Prologue
It's the end. I knew it was coming, but I thought I could push it out, hold on a little longer- be an American pop star and not a Japanese one, but that was so much bullshit, and I think that I could have let it end so long ago, I could have realized that I was running away because I was scared that I wasn't going to die this time. Everyone dies, that's what they say, and I was just waiting for that lightning strike, that drunk driver to solve all my problems for me, but I'm already twenty-one and my career is falling apart and even if that sudden death does come for me, I can't just wait anymore. I have to start making plans, start finding a real life, a real future.
I know I've written too many songs and recycled too many clichés, but I can't blindly stumble forwards anymore, hoping for some miraculous meeting that will show me the rest of my life without my having to look for it. I'm not ready for that, even if I did meet someone who could give me that opportunity I couldn't take it, because I don't want to live, I don't even remember what it was like to want to live anymore. But there was one person who for a moment showed me what it was like to want to live, to want a future, and I have to go back to that past, that past I'm not even sure exists to find a future… back to the past, and the one person who hated the past more than anything.
She's not my friend anymore. I have plenty of friends, plenty, but from back then, Usagi's the only one who writes. I never write back, but every few months I get a letter, addressed to my manager to avoid the glut of fan mail, updating me on all the minutia of her happily married life. The last time I saw them was three years ago, at her wedding. She has two little girls already, I haven't seen either except in the masses of photos that my manager pulls out of the trash and pins on my refrigerator. I don't know why he thinks I need to be more human. She gave me this life back, even though I didn't want it.
There was a moment where I did want it; there was a moment where I could see a future, a future with friends and people who cared about my happiness. But they cared too much, and I was only going to hurt them, no matter how much they gave me, I could only give pain in return. I ran away, I ran back into my jet set life, focusing on the day to day, not thinking about the people I had let behind.
Then the letter for Usagi's wedding came. I went. They were all so happy to see me, their famous so called 'friend,' but they were clearly absorbed in their own lives, except, except her. Fine! I'll say her name. Rei. Rei, always Rei. Not Mars, not anymore. She was exactly the same, sure she was a priestess, had powerful visions, wore sexy boots, but she was still Rei, the stupid kid whose favorite expression was a grimace, who always took everything I said as a challenge, who I had to forcibly coerce into accepting a ride in my limo to get from the hospital to the wedding. She didn't know what to do with me now that she was the one lying injured in bed and I was the strong one. She's too courageous for her own good, and every defensive word out of her mouth made me more and more angry. We were exactly the same. Neither of us had grown up an inch.
When Usagi threw her bouquet we were standing together. We had been standing together throughout the entire wedding. We sniped at each other whenever possible, but there was no one I felt more comfortable being next to. Our patterns of behavior were set and steady, and I was close enough to hold her hand. I wasn't, of course, not that she would stand it, or I would want to, but she was jumping up and down, getting into the game, into the hope for the bouquet, for a wedding, for a regular female life; it was surprising. I looked at her and she stopped and gave me a very defensive look where she reaffirmed her disinterest in anything normal, and we stood and watched the flowers fly over, and neither of us moved to catch it. We are so immature.
The problem is, no matter how much we fought, no matter how much we professed our dislike or criticized each other's capacities, she was the one I hurt the most, and to patch things up, to get over the fact that I died, that I did my best to cut myself off from everyone and everything, for a good reason, and that suddenly when that reason was gone I didn't know how to start living again, I didn't know how to connect to people anymore, it has to be her. Rei was my last chance, she was the closest I came to letting someone in, and if I'm going to start living now, I have to start with her.