You're So Pretty On the Outside

I happened to come upon the news of Mathieu by chance. It was my break at work so I was just searching the web and looking at random news articles when one in particular caught my eye.

‘Lead Vocalist of Beheading of a King Hospitalized’

My eyes went wide and I quickly clicked on the link.

‘Lead vocalist, Mathieu Paquette, of the French-Canadian band Beheading of a King has recently been hospitalized. No information has been released, but it seems as if the young screamer has overdosed. On what, we can’t be sure of so far, but hopefully he will make a full recovery.’

I was overwhelmed with guilt when I realized what everyone must be going through without me to help them through it. Biting my lip, I created a new e-mail address using fake contact information and set out to e-mail my old friends anonymously. I typed in all of their screen names into the top box and proceeded to write the letter.

Dear Jennifer, Sarah, Oli, Matt K., Matt N., Lee, and Curtis,

I’m really sorry to hear about Mathieu. I’m sure that you’re all going through a hard time right now and I really wish that I could be there with you all to help you along, but as it is I cannot.

I assume that he got into everything because of what happened with Venita, but hopefully he’ll be able to deal with everything properly with time. The loss must have hit him hard. I hope he gets better soon.

Love and miss you all,
An Old Friend

It took me a while to decide what to sign it with since I didn’t want to use my name or any nicknames that any of them knew about. I hit the send button and the message was sent.

“What are you doing?” someone asked, causing me to jump.

I quickly closed the browser and spun around to send a fake smile at my supervisor.

“I just got off of my break.”

“Well, get to work. You don’t get paid to sit around.”

I stuck my tongue out at her when she turned around and swiveled my chair to get to work.

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*Oli*

My phone dinged, telling me that I received an e-mail and I withdrew the vibrating device from my pocket.

I glanced at the sender’s name and rolled my eyes slightly when I didn’t recognize it. Reading over the message I got a bit confused. The writing style seemed so familiar, like how someone I once knew would speak, but I couldn’t place my finger on it.

It was obvious that we all knew the person since whoever it was referred to us by name and they ended with ‘An Old Friend’, but I couldn’t figure out who it was.

“You guys all got an e-mail right?” I asked, glancing around the hospital waiting room.

The girls checked their phones and the guys just shrugged, not having phones with the service.

“Yeah,” Sarah stated, confused.

The two of them passed their phones around so that everyone could read it and everyone looked at each other oddly.

“Do you know who could have sent it?” I asked.

It seemed as if nobody had a clue, but I could see Jennifer thinking about something.

“Could it have been Angel?” she questioned.

“Don’t be daft. She left us. She wouldn’t try to randomly contact us,” Bear scoffed.

Sarah sent him a warning glance and shook her head. “I don’t think so. That isn’t her e-mail address and if it was she probably would have signed with Anna forgetting that we would recognize it.”

Everyone murmured in agreement and it became silent.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Jen asked in a small voice.

I nodded. “Mattie and Bear got to him pretty quickly. I think he’ll be fine.”

“But what if he doesn’t? I don’t think that I can handle losing another one of my friends.”

I watched as Lee pulled the scared girl onto his lap and whispered something to her. I pulled Amanda into my side, slightly jealous that Lee still had Jennifer when I didn’t have Angel. Talking about her, even for such a short time, brought up those feelings of rejection and abandonment.

I kept thinking about the e-mail the entire time we were waiting, trying to figure out who could have sent the damn thing.

Finally the doctors told us that we should leave for a while and rest up. They said that Mathieu was in a medicine induced coma and even if he made it, he would still be sedated for a few days.

Jennifer was the only person who would be allowed to see him anyway because she claimed to be his sister. I guess in a way she is. Jen really is all that the poor boy has other than his band and it seems as if he’s going to lose that too if he keeps this up.

I sighed. I could imagine, to an extent, what he was going through since I had lost the girl that I loved, but I would never turn to drugs like that. Weed, sure, but not heroin or anything like that. At least he knew that Venita hadn’t chosen to leave him and that she would have stayed with him forever if she could.

I just couldn't understand why he didn't try to just talk to one of us.

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*Angel*

When I got home I didn’t just lounge around like I normally would. I went to my room, locked the door, and pulled out a piece of paper to begin writing. It was inevitable that Grace would meet her father at some point in time and I wanted to be prepared in case something happened to me before she turned 18.

Dear Oli,

I know that you never expected anything like this…