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Chapter 14: The Fight, part 2

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."Friedrich Nietzsche

Change had always been something that Emma feared, and I could now understand why. Some days, it seemed that Emma had become a stranger to me and to our way of life. She forgot our shared past, and even sometimes the love that saved us both.

We fought about everything and almost every time we spoke. The last peaceful conversation we'd had was when Emma called to say that she and Jamie had gotten to the University safely.

"You look cheery," Logan noticed when I hung up the phone late one October night, my latest conversation with Emma a total disaster which was quickly becoming the norm.

"Oh, the cheeriest," I retorted and glared at the phone.

"Another fight?" he guessed.

"Yep." I pulled myself up on the counter.

"Well, you can work it out when you go visit for Parent's Weekend," he reasoned walking all the way into the kitchen.

"That's the thing," I crossed my arms across my chest. "She doesn't want me to come this year."

"What do you mean? You've gone the past two years; who else would go?" He was mystified.

I glanced up at the painting Emma had done of our mother. It seemed like another lifetime ago. "As Em, so lovingly, pointed out, I am not a parent."

"Well," he stepped in front of me, placing his hands on my knees. "She has a point."

"Logan! I swear!" I half-heartedly smacked him in the arm. I knew he was just trying to lighten my gloomy mood. "It's not funny!"

"No," he chuckled. "No, it isn't…." he traced the line of my jaw but even that wasn't enough to distract me.

"I don't know what do to," I shrugged. "I mean, all we do is fight. About everything, we can't get through one phone call without a fight. About her changing her major, her boyfriend, and her plans for after graduation."

"Do you want me to talk to her?" He offered. "I mean, I'm not as good at it as you are but-"

I smiled and pressed a hand to his chest. "No. This is an Emma and me thing. She and I need to work it out….I'm just whining."

"Is there something else I can do?"

I grinned, looping my fingers through his belt loops and pulling him closer. "Kiss me, please." I whispered. "It makes all the bad things just… go away."

"It does all that?" he wondered, his arms creeping around me.

"And more," I assured him right before he kissed me one of those kisses that made me forget why I was upset, where I was and who the hell I was. I pulled back when the kiss became more intense than I meant.

"Is there anything else?" He wondered.

I cocked my head to one side. "You could take your shirt off…"

"And what would that solve?"

I shrugged. "I'm not sure but you're awful nice to look at."

"Ah," he laughed as he reached forward and scooped me up in his arms. "So, the real reason you're with me has finally come out."

I rolled my eyes as I wrapped my arms around his neck. "Like you didn't already know that…"

"Well, we should have it all out in the open," he told me as we walked into the living room. "Which is why I should tell you that I'm only here because I'm shallow and all I care about is looks," He grinned and I couldn't help pulling him down to me for another kiss. A part of me felt guilty for fighting with Emma one minute and losing myself in kissing Logan the next. But the only time I felt like I was completely whole was when I was with him and I wasn't about to sacrifice that yet.

"I'm going to take some time off," Emma announced a few weeks later on the phone.

I laughed. "What are you going on about? You're in your third year; you've only got a year to go."

"No, I'm taking next semester off," Emma insisted. "I don't know if art is what I really want to do. It's not very practical and-"

"What? Political Science is? Emma, you can't sit still for more than five minutes!

"I'm not talking about Political Science…. I don't know what I want!" She retorted.

"Yes, you do." I replied. "You've known since you were five."

"People change, Kayla, they do it all the time."
"What's this all about? Where is this coming from?"

"It's coming from me. I want some time-"

"What are you going to do for money?" I cut her off.

"I have a part time job," she said.

"That isn't enough. Emma… Honey, you can tell me," I grasped the phone. "What's going on?"
There was a pause and my heart dropped.

"I met our grandmother," she whispered. "She said she's been writing for a long time. I never saw any letters."

"No," I heaved a deep breath. "No, you haven't. I threw them away."

"But…"

"Emma, she was going to take you away from me." I blurted out. "I'm sorry, I never told you but I couldn't let you go with that woman!"

"But she's my grandmother-"

"She's mine too and where was she during our childhood? Sitting in that huge house in Quebec, hating Mom and me."

"She's offered to help me out." Emma went on as if she hadn't heard me. "And Jamie thinks-"

"I don't care what Jamie thinks!"

"Well, I do!" Emma yelled. "I love him and he loves me!"

"Don't do this!" I cautioned. "Don't throw everything away on a guy!"

"You're supposed to support me, Kayla. Be my sister, not my mother!"

"I have to be both! After Mom died, who fed you? Who made sure you went to school? Who slept next to you for three months afterward so you wouldn't have nightmares? Who, Emma? Who? This grandmother who had no interest in you before? Or your sister who loves you more than anything? Who?"

She sighed. "I'm taking the next semester off, I'm going to talk to Grandmother Serena and I'm going to continue to see Jamie."

"I-"I started.

"No. If you can't support me then there isn't anything left for us to say."

The tears began then. "Emma, don't do this…" I gasped. "Please, you're all I have left…"

"What's your answer?" Emma's voice was all steel.

I swallowed and then sniffed. "I can't support this Emma. It's a mistake and you know it. I-"

"Goodbye, then." There was a click and then the dial tone. I looked down at the receiver in my hand before I slowly placed it back on its hook.

The silence was overwhelming for that brief moment while I processed. Emma wasn't going to be calling anymore. She wouldn't be home for Christmas. She…she….

All at once, I heard my mother reminding me to look after Emma, to watch out for her, Stryker's promise the last time I'd seen him and finally Emma's laughter. It echoed like a bell ringing and with each echo it grew louder and louder until I couldn't even hear myself howling with rage and shame and an overwhelming sorrow.

Somehow, I crumpled to my knees on the kitchen floor. The linoleum was cool against my hot cheeks and palms. How had I failed so badly? How had I ruined everything we'd worked for? And why? Why? Why?

Suddenly the sorrow left me. It would be back, and with a vengeance too, I knew but all that was left to me was anger. Pure and animalistic.

I read once about the Indian goddess Kali. She was no beautiful maiden or noble warrior with the bow and arrow of heaven at her side. She was a destroyer; she didn't harbor any maternal instincts or traditionally feminine whims. Kali danced the dance of destruction and when everything in sight was gone, she brought forth something new. In that moment, I was Kali.

I rose up on feet that weren't mine and lashed out with hand that weren't connected. I knocked pots and pans off the counter, the metallic crashes oddly comforting as they hit the ground, the table, each other. Cups and bowls shattered, the glass flying up briefly to catch the sun light before they too joined the mess at my feet. Silverware clattered to the ground as I pulled drawers loose. Cabinets flapped against each other as I tore from one to the next. But I wasn't finished yet.

On the table was a bowl of apples. I grabbed one and hefted it toward the wall. It made a satisfying crunch as it hit. So I threw another and another. Soon the wall was covered in apple guts, already yellowing in the air. The bright russet skins were jagged and in pieces on the floor.

Possessed with inhuman strength, I picked up a dining room chair that we never used and flipped it over my head. I heard one of the legs crack. It filled me with savage pleasure, so I tossed the next and another and another.

I turned to the curtains on the back door. I grabbed them and yanked all the while screaming and crying and letting all that anger and fear and hatred and sorrow bleed out as the material gave way under my fingers. I yanked and pulled until the curtains lay in a heap next to me. It didn't help. In fact, if anything, I needed more chaos, more to destroy and then create into my own image.

I couldn't stop, though. I grabbed the books sitting on the coffee table and hurled them at the wall so hard, they left divots an inch wide. But I didn't care. I threw book after book, hoping that with each throw or crack of a vase, would make me feel better. I hoped against hope that the savage joy at destruction would fill the void forming in my stomach.

But all I had was the beautiful chaos around me, Emma was nowhere in sight.

When there was nothing left to maim or destroy, I sank down in the middle of floor, in the very center of the mess. The sorrow was back, as I knew it would be, so strong that there was nothing to stall the tears I was shedding. It engulfed me, drowning Kali who had possessed me and leaving me shivering on the floor. I had nothing to create out of my chaos.

Time passed, it must have, but I didn't realize until I heard the door open and his familiar footsteps come closer and closer until they stopped when he saw me sitting in the middle of the destroyed living room.

He ran to me, and knelt down, cupping his hands on my face. "What happened, Kayla?" Logan lifted my face to the light, looking for cuts or bruises of some sign that someone had done this to me.

"I'm fine." I rasped. All the screaming and crying had filed my voice down to a harsh whisper. "I wasn't attacked or anything."

"Then, how did…?" he trailed off as he surveyed the damage I'd wrought.

"I did it." I replied as calmly as if I'd painted the living room a new color, with a hint of pride.

"Why?"

I looked Logan in the eye and he noticed my red puffy eyes. "Emma isn't coming home for Christmas. She doesn't want to speak to me anymore…." My lips quivered. I thought I had the strength to get it out but I didn't; the tears I didn't think I had left started anew and my shoulders shook. "I failed!" I sobbed. "I failed…Now…now, she's gone and …." I didn't go on. Without asking or saying anything else at all, his arms came around me. But even they weren't strong enough to keep the grief at bay.

There was rain pattering on the window in the grey morning light or maybe it was twilight; from the angle on the bed, I couldn't tell and nor could I remember getting to bed or when that might have transpired. But I lay there in my bed, my sheets twisted around me, not sure if I wanted to move or if I could. I reached out to the other side of the bed and felt only cool sheets. Mustering what little energy I had, I sat up, ran a hand through my messy hair and got out of bed.

Once outside my room, I noticed that most of the mess had been cleaned up, the curtains were still in a heap, but the books had been cleaned up and were stacked on the coffee table. The kitchen had been swept and cleared of the glass, but the walls still had marks and the chairs were still in a pile. Though semi-clean, the house was quiet except for Logan talking on the phone in the kitchen and I padded toward him.

"No…no, I finally got her to sleep and she's been asleep for…" he checked his watch. "About ten hours now …" he ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah…yeah….if you want to…I don't know if she's up for company." He turned around to see me, a huge smile lighting up his face. "Dee, Dee. Hold on, she's awake." Logan held his palm over the phone. "Do you want to talk to her?"

I nodded and took the phone. "Hi Dee."

"Honey, how are you?" Dee was frantic. "Do you need me to come over? Logan told me about your little demolition derby, do you need me to help you clean up?"

"No." I sighed. "No, I'm okay…"

"No, you're not." De retorted. "I can hear it in your voice."

"I'm not," I agreed "But I will be…eventually."

"Well, I'm going to make up something and bring it over, okay?"

I grinned a little. "Yeah, okay. I'll see you guys in a little while then."

"I love you, hon. Remember that." Dee replied.

"I love you, too." I handed the phone back to Logan who hung it up. "What time is it?" I asked him.

"It's nine in the morning. On Saturday."

I nodded, glancing around. "How…how did I get back to the bedroom?"

Logan leaned back against the counter. "I carried you. You were pretty out of it, and it took forever to get you to sleep."

" Has she…?" I bit my lip, asking for torture.

Logan shook his head. "Nope. Sorry Baby."

"I thought maybe she..." I swallowed. "Maybe she would have changed her mind."

"Don't." He pleaded, cupping my face in his hands. "Don't do this to yourself."

"But….she's all I have left. What am I supposed to do?"

Logan shrugged. "I don't know." He ran his hands up and down my upper arms as I fell into him. "I don't know."

I tried to call Emma everyday for a month, but her roommate would answer and say that she didn't want to talk to me. It stung every time even though I knew it was coming. I always made the calls when Logan was out or at work, he hated to watch me torture myself over this. But after the month, I stopped calling. After that, some days it was hard just getting out of bed, I forgot how to laugh, how to be happy. It felt as though my mother had died all over again. But this time, I didn't have Emma.

I had Logan. He may not have been Emma but he seemed to know if it would be a good day or not. He never once complained when I would crawl into his lap or worm my way into his arms simply because I felt like I was falling apart. He would just smile and kiss the scar on my forehead. We got along somehow.

The weeks turned into months, months to seasons, and the seasons stretched into years. As always, life took on a pattern and I learned how to laugh again, how to smile especially six months after Emma called, Dee announced that she and Paul were expecting their first child. Nine months after that, we welcomed Daniel James into the world and he stole another sliver of my heart. No one could ever replace Emma but Danny, as we called him, came pretty damn close.

But there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think of Emma, wonder how she was or what she was doing. But instead of dwelling on it, I threw myself into work, into Danny, Dee, Logan and the life I was slowly rebuilding. From my Kali destruction, a new order was created out of my despair. But it wouldn't last.

Three years later, the clock began ticking again on a day like any other.

NOT THE FACE!!!...okay, okay, i know you guys totally hate me!!! And i hate to tell you that I have a max of 3-4 chapters left.....and to be completely cheese, i will quote the Joker from "The Dark Knight" (one of the most awsome movies ever! It totally made my list)

"...And...here...we go!"