red and puffy; her cheeks bright red and lined with welts from her scratching. Her hair was unkempt and out of place and her arms covered in dried paint. Leaning over the sink she splashed some water on her face and stared hard onto the mirror. Her hand ghosted over her abdomen but she ignored it, her concentration solely on the impending fix. She wondered what Luke would cook up for her.

Running for the door she grabbed her keys and phone off the side table by the door and swung it open only to freeze at the man standing behind it.

“Ray?” she took a step back as the guitarist smiled sheepishly down at her.

“Hey, I just came over to see what you were up to, maybe squeeze in your first lesson before we hit the road again,” he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and Dom smiled.

“Uh, I was just on my way out…” she hedged, combing her hands through her hair.

“Oh, then, I guess I can come back another time,” he started to walk away and Dom bit her lip, conflicted.

“Ray? Wait, come back,” she reached for him and he turned with a grin. “My place is a bit chaotic at the moment so don’t mind the mess.”

“I think I’m used to mess after living with the guys,” he laughed and Dom pulled the door further open. He gaped at the destroyed room and frowned. “Dom, what happened?”

Her face flushed and she shrugged, “It’s a long story.”

“We got time,” he shrugged his guitar case off his shoulder and placed it on the couch. She eyed it curiously before watching him shrug his jacket off and hang it beside hers on the wall. She sighed when he looked at her expectantly and threw her hands up in the air.

“Fine, you might want to sit though.”

He sank onto the couch beside his guitar, pulling her down beside him. She propped her feet up on the coffee table, a few of the art magazines cluttering the surface falling to the floor. She rested her head back and cleared her throat.

“I guess I should just come out with it,” she mumbled, picking at her fingernails. “I’ve sort of been seeing Gee for a while.”

“I know,” Ray grinned and her eyes went wide.

“How the hell do you know?”

“Dom, we’re not blind,” he chuckled. “Every time you’re together the tension is there. You guys try to pretend it’s not but it so is. I wasn’t sure if you were acting on it or not, but it’s not like we couldn’t see it.”

The breath rushed from Dom’s lungs and she groaned. “And I thought we were hiding it so well.”

“What I don’t get is why you hid,” he turned to her, pulling a leg up onto the cushion to get comfortable. He leaned his head on his hand and watched her struggle. Her lips trembled and he had a feeling she was going to cry when she let out a whimper and bent forward, resting her head on her knees.

“I’m sure Mikey told you about the night I ran away,” she said into her jeans.

“Not everything, although I got the gist.”

“He confessed to me that he wanted to be more than friends. He told me he’d felt that way for a long time. I was struggling with my own shit, my addiction, my family bullshit, and he just piled it on and I freaked out. Being the coward that I am, I ran away to the only place I knew how to cope. Luke’s.”

“How long were you with Luke before you OD’ed?”

“I don’t know. I was so high most of the time the days just ran together. He kept me good and numb for so long, and then I saw you guys play in the city and I freaked out again. Mikey saw me and tried to talk to me and I fled. I found Luke at one of his clubs and stuffed myself full of pills. He gave me heroine and I couldn’t take it. Next thing I know I’m in a hospital bed with hands all over me,” she shivered and hugged herself. “After that I started spending a lot of time with Gerard. He knew what I was going through, talked me through it, he was there for me and it just turned into more. I don’t even know how it happened we were drawing together and he just kissed me…”

Her voice trailed off and she sniffed. “We’ve been sneaking around ever since. It’s my fault though. I should have told Mikey and I didn’t and now he hates me,” she sobbed. “I let it go on for far too long and I just keep hurting him, Ray. I keep hurting everyone I love.”

Her shoulders shook and she hugged her legs, her hair hiding her face from him. Unsure how to react, he pated her back and cleared his throat. “He doesn’t hate you, Dom. None of us do. Hell, Frank and I knew something was going on and we still stuck around. Sometimes you can’t help who you fall in love with, babe.”

She nodded, her body aching from the anguish. She sat up, wiping her eyes and grabbed a tissue off the table, blowing her nose and wiping at her face again. She tried to calm herself down, keeping her eyes away from Ray’s expression. She didn’t want to see disgust there.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to turn this into a tear fest.”

“It’s fine,” he smiled. “You needed someone to talk to and I’m always willing to listen.”

Dom finally turned to see him smiling warmly at her and she felt another wave of tears wash over her. She threw her arms around him, careful not to soak his shirt, burying her face in the crook of her arm. Stunned, Ray hugged her back, surprised at how warm she felt so close to him. They sat in their embrace for a few minutes, until Dom’s crying dyed down. The chirping of her cell phone broke them apart and she fumbled around for it only to find it in her pocket. Glancing at the screen she bit her lip and frowned. It was a text from Luke.

‘Where the hell are you? I got the stuff.’

Cursing quietly she tapped back a response, ‘Sorry. Can’t make it. Got caught up.’

Before she could toss the phone away it buzzed again and she sighed. Luke just wouldn’t give it up. ‘I fucking knew you’d bail. I have your shit if you ever want it.’

‘Thanks.’

Tossing the phone away she shook her hands out and sat back on the couch beside Ray. “Sorry.”

“So you want to learn to play or what?” he slapped his hands together and pulled his guitar out of it’s case.

“No electric?” she eyed the acoustic, her hands secured between her knees.

“We’ll start acoustic and if you get good enough we’ll upgrade. How’s that?”

“Okay,” she nodded shyly and he strummed the strings and started tuning it. Dom watched him, unable to help the smile that spread across her face. The second the guitar came out Ray relaxed. He was like an entirely different person. She listened to the staccato plucking and strumming while he tuned before he played a few chords and handed the guitar over.

“Shit, I’m so uncoordinated,” she blushed, holding the neck awkwardly.

“No, you’re fine,” he chuckled and helped her adjust her fingers. “There, you now know how to correctly hold a guitar.”

“Yay,” she waved her fingers in the air before leaning back over the guitar. She plucked out a few notes and laughed. “I have a feeling this is going to take forever. I’ll never be you, Ray Toro.”

“Well, it doesn’t happen over night,” he shook his head, tucking a chunk of curls behind his ear. “Do you know how to read music?”

“A little,” she shrugged. “But not really. I haven’t played or looked at music since high school.”

“Then we’ll start there,” he pulled a folder and notebook out of the case and flipped it open. His scrawl of music notes and other jottings covered every page in different color pen. Some lyrics littered the margins and Gerard’s doodles decorated the cover.

“Wow, can I just look through this?” Dom grabbed it, her eyes sparkling. She paged through it and grinned, biting her nail as she read some of the lyrics scrawled across one page. Her face lit up when she found the first draft of her favorite song, Desert Song, scribbled across a page of notes and doodles toward the middle of the book.

“Can you teach me to play this?” she breathed excitedly. “Please?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ray nodded, trying not to laugh at her giddiness. It surprised him how happy she looked compared to his first arrival. The place was still a complete mess but she seemed calmer, more focused not that she’d gotten everything off her chest.

“Thanks Ray,” she pecked him on the cheek, “for being here for me today. The last twenty-four hours have been complete shit.”

He nodded, unsure of what to say. She turned her eyes down to the guitar and strummed a few chords and he smiled. “Where’d you learn that?”

“I watch when you and Frank play. I guess it stuck,” she shrugged.

For the next few hours the two messed around with the guitar, Dom slowly learning the beginnings of Desert Song and relearning how to read and write music. She let her mind wander away from the drugs, the issues and the pain and enjoyed her time learning guitar. By the time Ray left she felt like she could genuinely smile again. Sighing as she closed the door behind him, she turned her attention to the chaos of her destroyed studio. Humming to herself she grabbed a tube of paint off the floor and looked up at the ceiling, thanking the higher ups for Ray’s timing.