Not Afraid to Die

"What in God's name did you two do?"

The pizza covered pair seated on towels around the coffee table looked up from the chess board to face the guitarist standing in the entrance of the living room. One glance over their bodies proved that Dante shouldn't have told them to make pizza for lunch.

He wanted them to have some fun, not make a mess.

"Rian's teaching me to play chess," Lolita said to her older sibling. She grabbed the piece she had deemed as her favorite, the one that looked like it was wearing a hat with a chunk taken out of it. Rian called it a bishop. She called it pointy hat man. She brought the piece over her arsenal of pawns, across the board, knocked over Rian's king and yelled, "Check mate."

"You can't do that," Rian stated.

"Or course I can do that. Pointy hat man owns all."

"Not in chess. Didn't you retain anything I told you?"

"This game has too many rules," Lolita whined.

"That's a 'no.'"

Dante groaned, cutting into the conversation, "I wasn't talking about the chess board. But while we're on the subject, Lolita doesn't have the attention span to play chess." Before Lolita could respond, he said, "I was referring to the pizza toppings on your clothes."

"Oh, that," Lolita looked down at her pizza sauce stained attire.

She had forgotten about that. No wonder she still smelled pizza sauce. She was under the assumption it was her breath. It was good to know the smell permeating the air was coming from her clothing.

"Yeah, that," Dante said, "Do I even want to look at my kitchen?"

He felt like Neon talking to Jack and Arpeggio.

"Rian cleaned it," Lolita chirped, turning her attention to the chess board again. She reached across the board and grabbed Rian's queen. In Rian's open space, she placed her king. His queen went where her king was meant to be. "Perfect."

Running a hand over his face, Rian said, "You can't take my queen like that."

"But I wanted my side of the board to be run by lesbians."

A fit of laughter overtook Dante's body. He leaned against the wall to keep from falling. Rian hid his smile behind his hand, body shaking with unreleased laughs.

"Oh my gosh," Lolita exclaimed, "They're a biracial couple, too. My side of the board is making progress. I win by default."

"My side has gay kings," Rian said, "And they're a biracial couple. Why do you win?"

Lolita snatched her king from Rian's side of the board and placed it behind her queens. "What gay kings? From what I can tell, your queen divorced your king to be with my queen and her adopted son, the future king."

"But that's not—"

"I. Win."

"I'm not playing chess with you ever again."

"Good, because this game makes no sense."

"She can't even play Twister," Dante remarked, walking into the living room fully and taking a seat on the floor next to his sister. "She gets distracted by the spinner."

A flush crept up Lolita's neck. She wished she could say her brother was lying, but his accusation was far from false. Board games weren't exactly her specialty. Typically decorated in a variety of designs, the boards themselves held her attention better than the game and its rules.

Though she had never felt embarrassed by that fact. It had been something she embraced much like her HIV. Sitting under Rian's questioning gaze, she felt extremely embarrassed.

This wasn't like her.

"You seriously can't play Twister? That doesn't even require any brain power," Rian stated.

"If you're Neon, it does," Dante mumbled.

"She actually comes up with a plan for Twister?"

"I think it’s the anorexic mindset. She has a strategy for everything," he paused, "Lestat does it, too, actually, but that's because he's competitive."

"Game night must be fun on your bus."

"We stopped playing board games on the bus when Lestat tried to flip the coffee table."

"Tried?"

"It was nailed to the flooring to keep it from moving while we traveled. He couldn't get it to move no matter how hard he tried."

"Does he do that often?"

Dante shrugged, "Not really. When he used to drink, he would do it regularly. Anger management issues and alcohol don't mix. But everyone in our band has quirks in their personalities."

"After all the interviews and community service work you guys have done, everyone's seeing that a lot more clearly. I think the fans like knowing you're all real people, not godly creatures who are immune to life."

"Yeah," he sighed, "I still feel bad for Jazz. She should have had a choice in how we found out. After all, she had told Zack. It was only a matter of time before she willingly told us."

Curious, Lolita stared at her brother. What had happened to Jazz? What did the band find out that was so important? She still had no idea. Her brother had never released to information to her, telling her Jazz would be the best person to ask about it. It was her secret, not his. He felt he had no right to expose it. As much as Lolita admired the quality in her brother, she wanted to know what happened.

"I think she's a lot freer now," Rian said.

"Well, she did get it off her chest. That, in itself, probably made her feel free from burden. The moment she realized we accept her no matter what, she seemed to relax about everything," Dante said, "There are times where she slips into her old ways, or has a panic attack in front of us, but we're there to help her through. No one recovers from something like that over night."

"It's scary to see her scars sometimes. To think she would make marks that large on her body, it just doesn't make sense. She and I aren't close friends, but I still feel worried that she'll start doing it again."

"We all are. It's only been five months since we found out. It baffles me more that she would use a sharp object that's not been disinfected first. When we took her razors from her penthouse, a lot of them were stained with dried blood. Who knows what other germs were on them. I know she doesn't share, so the risk of HIV really isn't there, but she can still get an infection."

Pieces of the imaginary puzzle that was Jazz's life came together in Lolita's mind, bringing her to one conclusion that made sense in the conversation. The bracelets, awkward smiles, and the information she was receiving from Dante and Rian pointed to one thing.

"Jazz hurts herself?" Lolita asked.

Was that what the band found out?

Dante snapped his head to the side, eyes wide, "I forgot you were sitting right there."

Huffing, Lolita said to Rian, "If I wasn't harping in his ear all the time, he'd forget to feed me."

"I wouldn't forget to feed you."

"What ever you say," Lolita said, "But really, Jazz hurts herself?"

Conflict flashed in Dante's eyes. He wanted to tell her, Lolita knew he did. He wanted to explain Jazz's story. But she knew he felt he couldn't.

"Did," Dante finally said, "Jazz used to her hurt herself. Things happened in the past that devastated her, and she didn't know how to handle them properly. When we first started trying to help her, she was in the middle of a relapse. About a month after that two month tour, we took all of her new razors from her penthouse because it was getting out of hand again. She's been clean for about two months."

The information didn't seem to sit properly in her mind. How could anyone hate themselves enough to hurt their body? How could someone not treasure the life they were given enough to not do that to themselves? Lolita would never mutilate her body. No matter how cruel life seemed to be, she would never hurt a part of herself. Things always got better. When she was sick, she recovered. When she was sad, she eventually found happiness. The world was full of those cycles. There was always a light somewhere in the darkness.

And Lolita couldn't imagine why Jazz, the gorgeous keyboardist of RxN, the one who exuded mass amounts of sex appeal and confidence, would attack her own body.

It didn't make sense.

Lolita shook her head, aware she had missed a good deal of Rian and Dante's conversation. "I'm going to take a shower," she said, standing from her seat on the floor.

Rian stood with her, "I'll be heading out soon. I may as well get a pizza hug now."

Smiling, Lolita walked around the table into Rian's outstretched arms. As Rian wrapped his arms around her body, Jazz was the furthest thing from Lolita's mind. Axe and pizza sauce swirled around her, teasing her nose. Rian's arms fit perfectly around Lolita, her body molding against his. When they released each other, she could still feel him around her. Even as she waved to her brother and ascended the stairs, she could feel Rian's arms around her.

It hurt her to know she could never tell him about her feelings towards him.