Getting Caught

Marley was horrified. Embarrassed beyond belief. Her mom had just caught her and her girlfriend Kitty making out in her room. While they weren't purposefully keeping it from her, they hadn't gotten to telling Mrs. Rose either. To them, it was still sort of new, and they didn't want others to influence them on how they felt.

But now, Milly had sat both of them down in the living room, lecturing them for the past 30 minutes. Marley sat with her head in her hands while Kitty sat straight up, back stiff as a board, with a terrified look on her face. Mrs. Rose told them that they couldn't leave the door closed anymore, and that Kitty would have to sleep on the sofa during sleepovers.

"I can't believe you two would sneak behind my back like this. If you break any of these rules, you Marley will be ground for a month and you'll only get to see each other in school. Is that understood?"

Marley mumbled out a yes, but Kitty was silent. Looking over at her, she could tell that she was somewhere else, and hadn't heard a word that was said. Her eyes were unfocused, her body full of tension except for her right leg, which was bouncing rapidly. When Mrs. Rose touched her to get her attention, Kitty jerked violently and flew to the other side of the couch.

Coming out of her flashback, she saw Marley and Mrs. Rose with looks of surprise and worry on their faces. Realizing that she had gone out on them, she bent over and put her face in her lap. The couch shifted next to her, and Marley pulled her into, letting Kitty cling to her while she tried to calm herself down.

"I'm sorry," she said, releasing Marley. "My therapist calls them day terrors, and whenever something triggers a past memory in my brain, I can get caught in them." She wiped her face and finally looked at them. Marley looked somewhat understanding, as she had been told some of this before. But Mrs. Rose was completely confused, not having spent much time with Kitty yet.

Sighing, Kitty realized that she would have to explain. Not even Marley knew all of what she was about to say. Gathering her thoughts, she started talking.

"You guys know that I am adopted, but I wasn't adopted as a baby like everyone assumes. When I was younger, I still lived with my birth parents. They weren't the best, but they say they loved us. One day, I was at the park and I was playing with my friend and she fell. She started crying cause she scraped her knee, so I leaned down to kiss it better, like my grandma used to. I was just trying to be nice, nothing else, but my dad completely freaked out and snatched me away from her to take me home."

As she was talking, Marley cuddled her close again, eyes shining with unshed tears. Mrs. Rose was still confused but let Kitty talk, knowing that she needed to get this out. Kitty continued, the young blonde getting lost in her memories. "I remember him being so mad. He was yelling at me in the car the entire way home. He used to sit us down and yell at us all the time, but this was different. He got weirdly calm right as we got home, but that changed as soon as we walked through the front door. I remember the first hit and being thrown to the floor, but after that I passed out. My brother and sister have since told me that he beat me while our mother held him back.

"Our neighbors heard them screaming and called the cops, who caught my dad trying to lock us all in a closet. All because I kissed another girls knee." Blinking, she wiped her tears, coming back to reality. "I was 4. I knew nothing about being gay, about liking the same sex. But him doing that shaped the way I thought and who I was for 12 years." Turning to Marley, she said "That's why I was so mean to you. I was scared of how I felt for you. I didn't know how to figure them out."

By the end of her speech, both her and Marley were hugging and crying, and Mrs. Rose was wiping her face with tissue. She let the girls have their moment, Marley holding Kitty and soothing her painful cries. Eventually they settled, but the young blonde stayed in her girlfriends lap. Watching them, the older woman knew she would have to tailor the punishment, as she couldn't just separate them.