Chapter 58
[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]
Saturday 20th November 1999
It happened. I still can’t believe it happened, but it did.
Bao didn’t tell us all the details of the conversation that he and Harriet had engaged in, understandably. The intricacies weren’t our business, and he really didn’t want to dwell on it even if he probably couldn’t help but do so. The basics were that, as much as Harriet loves him, she doesn’t feel she can be with him anymore amidst… all of this. When her life’s being put at risk because of who she is, and who Bao is… and who we are.
Melody won. Melody’s ridiculous philosophies about monsters and “normals” not being able to coexist peacefully have driven Harriet away from us. And I want to believe the best of Harriet, that she doesn’t see us any differently after all these revelations about… what us Painters really are and how Melody perceives us… I want to believe the best of her but I can’t shake the fear that she’s grown frustrated with us.
Petty, I know. I just keep thinking about our argument on holiday, how she called me out. Maybe that’s how we all come across to her? Maybe any normal person would feel that way, given enough time and exposure to us? Or maybe Melody’s getting into my head, too…
The past week has been pretty rough. As much as Bao’s been utterly crushed by this, the rest of us were thrown too, with Bao’s shattered mood and Harriet’s absence maintaining a constant atmosphere of despondence. Bao didn’t even come to Dakota’s on the Monday, and it took a great deal of insistence from Kendal to have him join us the following day. And even then, he didn’t feel like doing anything and, other than Kendal’s desperate efforts to lift his spirits a little, we really didn’t know what to do to try and help him.
Each day felt a little easier – perhaps that was just us coming to terms with it all – but still a struggle, still with that dour feeling clinging to us all like humid air.
It’s not like Harriet had disappeared off the face of the Earth, either. While she wasn’t hanging around with us anymore, we still saw her around school. Dakota even had Dance with her almost every day… I did check with her that she’d be okay with it, and she assured me that she’d figure things out. I hadn’t talked with her much about it after that, admittedly… the most I’d heard is that everything was okay.
The weekend seemed to take forever to arrive, nervously approaching and settling in half-heartedly. Bao is one of my best friends, and I wish he didn’t have to hurt this much, but just like the days after Harmony’s revelations, I was uncomfortable with the idea of hanging around with everyone. I know, I know, terrible of me… but there’s nothing I can do to lift his spirits, and I woke up to the knowledge that we’d be spending a good chunk of the day together. It put me on-edge. I wished I could use magick and fix his broken heart so we could all feel better.
Fuck, I can’t find the point where it stops being sympathy and turns into self-interest. I’m really sorry I’m like this.
We were barely up – well, Dakota and I were barely up – when someone knocked energetically on the front door. Despite how much earlier it was than usual, I could tell before Dakota went and opened the door that it would be Kendal; that knock was distinctly her style.
“Hey guys!” she whispered to Kitty and me as she entered the living room.
“Hey Kendal,” I replied at the same volume, adjusting myself a little in case my dressing-gown-clad body was looking off-putting. “Why are we whispering?”
“I’m not sure, I’m trying to be sneaky and it just sort of happened,” she continued, offering a thumbs-up for good measure. “Ready to go, Kitty?”
“Yeah,” our young friend spoke softly, standing up and stretching, and then turning to me. “You can come too, if you want.”
“Err… what’s happening, exactly…?”
(Still whispering. I’d gotten locked into it too.)
“I have something I want to do for Bao…” was the answer I was given.
“Alright… might as well tag along, then,” I concluded. At the least, it was something different to do, rather than hanging around waiting for everybody else to show up.
Must admit, what I didn’t expect Kitty to “do for Bao” was buy a yellow one-piece bikini.
“Kitty, I’m not sure I want to ask but… what is it you’re planning…?” I asked her once the three of us had stepped out of the store and back to the chilly outside world.
“Just… something that he might like…” she muttered.
“Has he told you he likes 13-year-old girls in swimwear or something?”
Kendal took Kitty’s shoulder as she said that.
“Because he’s my friend and he’s heartbroken, but I will have to pound him if he’s creeping on you.”
“No, no, nothing like that!” Kitty blurted back in panic. “I’m making a costume!”
“Aaah, okay, that makes sense…” I smiled a little. A sweet gesture and something reasonable. Felt silly to have been so thrown now, since the answer was pretty obvious in hindsight.
“What…? Like, some kind of swimmer girl or- oh! Right! I forgot superheroes wear leotards and stuff!”
“Kendal, you’re meant to be the sporty one, try to keep up!” I quipped while Kitty led us into an arts and crafts store.
“Kenny C, Sporty Painter,” she chuckled back. “No, I just… for a second, I was still thinking about it as a bikini.”
“I need different things to make it,” Kitty clarified, looking across the store all the while in an effort to gather her bearings.
“Well, we’re with you all the way,” I told her like it needed saying.
From that store, she purchased a lot of yellow card, plus some red and black and a big black marker pen.
And after that, she bought big yellow wellies and a pair of washing-up gloves to match.
Even knowing the context, it was quite a strange shopping trip.
By the time we returned to Dakota’s, an hour or so had passed and Bao and Zahid had already arrived. Kitty gave them both a fleeting hello before dashing upstairs, and that seemed to be that for the time being. Zahid gave Kendal and me a little knowing nod as we entered the living room, assumedly a sign that Dakota had briefed him on the reason for our absence.
Bao was playing Mortal Kombat, slumped sullenly at one end of the sofa. If he’d noticed Kendal and me returning, he didn’t show it.
For the next forty minutes, things went pretty much as I’d expected: Dakota, Kendal, Zahid and me having stilted conversation on the fringes of Bao’s bitter mood in one corner of the room. Efforts to involve him ran as such:
“Hey, Bao, what do you think about it?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah it’s good or yeah it’s bad…?”
“Dunno.”
“Alright…”
Not for want of trying, y’know? We weren’t excluding him to be cruel, it was just too big a challenge to get him involved.
“Guess I’ll go get our McDonalds!” Kendal declared, leaping to her feet as she said it.
“Good timing, I think my stomach’s about to try and digest itself…” I noted with a pat on my belly for emphasis.
“Yeah, we all heard it wailing,” Dakota told me lightly, bringing about a little wave of chuckling.
And then Kitty tapped on the door.
“Bao…?” she began.
“Mhm…?” came his plain response.
After the sound of her taking a deep breath, the door opened up and Kitty walked in. The yellow one-piece was now being worn over a long-sleeved black tee and matching black trousers; from the yellow card, she’d shaped a collar, a belt, and shoulder pads marked with indentations in black marker ben; the gloves and boots completed the look.
On the front of the belt, made from black and red card, was an X amidst a rectangle. That was enough for me to piece together who she was dressed as.
I turned to look at Bao just in time to see him register her, and I don’t think I’d ever seen the expression that burst forth on his face. I don’t want to oversell it – he didn’t miraculously rise out of his depression – but it lay somewhere at the meeting point between surprise, bewilderment and awe.
“Whoa…” he murmured. The game paused with a press of his thumb, his attention solely on Kitty now.
“Kitty Pryde,” she confirmed, holding her arms out at her sides in an effort to further show off her handiwork.
“Yeah… holy crap, Kitty…”
Bao put the controller down, and walked over to her, sizing her and the costume up and down.
“That’s really cool…”
“Nice work!” Kendal added enthusiastically.
“Thank you…” Kitty couldn’t help but smile, still looking at Bao, blushing lightly. “I thought you’d like it…”
“You did this for me…?” he asked her; she nodded in response.
“You said… about Kitty Pryde when we first met… and you showed me some Excalibur comics one time and I drew her, s-so I remembered what her costume is like…”
And – carefully, so as not to damage anything – he grabbed her into a hug. She squeaked at first, and then hugged back, her arms making their way around him.
“Thanks… really, thanks so much…”
His voice was breaking just a little.
“It’s really nice and cool of you…”
“You’re welcome…” she replied. “We care about you. We’re sorry about what happened.”
“I know…”
He broke from the hug, and turned to the rest of us.
“I’m really grateful to have you guys…”
“Hey, what’re friends for if not hanging around even when you’re mopey?” Zahid smirked, and I immediately felt so ridiculously awkward.
Bao just looked towards the floor.
“Yeah… I know I’m… shutting myself off. I just can’t stop thinking about her. I can’t stop… wishing I’d remembered to meet her. I fucked everything up…”
“Melody fucked it up,” I told him firmly.
“She shouldn’t have had the chance… Look, all I mean is I really appreciate you all still spending time with me, even when I’m…” he trailed off. Kitty meekly rubbed his back.
“Of course, man!” Kendal cheered, grabbing him into another hug.
“We wouldn’t leave you alone when you’re hurting,” Dakota chimed in, with a small, gentle smile.
“Just take your time,” Zahid concluded, leaning back a little in the armchair. “And don’t expect us to all dress up as X-Men.”
“You knowing Kitty Pryde’s one of the X-Men is already more than I’d expect of you…”
Who knew Kitty in a superhero costume would bring Bao back out of his shell?
“Right,” Kendal spoke up, letting go of Bao, “I’ve got a load of fast food to buy before Alex’s stomach implodes!”
She patted him on the head.
“No idea why I just did that!”
And then bounced her way out to the hallway.
Kitty went and sat herself down in the other armchair.
“You’re staying like that, then…?” I asked her.
“For now,” she replied. Made sense, I suppose, after all the effort she’d gone to.
The next few hours went past breezily enough. Bao was still fairly blunt, still a little on the outskirts, but things actually felt a little less heavy amongst us. We ate, and chatted, and wound up playing Mortal Kombat… though Dakota opted not to, despite it being 1 vs. 1 competitive gameplay that I assumed would have been irresistible for her.
It felt like no time at all before Bao, Kendal and Zahid had all headed home, leaving just Dakota, Kitty and me. I spent a little while in the loft, practicing my piece for the talent show some more (it’s way too close already), and by the time I returned to the living room, Kitty had retreated to her bedroom. Dakota was watching TV, lying on the sofa, something of a distant look on her face.
“Are you okay…?” I found myself asking her.
“Yeah,” she spoke quietly, her attention on the screen.
“Alright…”
Something ticked over in my head a second later.
“No, wait… clearly there is-”
“I’m fine, Alex-”
“- and you made me promise I’d tell you whenever something’s upsetting me,” I continued, “so please, just talk to me.”
She looked at me with tired eyes, and for a moment, neither of us spoke.
“Alright then. You want me to talk? Where should I start, Alex? How much Harriet not being around has hurt me? How frustrating it’s been to not be able to help Bao? Or what Harriet told me earlier this week?”
“I… Why didn’t you say anything…?”
“Because,” she began, sitting upright with a scowl, “I’m a huge hypocrite who doesn’t talk about the stuff that hurts me. I’m not used to talking about how losing people makes me feel.”
“You’ve not lost her…” I reasoned.
“I know that, Alex, I know it in here-”
She pointed to her head.
“- but it still feels like she’s gone. It’s over. Her being with us, it’s over, and I know how stupid that sounds but…”
“It doesn’t sound stupid.”
“So I’m grieving. I’m grieving her and she’s not even dead and I don’t know how to grieve properly because all I’ve ever done is bury it and try to put on a happy face.”
I was sure she was shaking now, though I couldn’t tell if it was from distress or fury. As much as her voice was still at a normal volume, her tone was sharp.
“Alright…”
“It’s not alright!” she snapped, catching me off-guard. “I shouldn’t be feeling like this! I know I shouldn’t! And I can’t help it! And what the hell are you gonna do about it?”
“What…?”
I couldn’t see why I was suddenly getting rounded on…
“I’ve told you, so now what? How can you possibly help me with this?”
“I don’t know, Dakota…”
“So what was the point in me telling you?!”
Louder, now. Steadily boiling up, tense.
“To not keep it to yourself, at least,” I argued.
“Oh, yeah, that’s stopped me hurting, getting it off my chest made a world of difference,” she sneered.
“Why are you taking it out on me?”
“Because you just asked for it! There you are, your perfect, wonderful girlfriend, showing off how much she fucking hurts inside! Suck it up, Alex! Or throw a tantrum, or run away, I honestly don’t care right now.”
“What the fuck?” was all I could muster in the face of that.
“That’s what you do when you’re disillusioned with me, isn’t it? That’s what Harriet reckons, anyway. She- you’ll love this, Alex, you really will: the other day, she told me that I should leave you or else you’ll keep hurting me.”
I said nothing.
“That’s her judgement, now that she’s not hanging out with all of us. Now she’s just my… maybe-a-friend. ‘Get out while you still can.’ And maybe she’s right?”
She rose to her feet.
“Maybe you’ll keep hitting yourself and keep telling me how terrible you are even though you’re a good fucking person, and I’ll hurt every time until I’m a complete mess. Maybe we really are monsters one bad day away from each other’s claws.”
I said nothing.
“I hate the fact she said that. I hate that’s what she thinks. I hate that she might be right. I can’t believe I’m grieving her and she could turn around and say that to me. And that’s friendship, to her. ‘Friend-to-friend, he’s decent enough but he’ll keep hurting you.’ Because she’s seeing it from another point of view and…”
Still, I said nothing.
“I can’t stop thinking about it. You’re right, she’s not gone, Alex, she got out. And now she’s trying to drag me out too. She wants me to leave the most important person in my life and I FUCKING HATE THIS!”
Her body tightened in white-hot rage.
“So, what, you still think I’m going to hurt you?”
“You can’t help it, can you? You’re as messed-up as I am and sooner or later, you’re gonna get angry and hurt again, and then you’ll do the same stupid shit and I’ll get caught up in it. And do you know how much it hurts me?! Just imagine me hurting myself, Alex!”
“Okay, she must be right, then!” I yelled, my own frustration finally boiling over. “Go on, leave me, quick, get out before I act like a fucking moron again! Heaven fucking forbid I actually look like the piece of shit I am!”
“You’re not a piece of shit, Alex! You are charming and sweet and talented and-”
“So are a million other people! Go and find some normal guy who can treat you right-”
“YOU’RE NOT LISTENING TO ME!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. I froze up. “I am so fucking sick of you hurting yourself! I don’t ever want to lose you, or the others, but I’m TERRIFIED that I will! Because if Harriet can leave and Dad can die then nobody’s safe!”
In one fell swoop, all my anger collapsed. I could feel it surge out of my body, flushed out by guilt and pain.
“I could find another boyfriend and find more friends but you are my boyfriend and Kendal, and Bao, and Zahid and Kitty, they’re my friends! Why can’t you get it into your fucking head?! Stop pushing me away! Stop hurting me! You’re the one person in the world who should never hurt me…!”
Her eyes were welling up; her legs gave out beneath her, collapsing to her knees, shaking still, and without even thinking, I swept forward and grabbed her tightly.
She began sobbing on my shoulder and my own eyes began to sting.
I don’t know how long the two of us were sat there for. I honestly don’t care. All I could do was hold her, and hold her, and hold her.
A millennium passed before she finally pulled away from me, sniffling.
“I’m sorry…” she croaked quietly.
“I’m sorry too…” I told her, brushing her hair away from her face as it stuck damp with tears. “I want to be the best I can for you.”
“I know…”
“Let’s get some sleep…” I suggested; she nodded lightly. I eased her upright again, kissed her forehead, turned the TV off and guided her upstairs. Once we were in the bedroom, I remembered that Kitty was presumably still awake and would have heard yelling.
“I’m just going to check on Kitty quickly.”
“Okay,” Dakota spoke, beginning to undress all the while.
I crossed the landing and knocked lightly on Kitty’s door. She opened it a little, already in her pyjamas.
“Is everything okay…?” she asked straight away.
“Yeah, it’s okay… sorry if it disturbed you…”
“It’s alright. If Dakota’s not upset, that’s what matters.”
“We’re going to bed now,” I explained, “so… if you need anything or whatever…”
She nodded.
“Goodnight.”
“Night, sleep well,” I waved, heading back off to the master bedroom as Kitty closed her door behind me.
As soon as I entered, Dakota embraced me, completely naked.
“Let’s be slow tonight,” she said softly against my neck, spawning excited goosebumps across my body.
“We don’t have to-”
“Let's,” she affirmed, kissing my neck.
It was a while before we fell asleep, holding each other close. I don’t think it’s easy to erase the pain we feel, but being together makes it hurt a lot less. Love, and friendship, really is powerful.
(Man, that sounds twee when I write it down…)