Chapter 37 - Necessary
Kelly reached for the doorknob, but I spun her around, pushed her against the door, and kissed her hard. I didn't stop kissing her as we burst into the kitchen. We had a few precious hours alone before her grandparents would take her away from me and deliver her to her dad's house. She would be staying there for a week, save Christmas day. For that one day she was allowed to spend time in what was supposed to be her own house, with the woman who had the legal right to call Kelly her daughter.
Kelly was still wearing my leather jacket. I stripped it off of her, throwing it on the floor by my abandoned backpack. I grabbed her face and kissed her aggressively, claiming my territory.
I was feeling so many things all at once I couldn't keep them straight. I felt the high of a successful performance and a cheering audience just a short time ago at the talent show. I felt love for Kelly, and an aching sort of sadness knowing she would be ripped away from me for over a week. I felt anger at her mother, the faceless woman I had never met, and jealousy that she got to see Kelly on Christmas, but I didn't.
I yanked off Kelly's hoodie from the bottom, so it landed on the floor inside out. As soon as it was off, she moved to keep kissing me, but before she connected I lifted up her t-shirt to bring it over her head. Finally our lips came back into contact.
"I love you, Kelly," I gasped as we made our way farther into the kitchen. I didn't give her a chance to answer because I attacked her mouth again, taking her head in my hands like I was afraid she might try to escape. With conviction, I thought the words again, but added to them. "I love you, Kelly, and I will never abandon you. I will never give you up like your bitch of a mother did. She must not love you like I do. She doesn't deserve you. I would never cast you away like that."
I undid her jeans and pushed them down to mid thigh, then went back to kissing her madly. I grabbed her butt cheek with one hand and pulled her into me, while my other hand was on the back of her head, pressing her face into mine. I couldn't get close enough to her. She seemed to know that I needed control, and she gave it to me.
* * *
An hour or so later we lay in bed together, alternating between kissing softly and just holding each other. I ran my fingers slowly through her hair as we cuddled, trying to say, "I love you," with every touch.
"Are you okay, Ani?" Kelly asked me softly.
"Yeah," I pulled back to look at her beautiful amber eyes. Flecks of gold shone in them, but it was her pupils that drew my attention. "Why? Am I doing something wrong?"
"No! You're just...different, today. You went from being very...forceful, to being almost sad."
"Was it bad? Did you not like it?"
"It was pretty incredible, actually, having you want me like that. It made me feel so...necessary. If that's the kind of send off I get, I need to leave more often." When she saw I didn't smile at her joke, she looked worried. "I'm just trying to read you right now, Ani, and I can't."
"I'm just being silly, I guess. I feel like I only have a short time left to make sure you don't forget how much I love you. My insecurities are showing."
"Ani!" She brought both hands up to frame my face and continued to stare into my eyes. "I swear to you, I will never forget how much you love me. 'Cogito ergo sum' and 'Ani loves me' are the two things in this world I can know for certain."
I had to struggle through my memories of our conversations about philosophy to get the reference. I gave her a small smile. "I'm not sure DesCartes would approve." Then, with more seriousness, "I love it when you show off how smart you are."
She blushed, but smiled as she stared into my eyes.
"Kelly?"
"Yes, Ani?"
"You are necessary."
* * *
After we got dressed and were ready to leave for her house, I went to my closet and got out a box wrapped in midnight blue paper with white ribbon.
"Since I'm not going to see you...Merry Christmas."
"Ani! I hope you didn't spend too much." She returned my smile, but I could tell she was serious.
"Don't worry. I knew you didn't want me to spend a lot, so I controlled myself." It wasn't a lie. I spent way more than she would have been comfortable with, but less than I wanted to.
"I'll open it at my house so I can give you your gift. I can open it in front of my grandparents, can't I?"
"Yes," I laughed. "I'm saving lingerie for Valentine's Day," I teased.
When we left, Kelly asked if she could wear my leather jacket. It made me happy to know she would be wearing it over break, like a part of me would still be holding her. We drove to Kelly's house and visited with her grandparents for a bit, then we went back to Kelly's room. On her desk were two thin rectangular boxes wrapped in white with red ribbons. One was about the size of a clothing box, the other was smaller. She presented them to me, and we sat on her bed together.
"You first I said," I said, smiling in anticipation. "It's kind of a bunch of stocking stuffers with one real gift."
She opened it to find a collection of handmade soaps, scented oils, and lotions in all of her favorite scents. I bought them from a lady I knew that always had products in the local farmers' market. In the middle of them was a smaller box with the same midnight blue paper and a smaller white ribbon.
"Ani," she cocked her head to the side.
"Trust me! It was less than you think. Just open this one. It's sort of a prelude to another gift. You'll understand later, but you have to be honest about whether or not you like them."
She relented, and opened the smaller box to find two small earrings with dark green gemstones. "They're beautiful! What kind of stones are those?"
"Emeralds."
"That sounds expensive," she said suspiciously.
"I got a really good deal on them. Do you like them? I can exchange them for a different type of gem, I just wanted to try to find something that would compliment your coloring." As I said that, I brushed her hair back from her face. "According to a website all about redheads, emerald jewelry is a classic compliment to dark red hair."
"I love them." She smiled honestly, looking at me with something like wonder. "What are they a prelude to?"
"You'll see. I have a long range plan." I gave her a devious look. She stuck out her lower lip in a playful pout, but only for a second.
"Open yours!" She thrust the larger box at me with a little bounce. "The big one first."
I took the ribbon off and opened it to find a pink, fitted t-shirt with a black design printed on it. It was a stylized heart with an off-center rose in it. The stem of the rose protruded from the bottom left of the heart.
"That's your black ink brush painting! You had this custom made for me?"
She smiled from ear to ear at my reaction. Her head nodded vigorously.
"I found a place online that will print a picture you upload on just about anything you want. I have a poem you wrote just for me, so I wanted you to have something special just for you. Well, the picture was an Art class project, but you liked it so much, I wanted to make it yours. Open the small one."
I tore open the box, and inside was the original black ink brush picture that had been in her locker. It was in a dark pink picture frame that made the black lines look that much more bold.
"I never told you this, but I kind of saw it as a combination of us. I painted the heart thinking of you. I know, cheesy, right? Then, I put a rose in it because I like the way you call me 'Kelly Rose' when you're feeling emotional. It's yours now." I was having such an emotional day that the gesture nearly made me cry.
"I love it." I put the box down, slipped the sweatshirt I was wearing off, closed her door, and traded the shirt I had on for my new one. "I'm not taking this off until you get back." I sat back down on her bed and hugged her like someone might steal her from me. She rubbed her hands up and down my back.
"Ani, why are you so sentimental today? I'm only going to be gone a little over a week."
"I know. It's not that. I don't know what it is. I'm just really feeling everything a little deeper today for some reason."
She stroked my hair softly, looking at me with wide eyes, a soft smile, and a tilted head.
Her grandma called from the front room, "We're going to have to leave soon, girls. Otherwise we'll be driving in the dark."
Kelly quickly threw a few of the things I got her in the little suitcase she was using, then put the earrings in her ears. She smiled at me.
"How do they look?"
I couldn't take my eyes off of her face long enough to look at them.
"Perfect."
"I'll call you tonight, okay?"
"Okay." I pulled her close one last time and hugged her. "I love you, my philosopher."
"I love you, my poet."
* * *
"Seven days without Kelly or Coach. Does that mean you have some time for me?" Kristy was standing in my doorway in her pajamas making her best puppy dog face.
"Kristy, have I been a bad big sister? Of course I have time for you. What do you have in mind?" I slipped a bookmark into the book I had been reading, An Introduction To Philosophy, and set it down on my nightstand. She smiled mischievously, turned her hand upside down with her forefinger extended, then bent it a couple times in the universal sign for 'come here.'
I followed Kristy to her bedroom, where I saw candles lit, two bowls of popcorn on her bed, a couple cans of soda, and Netflix cued up on her tv.
"I feel like I'm being seduced."
"It's not supposed to be romantic. It's supposed to be spooky! I want to watch the new Sabrina series. It's supposed to be really dark, with cannibalism and Satan worship and stuff." She crawled onto her bed and sat propped up with pillows against her headboard.
"It says it's TV-14," I deadpanned.
"Still, you know me. You might want to grab your pillow." She smiled at me, knowing I would never tell anyone her little secret. Even some cartoons used to scare her so badly I would have to sleep with her. To this day, if she wanted to watch something scary, she would wait until we had a night alone, like tonight.
* * *
Three hours later Kristy asked with a yawn, "Should we start the fourth episode?"
"I don't think so. I'm still on school time. I'm pretty tired." We were under the blankets. I didn't bother asking her if she wanted me to stay. She probably did. Besides, I was warm and comfortable.
"I like this, Ani. We don't get much sister time any more. And now, we have so much more to talk about!"
"And just what, exactly, would you like to talk about?" I rolled to face her and tucked my arm under my head, letting her know she had my full attention.
"Well," she pretended to think, but her answer came quickly, "tell me about you and Kelly."
"Don't you already get the scoop from her? I always assumed you guys talked about me."
"We do, but I wonder if she sugar coats stuff or leaves things out because you're my sister. Besides, some stuff she obviously isn't going to tell me about."
"You want to hear about that stuff?"
"Kind of." She scrunched up her shoulders and looked embarrassed. "I mean, no details, please, but...I'm curious. It sounded like you guys were sure having fun at the sleepover before Thanksgiving."
"Yeah, I never did get the chance to properly thank you for your little serenade the next morning." I reached over and gave her a light thwack on the nose.
She chuckled. "I thought for sure you'd be the embarrassed one. I pictured Kelly bragging about it!"
"She's hot, athletic, smart...of course I was the one bragging!"
"So, you got over seeing her as one of my friends, I take it."
It was my turn to give a shy smile. "Well, not entirely. Every now and then I remember she's only fifteen and I feel kind of weird about it, but then I remember that she took my virginity, not the other way around."
"That's still odd to think about for me. My big sister and my friend are screwing." She said it like she was letting the thought soak in.
I laughed at her, "Are you still okay with that? You set us up, after all."
"I guess so." She said it with an over dramatic sigh. "You realize you were only dating for like, two and a half months before you had sex, right? I thought I'd get to enjoy seeing you guys be all flirty and shy around each other for a while."
"I know. We did everything really fast. Well, not fast for most people, I guess, but faster than I ever thought I would move with a girl. I hope that wasn't a mistake."
"Why? Do you feel like it was a mistake?"
"Well...maybe. No! Don't make that face. I don't think being with Kelly is a mistake. I think I probably should have gone slower so I was more equipped to deal with a real relationship. Think about it. I kissed her, then got all huffy because she was texting a guy. I didn't have the maturity to just ask her if anything was going on. Now we're already having sex, and I'm kind of flipping out about being away from her for a week."
"You are?"
"I was all emotional today. I was practically crying over her Christmas gift to me. Oh, and you should have seen what I was like when we got home from school!"
"Why? What happened?" Kristy's eyebrows scrunched with concern.
"Let's just say I was...assertive. Usually when we're together, both of us are really affectionate. We just can't get enough touching, hugging, and caressing. This time I was like, 'This is mine!' when we had sex. Which, come to think of it, she actually told me she liked once, when I kissed her like that in the hall at the sleepover. Of course, she told me she liked it this time, too. Are you freaked out? You look a little freaked out."
Kristy's hand had made a fist in front of her mouth, and the eye I could see above her pillow was wide. "Yes, but it's okay. I wanted girl talk. I just don't know what's freakier, the Satan mask on Sabrina or picturing you being aggressive in bed."
"Well..."
"Well, what?"
"Nothing."
"You have to tell me now. You can't leave it like that."
"We weren't in bed." She kept her eyes wide, but said nothing. "We were in the kitchen."
"On the dirty floor?"
"No..." Kristy scrunched her eyebrows, then they suddenly shot upwards. She gave a little cry, shut her eyes tight, and covered her ears. I laughed and lifted her hand.
"Okay, okay. I won't tell you anything else. Anyway, after we finally got into bed and we were both...relaxed, then I got all sappy and overly affectionate. I thought about her leaving for a week and a half and I was ready to bawl. This is not what a mature relationship looks like."
Kristy didn't respond right away.
"Are you afraid to say anything because of what happened at homecoming?"
"You are a bit...defensive, when it comes to talking about Kelly."
I buried my face in her pillow in an act of shame. After a few seconds, I faced her and said, "I promise not to be defensive. I need to listen to more advice, I think."
"Well," she started, still looking like she wanted to proceed cautiously. "Ani, you are the most romantic person I know. Passionate? Maybe that's a better word. And in some ways, that's so amazing. You can be the most introverted person I know one day, then the next, you're on stage laying your heart bare for the world to see. You take big risks, emotional risks. Like coming out on stage at fourteen. Like performing in a band and singing to your girlfriend. Like reading a poem in the cafeteria. Like...letting yourself fall in love with a girl and losing your virginity with her in a few month's time."
I let her words soak in.
"I guess...one of my biggest fears is being held back by my own comfort zone. Before I came out, I kept telling myself it was nobody's business if I liked girls. I wasn't hiding it. I just...didn't talk about it. But then, it started to feel like hiding. I knew if I hid my real self from people, then they could never really love me for who I am. That thought terrified me...not really being loved. So, I decided I could never hide again. Of course, I was fourteen, and didn't really understand how bad it can be when people come out. I just knew it would be embarrassing. I'm lucky I had someone like you to be there for me."
Kristy reached out and took my hand. She had moist eyes and a soft smile.
"When Kala told me I was a poet at heart, and I couldn't not be in love, I knew she was right. I faced that fear, and told Kelly how I felt. Once she said it back, I felt like the risk paid off. So, what makes you think of it as a huge risk now?"
Kristy shrugged her shoulders. "I guess, I didn't expect you to fall so hard for her so fast, you know? I figured you would date her, find out if you liked her, talk for a while...that kind of stuff. There's no going back now. What's the phrase Kelly always uses about irreversible decisions?"
I was quiet for a minute, considering the gravity of what she was saying. Was this the beginning of a great, life long romance, or would Kelly also be my first horrendous breakup - the girl I could never quite get over?
"Alea iacta est," I answered Kristy. "The die is cast."