YOU KNOW YOU'RE RIGHT // Kurt Cobain

Chapter 3

Los Angeles CA

June 20, 1989

His hands gripped my waist as he roughly kissed me; I kissed back with equal force, feeling his hands travel upward. I held his face in my hands as I still kissed him, not knowing why I had been so rude to him earlier. His hands reached my shoulders and he shook my shoulders, breaking the kiss. "Wake up, we're home," he told me, and I was instantly confused. "What?" I questioned, and Kurt ran his hand through my hair. "She's not waking up, should we just leave her in here?"

My eyes shot open, and I remembered that I was still in the van. We couldn't find any place to stay that wasn't a ton of money, so we decided to make the long trip home overnight. I looked up, seeing Greg standing above me, with his hand still entangled through my hair. He quickly realized what he was doing and practically jumped ten feet back. "Shit, I'm sorry, I--"

"No, don't worry about it," I reassured him, getting out of the van and grabbing my messenger bag from the floor. I shut the door and walked to my car that was parked in the studio parking lot. "You okay to drive home?" Greg asked, and I nodded, reaching for my keys. "See you tomorrow-- or later," I laughed, unlocking my Volvo Evergreen and starting my drive home.

What even was that dream? First of all, I had a boyfriend. Nate had been in my life since I graduated high school. He and I had met at the reception, because he was one of my classmate's brothers. Our relationship moved faster than it took to blink-- we went on a few dates, and then we were suddenly living together. It all seemed so fast, but I was convinced that we had fallen in love at some point through all that had happened.

I needed to set my priorities straight, because I could not afford to be having these thoughts about Kurt, let alone while I was going to be away and on tour with him. Second of all, I didn't even like Kurt. He gave off weird vibes from the second I met him, and Greg didn't seem too fond of him either, given what happened at the diner. If I didn't like him, then why did I have a dream about making out with the guy?

I pulled into my parking spot and walked up the stairs to my door. Before I could get my keys in the door, Nate was already there, looking exhausted as if he hadn't gotten a minute's worth of sleep. He had purple bags under his eyes, which were bloodshot. "Where were you?" he glared, nearly spilling the coffee he had in his hand with the amount of force he used to put into his glare. I didn't understand the problem.

"I'm sorry? I had a band meeting and it ran seventeen hours over, I can't help that," I said, and Nate simply chuckled, but not in a friendly way. He held his wristwatch up to his face to check the time, and slapped his hand abruptly upon the doorframe. "It's ten in the morning, the day after your meeting. Do you know how worried I was? I called your boss, they said you called in sick. I called your friends, they said you went out of town. Why don't you tell me these things?" he shouted, and I pushed past him, shaking my head. How could he say that?

"If you ever paid attention or listened to anything that I do, then maybe you'd have known from the phone call I got two days ago!" I exclaimed, and Nate closed the door to our apartment behind me. I set my bag down on the couch, and reached in to find the copy of the contract. Nate's eyes grew dark.

"Oh, I see, now. You know, I've never liked your band. They cause you to be ripped out of every rational, normal lifestyle that we've wanted to have for the longest time. Or at least I have. Have you ever thought for a damn minute that I want to settle down with you, maybe get a house, start a family? Kids? Dogs? I thought you wanted that with me eventually," Nate sounded angry. "Now you're throwing your whole life away over a tour?"

He was being way too insensitive. "And how do you think it feels to be trapped in one place while your passion lies everywhere but where you are? I've been working on getting an opportunity for Hometown to go on tour, and you know that! You helped me out for the first few months of placing ads," I vocalized. Nate rolled his eyes in disbelief, as if he was hearing gibberish. "I thought you gave up!" he claimed, and I shook my head.

"I persisted, but you didn't even notice, because you're too fucking hooked on your hippie vitamins to notice a damn thing!" I finally lost it, throwing the contract in his face. I ran into our room, wasting no time on packing for the tour. I nearly broke the dresser as I started throwing my tee shirts onto the bed, and I saw Nate coming towards me out of the corner of my eye.

"What are you doing?" I heard his voice break, and I looked up at him to see tears forming in his eyes. I couldn't stand to look at how sad he was, so I went back to packing. Then, I felt his hand grab my wrist forcefully, then pull it so I turned to face him. A sharp pain went up my arm.

"Nate, you're hurting me," I stated, and Nate immediately let go, muttering a string of curses to himself amidst apologies. I set everything down that I had in my arms, and replaced them with his face in between my hands.

"I love you. I always will. But I need to do this in my life. This may be my only chance. If you're not willing to accept the fact that I want to do this with my life, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," I told him, and the tears began to fall from his eyes. He removed my hands from his face, kissed my forehead, and walked out the door. I heard the front door close a few seconds later.