She shook her head. The question was too big, too much. First things first: rest and healing. But even this required the basics—a bed, food, medicine, safety.

“A friend,” she said, using the other sleeve to wipe her tears. “I need a friend.”

In all of Los Angeles, only one person came to mind.

11
The World Falling Away

Luke was woken by someone knocking on the back door. He opened one eye. Morning light broke through the blinds and the ceiling fan turned in swift, whispering circles. He sat up, disoriented.

Tap-tap-tap.

“What the fuck?”

There were two Xanax capsules on the nightstand, where he’d placed them before going to bed. He’d been trying to be less dependent on them, but it was a losing battle. Last night, though, Luke had drifted off without their assistance. He’d tossed and turned until three a.m., his mind rumbling with the usual dark thoughts that occurred the moment he dropped his head onto the pillow: Lisa, his career, suicide—around and around, like the ceiling fan above him, but screaming, not whispering.

Luke remembered thinking that he would throw in the towel, take the goddamn benzos, like he so often did, but somewhere between thinking this and actually doing it, his body succumbed. Just his luck, then, to be woken up by some jackass knocking on the back door. And early, too.

He checked his phone: 8:56.

“Son of a bitch.”

Luke looked at the Xanax and at the half-popped strip of antidepressants beside them. Until Lisa disappeared, he’d been able to avoid prescription drugs, no mean feat in a town where everything—livelihoods, principles, levelheadedness—was so dubiously balanced. He’d never been big on recreational drugs, either. Booze had always been enough (sometimes too much). Sure, he’d smoked weed in college, like everybody else with a pulse, but he could take it or leave it. Same with cocaine, when his career started to move and the Hollywood parties became more commonplace. He’d do a line, purely to fit in, but the buzz didn’t excite him—except when he was with Lisa. She’d turned it into something else.

“It’s not really my thing,” he’d said to her honestly. They’d been dating two or three weeks at the time.

“Yeah?” Lisa had unsnapped her jeans, pulled them—along with her underwear—down to her knees, and sprinkled half a gram onto the shaved mound of her crotch. “Is this your thing?”

They’d had some godly moments on coke, more so at the beginning of their relationship. They’d left their mark at high altitudes. They’d roared and tussled like cubs. When Luke sensed it becoming too casual a thing, he’d reined it in. Lisa wasn’t as disciplined. She considered herself a low-key user: occasionally in social environments, and always before performing.

“You’re better without it,” he’d said to her once.