YOU KNOW YOU'RE RIGHT // Kurt Cobain

Chapter 8

Los Angeles, CA

June 23, 1989

I'm not going to lie, I went back to the trailer and spent that night wallowing in self pity. Of course, I had to maintain my cover so no one would ask questions. I curled up in my bunk and pretended to be asleep when the rest of the guys stumbled in, of course, drunk. It was like no one was able to walk around sober anymore. There needed to be some form of intoxication coursing through their veins in order to function properly.

My sleep was light. It seemed to blend into the next day. I ate an entire box of Sour Patch Kids by myself around 10am, where I sat around smoking weed until we got to the venue. And by "sat around smoking weed" I mean sitting around rolling another joint while simultaneously inhaling two others that were half finished, hanging from my mouth. I was such a hypocrite. Criticizing all my band members and friends for being unable to maintain sobriety for twenty four hours, meanwhile I was getting smacked over a guy. How pathetic.

I walked through the side door of the venue, scoping out the performance space, which was dimly lit by the few ceiling lights in the back of the auditorium.

"Hey, you okay?" Greg asked me, walking up to stand beside me, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he admired the space. "Looks like a dope venue."

"Yeah," I agreed. I couldn't tell him what I was going through or else I might end up crying, which was destined to be the end of my band. I had to be strong.

"You sure?" Greg asked me. I saw that he was persistent, but I wasn't going to give in. So I changed the subject. "Do you think I could substitute for Bad Habit with Familiar? I think I need to take it easy on the vocal cords tonight." Which was a total lie, my vocal cords were fine. I just didn't feel like blasting out a song about how much I wanted to get to know my love interest when all I wanted to do was break his face. I suddenly started craving salt and vinegar chips.

"Yeah, no problem. As long as you're healthy. We don't need you getting nodes one week into the tour," Greg semi-joked, pushing his hair back. No, I thought, I didn't want to be healthy anymore. I wanted ten bags of Lay's salt and vinegar potato chips and a screening of Sixteen Candles all to myself. And more weed. That explained my cravings. I needed to stop thinking.

And I hadn't even noticed that Greg had walked away from me until I went to lean on his side and fell right into Kurt, who did not even seem fazed by my actions. "You should try sativa next time, man, you're all over the place," Kurt whispered in my ear as he caught me, and I scoffed. Did he think I was stupid? Did I choose to be like this?! Well... yeah, kind of. But that didn't matter. Not now. I had more important things to worry about.

"I'm gonna drop you after this tour. Don't expect to hear from me again," Kurt muttered, and I rolled my eyes in his face, literally in his face, because I could guarantee with my intoxicated bearings that our faces were an inch apart. But who was really counting? The absolute nerve he had. He had already dropped me when he was fucking sulking like a child because he didn't get his way. I should be dropping him. But wait, would that work when Nirvana was headlining the tour? I needed to get my shit together and stop thinking and fucking say something because Kurt was eyeing me as per usual with those eyes that scared the living--

"And why would I hear from you outside of music?" I heard myself say, and my inner self was sighing in relief. Thank the Lord words were able to come out of my mouth.

"Because you're into me!" Kurt exclaimed, throwing his arms up into the air. "And don't you dare try to deny it, Erin Murbach, because I've seen you--"

"Oh excuse me, Mr. 'You are so unbelievably attractive, Erin,'" I retorted, his eyes going wide, "I would recommend you switch your sentence around, because it's really you into me!"