The Kids Aren't Alright

[Dr Adjective]

"That's not fair,"

That's what she'd said. It weighed on Heather, gazing out of the window on the short drive home. She'd tried to walk it back when she saw the look in her dad's eyes, explain that it wouldn't be fair to him to be burdened with her demands on his money and time, that he'd been really going places in his career lately and the last thing he needed was a millstone to slow that down, but she couldn't take back what she'd really meant.

Looking off to the east, the Strat's observation tower jutted out of the skyline, its dull, off-white edifice looking a little out-of-place, a little ridiculous, even a little lonely unlit and towering above all else in the mid-afternoon sun.

"Alright, let me take you home."

That's what he'd said, right before the two left. The intonation, the weight he'd left on the word home, Heather was certain it was pointed. She'd wanted to scream at him then, that he really was being unfair. How could he justify making such an offer? How could he justify it now? There'd been a window where she wouldn't have hesitated to go home to LA, but that window had passed. Heather had a life here now. She had friends here, few but cherished. A band, a weekend job. She contributed to a local punk zine, she was about to get her Class M license, her mother had offered to pay for most of a motorbike if Heather would show willing by contributing a token amount too. Heather had put down roots, made Vegas her home.

Her eyes lingered on that lonely tower, pointing the way to the Strip. Sure, she still hated the cynical shrine to heartless acquisition that passed for the city's heart, the empty shell of style and sheen that was her mother's domain, but Vegas was not just Paradise. Dammit, it was her home. She'd been there longer than she could ever remember being in Santa Monica. It was a shithole, but it was her shithole.

The soft sounds of some middle-of-the-road liberal punk rock song or other provided white noise for the brief trip back to Meadowbrook, making up for the pointed lack of conversation. Much later, Heather would regret not speaking up, not making more of an effort in person to patch up the little rift she'd helped tear between them, but at the time she was far more concerned with how unreasonable her father was being. It was his job to make things right, she hadn't asked him to have a baby, he'd made the choice to have a kid with a woman who obviously wasn't right for him, it was his fault and his responsibility.

He hugged her at the edge of the property, warm but awkward. When Heather lingered at the door, he hovered by the wall. They exchanged little waves. Then he was gone. Back into his car, back to his motel room, back to California without the answer he'd come to Nevada hoping for.



Heather fell heavily onto her bed, down in the solitude of the basement, her basement. It hadn't taken long during the Covid lockdown for her to graduate from spending all her time in there to fully moving her bedroom into it. She fished her phone out of her pocket, grabbed her headphones from the bag she'd left by the bedside. As she sat up and opened her journal, the hefty bass intro to FEEL NOTHING flowed into her ears.

Dear fucking diary,

Jake Duzsik's ethereal voice spoke of getting numb, cooling the burn. If only it were so simple.

Guess I decided today that I'm staying in this piece of shit town.

She paused. Her mind wandered to her reasons why. Emma, Lily, Tammy. The band, the museum. Beelzebub and her goons. Ash.

What did he think I was going to say?

Heather sighed. She didn't have anything else to add, save her standard, sarcastic sign-off.

xoxo, Heather