Be in the Real (15 page)

She had done all she could to find the truth and the answers as to why, but had come up short. In her research as well as observing women, Kaila had watched men together and was surprised at their ability to enjoy themselves, just as much as they seemed to when a woman was involved. If people worried that the couple couldn’t enjoy having sex, and that was the reason it was considered wrong, then they just needed to watch some of the movies to see for themselves.

She had also mused that it might have been a love thing, but that hadn’t seemed to solve her quandary. Kaila knew from personal experience with her feelings for Norm, or whatever had grown within her, that sometimes you just started caring about someone without even trying. And even if other people didn’t exactly understand or condone what you felt, you didn’t feel it any less. Wasn’t there a saying about you not choosing love and love choosing you?
 

Still, she wasn’t quite sure if what she had felt for Norm, still felt now, despite him being gone for what seemed like a very long time, was actually love, since she had no reference point. But if she counted the research she had done on that exact feeling, it might have been close. People described love as making your heart beat faster when you saw that special person, in fact sometimes just the thought of Norm was enough to make Kaila’s heart hammer her ribs like a jackhammer. And it seemed that now that he was gone, her reaction to the memory of their almost sex in the storage closet made her want more than anything in the universe, to go back in time and finish what they had never had a chance to complete. To hold him against her bare flesh, to feel that same sensation.

Kaila shifted her gaze from Pauline, to Janelle, then back.

“You and Janelle have sex with each other, and I know that you do those things because you love, or at least like each other, so why would that be wrong?” Kaila asked, folding her arms across her breasts.

“It’s not wrong…or least it’s not wrong to me.”
 

Kaila heard the quaver in Pauline’s voice before her eyes clouded with tears. She knew that her words had upset Pauline, but her need for an answer seemed more important than Pauline’s emotions. Tears would dry up, but the opportunity to have something that felt extremely important explained felt more urgent. Janelle wrapped her meaty arm around Pauline, drawing her closer until her silky head was positioned in the crook of Janelle’s neck.

“Why are you torturing her Kaila?”
 

Janelle’s voice was low and carried an unspoken warning for Kaila to shut up. Janelle’s chagrin did nothing to make Kaila feel sympathetic toward Pauline, or her inability to accept that she loved women not men. In fact it was just the opposite, because it was like denying your skin was the color it was, who you loved or didn’t love seemed innate, not planned.
 

Trillian had whispered a truth to Kaila the last time Pauline had admitted her love for women, a truth that Kaila refused to give any thought too but suddenly made sense; Pauline was one of those people that believed being gay was wrong. Trillian had told Kaila that it was this very idea that had left Pauline feeling less than, believing that suicide was her only option in a world that didn’t accept that it was okay to love someone that had the same anatomical structure as she did. Trillian had urged Kaila to convey her messages, because just like Kaila could predict, so too could Trillian. Much like Derrick’s ability to see a death that was going to happen, Trillian could see things too. She knew that Pauline was going to try again and again until she succeeded, or until she accepted her truth; that she hated herself for being different, enough so that she wanted to die.

“I’m not torturing her, I want to know why she thinks it’s wrong to love a woman, why is it wrong, why is it wrong, why is it wrong?”
 

Kaila’s voice had risen in cadence, until she was screaming the question that was now wrapped tight in fury. She, and Trillian too, needed Pauline to answer them, give them a reason for her self-hatred.

More tears flooded Pauline’s eyes, falling in heavy drops down her pale cheeks, taking her mascara and all the eye makeup that she had applied so carefully with the salty water. But instead of crumpling into a ball of tears and snot, she pulled out of Janelle’s grasp and leapt to her feet. She loomed over Kaila as if she intended to hit her.
 

“Because it is, it just is…” Pauline bellowed so loudly that Kaila was certain that the Wildwind staff would soon be joining them in the room. Her body was stiff with anger, like a twig that had been bent to its limit and was ready to snap in half; Pauline was ready to snap in half.

Then it came in a rush of power, so much so that Kaila felt as if she had been jolted with a stun gun, only she hadn’t, it was just Trillian waking up. But this Trillian wasn’t the understanding one that waited her turn to get what she wanted most, this was something more, a force that Kaila had no way of stopping.
 

Trillian’s will tugged Kaila to her feet, her erect body was now mere inches from Pauline. Even though Trillian was in absolute control, Kaila was present too, as if a passenger in a car that she was not driving, but she could still peer out the windows. Kaila was certain that she couldn’t stop Trillian even if she tried. In an unexpected move that left even Kaila stunned, Trillian reached for Pauline, cupping her large hands on the fine bones of Pauline’s face. Kaila felt the contact, waited for the spiders, hairy tarantulas, black widows anything that was lethal, to arrive, but there was none of that, just Pauline’s soft skin against the thick flesh of Kaila’s palms. Trillian held Pauline’s face as if she were handling something so fragile where even a touch might cause it to disintegrate.
 

“Love is never wrong,” Trillian said.
 

Then whatever string Trillian had used to control Kaila was snipped away, leaving her boneless. She collapsed and everything went black.

CHAPTER 16

Derrick’s voice, panicked with a hint of irritation, brought Kaila out of the dark place she had been swept away to.

“If she keeps having these seizures she’s going to need to be evaluated. There’s something definitely wrong with her, something I have no idea how to fix…” Derrick said.

“You’re supposed to be a doctor aren’t you?”

Pauline’s voice was higher than normal and tempered with deep anxiety.

“I’m not a doctor yet, I was pre-med, not even close to the kind of doctor Kaila needs, she’s having seizures. She probably needs a CT scan at the very least, an MRI would be even better.”
 

Kaila’s eyes felt as if they had been super-glued together, she struggled to open them, while the bickering between Derrick and Pauline continued. She felt spider legs graze her forehead. It was the jolt she needed to pop her eyes wide. She noticed immediately that she was in her own bed and her head was propped up on several pillows so she was positioned in a sitting pose. Derrick and Pauline were too busy arguing to clue in that she had regained consciousness.

“I’m fine,” she croaked. She cleared her throat before she repeated. “I’m okay.”

Pauline and Derrick were so close that they were almost chest-to-chest. Pauline shook a slender finger in Derrick’s face, a mere half-inch away from his nose. He took a few steps back from her, widening the gap between them as if intimidated. Seeing Derrick cowed by Pauline made Kaila wonder why she, who had at least forty pounds on Pauline, didn’t seem to affect Derrick in the least. Witnessing this unexpected behavior only heightened Kaila’s confusion about how Derrick operated, this in effect made her interest in him grow by degrees.

“I’m fine,” Kaila shouted, loud enough so both Derrick and Pauline were silenced. Kaila noted that Janelle was nowhere to be seen. She hoped that didn’t mean that Janelle was off trying to convince a Wildwind staff member to check in on her.
 

Apprehension slid like a sharp blade down Kaila’s spine. The last thing she could deal with was yet another White Room stay. In her opinion, the White Room with its extreme quiet, blank décor and constant stream of medications, made her feel like a lab rat and a lot more unbalanced for having been inside.

“I’m fine,” she said.
 

She allowed her eyes to come to rest on Pauline, then Derrick. They wore twin expressions of relief for entirely different reasons.

“Good, I’m out of here,” Derrick said abruptly. Pauline gripped his arm, preventing him from getting very far away.

“Don’t tell anyone about this Derrick or so help me I’ll shank you in the shower.”

Derrick rolled his eyes in mock boredom, but it wasn’t enough to disguise that Pauline’s words had rattled him.

“Lose my name, number and everything you know about me. I’m not a fucking hero and I don’t want to be one either…”
 

He turned to leave. When he did, Kaila was sure that she had spotted her computer tucked under his armpit.
 

“Hey, that’s my computer,” Kaila said, but Derrick had already slipped out. His hurried footsteps were audible as he moved away from the room.

“What the hell is happening with you Kaila? Why are you fainting all the time? In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve never been someone who ever passed out, it’s just not your style…” Pauline said.

 
She briefly laid a hand on Kaila’s shoulder. Kaila shrugged out of Pauline’s touch, pushing up on her elbows. She realized that Pauline expected an answer, but she was too tensed up at the possibility that Derrick had taken her computer to respond. Pauline took a few steps back and plunked down on her bed. Her hair was unkempt, her eyes swollen and red, tracks of mascara spidered down her cheeks. It was obvious to Kaila that she had been crying for quite a while.

 
Kaila threw her legs over the edge of the bed in a flurry. She still felt disjointed and out of it, but the belief that Derrick had stolen her laptop was enough for her to ignore her human limitations. Now standing, she wobbled over to her dresser, tugging the drawer open. The emptiness that met her felt overwhelming; Derrick
had
stolen her laptop. Kaila barreled out the door and down the long hallway, hollering Derrick’s name at the top of her lungs.

The loss she felt was immeasurable, as if someone had reached inside her and ripped out all her vital organs, leaving her hollow and dead, a zombie. And in that moment she knew she would kill Derrick for what he had done. She imagined her hands wrapped around his throat squeezing again, watching his eyes pop wide, his face mottle, only this time no one would stop her, and Derrick would cease to exist. A part of her would be sorry to see him go because she had been certain that he’d had secrets that might have shown her many things, secrets that could have unlocked even more secrets, like dominoes falling in succession.

“I’m going to murder you Derrick.”
 

Kaila’s voice bounced off the walls that surrounded her. She saw residents dart out of her path, making way for her as she pushed forward. Nothing would stop her this time. The book of life and death had turned a page and Derrick’s name was emblazoned in black ink. Kaila couldn’t see beyond the red mist of rage that propelled her forward, it took her a few minutes to feel the familiar hands grab her arms. And like a lab animal programed to hit a lever for a treat, Kaila went limp and waited for the inevitable pinch. As the drugs pulled her into oblivion, she conceded that Derrick had a reprieve, a stay of execution. But the White Room couldn’t hold her forever, and when they released her back into her world, Derrick would meet the fate that he deserved.

CHAPTER 17

Kaila didn’t know how long she spent in the White Room only that eventually they let her out to another room that wasn’t hers. There were doctors there in crisp lab coats that wanted her to talk, to pick her brain for information about things she refused to tell.

A part of her knew that if she let them see inside her mind, at the jangle of thoughts that resided in the dark recesses of her brain, they would never let her out. So, like a person who had been frozen in suspended animation, she became a pill-taking automaton, who smiled even when she didn’t want to. She agreed to do what they urged, silently believing that they were all a bunch of fools. And they poked and prodded, scanned her brain with machines, as if they were searching for something.

When they finally did see what they had been looking for, they told her that they had found something inside her head, they called it a tumor, Kaila called it Trillian. They had explained how this tumor was the cause for her blackouts and seizures. Both Kaila and Trillian knew what they did to tumors, cut them out, and for a little while Trillian was scared that they would slice her away.

So when they had told Kaila that the tumor resided in a part of her brain that was near impossible to reach, Trillian was over the moon with relief. In truth, Kaila was pleased too, since she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go on living without Trillian. Still, the doctors said that there would be arrangements for other kinds of treatments, things that would shrink Trillian from the size of a clementine to a walnut; Kaila had refused their so-called help. But even she knew that eventually they would find a way to force her hand, until then she waited.

CHAPTER 18

Kaila hadn’t had any idea about when she would exit the Next Room as she called it, because it came after the White Room, until the day they told her that she could return to her habitat. With the routines of her day snatched from her grasp she had no gauge on exactly how much time had passed in her absence. The days bled into one another, like wet ink on a page, but she knew that this excursion had been by far her longest. She judged this by how much her hair had grown, about half an inch in her estimation. She had also counted three nail trims. She normally did her own nail clipping, but things were different in the Next Room. Lest she try to hurt herself or another with the baby-sized nail clippers that they used to clip her nails, the staff completed the task.