I'm driving down the highway. I don't know where I'm going. And I don't care. Anywhere but where I am.

The song is playing on the radio. Our song. My song. Shane's song.

I'm running. Again. I was running when I came here. I'm still running.

And I pray that the demons won't find me.

But let me tell it from the beginning.

I don't know what drew me to L.A. in the first place. Maybe it was the lights, the glam. Or maybe it was the promise of a better life, with fame and riches and supermodel girlfriends. Whatever the reason, it was the first place I fled when I was old enough to leave home.

I grew up just outside of San Francisco. My father was an amazing guitar player. My fondest memories of him were the nights when he would invite the members of his band over and they would practice in the basement of our house. He taught me how to play when I was really young and sometimes if I was lucky he would let me jam with him. He used to say to me "You sure have talent, Grant," and you'd think I had just won the lottery. A compliment from my dad or one of his bandmates was enough to keep my head in the clouds for a week. That's all I ever remember wanting to do. To play in a band. To be like my dad.

But then there were the nights when he would come home drunk and forget that I was there. He would take my mother into the bedroom and they would scream at each other for hours. I don't know what went on behind the closed bedroom door. I hope that I never do. I was afraid of my father when he was like that.

The guy had real talent. He could have been someone. He could have made it. But he threw all of it away with his drinking. Eventually his band broke up and he spent more and more nights alone, drinking to ease the pain of what he had lost. When I got older I made a vow that I would never let anything get in the way of my future. In that respect, I didn't want to be anything like my dad. I vowed that I would never touch a drop of alcohol. Alcohol was my enemy. It had destroyed my family.

When I came of age, I took the money that I had saved for college and moved to Los Angeles, the city of my dreams. I never saw either of my parents again.

I guess that I expected life to be easy once I got out there. But what I found was a cold, empty city. For the first time in my life I was completely alone and I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I couldn't do anything except play the guitar. Those first few weeks were the hardest of my life.

I was able to make some money as a waiter at a restaurant on the east side of the city. It wasn't how I had always pictured my life in L.A., but I was able to save enough money to rent a small apartment and buy a car. I didn't get to play my guitar much (apartments and late night rock sessions don't exactly go well together), and as the weeks went by I began to lose track of my dream of becoming a rock star. I wasn't happy, but the routine I was living in became my life. And not much else existed for me.

I finally talked myself into going out one Saturday night. There was a night club on the other side of town that I had heard boasted some of the best local music around. It was a bit of a drive, but I figured I could use a break from the monotony of my life.

When I got there the place was packed. There was a band on the stage getting ready to play. I found a spot in the back of the club where I had a pretty good view.

And then the music started. Within seconds it had completely washed over me, and all of my dreams came rushing back. It was almost as if I could picture myself up on the stage with those guys, playing with them. The song they were playing was the most beautiful song I had ever heard. That song had power. It stirred something inside of me. A spark that kept building and building until it threatened to explode... then the song ended and the spell broke.

Right away the band launched into another song. The lyrics intrigued me, and I listened, fascinated

. "...And I pray that the demons won't find me./ Now I'm 18 miles from Pittsburgh, maybe/ One day you'll forget you hate me..."

When the second song ended, the band introduced themselves as Verbatim. There were four of them, a drummer, a bass player, a guitarist, and a singer who sometimes played the guitar. The singer intrigued me immensely. He had to be one of the most gorgeous people I had ever seen in my life. He was of average height, and slight of build. He had dark hair, and gray eyes that seemed as if they could look straight through my soul. I was completely awed by him. I wanted to be him.

Something made me stick around that night after the band had finished their set. I lingered at the back of the club as the other people filed out around me. I don't know what prompted me to stay. But I was just about to forget about it and leave when the I heard a commotion on the stage. The singer was arguing with his guitar player. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but they were yelling pretty loud...

The singer was clearly angry. "Something's got to change, Joel. You can't even show up on time anymore. You stumble in an hour late and can barely make it through a half hour set. This has gone too far. You have to make a choice. If you don't, I'll find someone to replace you. See if I won't."

The guitar player, Joel, looked like he was ready to spit daggers at the singer. "What about you? You put yourself way up a pedestal away from the rest of us down here on earth. Maybe it's time you came back to the real world and stopped living in the clouds. I'm not changing my lifestyle for you, or anyone else. Replace me if you want. Why the hell do I stay with you guys anyway? You'll never go anywhere. You'll still be playing in this little hole-in-the-wall ten years from now."

I thought the argument was about to come to blows when the guitar player took a flying leap off the stage and shoved past me out the door. I realized that I had subconsciously stepped closer to the stage to listen to the argument. The singer spotted me and called out. "Hey. Who the hell are you and what do you want?"

I didn't know what to say. I just stood there staring. I didn't know whether to run or to answer his question. My mind went blank. What did I want? Why was I standing there?

The singer seemed to sense my unease because he smiled, jumped down off the stage and offered me his hand. "I'm Shane."

I still couldn't move. I must have looked like an idiot, standing there like I was.

Shane shrugged, took his hand back, and turned away from me.

My voice found its way back.

"Um... my name is Grant."

Shane didn't turn around. "Nice to meet you."

"Yeah, you too... um, that first song you played... it's amazing. I've never heard anything like it before"

That comment seemed to interest Shane because he finally turned back around to face me. "It's something I've been working on. It's not completely finished yet. It's called 'Alone.' It's kind of about my life, I guess you could say."

Now I was on a roll. "The song you sang after that reminded me of myself. I ran away to L.A. a few months ago. I came out here to find my dream. I play the guitar and I've always wanted to play in a band. I--" I might have rambled on all night long, had Shane not interrupted me.

"You play the guitar? No kidding? You any good?"

"I ah, well... I... I haven't done much practicing lately."

"You want to play in a band, huh? How about this one?"

"I ah..." There I went, losing my voice again. What were we talking about? A band? This band? Me?

Shane, aware of my unease, said "Tell you what. Why don't you come over to my house Monday evening? The guys will be there. Bring your guitar and we'll jam. We'll see if you can play or not. Sound like a deal?"
"Sure, I... ah... I would love to." What else could I say?
"Great. Let me give you directions."
Later my sense of reality kicked back in and it all seemed like a dream. I went from having no friends and no life to being invited to play with this great band, all in one night. Was it a simple twist of fate or just a matter of being in the right place at the right time? Or something else entirely? I had no idea.

I spent a couple of sleepless night wondering what would happen Monday evening. What if they didn't like me? Or what if they did? Which would be worse? Oh God, what had I gotten myself into?

My nerves were on edge the entire weekend. I couldn't think properly. I spent Monday morning on pins and needles. I didn't belong with these people. Surely they would pick up on that.

Shane lived across town and the drive to his house took the better part of an hour. On the way over it occurred to me that this might all have been a crazy dream and that when I arrived I would find out that there was no Verbatim, and that Shane and his bandmates didn't really exist. I almost turned around and went home. Somehow, I kept driving.

FInally I arrived at the address Shane had given me. The house was fairly large and set apart from its neighbors. There was a long driveway leading up the front porch and a garage to the side of the house. There were several cars already parked at the end of the driveway, so I figured I must be at the right place.

With shaking steps I managed to get out of the car and walk up the steps to the front door. I rang the bell and waited. "I'm not ready for this," I muttered under my breath.

"Grant. I'm glad you decided to come."

I hadn't realize that I had been staring at the ground until I looked up to see Shane standing in the doorway. I hesitated for a moment, but he gestured for me to come inside, so I did.

I must say that for a struggling musician, Shane didn't live too badly. He had expensive taste and the house was exquisitely furnished. As Shane led me past the living room I caught a glimpse of a fancy coffee table made entirely of glass that was sitting in the middle of the floor. The legs were frosted and there was some kind of design etched on the top of it. It wasn't something I would buy, but I supposed that it had probably cost a fortune, and it was nice... if you were into that sort of thing.

Shane led me down into the basement where the other members of the band were busy setting up equipment. I was introduced to the drummer, Chad, and the bass player, Steven. But I hardly glanced at them. My eyes were drawn to a woman standing in the corner. She was, by far, the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. She was the perfect Hollywood icon come to life. She had long blonde hair, a body to die for, a face like a supermodel... I could go on. Shane introduced her to me as his girlfriend, Serena. I was in love.

I don't remember what happened next. I was too absorbed with being nervous and staring at Serena to notice anything else. But then the band started to play and as I joined them I became totally absorbed in the music and forgot all about being nervous. I even, for a minute or two, forgot about Serena. Well, maybe not completely...

We rocked for about an hour. It was the first time I had really enjoyed myself in a long time. I never wanted it to end.

When we were finished playing, Shane got together with his bandmates. I took a seat near Serena and we struck up a conversation. I don't remember what it was about.

A few minutes later, Shane came over and sat down beside me.

"So what do you think of the band?"

"Honestly? I think you guys are awesome. I would love to be able to do this everyday. I could do it all day long."

Shane didn't say anything for a minute. He seemed to be thinking something over. He continued. "The band came together four or five years ago. We were fresh out of high school. I've known all the guys since my freshmen year."

I did the math and figured Shane to be about three or four years older than me.

"In high school, Joel and I were really close. We would jam at each other's houses every night after school until our parents threatened to call the cops. He got into drugs our senior year. He said it wasn't a big deal. He said he only was selling them to make money, and that he wasn't taking them. It was for the band, he said. I could have given him money if that's want he wanted, but I didn't complain. Once out of school, we got together with the other guys and Verbatim was born. We wrote some songs, played some gigs, and figured ourselves to be the greatest rock band that ever graced the planet. For a while we were doing really well. And then last year things took a turn for the worst. Joel was into some pretty heavy drugs by then and it was too late for me to do anything about it. He started showing up late for gigs. Sometimes he wouldn't show up at all and we'd have to cancel at the last minute. That really pissed off the club owners and we found it harder and harder to find a place to play. I knew Joel had a problem and I tried to help him. But every time I confronted him about it he blew up at me. And then the other night I finally lost it. He was almost an hour late. I practically had to beg to get us that gig. I was afraid that he wasn't going to show, and I knew that if that happened we wouldn't have any choice but to try and play without him. I could tell he was on something the moment walked through the door, but there was nothing I could do about it. It was a wonder that he made it through the set. But I had had it. I told him what I thought, and he got angry and left. The band needs someone to replace him, Grant. How about you?"

I had been dreaming of this moment all my life. In my wildest dreams I had dared to hope that this question might one day be asked of me. I knew the truth. It wasn't that my unbelievable skill with the guitar had awed Shane and his bandmates to tears. They were in a spot and I was the closest thing around that could help get them out of it. And part of it was Shane's ego. Shane had boasted to Joel that he could find a replacement for him. To fire Joel one night and find someone else to take his place two days later was a major ego boost for Shane. I knew all that and I didn't care. My opportunity had finally been handed to me. I took it and ran.

"Yes," was all that I said. It was all that I needed to say. Shane went upstairs to fix drinks while the other members of the band (my band), and Serena, congratulated me. I was the happiest that I had ever been in my entire life.

Shane came back in and offered me a drink. I remembered the vow that I had made when I left home. I had promised myself that I wouldn't so much as touch a drop of alcohol as long as I lived. So far I had stuck to it. I didn't want to end up like my father. But I stared into Shane's eyes, the eyes of the man I worshiped, and I knew that I would do anything he asked me to. I smiled, and took a drink. I had broken my vow. And it felt good.

As I was leaving that night (or maybe it was early the next morning... after a few drinks it became hard to tell), Serena slipped me her phone number on a piece of paper. I couldn't have been more excited if she had handed me a million dollars. And so ended the night that my life began to come together for the first time. And the night that it began to completely come apart.

I devoted my entire life to Verbatim. I quit my job at the restaurant and concentrated on writing songs with Shane. Shane and I became inseparable. We did everything together. I never really got that close with the other guys in Verbatim. They both had families and lives outside of the band. Shane and I only had each other.

Shane was a difficult person to understand. I was often reminded of the comment that Joel had made on the night that he left the band. About Shane putting himself up on a pedestal and refusing to come down and mingle with the rest of the world. Joel was right about that, somewhat. Shane was a very introspective person and he had a hard time letting his feelings show on the outside. He was a very caring person once you got to know him, but to strangers he could appear almost callous. Not cold really, but indifferent. It's like he had his own private concerns to deal with and he was above the problems of the everyday world. He was a loner. As close as we were, I never really felt like I could totally reach him. He could be so warm one minute and then say something totally off-the-wall cold the next. I don't think he ever meant to hurt anyone with what he said. He simply didn't realize what he was saying, or how it sounded to someone else.

Shane didn't talk about his past much. I knew that he had grown up in Los Angeles and that his parents had left him a lot of money. That was about it. He never offered to talk about his childhood, and I never pushed him about it.

The band really began to take off. Shane and I finished the song, "Alone," that Shane had been working on for years. We were so proud of that song.

"I see fragments of my life in every line." Shane told me one day. "That's why I had such a hard time finishing it. I still have a hard time sharing it with other people. It's like I give a piece of myself to the audience every time I sing it, and I'm scared to death that they'll reject it."

It was a beautiful song. The audience didn't reject it. They loved it.

The months flew by and we found a manager, signed a record deal, and started recording our album. "Alone" was to be our first single. We were on our way to becoming huge stars. Or so we thought.

I was seeing my best friend's girlfriend behind his back. Sometimes I felt like a jerk for doing it, but I was in love. It seemed like love, anyway.

Serena aside, my relationship with Shane couldn't have been any better. We would have died for each other. At least we liked to believe that we would have. We never dreamed that one day we might actually have to.

I'll never forget that fateful night. I was sleeping soundly in my apartment. Serena was sleeping naked beside me. The phone downstairs rang and woke me up. It was around 2 in the morning. There was no way I was getting up to answer it.

Serena stirred beside me. "Grant..."

"Go back to sleep," I muttered.

The phone downstairs had just stopped ringing when my cell phone went off. The thing was stuffed somewhere in the pocket of the pants that I had tossed off before getting into bed. The ringing was coming from somewhere down the hall. I ignored it. It stopped. It started again. It was a terribly annoying ring-tone.

I cursed myself for choosing that particular tone as I got up and started digging around for my pants. I was vaguely aware of Serena watching me with an amused look on her face. The phone kept ringing. I finally found my pants, lying half under the couch in the living room. In a sleepy haze I grabbed a hold of the phone and was about to turn it off when I saw and recognized the number on the caller ID. It was Shane. "Oh shit," I said to myself. "He can't know about me and Serena!" I answered the phone.

Now like I said, Shane had never been the kind of person to wear his emotions on his sleeve. But when I picked up the phone that night, he was hysterical. It kind of freaked me out and I knew immediately that something was very, very wrong.

"Grant?" I could hardly make out what Shane was trying to say.

"I'm here. Calm down for a sec. What's the matter?"
"Oh God, Grant. I... I need you to come over... now. Please. I... I can't... handle this by myself. Please."

Shivers went up my spine. What in the world could have happened that would shake Shane up like that? I was terrified. By then I was wide awake and nothing could have kept me from going over to see Shane.

"I'll be right over."

The line went dead.

"What the hell was that about?" Serena had found her clothes (some of them) and was standing behind me.

"I don't know. Something happened to Shane. I've got to go over to his place. Get the heck out of here and if anyone asks, you didn't see me at all last night, okay?" Serena looked annoyed, but she agreed. She certainly didn't seem too concerned about Shane. She found the rest of her clothing and walked out the door. Grabbing my keys off of the floor, I was right behind her.

There was very little traffic at that hour. I made it to Shane's house in record time. My hands were shaking and I don't know how I managed to stay on the road.

As I pulled into the familiar driveway and got out of my car, Shane bolted out the front door and stood on the front porch steps. It was hard to make him out in the darkness, but at first glance it looked like he was soaking wet. I ran up to the porch and he grabbed my arm. He was sobbing, and he held onto me for a long time. When I pulled away I realized that my friend wasn't soaking wet at all. He was covered in blood. It had soaked through his clothing, his hair was plastered in it, and it was all over his face and hands.

"What the hell?" I didn't know what to say. I was in total shock, taking it all in.

"I didn't mean to. It was an accident, I swear." Shane was hysterical again, and I had to keep him from falling down.

"Calm down. What was an accident?" I tried to stay calm even though I was about to lost the contents of my stomach. The sight and smell of the blood was getting to me.

"Come inside." Shane slowly staggered back into the house, and I followed.

I was completely unprepared for what I saw when I stepped into the living room.

The expensive solid glass table was shattered into broken pieces. The whole room was covered in blood. It stained the carpet, the walls, the furniture. And in the middle of the mess was Joel's body, it too covered in blood and bits of glass.

"Oh my God..." My knees buckled and I had to swallow back the bile that was rising in my throat. Shane grabbed me and pulled me into the dinning room.

I was trembling all over. "We've got to call an ambulance. What the hell happened in there?"

I had my cell phone in my hand but Shane grabbed it from me as I fumbled with the buttons. "It won't do any good. He's dead, Grant."

"Then we have to call the cops."

"No. Please no, Grant. I'll go to jail. Listen to me. Please."

"You fucking killed him, didn't you?" Now I was on the verge of hysterics. "Tell me what the hell happened!"

"I'm trying to, Grant. Give me a second."

I shoved a stack of dirty dishes off of the dinning room table and shoved Shane down onto a chair. "Tell me what happened."

For a while he just sat there with his head on the table, sobbing. Soothingly, I took one of his hands and he seemed to calm down a bit. He started to talk.

"Joel came over. It was the first time I had seen him since he stormed out of the club that night. He was ... he wanted money. He had this crazy look in his eyes. I wouldn't give him any. I told him to leave. And then he got angry. He ridiculed me. God, Grant, he told me about the song... and he knew about Serena."

"What song? What about Serena? You're not making any sense. Tell me Shane, or I'll call the cops."

Shane took a deep breath and continued. "Every word that Joel spoke to me tonight tore a piece of my heart out and threw it against the wall. But every word he spoke to me is true. The song. My song. 'Alone.' Joel was sleeping with the producer's wife. So he heard things. He told me that the record company is giving our song to some other group. Some other group that's more 'marketable' than we are. They're planning on dropping us the first chance they get. Our songs are going to be recorded by someone else."

"C'mon, Shane. Get real. They can't do that," I said. "We signed a contract."

Shane's eyes took on a faraway look and he seemed to stare straight through the wall and into the next room. "Oh? Can't they, Grant? Tell me something. Did you ever actually read that contract we signed? Or were you like me? Too damn excited and immature to care about what it said. It was a record contract, after all. It had to be legit"

"I..." I didn't know how to answer that question. "So you murdered Joel?"

"I didn't murder anybody! But I couldn't just stand there and listen to Joel put down everything that meant something in my life. I was so angry. But I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I... I shoved Joel. Hard. He wasn't expecting it and he stumbled backward and fell onto the glass table. It broke, and he stood back up covered in blood. He was mad. He took out a knife. He was going to kill me, Grant! I didn't have a choice. I had to do something. So I... grabbed the biggest piece of glass that I could find. I was only going to use it to get him to back off. But he lunged at me. And then... I... I hit him with the jagged end of the glass. I hit him in the neck. And blood spurted everywhere. And he fell... and he didn't get up again. Oh God, Grant, help me."

I held him as he collapsed into another bout of hysterics. "You believe me, don't you? I didn't mean to kill him."

"Yeah," I whispered, not sure whether I meant it or not. "I believe you." I honestly didn't know what to think. But something else was bothering me.

"Shane, what did you mean when you said that Joel 'knew about Serena'?"

In a flash, Shane became angry. "You slept with her too, didn't you, Grant? Oh don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Serena slept with every one of us at some point. And you never even guessed, did you? Well everyone else knew about it!" He pulled away from me.

"Death was something that I meant to give myself tonight, not Joel. I was going to kill myself tonight, Grant. But look who's lying on the floor!"

"Why, Shane? Why? Who cares if the record company stole our songs? We can write more songs. We'll get another record deal. Why would you want to kill yourself?"
Shane shook his head slowly. "Oh you poor, ignorant bastard. You really have no idea, do you, Grant?. Serena has AIDS."

There was a pause.

"And I have it too."

I felt like a bomb had exploded inside my head. The room was spinning and blurring around me.

And from somewhere far away, Shane spoke to me, softly.

"Did you use a condom, Grant?"

I don't remember when I regained my senses. I do remember that before the sun came up Shane and I dumped Joel's body in an abandoned lot. There wasn't much in the way of an investigation after the body was found. I suppose the police figured it was just another drug deal gone bad and thumbs up to whoever chose to rid the world of another useless druggie. It's not like Joel had any family or anyone to miss him. Isn't it a wonderful world we live in?

I also remember driving home the next morning. The the sun was just beginning to rise. The city was at my back, the wind was running through my hair, and just two days prior, I would have marveled at the possibilities. But it wasn't two two prior.

"So this is how it all goes down," I thought to myself. "Joel's dead. Serena is going to die. Shane is going to die. I'm probably going to die." It hit me. Hard. I almost drove into the guardrail. For the first time ever, I began to understand Shane. I began to understand the despair that made him want to take his own life. And I began to understand the desperation that drove him to kill someone else. And I hated myself for it. I had lived my entire life afraid that I would turn into a monster like my father. And looking back I hadn't. No. The monster I had become was much, much worse.

There wasn't much left of our lives after that. All of our cards where laid out on the table, and each and every one was tainted.

Serena got really sick. Shane went to visit her in the hospital once, and I went with him. She seemed happy to see me, but I could finally see the truth. Her outer beauty had begun to melt away and I could see for the first time the ugliness that lay underneath it. I just wanted to get out of that hospital. It reeked of death. I never saw Serena again and I don't know what became of her. I don't really care.

Shane replaced the carpet in his living room and repainted the walls. We tried to cover up what had happened that horrible night, but we couldn't hide it up from ourselves.

The record company dumped us for a more marketable band. It was too much stress for us to handle, and Verbatim broke up. But Shane and I stayed together. We still jammed in his basement every night, and for a while life was tolerable. But then Shane started to get sick too, and I was forced to face reality. And it terrified me. Shane was all that I had in the world, and once he was gone I would be all alone again. I wondered what a cruel world I lived in that could harbor such a fate.

The last evening that Shane I had together we spent in the basement of his house. He was so weak by that point that I practically had to carry him down the stairs. He sat holding his guitar, trying to play a song. The notes came out thick and staccato, but I recognized them. And suddenly I was swept away to another time and place. I was at the club where I had first heard that song. Shane was on the stage with his band. Joel was still alive. I had just walked in. And the song had captured me. The lyrics ran through my mind and I started to sing along with Shane.

"...But you don't have to be alone/Just let me in and show me home/'Cuz you've lost yourself in your own mind/And these lies you live in lead you blind."

I broke down then. I couldn't stand the thought of being alone. But Shane had been alone all his life. He chose to be that way. I tried to reach him. But he wouldn't let me.

That night as he lay dying in bed, Shane spoke to me. He talked of how he came to write the song "18 Miles from Pittsburgh."

"I was running away, Grant," he said. My band was falling apart, the girl I was engaged to was seeing someone else. I had lived here all my life and the city had finally gotten to me. I needed to get away from it. So I left. I drove clean across the country before I realized that it wasn't going to do me any good. I looked out my window and I saw one of those signs along the highway that tells you how many miles away you are from someplace. It said 'Pittsburgh, 18.' And that was when it hit me that it wasn't L.A. I was running away from. I was running away from myself. The only problem was that I would still be with me wherever I went. Pittsburgh, New York, Miami. I turned back around and came home. And I wrote that song. I never lost my demons. They would have found me no matter where I went."

He paused for a second to glance at me.

"But what about you, Grant? Did you ever lose the demons you were running from?"

I looked into his eyes. He was frail, just a shadow of the man he had once been. I couldn't stand to see him like that. I looked away. "I thought I did. But they're still here."

Shane smiled. "You never lose them. They're a part of you. It takes a strong person to accept those demons and come to terms with them. That's the only way to be rid of them. I could never do it.

"You know, It's easy to blame other people for your misfortunes. But the key to letting go of the past is to stop feeling sorry for yourself and to take responsibility for your own decisions. Serena isn't responsible for the way that I am right now. It's no one's fault but my own. I made my own choices in still have a chance to embrace your demons, Grant. It's too late for me. But not for you."

I was stunned. Was that what I had been doing? Had I blamed alcohol for my father's problems? No one made him pick that bottle up. Had I run away from one demon only to come face to face with another? Had I blamed Serena for everything that had happened to Shane and myself? No one had made me sleep with her. Just like no one made any of us sign our music over to that record company. We chose to do it. It was quite a revelation for me.

When I looked back at the bed, Shane was gone. But his dying words would stick with me for the rest of my life. I used to wish he had killed me instead of Joel that night. The emotional scars I suffered seemed much too heavy to bear. But on the night that Shane died, something changed inside of me. I was no longer quite as afraid of being alone as I had been. That night I was on the verge of taking the first step toward embracing my demons.

Shane willed all of his belongings to me. But I didn't want them. I just wanted to get out of that city. I packed some clothes, got in my car, and drove off, leaving the City of Angels behind me forever. There was nothing there for me anymore. I didn't look back once.

So here I am, driving east. Shane is gone, Serena is gone, Verbatim is gone. Yet I'm still here. I wonder why. I wonder what greater purpose has kept me on earth for just a little bit longer.

But what about me, you ask. Do I have AIDS too?

No.

So far I don't.

"Alone" is playing on the radio. My song. Shane's song. No. The words and the music are the same, but it sounds nothing like the song that Shane wrote. It's a good song, none the less.

I am still running. Except that this time I'm running in the right direction. Now I've shared my secrets, and the demons that follow me don't seem quite as scary anymore. I don't know where I'm going or what I'll do with myself once I get there. But as long as I have a future I have hope. I will make my own decisions and take responsibility for my own actions. I might ever have a drink or two every now and then. I won't let anything get in the way of my dreams. And dreams can always change.

I look out my window. The sun is just beginning to rise. The city is at my back, the wind is running through my hair, and I marvel at the possibilities. I turn the radio up and sing along. And I do a strange thing. I laugh.

© 2001