Chapter Twelve (A)

Madness

As promised, Dinah called and told me about the wacky outfits that some weirdo claimed was fashionable. I listened to her voice, hearing how bored she was, but I got the feeling she was feigning boredom for my benefet, as if her having fun at that charity fashion show would upset me. Sure, I was disappointed that she couldn't stay over, but I was glad that she wasn't as bored to tears as she's made herself sound. It rained on Sunday morning, and I did homework and read. Nothing interesting happened at school the next day, just homework, run a mile, homework, homework, lunch, lab, sing a little song... But when I got home and tried to concentrate on my grammar worksheet, suddenly the buzzing that I had just started to tune out got louder. Something, I knew, was wrong.

I closed my book and sat there, concentrating on the buzzing. Inside the buzzing, I heard something that had both confused me and made my blood run cold. 'Fly away...jump...jump...roof...fly away...' Those three phrases continued, in no particular order, to run through my head, and I felt a pull towards my high school. I left my room, ready with an excuse in case my parents asked me where I was going, but when I looked around, no one was home yet. It was odd, but I wasn't completely worried. Usually, my dad got home anywhere between 3:45 and 5, depended on the traffic, and my mother would be home by about 4. I looked at the clock on the stove. It was 5:15.

'Maybe they had gone out to dinner and would call me in a little bit to tell me they were bringing me a doggie bag.' I suggested to myself. They did that sometimes, and to tell the truth, a take-out box of Chinese didn't sound half bad. As I left the house, the sky was darker, almost complete night, and I walked slowly down the street, not feeling comfortable walking alone.

"YOU!" The sudden shout made me jump. I turned back towards my house and saw Kelly on the main sidewalk as if she had run out of her house just to confont me. She seemed different. Her eyes looked slightly sunken in, she was paler than I remembered, and she looked as if she hadn't eaten in a couple of days. She was looking at me with so much hatred. "I hope you rot in Hell, where your kind belong!"

"My kind?" At first, I thought she was talking about my being gay, but it didn't make any sense to me. Kelly was always cool about that. She never even acted as if I might start hitting on her as other people I know have done. There was a look in her eyes I've never seen before, a glint that made me wonder to myself if she wasn't completely there. She walked closer to me, her pace startling. Kelly pushed me, hard. I tumbled backwards and almost lost my balance.

"You're one of them, those freaks. I know, Gabby. I know what you can do, and it disgusts me." She tried to push me again, and I grabbed at her hands.

I could hear- very faintly- her thought process, and could tell that though she'd said my name, she wasn't screaming at me, per se'. I was just there, but she didn't truly see me as her ex best friend. In her mind, I was HIM, the 'man' who hurt her, abused her in a way that made me sick even then. She wriggled in my grasp and managed to get one of her wrists free. She scratched me on my inner elbow, the only thing she could get to, and it left a nasty red mark. I was getting angry then, when before I was feeling confusion and sympathy. I knew she was crazy, which was so weird because Kelly was always so much smarter than I was, and though she did get a little nervous around some strangers, she wasn't ever someone I considered a future resident at Arkham. This had to be something new, something that must have resulted because of her rape about seven months ago. I thought she was slowly but surely getting over it. Was she having some sort of relapse? Did all of her memories and emotions from that night all come suddenly, and it caused some sort of breakdown? Crazy or not, Kelly knew that I had abilities somehow. "You and your girlfriend both will burn. Burn... Burn..." She repeated this word as she continued to fight me. I let go of her other wrist and she advanced with an ear splitting scream. She ran towards me again. I moved aside a little and pushed her shoulder as she got closer, making her lose some of her momentum. She seemed to trip over her own feet and fell, scraping her hands on the sidewalk. She didn't get up. She just sat there, trying to catch her breath.

"I didn't know until a couple of weeks ago what I truly am, but if your behavior towards me means you knew before I did... What does that make you?"

She thought about what I said, and I watched her face screw into a look of sheer pain. She sniffled and tears came rapidly.

"I'm- I'm TAINTED! I'm..." She didn't finish her sentance. She wailed and reached out for me. "I... Gabby-" I just stood there watching her, unsure what to do. My heart went out to her- it really did, but I was afraid she would try to attack me again. I slowly bent to help her up. She scrambled to her feet, climbing me as she did so, and I let her lean on me. "He hurt me,"

she whimpered.

"I know. You told me." I said in a soothing voice. I saw the man's face in my head, and I had a hard time swallowing. He was a big guy, and he'd gone to our school before he was arrested. He was a senior and had asked Kelly to prom. He didn't dance with her all night, and then when he was taking her home, he suddenly forced himself upon her. He was unbelievably strong... It wasn't until I got home from school later that week and saw the cops at Kelly's house that she told me what had happened. Images came to my mind.

This guy in a letterman's jacket smiling flirtatiously at me and asking me- er, Kelly if I was still on for prom. He seemed so normal, so nice when I had met him. 'One thing you you have to learn about New Gotham, Dinah:

things aren't always as they seem.' I suddenly thought about Dinah's first night here in New Gotham. That sentance that Jerry said echoed through me.

Dinah had almost been attacked as well the first night she was here.

"He- Gabby... It hurt so bad." The tears came as quickly as before. "I hurt you be- because he hurt me. I- I-" She couldn't say anymore.

"Shh... It's okay, Kels," I said, hoping her elementary school nickname would help calm her some. We slowly started to walk towards her house. "It's just a scratch." Instantly after I said that, the image of the Huntress woman holding her arm filled my head, and I felt that guilt. I closed my eyes and the image faded away. I wondered why Dinah was on my mind now. I hoped she was okay, but I had to make sure Kelly was going to be okay first.

"Here's what we're going to do, okay?" Kelly looked up from the ground at me. "We're going to get you home, okay? Respond and tell me you understand."

I told her, speaking as if to a child, which is what I felt she reverted to in her sudden fear and anguish.

"Okay," she said meekly.

"We're going to get you home and we're going to get you into a bath, okay?"

"Okay."

"And we're going to wash you up, and get you into some pajamas, and you're going off to sleep. Does sleep sound good, Kels? Does it? Respond, Kelly." I said again when she remained quiet.

"Okay- yes. Good." She responded almost absently. It scared me. She was looking at me, but then... she wasn't really looking at me. She was almost looking THROUGH me, which was almost creepy. I continued to talk to her.

"You're going to sleep and dream of flowers. Tell me your favorite flower, Kels." Kelly looked at me as if I would supply the answer. "You're favorite flower are roses, right?" She nodded, though she seemed to have stopped listening. "Roses are the state flowers, right Kels?" Her head lulled to the side and rested on me as I was almost dragging her now. "Kelly, I need you to help me. Help me, Kelly. Hold yourself up for a little bit. We're almost home." She was so exhausted. I didn't think her small attack on me would tire her out so much, but I studied her frail form as we walked, her shoes almost dragging on the concrete. I hoisted her up when I felt her dragging more, and slipping down my body a little bit. "Kelly, pick yourself up. I can't hold you. We're almost there. You'll be in bed soon."

"Be- Bed." Kelly said with a far away voice.

"Yes Sweety, bed. Come on." That seemed to get her to move a little more on her own, and the weight was lifted from me a little bit. "That's my girl.

Come on." I urged her again. The rest of the way seemed like blocks away even though I hadn't even crossed the street to get me closer to the school when Kelly had attacked me. A van had pulled into Kelly's driveway and two white/blonde haired boys stepped out, looking our way. They looked at Kelly as if she was evil, almost the same look she had given me only minutes before. She hadn't picked her brothers up from the looks of it, and her parents had to go do it on their way home from work. Kelly's parents (her mother and stepfather) both worked in a law firm in upper Bludhaven, where they'd met, and it was almost 2 hours' drive each way. Her stepdad asked what was wrong, but Kelly clung to me suddenly and didn't say anything. I could only guess that for a second she was seeing him as the 'man' as well.

He looked to me for answers.

"She's not feeling well. I'm just going to get her to bed." I led her up the stairs to the bathroom. When I caught sight of the bathtub, I froze. I could hear the screams and the sound of five or six year old me crying. A tug on my arm made me look at Kelly.

"No bath. Just bed... please." She said this as if to give a command, then remembered her manners. I could feel that she knew I was scared, even though she didn't exactly know why, and was trying to make it a little easier on me. Plus she was really tired and would have fallen asleep in the bath tub, and there would have been no way for me to get her out of it. I wouldn't have called for her stepdad's help because of what Kelly was thinking about in her state, and we would have been stuck. I nodded, and we walked to her room, and helped her sit down on her bed. Then, I went to close the door.

Before it was latched completely, I turned to see that Kelly had already taken her shirt off.

"Oh-" I said in surprise, seeing her ribs before turning quickly to her dresser. I took out her Care Bears pajama pants and white t-shirt and put them next to her on the bed. Half naked, she took them and started to put them on. She seemed out of it, like in a trance. I helped her get under the covers and sat carefully next to her. Her head was on the pillow looking up at the ceiling; I stared at her for a second. Slowly her head rolled over to look up at me. We stared in silence, and I felt she was struggling to find her words. Any words that would make sense to me.

"Thank... Thank you."

"Hey, what are friends for?" I asked, and she looked away from me after that. Tears were back in her eyes. She was sad and sorry about what had happened between us, not only outside just then, but in our friendship in general, but she couldn't find the words to say anything.

Finally, she said, "I'm sorry-" but I cut her off.

"Hey, hey, hey. Shh... It's okay. It'll be okay. We'll talk in the morning,

or- or after school. We'll talk and we'll figure it out."

"Okay." I spoke to her after that, just talking, telling her jokes, asking if she remembered this or that, images of our childhood together as paired tetherball champions in elementary school, and the 3 hours that we had become a singing duo called the Tetherball Twins (her idea, not mine). She drifted off to sleep, and finally the fear and sadness left her face. I waited until I felt that she was calm before I slowly tucked her in as to not disturb her. I left her room, turning out the lights and slowly closing the door with a soft thud. At the bottom of the steps, I looked at her parents.

"She's okay now. She just... needs to sleep," I told them. They nodded, confused.

"Do you know what happened?" her mother asked.

"No, I don't, but she'll be okay." 'I hope.' I hadn't the heart to bring back the memories of the police being at the house for a couple of hours that one night as they learned that one of the worst things ever to happen to their child took place. I didn't want to tell them that she might have broke down due to thoughts of that night he'd raped her. It was silent there, as I could tell those thoughts came to them anyway. I had to get out of there. I felt bad for wanting to leave them with a problem like that, especially when it involved one of my best friends. "Look, I've got to go, but Kels is asleep. I'll talk to you all later." I felt bad that they wouldn't get any real explaination from me about what happened. I, better than anyone, knew how it felt to be left in the dark, but I, myself didn't know exactly what happened. All I had were guesses and theories.

"Well, thank you for getting her into bed. You're a good friend." She said.

I smiled and tried not to wince at that. After she had said that they showed me out, and I felt the fresh air on my lungs and almost felt relief. Things were okay.