Nineteen

Visitation rights. Katie spits the words. Like hell. 

She calls Him, angry and upset. He's defensive, but Katie keeps pushing until he gives a little. In the end she says some things she needs to say, and he says some things she needs to hear. On the whole not too bad. But Katie knows it isn't over, but she suspects he will think it is. An hour later he's commented on something she said on Facebook, confirming her suspicions. Katie's done pretending. He will know in uncertain terms that everything is not all right. Not by a long shot.

She sighs. Coffee with Esther tomorrow. She has a letter to write. Or rewrite. She's not sure which. But, coffee. Katie's missed coffee almost as much as she's missed Esther. There is coffee in the city, but coffee always tastes better with Esther.

Eighteen

Katie rules the halls with her best friend by her side. College. Katie can almost smell it; it’s not the bad this-building-has-mold college smell, it’s the smell of hormones and learning. Katie breathes it in. She doesn’t recognize the campus, but she isn’t worried because Esther is at her side, emitting a quiet strength everyone assumes is shyness. Katie knows better and she loves that she knows better, like Esther is her secret and she’s waiting to scandalize the world with the realization. Esther is her ace in the hole, and while she isn’t sure what game they are playing, she’s sure Esther will be her winning move. 
The girls make their way up a zig-zagged flight of stairs, stopping halfway up the last flight when a professor calls to them from the lower flight. They stop and he says something about how good it is to see them and he’s looking forward to the semester. Katie and Esther agree and Katie cracks a joke which makes the professor laugh. Making the professor laugh is as rewarding to Katie as correctly answering a question, so she smiles and inwardly congratulates herself at a job well done. 
Nothing can touch Katie as she and Esther sprint up the last few steps, giggling about something; nothing can topple Katie, she feels alive. They round the corner and He’s there, waiting. Katie falters, tripping a little on her own feet. He’s silent but his eyes flash. Katie tells Esther to run on without her. The girl hesitates, but something in Katie’s tone makes her obey. Very grudgingly.

Katie has always felt it was her responsibility to protect Esther from the world. The world is so full of ugliness, and Esther is like the purest snow, so very innocent. Though she would blush and emphatically disagree, Katie doesn’t care; Esther is too humble to see the truth. Katie did her best over the years of their friendship to keep the ugliness away from Esther, but she was selfish. When Katie was with Esther, she felt a little more pure; being around Esther made her a better person, and she loved Esther for that. She always felt guilty around Esther because she knew she wasn't worthy, that she was too impure, but she stayed because she couldn't bear to leave. He took that away too when he infected her already wicked heart with anger and hatred. Katie feels the blackness eating at her heart like gangrene. She knows her friend, her friend who would never turn away someone in need, her friend who would insist on helping though there was nothing she could do. But Katie knows how infectious the blackness is, and she won’t risk her friend. It’s her responsibility to protect Esther. For once she has to stop being selfish. It was stupid to think she could keep the world from touching her heart, but maybe she can save Esther from it a little longer. So, Katie lets Esther go, her rock in the storm, her guiding light, her secret weapon… gone.

He starts yelling and berating her and Katie doesn’t even hear the words as she collapses into a heap. The walls begin to melt and she curls into a ball, but he’s still standing over her, yelling. In her head she is screaming for it to stop, but it doesn’t. She mentally begs for the professor to come along, to shut Him up, but he never comes. The university is gone and Katie is left in a swirling whiteness with Him yelling. She feels rather than hears the barrage of words. Each word is a fresh stab of excruciating pain. The hateful vitriol consumes her as a final whimper escapes her lips.

In the split second between dreaming and being awake, Katie panics. She doesn’t know where she is, how she got there, or even how to breathe. Then she wakes up the rest of the way and sucks in a lungful of air. Well, more rasps in a shallow breath, followed by another and another until her heart finally starts to slow down. Katie fights back the tears. An eternity passes before Katie feels safe enough to close her eyes, terrified He’ll be waiting for her.

The next morning she has a spitting headache and can’t bring herself to eat breakfast. She lies on the cough and reads more Jack/Daniel fic, trying to lose herself in the familiar, nonexistent, love stories. The morning on the couch turns into a day. Eating makes her nauseous and the headache only lessens if she doesn’t move, or stay in one position for too long, so it effectively never lessens. Katie is shaken to her core and she rehashes the dream over and over, but is too frightened to try to recall exact words. It’s all straightforward enough. Katie’s place in the world was pretty set before He brought it crashing down, and in the aftermath He robbed her of every last security she had. And she’s his Facebook friend. Katie feels like puking but hold down her turkey sandwich lunch. Katie is supposed to visit with Esther the following Monday, but snow is threatening to delay the trip. However, if Katie waits too long, Esther will return to college to start the spring semester while Katie tries to figure out life without everything she’s ever known.

Seventeen

Katie publishes her first book review of the year, pleased with herself. Katie believes in self-improvement projects, and this is one of many she's undertaking in the new year. Besides, in a new city with no friends, books look like they will be her only friends for some time.

Sixteen

Katie’s funk has lifted, thought she could hardly put the cause to words. Nothing had changed—well, the kids were back in school—except her attitude. Everything was passing through her “happy” filter instead of her “pissy-as-hell” filter. Well, not everything. There was the odd annoyance, mostly a gentleman who seemingly fancies himself her literary mentor. Katie chastises herself, because her resentment only rings of arrogance, but she’s positive it isn’t that. Well, not only that; it’s in there a little bit. He writes songs and poems and despite herself, Katie has a deep loathing of poets. Her relationship with poetry is complicated. When asked if she likes it she replies, “No. I mean yes. Only the good kind.” When pressed to define good poetry Katie can only offer up the macabre guideline that “if the poet isn’t dying inside, it’s no good.” Which is obviously hard on poets, but Katie has noticed all the good poets tend to die young. Still, the profession is too open to posers and bad poetry is the most atrocious offence to Katie’s mind. That’s why she doesn’t write it; poetry isn’t in her soul.

At any rate, her would be mentor was missing the point of her argument about Twilight and gender roles, and then he insulted her generation, though he clarified and said he was only insulting an entire century. She made an argument back to him, defending her generation, getting annoyed by his ageism but not wanting to come off whiny.

Katie puts it out of her mind now. It was a good day. She must admit, she took great pleasure in teasing one of her old friends all day via Facebook. He was having a hellish day, but keeping a good attitude, as he almost always does. Katie loves teasing him; it’s natural and if they aren’t arguing about life, the universe, and everything, then they are teasing each other. Well, Katie teases more; he’s too polite to start the teasing. Honestly, he’s a very egotistical person by nature, and while Katie’s jabs are aimed to sting, the jabs only seem to conflate him on a deep level. If Katie’s teasing him then he is on her good graces and can afford to be big-headed. Katie misses arguing with her friend and makes a mental note to stoke the fires sometime soon. She giggles, he’s a Stargate: SG-1 fan. I feel a deep discussion of slash fic coming on. Katie chuckles wickedly and cuddles deeper beneath her blankets, ready for sleep to overtake her.

Fifteen

Katie’s body is peppered with bruises. The most colorful is on her right ankle from teaching her cousin how to ride her bike; Katie’s glad the weather has taken a turn for the nasty, halting the riding lessons. Another on her left calf, growing darker by the day, from where her sister threw a tree branch at her leg, point first; Katie and playfully shoved her into the snow. There’s a nearly invisible sore spot on her left hip, doubtlessly from sledding down Mad Dog Hill the day before. The last is on the back of her head, a goose egg really, from hitting her head on the corner of the bathroom counter; she’d been naked and trying to reach the garment her sister had tossed just outside the door, just out of reach.

Katie makes a mental note to hit her sister a little harder next time the opportunity arises. Though her only reward will be short lived; Katie’s sister has a rule: You hit me, I hit back twice as hard. And damn, if she doesn’t follow that rule like religion. Katie takes two Advil before settling down on the couch, wondering what shade of purple, red, yellow, and green, the various bruises will be tomorrow.

Fourteen

Katie loves the ALA weekend, when the American Library Association awards its numerous awards to deserving books for teens and children. But she doesn’t get around to reviewing the winners and honorees until Tuesday. She’s outgrown the Newberry Award, but makes a note of the title for her little cousin. The Printz Award recipient (the young adult equivalent of a Newberry) is a book called Ship Breaker, about a kid eking out an existence near New Orleans; she’s not overly enthused. Skipping past the little kid awards Katie finds the newest award to be added to the ALA list, the Stonewall Award, which honors LGBT fiction. One of her favorite books has received an honor, but not the award proper. Katie reads the winner’s synopsis and is intrigued. More than intrigued, she gets on Amazon and buys it, dipping into the twenty-five dollars He gave her in gift card form. Merry Christmas.

The kids are on their second snow day and word comes down that tomorrow will be a third. Katie thinks she might kill them. Which isn’t fair, because they aren’t so bad really; Katie’s ready to kill anyone, she’s not too concerned by specifics. She has cabin fever, but not the kind which sets in from being indoors too long, the kind that comes from being inside her soul too long. The book is a portal from her soul to someone else’s. Katie is a writer, she knows that the pain and the happiness on the page isn’t the character’s, it’s the author’s. Maybe if I write a happy scene I’ll feel better. But Katie knows that isn’t how it works. She’d be faking it and later delete whatever she wrote because it wouldn’t ring true. Pretending to be happy just reminds her she isn’t.

Reading on her Kindle, Katie checks her progress. Thirteen percent.

A lifetime passes in the space of a couple hours. Forty-two percent.

Damnnit, do I really need to eat? Fifty percent.

Katie knows she won’t be putting the book down any time soon. Seventy-one percent.

She has to stop. It hurts too much. She turns the reader off. Eighty-eight percent.

Katie and her sister occasionally make jokes that they can get away with a lot of shit now because they have “daddy issues.” It always makes Katie think of Charlie from Two and a Half Men describing his prerequisites for women; or Barney from How I Met Your Mother, all the sit com man whores. Now it isn’t funny. Katie gets a glass of water and waits for her heart to stop pounding. She wants to kill the character’s father. The girl just wants a scrap of love and a shred of understanding, but he can’t give her that. Katie’s situation isn’t as bad as the character, and He’s never told her he would rather she die than be who she is, but Katie can’t shake the parallels. Envisioning taking out her frustration on the couch, Katie sighs. She can’t break down, not here, not now.

Katie knows on a philosophical level that the great tragedy of the human race is that humans can never attain the level of connection they desire. But goddamn, why can’t they love each other with their little hearts as much as they can? Why conditions? Why pride? Why reservations? Why prejudices? WHY? WHY? WHY? Great, I’ve reverted to a three year old.

Katie is scared to pick up the book again. She knows she won’t be able to put it down again, but she’s not going to be able to sleep until she finishes it, so she might as well get to it.

Thirteen

Katie wishes life was…

Oreos and milk.

Watching videos by charlieissocoollike.

Tickling her sister on places that shouldn’t be ticklish but are, like her gums.

Climbing a little higher than normal in her favorite tree before chickening out.

Picking Queen Anne’s Lace and Black-Eyed Susans in May and hanging them upside down to dry in her friend’s barn.

Making agility obstacles out of leftover plywood and teaching her friend’s dog new tricks.

Knowing the answer to obscure questions like, “Who is the current Press Secretary of the United States of America?”

Playing music with people she loves and admires.

The music professor she respects most asking her to help coach middle school cellists at a summer camp next summer.

When you’re trying to out-do your friend and leap over a creek, knowing you aren’t going to make it to the other side, and then you do make it. And then they try, and they fall in.

Telling your friend you like him.

Your friend telling you he likes you back.

You and your friend saying how silly your siblings are for telling each other they like each other when she clearly pressured him into it by saying she like him first.

Realizing you did the exact same thing, meaning your friend doesn’t like you like that.

Finding out years later that your friend made a plan to leave, make his fortune, and come back to marry you.

Noticing that your friend is still following those plans, and he’s on the “making his fortune” part, but you’re pretty sure the “marrying you” part won’t be happening since you haven’t spoken in years.

Wondering if he remembered that plan or still thought of you the way you think of him. Because even though it’s been forever and you’ve changed and he’s probably changed too, you have a theory that something about your friendship will never change.

Getting the silly boy out of your head because seriously, it’s been YEARS.

Going to bed and having a dream, because you haven’t dreamed in weeks.