Part 4

Chapter Sixteen

Every once and a while, Sara and Catherine have this great idea that we should all have dinner together. They've been trying to get us to do more things together; I guess family things, so that we can grow closer.

Tonight just happens to be one of those dinner nights, and I find it very unsettling that Lindsey isn't here. They tell me she's spending the night at her aunt's house. What they don't tell me is they both wanted to get me alone so that the three of us could have an incredibly awkward dinner. They failed to mention that this was a setup of some sort that obviously involves the three of us being alone together.

"So how is school going?" Catherine asks me from around a mouth full of spaghetti.

I swallow the piece of garlic bread I've been chewing on for a while so that I can answer. "It's going."

"How'd those tests go?" I managed to share with Sara that I was taking some tests that would give me college credit. Right now, I've got fifteen hours worth of college credit through these exams. I plan on being in college for only two years.

"They went." I take another bite of my bread.

"So the championships start this Friday, right?" I wonder if they planned this out any further than getting me here.

"They start Friday." I push the noodles on my plate around a little bit but there's not enough noodles left for me to create anything special. "So… you want to talk about something?"

Catherine and Sara exchange a quick look. "We just wanted to spend some time with you," Catherine eventually says.

"And I appreciate that, I think, but you aren't pulling off smooth here." I put down my fork and sit back in my chair. "What's going on?"

Once again they exchange a look that leaves me out of the loop. "We want to talk to you about changing a few things," Catherine answers. I cross my arms in front of me. "Really? Like what?"

"Well," Sara takes on this part, "we think we need to give you a few more boundaries."

Boundaries? "I don't get it."

"Since you've been here, I've let you do whatever you've wanted. That needs to change."

Sara just might be serious about all this. "Mel, Lindsey looks up to you and when you move in here she'll be taking a lot of her cues on how she should behave from your behavior." Catherine sets down her fork and pushes her plate a little bit away from her. "Lindsey's already been having a few problems and I would like you to be a good influence on her."

"As opposed to the bad one I already am?" I can't help but be a little sarcastic. I mean, it does sort of sound like Catherine and Sara are telling me I'm a wild child or whatever., which is kind of ridiculous since they don't even know how wild I can actually be. Since coming to Las Vegas I've actually sort of been on my best behavior. New city, new start and all that stuff.

"That's not what we mean," Sara immediately jumps in. "We just think it's important for you to set a good example for Lindsey."

It still kind of sounds like they're saying I'm a bad example, but maybe that's just me being weird. "Lindsey shouldn't be looking to me as the big example," I'm staring into my plate. "I know I'm not perfect role model material."

"Mel, you are a very good role model. You're an excellent student…"

"And that's pretty much where it ends," I interrupt Catherine. "I know my behavior is disrespectful and arrogant. I threatened to hit you Catherine; that's not good behavior. Let's be honest here."

"That is all true, but Mel, you want to change. We can tell that you're trying to change. We believe you can change." I wonder if Catherine was a cheerleader in high school. It could explain a few things.

"Well... how do you even know Lindsey gives a damn about what I'm doing?" I hardly spend any time with the kid anyway. We only hang out when Sara talks me into babysitting or we're doing the 'lets all get together' thing.

"Mel, she wants to start playing sports... on an actual team." Catherine's acting like this should surprise me. A lot of kids want to be on sports teams.

"She never showed an interest before you came." Sara explains further.

"I don't think you can put that on me." Lindsey may have discovered sports for a thousand different reasons and none of them being me.

Catherine gives me an easy grin. "Lindsey wanted me to get crutches so that she could look cool," she pauses for effect, "like you."

"She said you did tricks with them, but wouldn't tell us what they were." Sara's smile fades. "She also told Catherine to get the hell away from her."

"And she repeated to me that 'children are really only phantoms in a reality that parents wished they controlled'. Now I think my daughter is intelligent, Melinda, but I know she has no idea what that even means."

"So what kind of boundaries are we talking about?" Seems like Lindsey does listen to what I say. She's got a good mom. That's something she needs to realize. The kid's got ten thousand times more love in this home than I ever got growing up.

"Watch what you say around her." Catherine replies immediately.

"And watch what you say to us around her." Sara carries on.

"Be respectful and when you move in ask us for permission to go out. You're not an adult yet."

Sara opens her mouth to say something but I cut her off. "I know I'm not an adult. If I had been an adult then I wouldn't have had to move to Las Vegas to live with my... sister."

It's amazing how the word 'sister' has the ability to quiet down both Catherine and Sara. They don't know what to say about the word when it comes out of my mouth. I still can't call Sara, Mom. She's still not calling me, Daughter. Catherine... well I don't know how else I would address Catherine. Catherine's title is the easiest. It's also the least complicated.

"Melinda," Sara says carefully, slowly. "We have to change the way we talk to each other so that we can move forward."

"What ever happened to Lindsey's father?"

Instead of them looking at each other they look away. "It's not important right now." Sara eventually answers.

I nod my head a few times. "Of course it isn't." I get up out of my chair.

"Melinda, don't walk away." Sara looks directly at me and a shiver runs down my back from the force of her words.

But her words aren't enough to keep me here. While looking at her directly in the eyes, I reach out for my crutches and settle them under my arms. "If you want to change the way 'we' talk to each other so much, Sara, then try to fucking talk to me in the first place. Try telling me something about yourself instead of always asking about me. Don't you think I'd like to know who my mother is?" I didn't mean to say that last part. "Everyone who knows about us says I'm a lot like her." And yet I'm still talking. "I'd kind of like to meet her instead of being dictated to about change and boundaries."

I turn around to get away from them both only when I see the shock and pain settle in Sara's eyes. It's not like I want to hurt Sara all the time, but I'm tired of being hurt by her. I don't want to live with this thing hanging over us all the time. This thing sucks and I want to let it go, but I don't know how. I don't know how I can feel that I hate everything about Sara but still love her.

"Melinda," Catherine calls to me gently, but it's not going to stop me. I walk out of the dining room straight to the back door of the house. I feel like getting a little bit of fresh air. Being around them sometimes makes me feel like I'm suffocating.

I walk outside and sit down on the patio. Catherine doesn't have a dog, but I wonder if she would mind if we got one. The last time I escaped to a backyard, having that dog greet me was actually pretty nice. I could go for having a dog right now.

I'll have to talk to both of them about that. Dogs are supposed to be a big responsibility and all. That's what parents are supposed to say about dogs, right?

But Catherine and Sara aren't my parents, not really. My parents died in a car accident less than a year ago. They died and even though I absolutely hated everything about them, I did still love them. It looks like I've got a theme going on here.

"I hate you but I love you." It doesn't sound too stupid. "I want to know everything about you but I only want to hear things that will make me feel better."

Shit. I'm talking to myself now... aloud. I'm completely losing whatever I managed to have in the first place. Well, at least I'm honest with myself. I can lie to the world but I can't lie to myself. Did someone famous say that?

The back door opens and it's Sara. This time I was expecting her instead of Catherine. I left her with a pretty heavy departing sentence or sentences. It'd be wrong of her to send out Catherine. She takes a seat next to me, but doesn't say anything. I'm used to her not talking. After I told her we should move in with Catherine and gave her the truth of how things were for me, we never did talk about it again. Well, she never said anything.

She never said anything.

"Melinda, I don't know how to talk to you." That's an interesting opening statement. "You're intimidating to me."

I could say something, but I'm not going to. I've said what I needed to or wanted to. I don't need to talk right now and I prefer not to. "You're like this perfect kid," she isn't even looking at me. "You survived everything that happened to you and did it so much better than I did. I had to crawl back up to even participating in the real world. I hid behind at first school, then work... just anything that would keep me away from being part of life."

So something had to change. "It took a while, but Catherine helped me become someone again. She pulled me up from my anger and self-hatred. I don't know how to do that for you."

Well I'm not perfect and I don't have a big magic wand of answers either. I'm still not going to talk.

Catherine comes out of the house, but when she sits down she doesn't sit next to me, she sits next to Sara. She takes Sara's hand in her own and remains silent. She gives me just the briefest of looks. I wonder who she's out here to support?

"Part of facing you, means facing myself... and that's a very scary thing to do."

Does she really think I'm perfect? I'm not perfect. She knows I'm not perfect. Different people handle different things differently. I survived by fighting life at every turn. She says she wasn't a part of the real world well, I'm not sure I'm a part of it either. I participate in it, but I'm always dancing around on the outside. I'm pushing people away who want to make me part of this world. I've been living in my own for a while now, and it's been good.

"Facing you also means facing the decisions I've made," Sara took long enough to start speaking again. She probably wants me to say something, but I'm not going to. I refuse to talk. I've been talking too long already. "I don't know how to even begin to apologize for leaving you with your grandparents. I knew who they were, but for some reason I thought they just might leave you alone… I hoped they would leave you alone."

If Sara had bothered looking at her own scars once in a while maybe she would notice that there is no possible way that they would have magically stopped beating the shit out of kids just because I came along. They weren't going to stop the violence just because of me, there's no way she can even try and tell me she actually thought differently. Sara needs to come up with a better lie. "Why would you even think that?" I can't maintain silence forever. "How stupid are you?"

"Mel don't," Catherine starts saying but I see Sara squeeze Catherine's hand and the woman stops talking. She wouldn't have said anything interesting anyway.

"It was easier to think that." Sara tells me. "It was easier to believe they gave you a wonderful life."

"If you had bothered to check back in once and a while you would have seen…" It doesn't matter. This doesn't matter. "You made your choices, Sara, and I've paid for them. That's never changing."

"I know that." She looks away from me. "That's something else I have to face."

I reach down and pull up my right pant leg all the way up to my mid-thigh. There's a jagged scar on the top of that leg. It's ugly and it hasn't faded because I was cut so deep. "Look at this," I order both Sara and Catherine. "Look at what your father did to me because I tried to stop him from hitting your mother." Catherine doesn't look at my thigh, she stares at my face and Sara doesn't even lift her eyes to me. "Look," I repeat but with more force. I grab Sara's free hand and run her fingers over the scar. "They were fighting and I thought I could stop it. I thought I could make everything better if I was just a little stronger, then a little better, then absolutely perfect." Sara tries to pull her hand out of my grip, but I'm holding on too strongly.

"Let go of my hand," Sara would sound calm if her voice wasn't shaking so much.

"Does this hurt you?" I ask harshly. "Does seeing this hurt you?"

"Melinda," Catherine warns.

"No!" I refuse to take it easy on Sara now. "Does this hurt you?" I ask Sara again. "Does it?"

"Yes!" Sara rips her hand out of mine. "Yes."

"When he stuck the letter opener through my leg and I pulled away this hurt a lot too. But that pain will never hurt me as much as me knowing that you put me in that home and you left. You left me there and you didn't think about it because it was easier for you." I slide away from Sara's reach. "So while all this is real difficult on you and while you have to face everything stop for just a moment and think about how difficult this just might be on me."

I'm done with this. I'm done. I can't do this anymore.

I try to get up so that I can walk away from them both again but Sara forcefully pulls me back down to her. "I've never stopped thinking about you." She's started crying. "I could never stop thinking about you."

Something falls from my face and I reach up to feel my cheek. I'm crying too. I don't much like crying. I got in trouble for doing it just one too many times.

"You're my daughter, Melinda." Sara says through her tears. "Despite everything, you're my child."

I wipe the tears from my face and try to force the tears away. "Then why did you leave me? Why do you..."

Sara pulls me closer to her. I'm too weak at the moment to fight her. Her conviction is stronger than mine. "I love you, Melinda."

Catherine reaches around Sara and takes hold of my free arm. "We love you, Melinda."

I chuckle; it's weak too. "You hardly even know me."

"Doesn't matter. I love you anyway."

"I've screwed up, Melinda." Sara looks at me unwaveringly. "I know that, but you said there's time for me to make a difference. Please Melinda, please give me that time. Give me that chance. Give us that chance."

She's begging me. We're both on the ground and she's begging me. "Does that mean I can start calling you Mom now?" I don't know why I'm even asking. I'm a long way from wanting to call Sara, Mom. I don't know. Maybe I'm testing her. Maybe I'm asking so that if she denies me it'll give me a reason to believe that they're lying to me, that they're saying this stuff so that they can find a way to control me.

Sara takes a quick look at Catherine, but her eyes are focusing on me within moments with more intensity than I ever remember seeing in her before. "Only if that's what you want."

Chapter Seventeen

"Hey Lindsey, let me holler at you for a minute." Catherine and Sara are downstairs watching some tired movie about true love. Lindsey just got home and she completely blew off the both of them.

Girl's getting a bit of an attitude. She really can't be picking up all my bad habits. She just needs to develop some of her own. At least some habits that I can't directly be blamed for.

Lindsey throws her backpack on the floor. "What's up?"

I hobble into her room and shut the door behind me. "You're disrespecting your mom."

Lindsey gets a disgusted look on her face. "What do you care?"

"I care enough to talk to you about it."

Lindsey puts her hands on her hips. "You're not my mother."

I shrug. "You're not talking to your mother, so it's a good thing I'm not."

"Did she put you up to this?"

I shake my head. "Not really. They talked to me about some stuff, but they didn't say a thing about me talking to you."

"What did they talk to you about?"

This girl has a lot of questions. "Stuff. We talked about stuff."

"Well what stuff?" She also has a lot of attitude.

"My stuff." I try to keep my annoyance out of my voice. I don't want to fight with her.

"Your stuff?"

"My stuff." I repeat evenly. "My issues. My relationship with my mother. My fu..." I have to watch what I say. "My messed up life."

Lindsey's hands drop from her waist. "Figures."

"What figures?"

"They're always involved with you now... or work."

"You jealous?"

"No." Lindsey turns away from me.

"Is that why you suddenly got this bitch-fest of an attitude?" There was probably a better way for me to say that.

Lindsey keeps her back to me. "I don't have an attitude."

"Lindsey, you have to remember that you've got two people downstairs who really love you. You don't want to mess with that." I'm tired of standing. I hobble over to Lindsey's bed and sit down. I lay my crutches on the floor and push them a little bit under the bed.

"How would you know?" She finally turns around to face me, her arms crossed in front of her.

"Because I don't...didn't have it."

Lindsey's arms fall to her side. "What do you mean?"

I'm probably not the person who should be making a decision about what's appropriate for this girl to hear, but since I'm the one here now I guess I'm the only one to make the decision. "Come take a seat." I pat the other side of the bed. "This is going to be a long story."

Lindsey gives me a dubious look, but ultimately decides I'm harmless and takes a seat on the other side of the bed. I wonder how much Catherine and Sara have told Lindsey. Do they keep her as out of the loop as they do me? What do they tell her?

Well, I'm not her parent. At best, I guess I could be considered an older stepsister, or at least in the future that could be my title. "What do you know about me ending up in Vegas?"

"Mom told me that your parents died and you had to come live with Sara," Lindsey immediately answers.

"She tell you that Sara was my sister?"

"No," Lindsey shakes her head. "She said you were Sara's family."

Hmm. It seems like Catherine plans ahead. "Well you do know that Sara's my biological mother, right?"

Lindsey nods. "Yeah."

"Well I didn't know that until a few weeks after I came to live here."

Lindsey shrugs. "I kinda figured."

So now comes the hard part. "When I was staying with my parents, it was a hard life. Any of your friends ever tell you their parents hit them?"

Lindsey's eyes widen. "No."

"Well, I'm sure your mom talked to you about anyone ever hurting you or your friends. She probably told you it was a bad thing to do and all that."

"She did."

I lick my lips and take a couple of swallows. "Well do you know who you run to when your parents are the one's beating up on you?"

"Your teacher?" she doesn't sound too confident.

"That's what they say, but you feel like you can't run to anyone." I'm starting to lose my point here. I came in here to talk to Lindsey about something specific. "What I'm trying to say is that I was raised in that kind of home. My parents beat on me all the time. They said it was love, but that wasn't love. People who hit you like that don't love you."

"My dad drank a lot," Lindsey softly admits. "He hit me once... Mom doesn't know about it. I thought if I told her she wouldn't let me see him anymore."

"You're probably right about that, but that would be only because she loves you so much."

"I think I remember him hitting Mom too."

I didn't mean to have this kind of conversation with Lindsey. I thought I'd just give her firm talking to and walk out of the room. This wasn't supposed to be confession central time.

"You miss your dad, huh?"

She nods. "Do you miss your parents?"

Do I? Is there something about the life they gave me I miss? "Some things I miss, but your dad was probably a lot better person than they were."

"I don't think he was." Lindsey's attention falls to her bed comforter. "Mom doesn't speak bad about him, but I can tell she didn't like him. I don't think Sara liked him either."

"Sara knew him?"

"She's the one who was supposed to solve his murder."

Murder? "So she didn't solve it?"

"No," she answers softly. "Mom and her broke up after that."

Broke up? Maybe I should have sat down and talked to Lindsey about all this before. "How long were they separated?"

"A few months." Lindsey finally lifts her eyes from the bed and looks at me. "It was hard."

I'm starting to feel a little out of my depth. "I'm sure it was... for everyone. It was probably really bad for you since you probably didn't understand all that was going on."

"It was. I didn't understand why Mom was so angry with Sara." Well I can't help with her understanding that.

"There was probably a lot going on that you didn't see or didn't hear."

"I heard Sara asking Mom why she let me see my dad still." Lindsey's eyes are starting to glisten and she looks like she's going to start crying. I take a quick look around for something that will make the tears magically never appear. I've got nothing.

"Sara thought me being around my dad was dangerous."

When what Lindsey says actually registers in my brain, I let out a sardonic chuckle. Lindsey gives me a dirty look. "It's not funny."

The grin I know that was on my face disappears. "I know it's not. That's not what made me laugh. Sara ends up being a little different for me." Now Lindsey looks confused again. "Lindsey, my relationship with Sara is a lot different than yours. We've got a thick history of pain."

Lindsey doesn't look any less confused. "Lindsey, what all this you've said means really, is that you've got two people downstairs who care a whole lot about you. Why on earth would you want to mess with that?"

Lindsey looks away from me. She doesn't have an answer, not that I expected her to. "I know you're coming into this big teenage world and think you know everything, but try not to give your mom too hard of a time."

"You give them a hard time." I knew she would eventually bring that up.

"That's different?" I have no idea how to explain this.

"Why?"

"It just," I can't finish this sentence. It sounds stupid, too stupid to my ears. "Obviously I have to try and be better too." I apparently am going to have to accept boundaries. "So we work on it together?"

She doesn't look like she's going to cry anymore. Maybe I said something right. "We try together."

There's a knock on the door and immediately both Sara and Catherine are coming into the room. I guess they thought Lindsey and I had been alone together a little too long. "Everything going okay in here?" Catherine asks.

"We were just talking about getting a dog," I wink at Lindsey. "We both think it's a fantastic idea."

"A dog?" Catherine doesn't believe me, but I bet she's smart enough to let this go.

"Dogs require a lot of work." Sara says.

"Well I'm going to be home more now that the basketball season is ending." I shrug. "I'll be able to watch over Lindsey when you both are working and care for the dog."

"I don't have to go to Aunt Nancy's all the time." Lindsey's smiling now. "I always wanted a dog, Mom, but you said we couldn't care for it. With Mel here we can care for it now."

"You'd be willing to care for Lindsey every day while we work?" Sara asks me directly.

I take a look at Lindsey then turn my attention back to Sara. "I'd be more than willing. We've got to become a family somehow."

"We'll have to think about it," Catherine tells us.

"About the dog or me watching Lindsey?" I ask.

"Both." She says.

"Well as long as you're thinking about things," I grin, "can you also think about buying me a car?"

"Definitely not," Sara replies immediately leading me to believe she didn't think about it at all.

I turn my attention to Catherine. "You've got to at least think about it. I'm going to be seventeen in a few months and I'll need a car. Especially if I'm going to be participating in the care of Lindsey."

"Hey!" Lindsey interjects. "I don't need to be cared for. I can do it myself."

"You're too young," Sara, Catherine, and I reply all at once then look oddly at each other. We all agree on something. It kind of sucks for Lindsey though.

"We'll think about the car." Catherine says.

I've just remembered something. I'm surprised I hadn't thought of this before. "It won't cost you anything. My parents had a life insurance policy."

"What?" Catherine asks me, but is looking at Sara. I forgot to tell Sara about it too. I took care of everything before Sara even came to pick me up. I think I've got the paperwork hidden deep in my stuff at the apartment somewhere.

"Both of them had a life insurance policy that added up to a little under a million dollars, I think."

"A million dollars?" Sara asks.

I shrug. "I think. They wanted me to have money to go to college and… uh for stuff." Maybe I just wanted to forget about the policy. Them even leaving it for me means they thought about me in a way other than a punching bag. "They also said I'd be the executor of the estate when I turn eighteen, until then some lawyer is in charge."

"They did that?" Sara seems as thrown off by them thinking about taking care of everything as I am... or probably was at the time.

"So I can get the car right?" I don't want to linger on the insurance money too long. I have to think about things before I decide to talk about them.

"That'd be so cool," Lindsey says excitedly. "I wouldn't have to feel so embarrassed with you taking me and my friends around anymore, Mom."

Maybe Lindsey isn't the best person to have fighting on my side. "We'll think about everything," Catherine replies with a certain note of authority in her voice.

"That's cool." I'll end up with a car eventually. I can buy my own when I turn eighteen. I'll have a million dollars when I'm eighteen.

That actually seems kind of daunting. I should give Sara the number of that lawyer and a copy of the insurance policies. This is probably one of those things that need to still be worked out. Sara and I haven't done anything to settle her parents' estate. We're probably going to have to go back there.

I know I don't want to do that. I want the house to be torn down. I can probably afford to do that when I'm eighteen too. I should start making a list.

Chapter Eighteen

"I miss the beach." My feet are propped up on the railing of the balcony and the cool breeze is cooling down my heated skin. Kendra, LaTasha, and Jenny are sitting out here with me. The rest of the team is inside the hotel room flipping through the channels on the TV or messing around.

The tournament has finally begun, and even though none of us had to drive too far to get to the Orleans Arena we all get to stay in a hotel anyway. It's part of the whole experience. We've been assigned four to a room, which means we have five rooms. The coaches each got their own room.

"Did you live near the beach in California?" Kendra asks.

"Close enough." I sigh. "My...grandmother would take me to the beach sometimes and let me run off all my extra energy."

"You still see your grandparents?" LaTasha asks. She doesn't know that I'm actually talking about the woman I thought was my mother. No one out here but Jenny knows that.

"She died in that car accident I told you about." There's no point in hiding things anymore. The truth will get out somehow.

"I thought that was your Mom?" Christina asks from behind me. The rest of the team must have smelt a good story coming on, because most of them have magically appeared on the balcony.

I think Jenny believes she's being discrete, but she somehow manages to slide her way past all the bodies so that she's sitting on the armrest of my chair. It probably would have been less obvious if she had decided to sit on my lap.

"I thought it was my mom, at the time." I answer after I think everyone is settled around me. "I found out not that long ago that my sister is actually my biological mother."

"Is your father actually your brother?" LaTasha jokes.

I give her look letting her know that I am definitely not amused and Kendra does me a favor and smacks LaTasha upside the head. It's good to know if I can't get to her then someone else will. "I'll probably never know my father. Sara was raped then I was born."

"That sucks," Rebecca replies from somewhere behind me. "Did he ever get caught?"

I shake my head. "Nope."

"So your sister is your mother?" Eboni replies belatedly. "That's cool."

I know this team well enough to know that they're not going to ask anymore questions. They all like hearing these fantastic stories about my life and all, but they're not going to push me to talk about anything I don't want to talk about. They're probably the best bunch of people I've ever known. I wonder how they got that way.

There's a pounding on the hotel door, and from the other side Coach is yelling at us to all return to our rooms and to get some sleep. Our first game is at nine in the morning and our curfew was ten o'clock. I take a quick glance at my wristwatch and see that it's nine fifty-five p.m.

I'm already in my hotel room, so there's no place for me to go but everyone else gets up and starts gathering their things so that they can leave. Well, everyone except Jenny, Kendra and Rebecca. It's their room too.

It doesn't take long for the four of us to be alone and preparing for lights-out. Kendra takes the bathroom first and Rebecca is inside the room talking on her cell phone saying goodnight to her boyfriend. She hasn't talked to him for probably a full two hours. I don't know how she manages the whole relationship thing. It seems kind of demanding to me.

Jenny and I are still on the balcony overlooking the Orleans Arena, awaiting our turns to ready for bed. That's one thing about having four people to a room with only one bathroom; things take time.

"You're doing a pretty good job of not letting the team know how upset you are about not being able to play tomorrow."

"I promised I wouldn't." Even if it is tearing me apart inside. I didn't even have to stay in the hotel. Coach gave me the option of just showing up for the game; she said she'd understand if I didn't want to hang out with everyone. I couldn't do that to them though. Spending almost three days in a hotel/casino with the team is supposed to be half the fun.

Jenny moves closer to me and puts her hand on my shoulder. "They're all really happy that you're here."

I take Jenny's hand from my shoulder and pull her around in front of me. "And you?"

She smiles. "I'm happy you're here too."

"Then everyone's happy."

"Sure."

A knocking on the glass sliding door practically makes me fall out of my chair. When I turn around to see who just gave me a heart attack, I see Kendra laughing. "You two have to stop the foreplay now." I can barely hear her through the glass. "It's your turn for the restroom."

I'm glad it's dark out here, because I think I'm blushing. "Piss off." I yell back to her.

"I'll give you two minutes," Kendra holds up the appropriate amount of fingers. "Then you've got to let Jenny go to bed. She has to perform tomorrow." She's kind enough to close the curtain on the door before she walks away, leaving Jenny and I a little more privacy.

"That was a little embarrassing," Jenny admits when I turn back around to face her. "I didn't think they knew I was..."

"It doesn't matter," I interrupt before she can finish. "They can make up all the stories they want to."

"But it's not a story. I really am gay." She's never outright said that to me before. It's a little shocking.

"I meant they could make up the stories they wanted to about us." I have no idea what I really meant, but that sounds like a good recovery.

"I could tell them the truth," Jenny softly offers. "They might not believe it, but I could still tell them."

"What truth?" There are many versions of it, I think.

"That we aren't together." Jenny looks away from me. "That you aren't gay."

I smirk. "Who said?"

"Does that mean you are?"

"Your time's up." Kendra slides open the door. "You both have to officially break the love fest up." She reaches out and grabs Jenny's arm then drags her back into the hotel room. "Go get ready for bed."

Jenny looks back at me over her shoulder and I wink at her. I don't remember winking at anyone before. She bursts out in a smile and let's Kendra pull her towards the bathroom.

I reach out and get my crutches from their place in the shadows up against the wall. I stand up and settle the crutches underneath me. When I get into the hotel room, Rebecca and Kendra are each sitting on the different beds in the room.

"We can't let you two sleep in the same bed," Rebecca tells me after I've been standing in the middle of the room looking between the beds for longer than is probably necessary.

"We're supposed to sleep tonight." Kendra adds.

I look between the two of them then choose who's going to be my bed partner for the next couple of nights. I've never had to share a bed before. That was one of the pluses, I guess, from being mainly an only child. No one really invaded my space all that much.

Maybe I should just sleep on the floor. My back has been a little sore lately, the floor could clear that problem right up. All I need is a blanket and a pillow. I don't even necessarily need a pillow.

"Is there something wrong?" I hear Jenny's voice ask from behind me. She sounds concerned. I must look like I'm really freaking out here. It has been a while since I've had a panic attack. Maybe it's time for me to have another.

Jenny reaches out for me, but I shy away from her touch. I have to figure out why I'm freaking out. It can't be about the bed situation; that doesn't make any sense.

So what was I thinking about when I looked at the beds? I wasn't thinking about anything. Then I started thinking about being an only child and being in bed alone. I never had to sleep with anyone before.

'You think you can sneak out of this house, Girl.' Laura Sidle's voice is never going to get out of my head. 'Try breaking through those straps. You're stuck here until I say you can leave. You can't ever run away.'

She had me strapped to that bed for a solid week. She called the school and told them that I got the flu. When I returned to school I was weak and thinner than before, but all that was because of the flu. It was going around bad that year.

"Melinda," Jenny calls to me carefully. "You're not strapped to anything."

Did I say something aloud? I don't remember saying anything aloud. It's Laura's voice; it's not mine. She's the one that won't get out of my head. I always hear her laughing at me. I have no idea why she's laughing, but she is.

"I have to go." I head straight for the door and only realize that I'm no longer using my crutches when an excruciating pain flies up my leg from my foot. I don't yell out, instead I bite down on my tongue until I can taste blood. Now my tongue hurts a lot.

I get past the pain in my foot, but don't go back for my crutches. I force myself to walk out of the hotel room. "Melinda," Jenny is right behind me. "Where are you going?" She has one of my crutches in hand and gives it to me.

"I can leave if I want to," I can hardly recognize my own voice. I sound panicked and desperate.

"You can," Jenny doesn't stop me, she keeps up with my pace and doesn't try to reach for me again. "But maybe you should tell me what's going on first."

"I'm fine." Well now, that's obviously not true. I've got to settle down. I'm in a hotel/casino in the middle of Las Vegas, and I have no where to run to or nothing to run from.

We reach the elevator on this floor and I push the button to go up. "Mel, you're not fine. You just tried to walk away without your crutches." The door to the elevator opens and Jenny follows me inside. I push the button for the roof. I hear they have a nice pool up there.

"She's in my head." This elevator is moving pretty slowly. I wonder what time they close off the pool on the roof.

"Sweetie," Jenny reaches out and takes my hand, "who's in your head?"

At some moment, my higher brain functioning is going to kick in and I'm going to be able to stop whatever it is I think I'm doing. I'll turn to Jenny and I'll tell her exactly what is going on with me. I'll explain everything.

The doors to the elevator open and I try to step through them, but Jenny holds me back. "Why do you want to go on the roof?"

I don't have an answer to that. It's the place closest to the air? That doesn't sound very sane. I don't feel very sane at the moment. "I'm not going to jump," I tell her. "I don't want to jump."

Jenny loosens her grip on my arm and I'm able to jump through the elevator doors right before they close. Jenny doesn't quite make it. There isn't anyone up here, right now but that's probably because it's freezing out here. The last I heard it was winter and it tends to get cold at night.

I make my way over to the pool and look down into it. The water isn't a glistening blue, but I jump in anyway. I let myself sink to the bottom and decide to stay there. It's quiet down here. I can't hear her anymore.

If I want to jump into a freezing pool in the middle of the winter then I can do that. I'm free to go anywhere I want whenever I want. Laura Sidle does not control me. She can never control me again.

She can't tie me down to any beds and watch me try and break free of the binds. She can't yell at me anymore. She can't do anything. Laura Sidle no longer has a voice.

There's a splash from above me and when I look up I see Jenny reaching for my body. She's offering me her hand, and I decide to take it. The water is way too cold for me anyway.

Jenny pulls me to the surface with her and I take a big breath of fresh air. I feel like I can breathe again. I also feel like I've just exposed myself to getting hypothermia.

"What the hell were you doing?" Jenny shouts at me as soon as we're both safely on the pavement.

"Felt like taking a dip." I answer through my gasps of air.

Jenny stands up and walks over to a stand that's housing a lot of towels. "Should I even ask you why?"

A couple of towels hit me in the face, and I immediately start to use them to dry off my body. "I needed it to be quiet." And it worked. So it couldn't have been that crazy of an idea.

Jenny comes back over to me and sits down almost on top of me. "Are you going to tell me who you had to shut up now?"

"Laura Sidle." There's no point in hiding it.

"So she strapped you down?"

I give a slight nod. "To a bed for a week. She told me I could never run away."

"How old were you?"

"Eight. It was after the first time and last time I tried to run away." Talk about effective parenting techniques. I never tried to run away again. I didn't want to risk that punishment.

"I'm sorry," Jenny whispers.

I shrug. "You didn't do it."

"I'm still sorry it happened."

I release a long sigh. "So am I."

We sit there for a few moments more wrapped up in some relatively cheap towels, until I suggest we head back to the room. It wouldn't be a good idea to let Jenny get sick before the tournament even begins. It's a bad idea to get rid of all our star players.

"I should tell you something." Jenny says right before I get ready to try and achieve a standing position.

"What?" I ask cautiously, not quite sure what I should brace myself for.

"When you stormed out of the room, I told Kendra to call Sara."

"You have her work number?"

Jenny shakes her head. "I have her cell number. She gave it to me just in case anything..." Her voice starts to trail off slowly then just dies.

"She has you watching over me?"

"She's just worried about you."

I smirk. "Didn't say it was a bad thing." It probably is actually a good one. Who knows what would happen if I was left completely on my own in this big wide world. I'd probably be fine.

"So you don't mind?"

"Nope." I roll to my side and put my good foot flat on the ground. If I can lift myself up with my good foot, then I won't have to mess with the bad one. It hurts a whole lot at the moment. Too bad I gave up on taking those pain meds. I heard they were addictive.

Jenny takes my hand and pulls me up from the ground. I've got a little too much momentum and end up falling into her body. We almost fall to the ground again, but Jenny gains her balance and gives me mine.

For a moment we're breathing each other's air, but I soon pull away. "Thank you."

Jenny's confused. "For what?"

"For not calling me crazy and for being crazy enough to follow me up on this roof in the winter to jump in a pool with me."

"Anytime." I'm sure she really doesn't mean that. Exposing oneself to hypothermia can't be the best of times. "Just try not to do it again anytime soon."

I give a soft chuckle. "I'll try not to."

We're not moving anywhere. We should go back into the building. We both need to put on some dry clothes. Our roommates are probably worried. They may have woken up the entire team by now. Sara may even be looking for me right this very moment. Catherine is probably with her too.

It's time to go.

Before I get a chance to realize what is happening to me at this particular moment, I feel Jenny's lips on my own and I don't get a chance to think about it. It's just happening and I'm letting it happen. I'm letting our bodies come together. I'm letting my body do something and feel something that it hasn't in a while.

I don't hear the elevator doors open, but they must have, because I hear Catherine's voice amusedly say, "I was told there was an emergency."

Jenny and I pull apart slowly. This is just the way a first kiss should end. Everyone should be caught by their mother's girlfriend.

"And you're wet," Catherine comes up to us both. "And you don't have your crutches." She looks down at my foot.

"I think it's at the bottom of the pool," I tell her. "I don't remember throwing it away before I jumped in."

"You jumped into the pool?" Catherine asks slowly.

"I heard her voice." Catherine gives me this weird look, but soon comprehension falls into place.

"I pulled her out," Jenny adds, I think, just to fill the silence.

"Come on." Catherine throws my left arm around her shoulder. "We've got to get you two out of this cold." She lets me use her as a crutch and soon we're all standing in the elevator watching the floors tick by.

"So are you going to tell Sara about this?" I know she's not talking about me jumping into a pool. Telling Sara about that is kind of a given at this point.

"If I don't, are you?"

Catherine looks at me for a long moment, but eventually shakes her head. "It's not my thing to tell."

"I think me jumping into a pool in the middle of the night is enough to tell Sara in one night." Everything else will just have to wait until I've got it figured out. I should probably talk to Jenny before I talk to Sara. Hell, I should probably make an effort to have a little conversation about this in my own head.

"It's your choice." We reach our floor and see Sara heading towards the elevator. She looks worried.

"What the hell happened to you?" She immediately takes Catherine's place and wraps an arm around my waist. "Why are you wet? You're freezing. We need to dry you off."

She's talking really fast. "I jumped into a pool." I figure that answers both her questions.

Sara looks at me for a long moment, but let's whatever it is she wants to say slide. "We need to get you dried off."

For now, everything needs to be forgotten until Jenny and I can get into some dry clothes and warmed up a bit. I could go for a nice cup of coffee now or maybe even tea. Hot cocoa would probably be best. I can sit down and tell Sara and Catherine my story about freaking out over a nice warm cup of cocoa.

It sounds like a perfect plan made by a crazy person. I've got to get these freak out moments in control. It's just not smart to jump into a pool in the winter. It's also not smart to try and walk on my left foot. I probably set my recovery time back a week or two.

I've got to find a way to get my brain back in working order. These moments aren't normal for me. None of this is normal for me.

Chapter Nineteen

I take as much time as possible in the shower. In the bathroom I'm allowed to be alone with my own thoughts and I don't have to worry about explaining anything to anyone. I don't have to worry about what I'm going to say to Jenny and I don't have to worry about the conversation I'm going to have with Sara.

I'm still not too sure how I'm going to tell her that I was strapped to a bed for a week by her mother. That seems like it could start off another fight between us. I know that when I'm talking about it I'm going to end up getting angry at her again for leaving me there. She's certainly not going to get me to confess to her that the only reason I was trying to run away in the first place was so that I could try and find her. I knew she was at Harvard University and I was set on finding her.

I was too young to even think of having a plan on how I was actually going to get to Harvard, but I was certainly going to go and find my big sister Sara. She would come down from her big university and she would protect me from the monsters in the house.

How stupid was I? How absolutely stupid was I? Sara wasn't going to come. There was no way for me to find her. I was eight years old and I didn't know how to find anyone.

Plus, I got caught. I got caught by the person I thought was my mother and was strapped to a bed for a week and told that I could never get away. I couldn't get away. I still can't get away.

There's a soft knock on the bathroom door then Catherine's voice asks me if everything is okay. Maybe she's afraid that I might be drowning. I don't want to drown. I think I've been drowning too long already.

"I'll be out in a minute," I tell her. I won't be ready in a minute though. I don't know how to prepare myself for my conversations with Sara anymore. I always say something that I don't really want to say or show her something I don't want to show her. I'm unable to keep everything under control.

With my towel I wipe off the fog on the mirror. I don't look too distressed, and I think I need a hair cut. I don't like my hair getting this long.

What am I doing? I need to go out into that big room and sit across from Catherine and Sara and possibly Jenny and face the music someone else has created. It's time for reality to strike once again.

I throw my towel over my shoulder and pick up the wet clothes I threw on the floor. I look around for a place to hang them up and decide to put them on the edge of the tub. I'm not going to put them back in my bag with all my clean stuff.

Once I've got everything settled, I turn to the bathroom door and open it in one swift motion. My foot is still killing me so I'm going to focus on that pain right now. It'll take my mind off everything I'm going to be saying.

"You feel better?" Jenny is still in the room. I wasn't sure she was going to stay. She could have gone to another room with our team members where there's less drama taking place.

"I feel warm and clean." I tell her, only focusing on her. I don't want to see Sara and Catherine just yet. Maybe we could save this conversation for another day.

"You want to tell me why you jumped into that pool?" I guess my actions won't allow Sara to put this on hold until later. I should really try to be saner when I go off the deep end.

I put my arm around Jenny's shoulder for support. She leads me over to the bed across from Sara and Catherine. Sara doesn't say anything about Jenny's body being so close to mine and Catherine gives me a brief look but doesn't say anything either. I don't see us doing anything inappropriate. I'm not using my crutches and my foot isn't strong enough yet for me to walk on it without some kind of support.

Once we're seated Sara asks, "You're comfortable with Jenny sticking around?"

I shrug. "She followed me into a pool." That should be reason enough for her to stay, right?

Sara leans forward and places her elbows on her knees. "So what happened with that?"

I think she looks anxious or nervous or something like that. I'm not too sure what the difference between the two is anyway. I'm sure if I did a search on the words I'd find out. The internet is helpful in that way. "Can I put a disclaimer on this conversation?"

"Disclaimer?" Now Sara looks confused. That's something I've seen on her before. It doesn't show so much in her face as it does her eyes. I've figured out that she's an expert at only showing her emotions through the glint in her eyes. It's like a door shuts there when something comes up she's not comfortable with or sure about.

I nod. "Disclaimer. I want to tell you that I'll get angry when I tell you this, but I won't run away. I'll face you."

Sara doesn't know what I'm talking about. The door is still closed in her eyes, but Catherine gets it. Her eyes are just as expressive as Sara's but with her there isn't a door. She makes people guess what the glint in her eyes mean. Is it anger? Is it pain? Is it nothing at all? Right now she's guarded. When I'm sitting in front of Sara and we're about to have an uncomfortable situation, Catherine always looks guarded. I don't think she's figured out the role she's supposed to play between Sara and me yet.

Every time I yell at Sara or lash out at her in some way, Catherine always looks like she wants to scream at me or lunge at me. There's something she wants to say that I don't think her higher brain functioning is letting her get out. Maybe she wants to be fair about everything and give me a chance. It's obvious she doesn't want to push me away too far. In a pathetic way she's the only link I've got directly to Sara.

I said before that she was a good buffer and I honestly meant that. Catherine lets Sara and I talk to each other in a common language. I'm often too upset to listen to Sara and Sara's too...I don't know to listen to me. It's hard for us to hear each other sometimes or maybe a lot of times.

It's stupid for me to realize all these problems but not have any idea how to correct any of them. I can always see what's happening; I can see what I'm doing or saying but it's always like I'm apart from me when I talk to Sara. I'm riding on emotions when I talk to her. My brain conveniently only gives me flashbacks of my childhood that make me angry and sad and a thousand other things that I always want to direct to Sara.

Maybe I'll never be able to stop that. Maybe I want to continue to blame her for everything that happened to her that she wasn't in control of because some part of me thinks that she could have been. Maybe...I don't know. Maybe I just don't know what to do with facing the reality of my existence.

Sara said before I came to this tournament that I intimidated her, well maybe she intimidates me too. I don't know why I lash out at her but keep my head level with everyone else. I'm a saint to Catherine compared to how I treat Sara. I'm a good person with Jenny and I'm spiteful with Sara.

Jenny is shaking me, her hand on my shoulder, calling my name. I think I've missed something. "What?"

Jenny opens her mouth, but it's not her voice I hear. I guess Catherine beat her to asking the obviously apparent. "Are you okay?"

"I jumped into a pool in the middle of the night to run away from a voice in my head," I reply softly. "I don't think that makes me okay."

"You heard voices in your head?" That's right. Sara still doesn't know the story. I guess now I'm schizophrenic to her. That's probably a step up.

I shake my head. "Not voices just a voice." It wasn't my own so maybe that does make me schizophrenic. "It was Mom's." Laura Sidle for all her shitty glory was the person who raised me. By all definitions she was my mother. "We were talking about sleeping arrangements." Seems like a good time to start off my little story. "I walked into the room and it turned into my room at home. I got thrown back into a time when Mom strapped me to a bed because I tried to run away to bring you back to save me." I'm looking at Sara but I don't feel angry right now. I don't even sound angry. I sound lost. "Mom caught me and said that I could never run away from her and to prove it to me, she strapped me to my own bed for a week. She wanted to make me feel like I would if I was alone on the streets. She gave me trash to eat and dirty water to drink. She even spit on me sometimes so that I'd know people that live on the street are treated like dirt. She successfully broke my will to run away. She probably broke a few other things too."

Sara's just looking at me. The door in her eyes is shut tightly, but I know what's going on in that head of hers. I can tell because I've seen myself in the mirror. I know what the vacancies in a look mean to us. "What are you remembering?" I've not been brave enough to ask her that before. I don't think I ever wanted to know, and I still don't want to know but something inside me is making me ask. It's shouting out that I need to ask.

She looks to Catherine and Jenny but avoids looking at me. She's not comfortable with what I've asked, that's more than obvious. She probably doesn't want to say anything to me with Jenny and Catherine in the room. I don't think she's told Catherine a whole lot, probably just enough for Catherine to know the atmosphere of the Sidle home, but probably not enough to know the details of it.

I just hope that Sara realizes that I'll probably never ask this again. This is her chance for us to be different from here on out. It's her chance to show me that I shouldn't throw all my emotions onto her. It's a chance for her to show me that we both can be human.

My patience is running out along with my ability to sit here without running away. I turn away from her, but Sara gently puts a hand on my face and guides me back to her. "Mom seems to have repeated a lot of her techniques. I tried running away after I was..." I can tell she wants to look away from me but she holds our gaze. "I thought that I could go to a shelter and get some help. I thought it was time I finally stopped taking her crap. I thought it would be best for both of us if I got away. She caught me, probably just like she caught you." It did always seem like she had a sixth sense about things. I was never quite good enough at hiding from her. "I think she was easier on me, since I was pregnant. Dad even stepped in and stopped her from being too..."

"Violent." I finish for her but only because I understand her words better than anyone else can. "Sometimes he could pretend to be a caring parent."

Sara blinks a couple of times. "She could too."

"But it never meant much to me. I never knew when a caress could turn into a slap."

"Sometimes her kindness hurt."

"It always hurt."

"Because she made you care for her."

"She made you want to care for her."

I sit and stare at Sara a moment longer before I realize there are more than the two of us in this room. Our conversation has been heard by two people who... I don't know who they are. I don't know what they mean.

I don't know a lot, and I don't think Sara knows anymore than me. She's turned to Catherine with an uncertain look in her eyes. I don't know what she's looking for but maybe Catherine does. I turn to Jenny uncertain for what I'm looking for, but maybe Jenny knows. In her big brown eyes, I see disbelief, horror, acceptance, and finally love. When I take a chance and look at Catherine I see the exact same thing. It's not directed at me, but it probably easily could be. It's just that she's focusing on Sara now; she's focusing on her heart.

When I look back at Jenny she smiles at me, but it's a forced smile. She doesn't seem to know how to react to all this, but she's not alone in that. I think she's in the same boat as everyone else in this room including me. I wish I could come up with something witty and brilliant to say, but I've got nothing. Talking about the weather even seems a little too obvious.

Who says I need to say anything anyway? I'm not the only person in the room. I'm not one of the adults in the room either. I'm actually the youngest one in here. Jenny is a year and a half older than I am.

I've heard that quietness can be really loud, but I didn't know it could be this loud. I didn't know that in these moments the people in it could feel so exposed. I didn't know that I'd be able to talk to Sara and focus on her so intently that I'd forget there was anyone else around.

So I guess I can sit here in this silence and I can try to figure out what all this means. It's better than trying to figure out what to say to try and make everything back to whatever our normal is. I actually think we just need to find a new normal. The old normal really sucked.

Chapter Twenty

We won state. We get to go to nationals next. I don't know where they're being held. The team did really good. As a matter of fact, they did great without me playing. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I know that part of me is happy, I get a trophy just like everyone else, but there's that other part of me that kind of wishes they wouldn't have done so well without me. It's a complicated emotion, but what isn't for me these days.

I guess I could look at the silver lining of my cloud and see that at least I don't have to be on crutches anymore. The doctor finally released me and said I only have to use one crutch now, which is good since to the best of my knowledge one of my crutches is still drowning in a pool. The one crutch thing is supposed to be an improvement though. It's all about taking the small steps.

My life is about taking small steps right now. It seems like they're the only steps I'm able to take. All the small steps eventually have to lead up to one giant leap though, right? A bunch of small steps has to be better than like three giant leaps. When my foot heals, I might just have to check that out. How many small steps add up to a giant leap? It's the new big universal question. Who cares about black holes and distant galaxies? It's all about small steps and giant leaps.

A pair of arms encircles my shoulders from behind, startling me a little but not enough for me to fall out of my chair. "Why are you reading the dictionary?" Jenny softly whispers into my ear.

I turn around to face her with a slight smile on my face. "It's amazing what you can learn by reading the dictionary," I say pointing to the word that just happened to catch my eye. "See 'Identity' comes from the Latin 'idem et idem' same and same. Identity just means to be the same. At least it used to."

"Okay," she draws out the word. "So why are you reading the dictionary?"

I close the thick book and push it away from me. "No particular reason."

Jenny pulls away from me and I swing my desk chair around so that I'm fully facing her. "I thought you were supposed to get reacquainted with your family." Jenny, according to her parents, was spending too much time away from the family and was ordered to spend an entire night with them.

"They never told me that I couldn't bring a friend along," she's smiling and I think it's probably because she's trying to charm me into going with her. I haven't spent a lot of time with Jenny's family, which mostly consists of her mother, step-father and a brother who is off failing out of college-or so I'm told.

"Your step-father always gives me the evil eye." I've met him only three times and on each occasion he's asked me what I think about drug problems in the youth of America today. I just tell him that I don't think about it.

"He doesn't know how to treat you. He said he's not comfortable threatening a girl." Jenny takes a hold of my hands and pulls me in the chair over to the bed then takes a seat across from me. "He's still not completely comfortable with the fact that I prefer to date girls."

"He thinks we're dating?" This is news to me, especially since I don't particularly think we're dating. Granted, I don't know what it is we are doing since I haven't really bothered to talk to her about anything since the night I jumped in the pool.

Jenny nods. "They both saw it coming way before I did."

"They saw it coming?" I've only met them three times. I wonder if Sara has seen anything coming. I wonder if Sara knows anything. Maybe I should consider telling her a little more seriously than I have been doing. She might have something insightful to say... or I could just talk to Catherine.

"Yeah," Jenny sighs. "They said something about puppy love."

"What do puppies have to do with anything?"

Jenny tilts her head to the side a little. "I don't know and I didn't want to ask."

"Oh." It was obvious to the team too. They all caught on to something before anything actually happened. Maybe we're being obvious about something. We've never kissed in public. I'm not like groping at her in the locker room or anything. Although, that doesn't seem like that bad of an idea. No wait. That is a bad idea. I should be thinking about something else.

"So get ready so that I'm not late." Jenny gives me a quick kiss on the lips then is walking towards the door. "I'll be waiting for you out in the living room." She closes the door behind her and I carefully get out of my office chair.

I look down at the clothes I'm wearing and figure that by getting ready Jenny meant that I needed to do something with my attire. I guess Adidas isn't good enough for her family. It won't kill me to change into something else especially if I need to impress the parents of a girl that I don't think I'm officially dating.

Poking through my dresser drawers I find a decent pair of khakis and a not too wrinkled baby blue Polo shirt that I don't remember ever buying or owning. I slip the clothes on and look at myself in the mirror. I look like I'm about to go out golfing, and I look preppy. Hopefully Jenny's parents like preppy.

Without a lot of care, I run a brush through my hair and tie it back in a ponytail. Immediately my bangs drop out of the band and I push them behind my ear. With another quick look in the mirror, I see someone that looks okay to go out, and hobble out of my room.

When I get to the living room, I see Jenny and Catherine sitting on the couch and Sara over in the kitchen. "What are you doing here?" I ask Catherine. "Don't you people work anymore?"

They all turn to me and look at me strangely. I look down at my clothes to make sure that I'm not showing anything that shouldn't be shown or have any embarrassing stains or anything. I look fine to me.

"You got out of the Adidas and Nike," Catherine says. "You're wearing khaki."

"Should I not be wearing khaki?" I take another look down at my pants. They don't look that bad. As a matter of fact, I think I look pretty good. That natural tan thing I've got going with my skin makes me look healthy even in the winter time. My skin tone actually makes me wonder what my father looks like. My skin is a couple of shades darker than Sara's. It may seem crazy, because it probably is, but I'd like to see a picture of him. It's not like I want to meet him or anything, but I'd like to see him. I'd like to see how much I look like him.

"The khaki looks fine, Mel" Catherine replies. "I'm just not used to seeing you in anything that isn't connected to working out in some way."

"You look good," Jenny says then takes a self-conscious look at Sara.

"Whatever." I shrug. "It's just a change of clothes, nothing special."

"So where are you going in your nothing special?" Catherine asks with a sly look on her face.

I immediately glance at Sara and see that she seems uninterested in our conversation. She actually looks a little preoccupied. I don't know what with, but it doesn't seem like she's paying a whole lot of attention to what's going on here, kind of in front of her.

As much as I would, in the future, might want to know about what's up with Sara, I'm not into knowing right now. Catherine's probably here to take care of what ever is going on. "I'm having dinner with Jenny's family. It's no big deal."

"You're going out tonight?" This actually grabs Sara's interest? I'm not home all the time. The only time I'm around here these days is when I'm sleeping.

"Yeah," I swing around so that I can get a better view of Sara in the kitchen. "I'm going to have dinner with Jenny's family. It shouldn't take that long."

"Oh." Sara's body sags and she walks over to the kitchen counter and presses her hands against its surface.

"Should I not be going?" I ask uncertainly but only because I know something is definitely off in the atmosphere.

"You should go and have fun." Catherine, I think, says to me but is looking at Sara.

I'm faced with some very obvious choices right now. I can just leave and pretend like I'm really stupid and don't realize that something's going on, or I could stay and ask a few questions. I could try to be more proactive in this interacting with the people you live with thing. Jenny's family or Sara's weirdness; these are my choices.

Damn.

I make my way over to Sara and stand right up next to her. "Is everything okay?"

Sara slowly turns her head to look at me and I see a lie coming from an arm's length away. She's going to tell me that everything is fine and that I should go and have some fun. She's just going to repeat Catherine's words and hope that I leave them both alone. They need me to walk out that door so that they can resolve whatever it is that is going on that I'm not supposed to know about.

The lie is right there, but I don't think it's going to make it out. I don't think she's going to brush me off this time. "I was working a case that may have involved domestic abuse and lost control. I was inappropriate with some co-workers." She gives Catherine a pointed look.

I don't think I'm prepared to deal with this kind of sharing. I may never be prepared to deal with this kind of sharing, but I guess if I say something wrong Catherine could always pick up the pieces and I can leave with Jenny.

"Why did you become a CSI, Sara?" I've never really asked her about work before. I never really cared to ask either. I'm not entirely sure that I care now.

She doesn't answer, but I don't need her to. It doesn't take a genius to figure this one out. "You're a lot more progressed than I am, you know." I put my back against the counter and focus on the refrigerator across from me. "You decided to help people and stop the ones that do the bad stuff. I bet it's a lot like trying to save yourself from Laura Sidle time and time again." I cross my arms in front of me. "I couldn't do that. Facing her is a nightmare, but you can do that. You do it. I think you probably are really good at it, but we have to remember that our past isn't our present." Sara opens her mouth to say something but I hold up my arms to stop her. "Yeah I know this is coming from a girl who jumped into a pool to silence Laura's voice."

A slight grin appears on Sara's face but quickly fades. "It's hard to deal with it sometimes," she says through a sigh.

I bump her with my shoulder. "We do have that in common, although I think I'm a little worse."

"Well with how I acted today, I don't think a lot of people would agree with you."

I want to say that those people don't know me, but now isn't the time to bring that up. It's not possible for me to push her into telling all her work buddies who I actually am. Plus, we're not talking about that right now. "So you apologize and do better next time. We just have to work on not letting the past make us yell at a bunch of people or jump into a pool in the middle of winter."

Sara looks down at the floor. "Then how do I deal with it next time?"

"People always say that we need to separate the now from the then. They say it like it's the easiest thing in the world, but I say we should let the then help us in the now." Hopefully I just made sense.

"What do you mean?"

I guess I didn't. "Well, you've got insight to the victims and the assholes. No one who doesn't know what that's like can understand what happens in the crime scene, at least not like you could."

"That's not the best kind of tradeoff."

I shake my head. "It's not for you. It's not for anyone like us, but it is for the victim. That's why I say since you put yourself through that you're kind of a hero. Not a lot of people get to be heroes these days, at least not like that."

Sara raises her brow and tilts her head to the side a little. "Have you been thinking about this just in case something like this happened?"

"Nope." I cross my arms back in front of me. "I think it's just the truth."

I get another tiny grin out of Sara. "So what do you want to be when you grow up? Do you want to help the victims?"

"I don't know." I shrug. "I don't know if I could be as strong as you are." It's not a compliment really, it's the truth. I don't know how she faces dead bodies and stuff every day. I rather work with non-dead people or maybe no people at all. Maybe I can invent something and become super rich so that I only have to work once. That's the American dream.

"Mel," Sara takes a step closer to me and puts her hand on my shoulder. "I think you'll be great at whatever you do because you're ten thousand times stronger than I am in every way that counts."

I'm not too sure what that means exactly but this moment is turning a little awkward. Honestly, I think there's a little too much going on for me at the moment. "I think I'm dating Jenny." I'm sure there's something else I could have confessed or even just said. The weather is generally universal isn't it? I could have said something about the weather or some sports team. I know things about sports.

Sara gives a small nod of her head. "I know."

"You know?" How could she know? The only person that could have said something was Catherine but Catherine said it wasn't her thing to say. I did believe her at the time.

"I do work as an investigator, Mel." Oh yeah there is that too. "I was starting to wonder if you were going to say anything to me, though."

I shrug. "I was thinking about it."

"When you're ready to talk about it, we can talk."

I can't help but chuckle. "When I figure out what to say then I'll say something."

"Is she um…" Sara quickly runs her hand through her hair, "your first?"

"I've never really been in a real relationship before. Never had anyone be persistent enough to stand by me for so long and take my shit." I can be honest about that. A lot of people think I'm a pretty face, but when they have to deal with me up close they tend to fade back into the background.

"You know I'm in my first real relationship too. It can be scary."

Is she offering advice or just sharing information? She can't be trying to talk about this now, and wasn't I supposed to be going to dinner with Jenny.

I take a quick glance over my shoulder and see no one. Jenny and Catherine have fled the room. I wonder where they went and I wonder why I didn't notice them leave.

"They're in your room," Sara helpfully supplies. "I think they wanted to give us space."

"I knew that." I so didn't know that, but I can pretend that I did so that I don't lose any face.

"Of course you did." Sara doesn't buy it, but that's cool. I didn't expect her to.

"So you're in your first too, huh?" I might as well bring the conversation back on whatever target we might have been aiming at. "I guess I am the more progressed one."

"Or maybe you found someone who wanted to stick by you sooner than I did."

"Or maybe I allowed them to stick by me." I really don't think I did a whole lot to get Jenny to stay onboard. She was just kind of always there, and I never felt like asking her to go away. I still don't feel like asking her to ever go away and that's a scary thought. As a matter of fact, that's really scary.

Sara shrugs. "Maybe you're right, but I wouldn't want anyone else."

"I wouldn't want anyone else for you." I don't know where that came from either, but I guess I mean it. Catherine is a good person. She makes me feel safe. I don't feel safe a lot. "Which is why you should go have that talk that she was going to force you to have and why I should get going to that dinner thing."

I turn to walk away but Sara grabs my crutch arm. "Thanks, Mel."

"For what?" I just told her what I think.

"It's awful but having someone around that understands this means something."

That is awful. It's kind of horrible actually that the only true bond I have with my mother is our mutual abuse. I don't even know when her birthday is, we never celebrated it at home, but we share the experience of being tied to a bed for trying to run away by a parent.

"What are you thinking about?" I hear Sara ask through my haze of thought.

"Our abuse is the only thing we share."

"That's not true," Sara looks pointedly at my closed bedroom door. "We share more than we probably know."

I take a deep breath and release it slowly. "Maybe we do," I say more to myself than to her. "So do we end this moment with a hug or something?"

"We can if you want."

So I hug her. I'm taller than her. She's got all the womanly curves and everything, but I'm a little bigger. Yet, I feel really small in her arms. I'm not a small girl. "I need to go," I push away from her and give her a weak smile then make my way to my bedroom door.

I knock on the door but don't wait for a response before I open it. When I enter, I see Catherine and Jenny sitting on my bed reading the dictionary. Jenny looks up to me and asks, "Do you know what the definition of 'alike' is?"

"It means to be similar but not exactly the same." I answer knowing she has a point further down the line of this conversation.

Jenny shakes her head. "No, that's not quite true." She puts her finger on the opened dictionary. "It means: Melinda and Sara Sidle."

I just shake my head. "Are you ready to go?"

Jenny jumps from the bed. "Whenever you are."

I look behind me at Sara who has just now managed to gather her courage to follow me. "Now's good." There's no need for me to stick around for the conversation she's going to have with Catherine. That's between them.



Continued…