Before you start this chapter: I started writing this story before we had additional knowledge on Katy's background. I crafted Kermit's, Dani's, and Katy's backstories around what I knew at the time and obviously added some creative embellishments. It didn't make sense to me that Kermit's mother, Gammy Hart would be babysitting Maya; so, Gammy Hart became Katy's mother in this fic. Anyway, I've decided to stick with my original backstory and not adapt it with the new knowledge that we've gotten on the show. So, it's not canon-compliant, but hopefully you'll enjoy it, anyway.
February 2020
Weeks go by and January transitions into February. Maya gets up the courage to call Olivia once, but she doesn't leave a message and Olivia never returns her call. There's a part of her that worries about what's happening with her half-sister, but another part, that she's somewhat ashamed of, is relieved to have her life become simpler.
She's no longer lying to Riley or her mother about who she's with and she no longer feels herself being pulled in multiple directions. It's easier to have Olivia and her father out of her life and she's not entirely sure what to do with that realization.
"Hey," Riley snapped Maya out of her thoughts, as she entered their dorm room and tossed her bookbag onto the center of her bed. There's an extra excitement hovering around the brunette, as Maya watches Riley slip out of her coat and hang it on the hook by the door.
"Did something happen?"
"I think I just got asked out," Riley admitted, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, as she pauses in her movements to look at Maya.
"Really?" Maya offered, unsure of how to react to her best friend's statement, "By who?"
"I met this guy in the library a couple of weeks ago, and we've been talking," Riley explained, setting her shoes onto the rack on her side of the closet, "He's a law student and he's different from anyone I've ever been interested in before. He's smart, speaks three different languages, and can discuss literature with me for hours. And, now, he wants to take me to The Ballet."
"He sounds interesting," Maya scooted back from where she had been hunched over on her bed, until her back hit her headboard. Personally, Maya thought he sounded boring, but she wasn't going to start poking flaws in a guy that Riley was this excited over.
"I've spent most of this year feeling like I'm pretending to be an adult. It's like when we used to play dress up with my mother's clothes, but when I'm talking with him, I feel like I might actually be one," Riley continued, barely seeming to process what Maya had said.
"So, when are you going?" Maya questioned.
"Next weekend," Riley replied, sinking down on the edge of her bed.
"I'm glad you're excited," Maya offered, as Riley started pulling out textbooks and laying them out in front of her.
"Yeah, me too," Riley smiled, flipping one of the books open.
Maya returned her attention to the sketch that she had been working on, but couldn't achieve the level of concentration that she'd had before.
She'd been ignoring Lucas, though to be fair he'd stopped trying a while ago, too. And, with surprise, she finds herself realizing that she's jealous of Riley's excitement over her date. She's not sure she's actually ever been on a real date with Lucas. They've spent plenty of time together, but their time is always tinged with the mistakes they've made and their own disappointments over where they've ended up.
She glances up at the sound of Riley's absent humming, as she fills out problems on a worksheet. She'd always thought that she was the strong one. Riley was the one who hoped and who was Maya's emotional support and Maya was the one who kept them both standing upright and moving forward. But, now, it's her stuck holding onto pieces of the past that she's never going to get back, while Riley continues to move forward with her life and try.
And it leaves her wondering; if she's not the strong one, then who is she?
She's pretty sure that she's losing her mind.
Logically, she knows that there's no one following her across campus. There hadn't been anyone the last time that she'd thought she was being followed and every glance over her shoulder confirmed that she was completely alone.
But, that didn't stop the hairs on the back of her neck from standing on end. Every nerve in her body felt like it was generating electricity and she was about ready to jump out of her skin. It reminds her of the detox process, though there's less itching.
"It's because you've messed up your body with drugs and alcohol," she informs herself, well aware that she has to look crazy talking to herself and jumping every time the wind blows through the trees.
She picks up her pace, but the feeling follows her all the way back to her dorm.
"For your first submitted art piece, I'd like you to recreate a piece of art by one of the artists we've covered during the semester," her teacher informed the class, handing out stacks of papers that better detailed their assignment.
Liam handed Maya the stack of papers to pass down, from where he'd been sitting a seat over from her correcting the quizzes they'd taken at the beginning of class. His eyes didn't stray from the task that he was working on, but she couldn't help the way her eyes seemed to linger a second longer than they should have, before she forced herself to turn and pass the assignments on.
They haven't spoken since she'd interrogated him outside of the building and it's not that she's dying to make a new friend. She just can't stop trying to put together the puzzle pieces of the hints that he's dropped in previous conversations.
"I suggest you get an early start on this assignment because there's no way you're creating a passable Rembrandt the night before," he continued, returning to the front of the lecture hall.
"What if you have no artistic talent?" one of the guys sitting behind Maya asked.
"You're a history major, aren't you?" the professor questioned, amusement coloring his tone, "As an alternative, I'll allow you to give a fifteen-minute presentation on the techniques used to create a piece by one of the artists we've covered."
The lecture continued and Maya diligently took notes in her spiral-bound notebook. When the class had ended, she shoved her things into her bag and started towards the door.
She was taking a sculpture class where she had the opportunity to create, but this was the first time she felt like she might have an assignment that would be challenging in a fun way.
"One of the only classes where they ask you to turn in plagiarized work," a voice offered from beside her and she was startled to discover that Liam had followed her out.
"It's only plagiarized if you don't site your sources," Maya pointed out, rewrapping her scarf around her neck.
"It's kind of beautiful, though. In art, it takes talent to pass someone else's work off as your own. There's no copying and pasting," he continued.
"Except in photography," she pointed out and a smile appeared on his face at the thinly veiled implication.
"Alright, Hart, you going to show me what you've got besides an A for the class?" he challenged her.
"I'm pretty sure this fine academic intuition frowns upon fraternization between me and the people who are grading my work," Maya offered, hesitating in whether she actually wanted to show him her art or not.
"We could call it tutoring," he suggested, "And I might be able to give you some pointers on our latest assignment."
"What could you possible know about art forgery?" Maya questioned, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.
"You'd be surprised," he replied, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth.
The flowers start showing up at noon and Maya's pretty sure that he must have bought out every florist in a ten-mile radius. By, three she's running out of places to put vases and there's a crowd of girls sighing every time she opens the door to accept a new arrangement.
"Don't you people have classes?" Maya, finally, demanded, managing to convince the group of girls to scatter.
She set the vase down at the foot of Riley's bed and shuffled her way through the maze of glass, thorns, and petals that had been created. It was starting to get ridiculous.
"Peaches?" Riley called out, as she opened the door.
"Stop," Maya's warning was a second too late as Riley tripped over a vase and spilled water across the hardwood floor.
Riley's mouth dropped open and Maya would have laughed if she wasn't too busy trying to calculate just how much all of these flowers must have cost.
"Are these for me?" she asked, with uncertainty, seeming to forget the spilled vase.
"You should inform Library-Boy that flowers typically come after the date," Maya suggested, raising an eyebrow and watching as a blush spread across Riley's face, "I didn't even know there were orange roses."
"They mean desire and enthusiasm," Riley informed her, mechanically.
"What do the yellow ones mean?"
"The promise of a new beginning," Riley answered in the same monotone.
"There definitely seems to be a lot of enthusiasm," Maya snorted, as Riley suddenly realized that she was standing in a puddle of water and hurried to the bathroom to grab a towel.
Riley narrowly avoided knocking over another on her way out of the bathroom, but managed to dart around it at the last second. She started wiping up the water with a hand towel.
"What does this mean?" Riley, suddenly, demanded, looking up at Maya with wide eyes.
"You were the one who translated the flowers," Maya reminded her.
"Well, I think I mentioned to him once that I liked gifts that had a meaning behind them and we've talked about flowers before," Riley rambled, "But I've never had a boy fill my dorm room with flowers."
"He must really like you," Maya offered, knowing that she needed to head Riley off before she went into full-panic mode. Oddly enough, the situation reminded her of when Riley had glued Lucas's head closed after his fight. It felt like a lifetime ago.
"But these seem like expectation flowers," Riley groaned, leaning back onto her knees, as she finished scrubbing at the floor.
"Expectation flowers?"
"You don't fill a girl's dorm room with flowers, if you aren't expecting something to come of it," Riley pointed out.
"You shouldn't be expected to do anything on a first date and if he tries to say otherwise, you call me and I'll beat him up," Maya promised, anger rising at the thought.
"Not those kind of expectations, Maya. Jack is a gentleman," Riley sighed, shifting her position, so that she could press her back against the wall and spread her legs out in front of her.
"Then what kind of expectations are you talking about?"
"The kind that go somewhere, the kind that are paired with commitment," Riley replied, a frown marring her face.
"Is that a bad thing?" Maya wondered. Riley had always been the one who was pro-commitment, romance, and happily-ever-after and she couldn't quite make sense of this behavior.
"It just means that we're never going back, Maya. Everything we've had, known, and loved, is really gone and it's never going to be like it was," Riley rambled, "We're in adult relationships, now, that can actually go somewhere."
She wanted to tell Riley that her relationship wasn't going anywhere, that it was forged out of fear and desperation and was barely holding up. But how could she tell her best friend that she'd put the both of them through all of this pain, only to find out that none of it had been worth it?
"It's just one date, Riles," Maya offered, feeling the burning of tears building up in her eyes and quickly blinking them away.
"It's a dorm room full of flowers, Maya," Riley disagreed and somehow that one phrase managed to say everything.
Sunlight filtered in broken fragments through the window and onto the floor, leaving dancing patterns of light. It was ordinary, but Maya, somehow, couldn't bring herself to look away. Her hands gripped a rectangle of thick paper that had been worn from the books Maya had shoved it into and the time she had spent holding it in her hands. She couldn't bring herself to look at it, but she felt comfort in having it close to her.
"Hey, Baby. I didn't know you were here," Katy paused in the doorway of Maya's bedroom in their home. Her waitress uniform was stained with dried, dark, liquid and her hair was falling from the ponytail on her head, but Maya couldn't deny that Katy seemed a lot lighter since marrying Shawn.
"I just needed to get away from everything," Maya confessed, from where she was sprawled out on the floor of her room.
"Is everything okay with you and Riley?"
"I think so. She's going on a date tonight to The Ballet," Maya informed her, sitting up and pressing her back to the wall behind her.
"Sounds fancy," Katy smiled.
"It's her brand of fairytale," Maya offered, crossing her ankles and staring at the toe that had slipped through a hole in her sock.
"Then what's on your mind?" Katy pressed, entering the room and sinking down onto the carpet next to Maya.
"Do you believe in soulmates?" Maya asked, searching her mother's face.
Katy choked on a laugh, before she managed to answer, "It seems like kind of a stupid system to me. I love Shawn and I can't imagine life without him, but that doesn't mean that both of us couldn't have found happiness with someone else. We were just, lucky, to find each other, first."
"You've never told me about how you met my father," Maya reminded her.
"I don't like to think about it," Katy admitted, "It's like getting fresh flowers. They're beautiful and they smell wonderful, but you know that in the end they'll just die."
"That's kind of pessimistic," Maya pointed out, wondering if that was the reason why Shawn tended to buy her mother potted plants. Those died, too, but they at least had a shot at living.
The image of her dorm room filled with dead flowers went through her head and she blinked it away before she could over-analyze it.
"I met him through a roommate. The two of us were close and she dragged me along to a concert of his. Kermit was playing guitar and there was something about him from the minute I laid eyes on him. I just couldn't bring myself to look away. We met him backstage after it was over and I discovered that the feeling was mutual. My roommate ended up heading home early and Kermit and I spent the entire night talking. He was so passionate about music and I got sucked into that passion."
"What happened to your roommate?" Maya asked, her fingers tracing the edge of the paper in her hand.
"I don't know. We lost touch after I married your father," Katy replied, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear before folding her hands in her lap, "What's with all of these questions?"
"I just don't know what I'm doing with my life, anymore," Maya admitted, running her hands through her hair.
"There are times in life that feel like that, but one day an offer will come along and you'll just know that it's the right thing for you," Katy offered, reaching over and squeezing Maya's knee.
"I love you, Mom," Maya sighed, leaning her head onto her mother's shoulder.
"I love you, too," Katy promised, resting her head on top of Maya's for a second before she rose from the floor, "I'm ordering pizza for dinner, do you want to stay?"
"Yeah," Maya agreed and Katy nodded, before leaving the room and disappearing out of Maya's sight.
She traced the edges of the paper again before allowing her eyes to drop to the postcard in her hand. It was funny that Josh had chosen a postcard of all things to reach out to her. She hadn't heard from him since then, but he still managed to sneak into her mind, just when she thought she was putting some emotional distance between the two of them.
She couldn't stop herself from thinking about another of Dani's letters.
My best friend's daughter,
I've come to accept that you're probably more Katy's daughter than Kermit's, but it's so much easier to think of you belonging to Kermit. One day, you'll sit down and start adding up all of your sins; all of the people you hurt. I hope your list is shorter than mine, or at least the amount of damage you caused. Because, it's one thing to have stolen your father, but it's another to have stolen him from someone I considered one of my best friends.
I went to church a lot before I moved to New York. My parents weren't overly religious, but they wanted me to have something to look to for morals. They wanted me to have something to try and make sense of life and pain. I didn't think any of it mattered, until I reached a point, where I'd made so many mistakes that I didn't feel like I could ever go back. Some days I feel beyond redemption and some days I look into my daughters' eyes and I wonder if, maybe, some of the good cancels out the bad.
I won't ask you for forgiveness, but I have paid for my choices. I spent years with a man who was constantly fighting against addiction. I spent years looking at myself in the mirror and hating what I'd become. And, I watched a child that I'd carried under my heart for months slowly slip away from me, until he was nothing, but a memory. Everyone has plenty of trauma in life to justify feeling broken; I just happened to cause most of my own.
I got into Juilliard and my parents were incredibly proud. At the time, I thought it was because I'd found a respectable way to go into something that I loved. Now, I think they knew that if they pushed me too hard, they'd lose me. They didn't always understand me, but they tried and I will forever be grateful for that.
I didn't know a single person when I got there, but I had enough savings that I knew I could figure something out. My school costs were going to drain me dry and my best bet was to find a roommate and a cheap apartment. I, also, needed a job.
I met Lana Carpenter during orientation. She was bubbly and outgoing and everything that I was not, but she was also incredibly difficult to dislike. She was new to the city, too, having grown up in Chicago and she was a violinist. By the end of orientation, she was already talking about apartments and everything that we had to do with our time in New York.
By the time classes had started, we were renting this tiny apartment that we had fallen completely in love with. It had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a living space big enough to fit a couch. The kitchen was hooked onto the living room and the fridge was this ancient thing that would constantly hum.
I could hear the sound of that refrigerator through the walls and I used to lie awake at night, trying to ignore the sound. I miss it, now. You'll be surprised by the things that you end up missing when you look back.
It was stacked on the top of a store that changed businesses every couple of months. It was an antique shop when we first moved in, then a clothing outlet, before it was completely remodeled into a Chinese restaurant. I spent an entire six months smelling like refried rice and orange chicken and I can't stand the food to this day.
I got a job working at a used bookstore and I loved it. I'd never been overly literary, although, I did read, but there was something about the smell of old books and the quiet. In another life, I was a librarian, I'm sure of it.
School wasn't easy, but I was doing something that I loved. I spent hours practicing and I'd study, while I was working. Lana was the one who would drag me to art museums and tourist sites. We got along well together, but it didn't last. She made it through one semester before the pressure got to be too much and she dropped out.
When her parents found out, they stopped paying her rent and she ended up moving in with her boyfriend. It was the most terrifying thing in my life, to that point; to suddenly be on my own, with no idea how I was going to afford school, rent, and to keep eating.
I put out an add, but none of the applicants were a good fit. I was going to start prematurely developing gray hairs, when your mother showed up at my doorstep. She was a transplant from this little town, who'd completely uprooted her life to pursue her dreams. But, I didn't have to hear her story, to know that I was going to give her the extra room. Sometimes, you meet people and you just know that they're supposed to be a part of your life. That's how I felt when I met Katy.
My first impression of her, was that she seemed completely untainted by life. She'd come to New York with a battered, cloth suitcase that looked like it belonged in a museum, a guitar she couldn't play, and the kind of enthusiasm that had you rooting for someone, even if reality dictated that they were going to fail.
"I'm Katy Hart," she'd introduced herself. She still had the hints of a small-town accent and I can remember worrying that this city would chew her up and spit her out.
"You can just call me Dani," I offered, swinging the door open and gesturing for her to come inside.
Her eyes had scanned over the small couch, the prehistoric television that was still in black-and-white and that stupid humming refrigerator and a smile had spread across her face.
"Your rooms at the end of the hallway and we'll split utilities and rent. Can you cook?"
"I manage," she'd offered, though, I got the impression and later was proved right, that she was just being humble.
"Well, I'm awful at it. I usually order take-out, but if you're willing to cook, I'll help with the grocery bill," I'd suggested.
"You're just giving me the room?" Katy asked, incredulously, suddenly catching up with the conversation.
"Yeah, I have a good feeling about you," I'd shrugged.
"Well, I have a pretty good feeling about you, too," if she'd only known how things would work out.
Unfortunately, she didn't have any kind of plan besides showing up in New York and auditioning for plays. She got work at the restaurant downstairs, which had gone from a Chinese place to a diner. I'd sit down there studying and joking with her, while she'd work. Where Lana had always done all of the talking, your mother was a good listener.
I didn't tell her about Kermit, although I wonder now what would have happened if I had. But Kermit was something I kept wrapped tightly in my heart. I'd started writing to him after he left. Long letters about everything and nothing. I'd received postcards in return. That was how your mother first heard of him.
"This is your third postcard from California this month," Katy pointed out, tossing the postcard across the room to me.
It landed at the foot of the couch and I had to lean over to pick it up. It was a generic landscape and besides his familiar handwriting filling in my address on the back, it was blank.
"It's my friend's way of letting me know he's still alive," I replied, slipping the card into the back of the book that I was reading.
"Just a friend?" she questioned, intuitively.
I wasn't sure how to explain what he was to me. He was this ache in my chest that I felt on nights when I couldn't sleep over the sounds of the city and humming of the refrigerator, he was the person that I poured my entire heart out to in letters, and he was always hovering just outside of my reach.
"Yeah, just a friend," I sighed, my eyes trailing to the window.
She didn't press and I didn't offer anything else.
I don't know what your mother is like, now, but when I knew her she serial dated. There was a new guy every weekend and none of them lasted very long. She used to come home from her dates, kick off her shoes, and pull ice cream out of the fridge. She'd then proceed to tell me the amusing highlights of her night out and we'd laugh until the early morning hours.
Katy was a romantic. She believed that all she needed was one show to make her career and she believed that there was one perfect guy that would come out of nowhere and change her life. She did a couple of minor-role, off-Broadway productions, but she didn't have the connections to make anything big. That didn't stop her from trying and if we always saw the rewards of our labors, your mother would have made it a long time ago.
I dated a pianist for a while. I'll save you some time and heartbreak: One day you're going to meet someone and swear that it's love at first sight, but it's not. In my experience, love can't be made in a moment, it's built over a million of them.
But, I thought that I loved him. He'd play, while I sang and I'd come up with the words to his compositions. I was pretty sure that I was awful, but he was always patient and kind with me. We burned bright and then we burned out. It didn't take long for him to find a new muse and I thought that the entire world was ending.
But angst has always been good for an aspiring artist, so I took my feelings and I used them. I snagged the lead in a school play and I threw myself into my studies.
You can only pour your heart out to someone who never responds for so long before you start to feel pathetic. My letters to Kermit had waned and reduced to several lines of basic communication. The postcards started coming every week like clockwork and I'm pretty sure that I have every postcard ever created for California up until 1999.
The thing about Kermit, is that sometimes he tells you exactly what he's thinking and what he means. But, other times, the answers are in what he's not saying.
I had this feeling that I couldn't shake that something was horribly wrong. So, I called Chris.
"El, you sound fantastic," he enthused, after I'd identified myself.
I was sitting on the kitchen floor with my feet spread out in front of me, as I talked on a phone that was bolted into the wall and had a chord that barely reached to where I was sitting.
"How's the album going?" I questioned, wondering if I could deduce what was wrong without having to come out and ask.
"Alright, there have been some issues with our lead singer. She smokes and it's wreaking havoc on her voice. Kermit's frustrated, but our agent keeps insisting that we need her image," he explained, as I tried to imagine someone else singing songs that I once had.
"And everything else?" I asked, lamely.
"You're asking about Kermit?" he offered, knowingly, "He never told me what happened between the two of you that night."
"Nothing happened," I replied, automatically.
"Look, I like you, Dani. You have the voice of an angel and the personality to match and Kermit might even have genuine feelings for you, as much as he has feelings. The thing is, I've spent my entire time knowing him watching him chew up girls and spit them back out when he's done. He's not ready for someone like you."
"Have the drugs and the drinking gotten any better?" I pressed, ignoring his statement and the chord that it had struck.
"I don't know. I don't party with him like I used to, I have a steady girlfriend and she doesn't like it," Chris informed me.
"Congratulations," I offered, leaning my head against the wall.
"Thanks. I have to go, El, but take care of yourself, okay?"
"You too," I heard the sound of the dial tone and I felt like a door had just slammed in my face.
I tried to force myself back into focusing on school, but I was only half there. Katy just assumed that it came from my breakup, but I'd forgotten my pianist surprisingly quickly.
Then, I got two postcards within three days of each other. One, a copy of last weeks from California and, the other, from Mesquite. It took one demanding phone call home to my parents to discover that Penelope Barlow had died in a car accident.
I was on a plane before I'd even entirely thought the decision through.
I owe your mother a lot for the week that I was gone. She was the one to talk to my professors and explain that I had a family emergency, when she didn't even entirely know what had happened, beyond a hastily scribbled note left taped to the fridge.
It wasn't hard to figure out where Kermit was; the casino was all lit up on the front of his postcard. I took a taxi to the casino, but I knew that half the battle was going to be figuring out what room he was in. The rest, would be convincing him to let me in.
I knew things were worse than I had originally thought, when I discovered that he'd left a room key, with my name on it, at the front desk.
He was completely out of it when I made it the room. He was definitely high, but I was pretty sure that he was passed out from the drinking that had occurred. There were empty bottles of liquor everywhere and the smell of the room, had me grabbing the nearest garbage and losing everything that I'd eaten in the last four hours.
I popped open the window and sat for a while, breathing in the heat of a Nevada night. It still felt like home, even if I'd taken all of those pains to run away from it.
"Dani," a voice whispered, sometime, later and I'd spun around to find that he was saying my name in his sleep.
"You can't go to the funeral like this," I sighed. I had a feeling everything would look worse when I turned on the lights, so I fumbled around in the dark.
I rinsed out the empty bottles, in an attempt to alleviate the smell, before stacking them in the garbage. He'd left needles and melted down drugs on the nightstand and I couldn't bring myself to touch any of it. There was a part of me that wanted to get out and run as far as I possibly could. This reality was something that I had never wanted to face.
I've, yet, to find anything more painful than watching someone you love destroy themselves and knowing that there's nothing you can do to stop it.
The room had a single queen bed in the center and I curled up in a chair by the window. The adrenaline from running across the country had left me exhausted and even the discomfort of being in an upright position seated in an uncomfortable chair couldn't keep me awake.
I woke to the smell of coffee and eggs.
Kermit always bounced back quickly from hangovers. He'd spend the first hour of his morning on the bathroom floor and then spend the rest of the day acting as though nothing had happened. This was the first time, I saw that, though.
He'd set the food out in front of me and I snapped awake, wincing as it pulled at the stiff muscles in my back and neck.
"I didn't think you'd show up," he offered, turning to me from where he'd been sitting on the bed. He was holding one of those bibles that you find in the bedside table of hotel rooms, though I doubted that he'd been reading it.
"You knew I would," I disagreed, taking a bite of the eggs.
"You don't drink coffee?" he asked, curiously.
"It tastes awful," I replied, "And tea is better for my voice, anyway."
"I'll remember that," he promised, his eyes going back to the book in his hands.
"You should probably start getting ready. We only have a couple of hours until the funeral," I pointed out, after a glance at the digital clock on the bedside table.
"I'm not invited," he informed me, his eyes darkening, though they didn't shift from their position.
"What?" I asked, taken aback at his words.
"I went to see my father, when I first got here. He told me that if my mother could see me it would just kill her all over again and then told me to go back to where I came from," he replied, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice and failing.
"He's probably upset and not handling his grief well," I offered, unsure what to do with the minefield that I had suddenly stumbled upon.
"It's not like he's wrong," Kermit snorted, dropping the book and looking at the drugs that were still on display on the nightstand.
"She taped that music back together and sent me to give it to you," I reminded him, "She may not have agreed with all of your choices, but she loved you."
"I'm not sure that love even has any meaning for me, anymore," he informed me.
"It's probably a little difficult to feel anything when you're diluting everything with drugs and alcohol, but that's the point, isn't it?" I offered, rising from my seat. Part of me wanted out of that room, but I wasn't sure where I would go.
"I wondered what I'd have to do to get you angry at me," he snorted, his voice taking on a calculated and deliberately derogatory tone.
"You know what I think, Kermit?" I questioned, my voice rising with my feelings, "I think you feel things so intensely that it scares you to death. So, you try to cover them up and suppress them, but that's stupid Kermit. Because letting yourself feel what you actually feel, might end up destroying you, but it, also, might be the thing that saves you."
He stared at me, probably shocked at my words and I searched his eyes for anything. When my search came up empty, I grabbed my bag from the floor and left the room.
I remember every detail about walking away from him. I remember the thin, red, carpet, with the green, floral design, that I was sure would leave bare socks completely black if you were to walk on it. I remember the smell of smoke hanging in the air from the casino and the glint of the gold numbers that was tacked to every door.
I had expected myself to fall apart, but I didn't. I kept my head high and I forced myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
I was at the end of the hallway, when a hand reached out and grabbed me. I spun around and barely had time to process that it was Kermit who had run after me, before his lips were pressed to mine and I could no longer process anything.
My hands wrapped around his neck and his hands left bruises on the small of my back from grabbing me like I was his life preserver in a sea that was threatening to drown him, but I was beyond caring. A part of me, had spent years waiting for this moment and it didn't disappoint.
I couldn't save him, but I, also, couldn't keep myself from loving him.
I spent the week with him, in a reality that existed somewhere between the two worlds we each lived in. Then, I went back to New York and he went back to LA and we had no plan. All we had, were seven days.
I hadn't realized that I wanted a fairytale, until I realized that I'd never be getting one. Loving Kermit was like disappearing into a cloud of smog and having to fight your way back out. He was difficult, depressed, and I'd given up the delusions that he was going to quit the drugs for me.
We were never going to be the couple that sat up at night planning our futures on the phone together, but he continued to send me postcards and I started sending him ticket stubs, programs, and restaurant napkins from the diner below us. I knew, now, that he couldn't send me letters because he couldn't give me all of himself and I refused to continue sending him all of me. We settled for parts and it probably says something about the both of us that, for a long time, that was enough.
His first album came out that summer, along with his first hit song. It was the only song on the album that he sang himself, which probably should have said something to the people who were backing him. But, the cover of the album still sported the bleached-blonde lead singer, with the others brooding in the background.
You're probably thinking that the song was something about me, but it wasn't. It was about his struggle to be enough for his father and the realization that he never would be. The song was being played everywhere that summer and I couldn't seem to escape it.
He went on tour in the fall and the postcards got more exciting. But, anyone, who picked up a magazine knew that his love life had, too. I know, now, that it was mostly publicity stunts that were directed by his management team, but I didn't at the time.
We weren't together, at that point. I wasn't going to give up my dreams, to play second-string to his addiction and he wasn't ready to give up his lifestyle. I knew that Chris was right and he wasn't ready for me, but neither of us were able to let go of each other, either.
I threw myself into my training at Juilliard and pushed myself passed my breaking point. I managed to sprain my ankle, dislocate my shoulder, and break my arm, all in musical rehearsal related accidents. The teacher that was directing recast the understudy because she'd become convinced that I wasn't going to be able to go on.
I defied expectations and Kermit, suddenly, wasn't the only one who was appearing in newspaper articles. But, he didn't receive a ticket stub or a program from that particular production. It was something that I had achieved without him and I was proud of myself for that.
I would learn later that he didn't need me to send him them because he has his own.
People started expecting me to go places and I got a glimpse into what Kermit must be feeling. I was a, "Name to watch," and little girls would ask me to sign their programs. It was nice for a while, but, eventually, it started to feel empty. It got to the point where the only time I really felt alive was when I was on stage and the rest of my life started to blur together.
When it ended, I fell into a depression. I managed to get myself up to go class, but that was the only place where I felt like my head was connected to the rest of my body. I struggled to concentrate at work and your mother and I had conflicting schedules that didn't allow us to see each other for more than a few minutes every day.
I didn't turn to anything that Kermit would have turned to, but I found my own vices. I put on ten pounds and then killed myself to lose it. After that, I became obsessive about counting my calorie intake. I took up a twice-a-week aerobics class and started going jogging every morning. I didn't develop any diagnosable disorders, but what I was doing to myself psychologically wasn't healthy.
I wasn't happy and I couldn't find anyone to turn to.
Your mother was dealing with her own set of disappointments, as she realized that her dream wasn't as achievable as she'd believed it to be. She had to work long hours to be able to afford living in the city and that left her little time for doing anything that could help her pursue acting.
Then, I met Peter. He wasn't an artist. In fact, he was going to school to do something in finance and I tended to tune him out whenever he tried to explain it to me. But, he was handsome and he was something so far outside of my own world that I didn't feel any expectations when it came to him.
I was trying to figure out who I was and being with him was easy. He didn't understand my passion for what I was doing, but I figured that it was one of those things that we should just compromise on. And, I'd been struggling to find the passion for what I was doing, anymore, too. Sometimes, I felt like I would never be done at Juilliard and the idea of what laid beyond being finished was terrified. Peter was, at least, safe.
He'd take me out to dinners at places that were nice, but would probably laugh at you if you tried to make a reservation. We went to movies, instead of plays and he had a dog that I came to adore. We spent a lot of time walking the dog and just talking about ordinary things.
It was exactly what I needed and it, also, helped me to recommit to my studies. I'd needed something in my life that didn't feel like it was pressing down on me and Peter was that for me. We dated for an appropriate amount of time and I would have been content to stay in that phase forever. However, Peter wanted more and when he asked me to marry him, I couldn't think of a reason to say no. He promised me that I could finish up school, but, I think, he believed that I wouldn't be able to find work when I was done and I'd end up settling down and raising his children.
I don't think that it would have been a bad life, but he never understood me the way that Kermit did. Kermit and I had never really needed words to communicate what we said, even before our relationship had become physical. We knew each other, in a way that couldn't be rivaled and I had no intention of giving that relationship up for Peter.
I knew that I couldn't have a romantic relationship with both of them, but I thought that I could keep both of them in my life. It was that naivety that led me to send a Save-the-Date to your father and the postcards abruptly stopped. I told myself that he had gotten busy and, in my rare moments of honesty, that I was better off without him and that we never would have worked.
But, it was too late for normal at that point.
After a long night of talking to Peter's mother on the phone and her demanding that I start making plans for the wedding, it was Katy who informed me that planning a wedding shouldn't be looked at with the same enthusiasm I gave dentist appointments. The more the wedding was planned, the more I started to feel like I was being suffocated.
And I missed Kermit with an ache that was always heavy in my chest. I thought that it would go away, but it only seemed to get worse the more Peter demanded that I get serious about the commitment that I had made. So, I ended things, with pretty disastrous results. Peter yelled and I sat and listened, until he wore himself out and left.
I didn't know how to fix things with Kermit and I didn't for a very long time.
I was finishing up my third year of school, when Kermit's band came to New York for a show. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I knew that I missed him and that I had to do something.
In the end, it was Chris who did something, actually.
"Dani, phone's for you," Katy announced, knocking on the door to my room.
I was memorizing lines for an audition that I had coming up and Katy had been baking cookies in the kitchen. I hadn't even heard the phone ring.
"Who is it?" I questioned, setting aside the script and swinging my feet off the bed. Nobody called me, since what had happened with Peter. I'd been living in New York for years, but I didn't make friends easily and the ones I did make tended not to stick around.
"He wouldn't give a name, just said that he desperately needed to talk to El," Katy returned, "I've never heard anyone call you that."
"Chris is one of a kind," I offered, moving into the kitchen and grabbing the phone. I was aware that Katy was hovering in the background, curious about who was on the phone, "Hey, Chris."
"Your fiancé sounds kind of feminine," Chris informed me.
"I ended my engagement, that's my roommate," I replied, turning my back from Katy so that I could at least pretend I had privacy.
"Well that's fantastic!" he announced, his voice filling with enthusiasm.
"Thank you," I snorted, rolling my eyes, "Was there a reason you're calling?"
"We're coming to New York," he informed me, "The entire band and Kermit's sober."
"What?"
"He got your announcement, became really dark and broody, and then stopped cold-turkey. I think you should come and see him," Chris suggested, "In fact, I'll send you some tickets."
"We haven't talked in a really long time," I pointed out, feeling anxiety threatening to overcome me.
"When you see him, I don't think that'll matter," Chris promised, "And people in our business don't stay sober for long without a reason."
"What happened to your girlfriend?" I asked, curious.
"Thing didn't work out," he replied, his voice conveying the depth of his feelings, "Be looking for those tickets."
The phone went dead and I held it for a moment, before replacing it on its cradle.
"Well?" Katy asked, when I didn't move from my spot.
"Do you want to go to a concert?"
I thought a lot about what I was going to say to him, when I saw him again. I'd find myself composing speeches in my mind during free moments and even moment when I should have been paying attention. My teachers noticed my distraction, but all I could think about was seeing him again.
Katy wasn't overly excited about going with me. She'd just gotten cut after a callback and her usual routine included copious amounts of carrot sticks (She'd adopted my eating style, after one of the people she'd auditioned with had told her she could have landed the role if she was ten pounds skinnier) and a marathon of romantic comedies, but I wasn't ready to face Kermit on my own and she was my best friend.
"You should wear the red top," Katy suggested, entering my room and hopping into the center of my bed.
"When I wear it, I feel like I can just see my mother shaking her head," I admitted, holding up the tight material that barely covered anything.
"But it looks nice with those dark jeans that you look fantastic in," Katy informed me, leaning back and watching me twist in front of the mirror, "And it never hurts to show a little skin when you're trying to land a guy."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I informed her, crossing the hallway to the bathroom to change. I left the door of my bedroom open and the bathroom door cracked, so that we could continue to yell back-and-forth to each other.
"Come on, Dani. A guy calls with a nickname that's so obviously from your past and then you develop a desire to go to a concert. We're going to meet Postcard Guy, aren't we?"
"Maybe," I replied, adjusting my shirt in the mirror before I pulled on my jeans.
"It'll work out," Katy promised me, as I left the bedroom to go and apply my make up at the vanity.
"How do you know?" I questioned, looking at her through the mirror.
"Because love always finds a way," she replied, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.
"I can't believe you just said that with a straight face," I snorted and a laugh broke passed her smile.
It took us several minutes to pull ourselves together before she could speak again, "But, even if doesn't work out, at least we've still got our tiny apartment and each other."
"That's true," I agreed, digging through my makeup bag for the shade of lipstick that I wanted.
I couldn't take my eyes off of Kermit from the moment that I saw him on stage. He looked older and healthier, but he also looked as familiar as my own face in the mirror. I hadn't realized the true extent of how much I missed him, until he was standing right in front of me.
I was so caught up in my own feelings, that I didn't even notice how entranced Katy had become with the same person.
We made our way backstage after the show was over and, as luck would have it, Chris was the first one to see me. I think he'd probably been waiting and he immediately pulled me into a hug.
"It's good to see you," he announced, pulling back as his eyes scanned over me.
"I see you haven't changed," I folded my arms across my chest.
"Would you want me to?" he returned, smirking.
I turned to introduce Katy to him, but found that my roommate had disappeared. A quick glance around found her and Kermit talking in a corner. I couldn't see her face, but Kermit was looking at her with a kind of awe that I'd never seen before. It wasn't anything that I had seen with any of his other girlfriends.
"Hey, K, look who showed up," Chris called across the room, but it was Katy to turn away from Kermit, while his eyes refused to move.
"Is this him?" Katy questioned, nodding towards Chris, as Chris dragged me across the room.
"You must be the girl from the phone," Chris offered before I could find the words to reply.
I was waiting for Kermit to look at me, to give me any sign that he knew that I existed.
"Katy Hart," she introduced herself, holding out a hand for him to shake.
"Chris Price," he returned, taking her hand, "And I see you've already met our fearless leader."
"Yes, I have," she smiled, her eyes returning Kermit's gaze. She was looking at him with stars in her eyes and I felt my heart slowly shredding within my chest.
"Why don't I give you the backstage tour?" Chris suggested to Katy, gesturing towards a room that looked like it was filled with wardrobe.
"I can show her," Kermit suggested, still showing no sign that he even recognized me.
"But, K," Chris protested, clearly unable to see what was happening right in front of our eyes.
"It's okay, Chris. I should get home," I said, as Kermit and Katy retreated back into a bubble that was separate from the rest of the world.
"I'll walk you," he insisted, looking at me in confusion, as he led me towards the exit, "What are you doing?"
"Come on, Chris. He couldn't even look at me. He's clearly moved on from whatever we had," I replied, folding my arms across my chest in an effort to hold myself together.
"I told him that you were coming and that you'd ended things with your fiancé and he's been looking forward to seeing you for weeks. There's no way he'd throw that away for someone he just met," Chris argued.
"Well, then what was that?"
"I don't know, maybe he was trying not to show you how much he cares," Chris suggested.
"I'm a little old for the games, Chris," I informed him.
"Well, that's all he's ever had."
Sometimes, I think, that I should have stood up that night and demanded that Kermit talk to me. I think it might have ended what would turn into a melodrama of epic proportions, but I'd spent so much time building that moment up in my head, that having him completely ignore me was too much. I had never been the one to fight for things, that had always been Kermit, and the way he decided not to fight for me said more then what, I thought, any conversation ever could.
Chris left me at my door. I couldn't even bring myself to let him in and then I sat on the couch and waited for Katy to come home. She didn't.
-Dani
I've been working on the new chapter for LOT, but I got through writing it and realized that it was awful, so I'm completely reworking it. Thankfully, this chapter came out a lot better. Thanks for reading! And thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter! I would love to hear what you think about this one!