The One You Once Loved

She was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Her smile was the light of the room and her laugh was the music. I wanted her to be mine, but she wasn't. She belonged to someone else no doubt. A girl that beautiful had to have been taken. She danced around with Eric and laughed with him. I wanted that to be me, but I hadn't met her yet. I didn't know her name yet.

Eric must've noticed that we weren't on stage anymore, because he stopped dancing with the girl. He grabbed her hand and starting walking towards us. My eyes stayed on their hands. There was no way she was with Eric, but that's what it looked like.

They stopped before the five of us, the five in my band, and he grinned. My band mates and I exchanged a brief look. "Hey Katarina, this is Jared, Pat, Kennedy, Garrett, and John. Guys, this is Katarina, she's my girlfriend."

She smacked his chest. "Shut it, Halvorsen," she said, then looked at us. "He wishes I was his girlfriend-"

"True!" Eric interjected.

"-but I'm not," she finished. "And call me Katie. Eric and I are just friends."

Next to her, Eric rolled his eyes. "You know, you don't have to keep saying that, Kat."

"I don't want your friends to think bad of me first thing. Who in their right mind would date you?"

We all laughed, including Eric. This girl had spunk and sass, something we all had and liked in our group. Katie asked if there was somewhere she could get water, and Kennedy agreed to show her. That made me jealous. I knew Kennedy had taken a liking to her and would try to talk to her before I could.

Once Ken and Katie were gone, the other guys, except Eric, dispersed. "She's the girl I met in LA. She lives up there, but she's actually moving to Phoenix. We're down here looking for a place for her to live."

"She's gorgeous," I said. Eric nodded in agreement. "Is uh, is she single?"

He gave me a look, which I knew too well. It meant there was a major flaw in her that we hadn't seen yet. "You can't date her, John. None of you can. She uh, Katie doesn't date anyone."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Why not?"

Slowly, he ran his hand over his mouth. "She has a heart disease. She's dying. And the worst part is, it could happen at pretty much any time. The doctors told her she has about eighteen months before she needs to start worrying and planning. That's why she's moving, her doctor is down here. She wants to be closer as the inevitable approaches."

My eyes widened at his words. There was no way that girl was dying. She looked fine, she looked perfect even. I tried to think of something to say, but nothing came out. "What - how?" I asked.

I could see that it made Eric upset, it was obvious he cared for her as a good friend. "Just don't tell her I told you. She doesn't want anyone to know or to treat her different."

Before I could reply, Kennedy was walking back with Katie. They were both grinning and in Katie's hand, she had a bottle of something. "Look what Kenny found!" she giggled.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. He was with her for five minutes and she was already calling him Kenny. Of course he was able to do that. She held up the handle of tequila, a wide grin on her gorgeous face. Eric cheered as he reached for the bottle. He suggested that we do shots, which made Katie yell out in happiness. Jared, Garrett, and Pat showed up at the agreement to do shots and Tim showed up with a bunch of plastic cups. Katie and Kennedy filled the cups the amount of a shot and passed them out, since we didn't have shot glasses.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Garrett interrupted. "We need to cheers this. And I say we cheers to Katie!"

She smiled as we took the shot. "You guys are awesome!" she told us.

"You know, Kat, Sean would kill you if he knew what you were doing," Eric said.

We all looked at each other. "Sean Hartfield? Why?" Garrett asked.

Katie rolled her eyes as Eric laughed. "Sean likes to think he's my older brother. I've known him since I was born and he just is protective of me," she explained. We all knew Sean, he grew up with us also, but he had never mentioned knowing a Katie.

"Holy shit!" Tim exclaimed. "You're the girl he was talking about when he said he was going to visit a friend in Los Angeles. But he called you KC?"

She nodded. "My middle initial is a C. He's the only one who calls me that. But uh yeah, that's me."

Tim pursed his lips together. "He said that you have-" he stopped himself, and I knew why, but no one else did. He just shook his head and didn't finish, which I saw Katie smile about. When no one was looking, she mouthed a thank you to Tim, who just nodded softly.

Katie clapped her hands together and pointed at the bottle. "Let's do another!"

We did three more rounds of shots after that, which ended up finishing off the bottle since there were so many of us. Tim said that there was more liquor on the bus and he excused himself to go get it.

While we waited for Tim to get back, Garrett was scrolling through his music. He passed by a Neil Young song and Katie called out. "Hey, hey, go back! You can't pass up Neil Young! And turn it up!"

I grinned at her, agreeing. Garrett laughed and went back. "You like this song?" I asked as Neil sang.

She nodded. "It's my song!" she giggled. "My, my, hey, hey never gets old!"

Everyone agreed with her, it was one of our favorites also and we had even covered a version of it. It was something fun we did and it was actually pretty good.

Katie was a terrible singer, but she did it anyway. Her voice was God awful singing, but she looked adorable. She looked adorable also as she grinned when Tim came back, the bottle of tequila in his hand. Pat and Jared didn't want another shot, which she frowned about, but everyone else did. We all took one together and once we took that one, Katie asked if I would take one more with her, which I agreed to.

"Garrett!" she said loudly. "Play some rock and roll!"

He smiled and nodded while scrolling through his phone. "Katie," I murmured, holding out another shot to her. She smiled and took it quickly.

"I'm liking you more and more alread-already, John," she giggled. "It's too - too bad that uh, that... that we can't ever work out."

She sat next to me on the couch I was on. "Why not?"

Giggling more, she leaned into her, her mouth going towards my ear. "Because - because, John!" she said softly. She sat back. "I'm - I'm dying... I'm gonna - gonna die."

"You're too pretty to die," I told her.

Another laugh left her throat. "Let's take another - another uh, shot, John!"

She was drunk and I was almost there, but I agreed anyways. She gathered everyone around for another shot. Garrett played a song that I didn't know, but Katie did. There was a gorgeous grin on her face while the song played.

"Do you want to-" I paused as she reached for the bottle. I thought she had a hold on it, but she didn't, which almost made the bottle fall when I released it. She caught it, her eyes wide. We both smiled and she raised an eyebrow at me, reminding me I was going to say something. "Do you want to dance?"

Even though no one was dancing, she agreed. She put the bottle down and stood up with me. My arms went around her waist while hers went around my neck. "Why are you so sad, John?" she murmured, reaching up to touch my face.

I furrowed my eyebrows at her. "I'm not sad. I'm happy right now."

"Yeah, right now," she said quickly. "But I mean... what about when you're all alone?" My mouth opened to reply, but she lowered her head and shook her head. "Sorry... I uh, I did- didn't mean to intrude on your life. It's uh... none of my business."

Part of me wanted to finish the conversation, but the bigger part wanted to change to subject, so that's what I did. "So Sean... whenever he uh, talks about you... he makes it sound like he's so... so in love with you."

She laughed. "No, no, we aren't like that. I mean, yes, we love each other, but he just looks after me mostly. Our families are very close."

I nodded and spun her, which made her laugh. "Speak of the freaking devil!" we heard someone yell. Both Katie and I looked up, seeing Sean walk into the backstage area we were hanging out at.

A wide grin spread over Katie's face. She pulled her arms from my neck and ran over to him. "Hey baby girl! What in the hell are you doing here?" he asked, catching her in a hug.

"I'm friends with Eric and he just introduced me to these people, which apparently are your friends, also?" she said. He nodded and pulled her into another hug. He kissed her head and cupped her cheeks. "I'm fine, Sean," she murmured.

He pursed his lips together. "Are you drunk?" Katie giggled and nodded, which made Sean smile. We watched him whisper something to her and she looked down. He kissed her forehead and then looked over at all of us. "I hope you guys are taking care of my girl, here. She's the most important person in my world."

His arm fell to her waist and we all laughed, agreeing that she was quite a catch. "You keep talking like that, and people are gonna know you aren't as tough and macho as you appear to be."

"I am tough and macho, babe. If anyone here messes with you, I'll kick their ass."

We all laughed at Sean's words. Once he pulled himself away from Katie, all of us went to greet him. He was a good friend of ours and it was really good to see him again. It was weird to see him act the way he did around Katie. Usually he was extreme guy. He would talk about girls and about cars. When he was around Katie, he was different. It was obvious he loved her, more than anyone, but you could tell he wasn't in love with her. He cared for her so much.

Sean stepped away from her to use the restroom. She smiled at him as he kissed her head. I took the spot of Sean, going to her side.

"Sorry about him...," she trailed off. "He's really protective of me."

Since Sean arrived, she had sobered up. We all had, but before Sean had gone to the restroom, he said how he wanted to go to the bar.

I shrugged it off. "He cares. There's nothing wrong with that."

"He cares too much. He acts like I'm going to drop dead any second."

I gave her a look, which she laughed about. "It's not funny Katie, you can't talk like that."

She shrugged. "I appreciate you not saying anything. Tim, also. I really don't want everyone to know about...me."

"It's okay," I murmured. "You don't have to do this alone. You have Sean and Eric... And you have me now. You aren't alone."

As she looked up at me, I knew that she would mean more to me than just a friend. She was beautiful and tragic and sad. I could feel myself falling for her already and I didn't even know her middle name.

"Kiss me, John," she told me. It was clear that was still drunk, but something in me told me that her words weren't just a drunken whim.

And she didn't have to tell me twice.