Harry wants to use me again, make me pay for the hospital bed he put me in, so I can't go back to the company apartment. Ever since I abandoned my car, I’ve been sleeping in doorways, in a pile of blankets, with the shopping cart blocking me.

It's not as bad as I thought. It gets about as cold outside in the city as it does indoors, and I have room to spread out, which was missing in the car, but the system is looking for me. I can't live on the run forever, and the texts I got when I turned my phone on to use as a flashlight made it sound like they were dragging Alli into this too.

I hid across the street from Alli's house to watch out. I don't mean to be creepy about camping outside my ex-girlfriend's house, but I'll admit I already knew a good spot for it. I was making sure Harry didn't come by, and he's a way worse guy than me. I tried to wait for the most unpredictable time to show up.

2:00pm-ish | Haight and Pierce

Around 2 in the afternoon, foot traffic picked up, and I went for it.

I knocked on her door, my heart in my stomach. What would she think when she saw me? Would she hear me out? If I told her what I knew about the system and Harry wasn't recruiting her, she would think I was crazy, like the doctors did.

All the energy I spent getting myself ready for that meeting didn't feel like enough. What would she think of me? My shopping cart was parked around the corner. I wore my cleaner pair of pants and an almost new pair of shoes I found. I even found a new shirt to replace the one I wore basically straight through since the breakup of the band a year and a half ago, a promotional shirt for last year's Prince of Persia movie. I knocked again. I knew she was home. I would have seen her leave.

Alli opened the door, all blue haired and beautiful, and I couldn't help smiling. When our band came back to the city, Alli was my home. After Casimir died, her house was the place I first tried to deal with that. In a way, I was homeless from the day she kicked me out.

"So..." She gave me the icy blue stare.

I raised an eyebrow and flicked my eyes to the couch in her living room, the subtle move that used to get me in no matter how long I was on the road. I hoped the good times we shared would be enough to get me in. I hoped the months since she last saw me were enough to forget the rest of the shit we did to each other.

She didn't move out of the doorway. She didn't return my smile, but she didn't send me away. "I knew you'd be back."

She was mad about something, but I hadn't thought about us in a while, so I couldn't imagine what. I still wasn't sure if Hans contacted her. Maybe he told her to keep it a secret. "I'm... sorry?"

Her blue eyes turned hard in a way too subtle for me to notice on anyone else. "That's what you're going with?"

I shook my head, but she started to close the door. I jammed my foot in the gap. "Baby, wait." The door stopped four inches from shutting me out. My foot hurt. "I've changed."

She snorted, but it's true. I pulled the notebook out from under my arm. All the stuff written here happened after she knew me, and I think it shows some small amount of growth. "Look."

I shoved it through the door. I didn't know if it would work. This thing is stained with weather damage and filthy from being under the seat of my car, but it's also bulging with experiences, every page wrinkled, pushing the covers away from each other to get free.

She took it, and the door opened wider. Her eyes flicked back and forth. I saw the struggle between caring and the memory of all my bullshit, but that wasn't a fair fight. "I kicked you out for a reason." She insulted me in afterthought. "Asshole."

"I'm not drinking anymore." My eyes turned down in shame, stopping for a fraction of a second on the third button of her too-tight paint-splattered shirt, where thin white fabric rippled in the space between the shadows of her nipples. I stared at her combat boots to finish my thought. "Not since I was stuck in the hospital."

Her mouth opened but didn't respond. I knew she wanted to call bullshit, but I really haven't touched a drop, except when hanging out with Ricky. She looked me down and up. My clothes were dirty, but my eyes were clear. She froze, weighing the options again.

I pushed on the door. She wasn't holding it closed and didn't move to stop me. I stepped inside, our bodies so close to brushing together for the first time in so long.

"Ugh." She shook her head. "You smell like the road. How do you always do that?"

"I don't have a shower." I wanted to repeat the ritual of a hundred times before, flop onto the couch, have her flop on top of me, but I noticed a pretty big change in her life while I was gone.

The laptop on the coffee table was turned off but flipped open. I put my hand on it. Still warm.

I looked at Alli. "What the hell is this?" She never wanted a computer around, said they came between her and her instincts. I wondered what other changes I missed.

Alli's hands went to her hips. "That's how people deal art these days." She sighed. "It's making me money."

"Where did it come from?" If it was from Harry, it would be connected to the system.

"Uh, Best Buy." She was suspicious of me, but she wasn't lying.

"Nobody gave it to you?"

"Nobody ever gave me anything." She stared me down. There was no proof I would stay sober, but I wasn't sure what she knew, so I stared back. We squared off, like the old days, but we weren't evenly matched. With pity in her eyes, her voice changed almost to a whisper. "What finally put you in the hospital?"

I eyed the computer. The black eye of its webcam lens stared back at me. The contacts she made at our shows used to be enough to make her career, and the couch it faced was my spot. I frowned at Alli. "A broken heart."

She rolled her eyes. "Get out." But then she bit her lip, and her blue eyes turned playful.

I felt a rush. It was like the old days, competition and anger and passion mixing into something neither of us could quite control. "Just tell me if anyone contacted you about me."

"Yeah, an email said if you came by, I should tell some guy called Hans. He's trying to find you."

I looked at the laptop again. "Hans contacted you on that?"

"Yeah."

"Shit." I closed the lid of the computer. "The system could be in there."

"What are you talking about?"

She was going to call me crazy, but I had to tell her. "A program that can infiltrate your computer."

She nodded slowly. "You're right, there was an attachment that the antivirus program said was suspicious, so I didn't download it."

"Oh, well." That was probably okay. "Look, I don't need you to take me back, but Harry got me involved in this weird thing. I'm just trying to get out and put my life back together. You're the only one I trust."

Those were Harry's words coming out of my mouth. I can imagine how he felt before he found me. I was probably supposed to be his lifeline, the thing that was going to keep him from flipping out and losing what he used to believe in. Why didn't he tell me that? I could have done a better job.

I balled my hands together, and I dropped to my knees. "Just please let me stay here for a little while. I swear things are different with me." I pointed at the notebook in her hands. "Read that, and you'll see. You'll see what I've been through."

She stood over me, and she sighed. "You don't think you're a rock star anymore, that your shit doesn't stink?"

"No, I know I stink." I tried to smile. "Please?"

She laughed, the high ringing chuckle I would have killed for back in the day. "Alright, Oscar, a few nights on the couch, but you're not moving in. Keep your hands to yourself, and you better keep your mouth shut when my boyfriend comes over."

"Boyfriend?" That hit me hard. I couldn't breathe. My chest felt tight. She fucking replaced me. "Okay." At least I had a spot on the couch.