3. Chapter 3
3
Kelly
M uffled talking was all I could hear from my spot on the couch in the living room. I had turned the TV down almost all the way, tried to convince myself I wasn’t eavesdropping by keeping my eyes on it. I could hear my sister's voice raise several times, but couldn’t quite make out the words.
Even in her anger, Lindsey still seemed to be attempting to keep her voice from traveling. Rose’s frustrated tone just barely came through the walls. I shivered and squeezed my eyes shut for a brief moment.
I took a deep breath and shook my head. ‘I’m only causing problems being here,’ I thought. I debated packing up my things then and there, leaving before they ever knew I was gone; but I knew I couldn’t do that to my sister. Lindsey would be worried sick.
After another moment, the condo was silent but for the low hum of the television. I chewed the inside of my cheek and grabbed the remote from my lap. I turned off the blue light, and the dim glow from the moon outside the curtains was all that remained.
I looked down at my thighs, preparing to cover myself up with the blanket, but I spotted the awful pink scar along the front of my left thigh. My stomach ached as I looked at it. I wanted to look away, go on pretending it didn’t exist as I always did, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.
I reached my hand out and brushed my fingers along the jagged, raised skin. Everyone told me it would heal faster, that in a few months I’d barely notice it.
They were wrong.
Every time I was in the shower, I spotted it and forced myself to look elsewhere. It itched, ached, now and again. It was impossible to forget it.
I took a shaky breath. It wasn’t the scar that was the most painful, but the memories behind it. The screaming, the crash of glass and blood pouring over my skin, getting all over my hands.
My eyes burned with tears. For a moment, I could picture the blood on my hand as I touched the scar. My shoulders tensed. I couldn’t see all of it right then, but I knew it went all the way up to the front of my hip, and a fourth of the way down my thigh. I was torn, tattered.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
No, we’re not doing this tonight. It’s been weeks since the last time, you’re okay.
I took several deep breaths, and then several more. Until I was breathing normally and drifting off.
Hours later, wrapped in a blanket and curled up on the couch, I was deep in a strange and unlikely to be remembered dream.
“Kelly…” a familiar voice called me out from the depths of my mind.
I moaned in protest, turning my face towards the back cushion.
“Really?” a sigh, “Kelly. Wake. Up.”
I gasped. I sat up quickly and my head throbbed. My hand flew to my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment.
“Ugh, God, what?” I groaned.
“What are you doing on the couch?” Rose asked.
I opened her eyes and squinted into the darkness. There I saw Rose beside the couch, holding a blanket and a pillow tightly in her arms.
“…I didn’t feel like going to my room,” I explained, voice groggy.
Rose sighed. “You need to. I need the couch.” Her voice was low, rough.
Heat tickled up my back, and goosebumps formed on the back of my neck and shoulders. I told myself it was just the temperature of the room as I took my blanket off. I sighed and looked up at her in the dimness of the room.
“Why?” I asked. I could see the tired and wet look in her eyes. I knew why things were bad with Lindsey—but I didn’t want to move. I was exhausted, barely awake. I was not a morning person.
Rose sighed in frustration as I started to get up, but then leaned back down onto the couch in sleepiness. I brushed a hand over my face.
“Kelly.”
I moaned. “Give me a minute.”
A minute apparently wasn’t in the cards. Suddenly I felt slender hands at my sides, pulling at my t-shirt and flesh and tugging me forwards. I gasped as my legs flew underneath me and I forced myself into a standing position to avoid falling to the floor.
“Rose!” I snarled.
As the dizziness faded, I realized my body was pressed flush against her own soft, slender one. Each panting breath pressed my chest against hers with more vigor than before. Warmth flooded my face, ears and, even more embarrassingly, my thighs.
Oh god, why?
My face tilted up to see the darkened face of Rose and a panicked look in her eyes. I quickly tugged myself away from her.
“You’re the one who—” I started, but realized how loud my voice was and my mouth snapped shut. I swallowed.
“…whatever, next time just sleep in my bed. I don’t care,” I told her. Though, the sudden image of Rose sleeping in my bed caused me to blink away tired and confusing thoughts. What is wrong with me?
I didn’t look back at Rose as I headed for my bedroom, leaving the blanket and pillow behind. They weren’t the ones from my bedroom, anyway. My heart was racing, but the second I hit my bed, things started to calm down again, and I drifted back to sleep. This time, however, not before a few fleeting images of Rose wrapped in my blanket.
So much for being over that.
The weekend went by painfully slowly, especially with the tense and silent treatments from Lindsey and Rose, but holding up in my room reading and watching baking shows kept me from being directly in the middle of the awkward.
Monday was my first proper day of work after the previous days of training. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t have gotten the job at the bookstore if it weren’t for Emily. Not because I wasn’t qualified, but because my interview anxiety was major.
“Look at you, coffee in one hand, hair tied back, dressed before nine am,” Emily teased me as I stood beside the check-out desk. “Before you know it, you’ll be here two years like me.”
I took a deep breath before sipping at my coffee. “I hope you’re right. I need some consistency,” I said. I hummed at the delicious warm liquid.
Emily and I had only known each other about five months and had been best friends for four and a half months, but we’d grown very close in that time. We both loved reading and watching cheesy romance, Italian food, and were both horrible at painting our own nails. Emily never judged me when I got lost in my head and didn’t answer the phone for a few days. She just got me.
“I know you’re not a morning person, but you look exhausted,” Emily chuckled as I stood behind the register and she stood beside it, a box of books to restock in her arms. Only a few customers were wandering the aisles.
I drained the remainder of my coffee before replying. “Mm, well, I told you I might need to find somewhere else to live soon,” I reminded her.
“You didn’t say why, though, before you disappeared for the weekend,” Emily teased. She shifted the box in her arms.
I looked towards the aisle ahead of the register where I saw someone still looking through the books, not quite ready to check out.
“Rose and Lindsey,” I started, “I think me living there is just stressing Rose out, and it’s making shit tense with them.”
Emily pursed her lips. “Right. You did say they’ve been arguing more often.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think it was about me, but, as far as I know, I’m the only thing that’s changed for them the last six months,” I said.
“Ugh,” Emily huffed, “…you know maybe moving out will be for the best. Kinda hard to date when you live with your sister and her wife.”
My face flushed, and I tried to play it off, rolling my eyes. “I-I’m not really interested in dating right now anyway,” I insisted.
“Whatever you say,” Emily smirked. “I gotta go handle these books. Good luck, newbie.”
I watched Emily disappear into the aisle and around the back. I took a deep breath. I’d worked a register before, not since I was nineteen and twenty, but it couldn’t possibly have changed that much in the last six years, right?
“Hey, let’s go out for dinner tomorrow night,” Emily’s voice came from behind me as my back was turned. I jumped, startled.
“Oh shit, sorry,” she laughed.
I turned around to face her as I was closing out the register for the day.
“It’s okay. What about dinner?” I asked.
“Tomorrow. We get off at six every day. We’re hungry, and neither of us has been dressed up and gone out somewhere in a while,” Emily insisted.
I raised a brow.
She spoke before I could. “Okay, mainly you.”
I laughed and stepped out from behind the counter with my purse and phone in hand. “Alright, just text me the place and I’ll get there.”
“You don’t have a car. Let me pick you up if you won’t let me take you to and from work,” Emily said. I looked at the growing frown on her face.
“No, no. I want to do things myself. I’ve got too many people complaining that I’m not…self sufficient.” I frowned back.
“Anyway, be safe,” I told her with a quick side armed hug so my purse didn’t squish her.
“You’re stubborn,” Emily stuck her tongue out at me after hugging me back.
I grinned and did it back before I disappeared out of the store. It was Emily’s job to lock up. As my gray sneakers hit the pavement, I gazed around at the warm glow of the late autumn sun. It was nice to get off work before it was dark, even if it meant waking up about four hours earlier than was natural to me.
I let myself enjoy the walk in the brisk air and warm sun. I took in the scent of fresh foods being cooked and baked all around the down-town strip. My stomach growled in hunger. I didn’t have the money to go out to eat two nights in a row, not if I was going to have to move out soon.
I knew Lindsey was doing her best to keep me there, but I was better safe than sorry.
After a ten-minute walk, I stopped at the bus stop. Several people were idling around, smoking or playing on their phone. It was a matter of minutes later that the 6:23pm bus pulled up and we all piled on board. I slid my preloaded bus card after getting up the stairs and headed for a seat near the middle. I didn’t mind riding the bus. It was only a twenty-minute ride, and it gave me some time to daydream, read a few chapters of a book or scroll the Internet ride,with out having to make any excuses to myself.
This ride, however, I was plagued by my guilt regarding Lindsey and Rose. I really was only making things worse, wasn’t I? Before I had moved in, I’d come to visit once or twice a month for a couple of days at a time. My sister and Rose had always seemed to be doing well. Even when they disagreed on things, they were able to move on quickly. They were never incredibly touchy with each other, but my sister had never been the PDA type, so that didn’t strike me as strange.
The only thing I could think of that could have caused them to grow as strained as they were was me.
My stomach tightened.
“Hey, how you doing?” a voice came from beside me.
It didn't automatically occur to me that the person speaking was talking to me.
Until I felt my shoulder pushed against. I looked to the side to see a young man, maybe nineteen years old. I couldn’t tell. He seemed to still be caught in that awkward stage.
“Uh,” I mumbled, being pulled out of my thoughts.
“I said, how you doin’?” he asked.
I blinked. “Fine,” I replied curtly and turned my head away from him, signaling I was done with our interaction. I could feel his eyes on me still.
“Where you coming from?” he asked, brushing his shoulder against mine again.
My stomach turned.
My eyes shifted about for a moment as the bus stopped six minutes away from where I would normally get off.
“Visitation,” I lied. “My man's doing three to five right now, but I’m thinking he’s gonna get off on good behavior pretty soon.” I stood up and tugged my purse higher over my shoulder and gave the kid a wide and pleased smile. I watched him recoil and his brows furrow.
I moved along with the wave of people getting off the bus, smirking. As I got off, I was grateful he wasn’t getting off at the same stop. I sighed once the bus left. Now I had to walk home eight more minutes instead of just getting off at my stop but, I didn’t want to have to deal with that any longer than I had to.
Oh well.
The walk wasn’t so bad. I hovered outside the door of the condo for a moment before finally unlocking the door. I could hear water running in the kitchen.
“Kelly?” Lindsey’s voice.
“Yup,” I called back, “First day at work, not a complete train wreck!” I chuckled and slipped off my shoes at the door. I hung my purse on a hook and headed into the kitchen. Before I even got there, I could smell the distinct spices of ground beef and vegetables.
“That’s great!” Lindsey’s smile greeted me as I turned into the kitchen. I could see how it faltered along the edges, how tired she looked. Not sleeping in the same bed as her wife must be rough…
“Tacos?” I asked happily, practically licking my lips.
“Yeah, you’re just in time for dinner. I wasn’t sure if I’d have to put it in the microwave for you,” Lindsey said and handed me a plate.
I watched her till her own tortillas with meat, veggies, cheese and sour cream.
“Alright, I’ll get out of your way,” Lindsey said, “…then we can talk about work.”
“You’re fine,” I insisted.
She shrugged and leaned against the fridge, starting to eat off her plate while she did so.
“Everything went good,” I told her. “Lot’s of customers in the afternoon. It’s great to work beside Emily.” I smiled. It was nice to talk about something other than the stress that had been going on.
“I’m glad you found something you like,” Lindsey said. She covered her mouth with her hand as she chewed.
I nodded as I filled the browned tortillas on my plate and then turned to face her more directly. “Yeah. Speaking of Emily, we’re going out to dinner tomorrow night. She think’s it’s been too long since we- I got dressed up and went out,” I explained, “So you don’t need to worry about me tomorrow, or the next night. I’ll probably have leftovers.”
I took a big bite and sighed at the flavors. I watched an idea form over Lindsey’s face. I blinked. “What?” I asked.
“Why don’t Rose and I come?” Lindsey asked.
I nearly choked on my food. I swallowed before speaking. “What?” I asked, “…I don’t know about that. Emily only invited—”
“It’ll help things. Things have been so tense, we all need to get out. I’m trying to work things out with Rose,” Lindsey insisted.
I eyed her, a tight feeling in my stomach as I thought about Rose. The way we had brushed against each other the previous night. The tension that lingered in every room we were in together.
“Are you sure Rose is up for that?” I asked.
Lindsey rolled her eyes and there was a darker look in those eyes as she replied. “Rose will come.”
I slowly took another bite of my food to avoid having to reply right away, chewed slowly, and watched my sister. Something was off, there was something I didn’t know.
“What’s going on?” I asked, “With you two. Is it just me?”
I wanted to think it was. I wanted to believe that if I just left, they’d go back to a happy and healthy marriage. However, as I watched Lindsey’s face fall and her shoulders tighten, I had a feeling it wasn’t.
Lindsey set her half eaten plate on the counter and stepped close to me.
“Rose…has been otherwise preoccupied lately,” Lindsey told me.
My brow knit. “How so?” I asked.
“…with someone else, I guess.” Lindsey replied.
My heart lurched. “Oh god, she’s cheating?” I asked, my eyes wide.
Lindsey shook her head, “No…I…she say’s she hasn’t, but there’s feelings.”
I set my plate down, my head spinning. “Feelings for someone else?” I asked, wanting to make sure I was on the right page.
Lindsey chewed on the inside of her cheek and folded her arms. “I guess so,” she replied, being vague.
I sighed. “Well, if it’ll help you two work things out, then you can come.”
How could I say no after learning that?
Lindsey’s face instantly perked up, a twinkle in her eye. “Thank you, Kelly.”