Chapter 5
Carmilla’s insatiable sex drive diminished to an entire lack thereof after her first night back. Laura woke up every morning detached from the tangled limbs she had fallen asleep with, her body awakened by the lack of warmth. Sometimes in the middle of the night she was unconsciously aware of Carmilla scooting farther across the bed from her, leaving her with a chill. Cuddling out of habit came to a halt; Carmilla politely shrugged her off whenever she tried to initiate any type of contact.
Her girlfriend smiled and nodded and said all the necessities but it was all without meaning. Laura found her more often than not staring at nothing in particular. It was quite a change when she had become so accustomed to being the only thing in Carmilla’s line of sight. Carmilla was slow to respond as if she was never paying enough attention to catch on when it was her turn to speak. She was dismissive and secretive. She lived on a circular path and she had made one round trip just to start over again.
The worst were the nights that Laura woke, shivering, only to find the ghost of a body that was in the bed next to her. She would panic and work herself into a sweat. Those nights were sleepless and only when Carmilla slipped back into the room, before she thought Laura would wake up, did Laura pretend she was sleeping. Carmilla would lay herself down on the bed as softly as she could and roll over to face away from Laura. Every instance was a new stab at Laura’s heart and Carmilla continued to widen the distance between them.
She seemed to be living in a half-dazed state between her normal self and the one where she disappeared completely as any sort of human being, only becoming a body that walked and talked if necessary. Though the latter scared Laura, in this form, Carmilla was in there and all of her decisions were conscious choices. If she pushed, Carmilla pulled away. When she did nothing, Carmilla still pulled away. Will had hoped that her being there for Carmilla would bring her back as it had done so many times before but if Carmilla did not want for it to work, there was no solution. Laura wasn’t sure how much longer she could live on in a state of uncertainty.
One morning, when she found Carmilla leaning over the counter and staring out the window, only in the apartment from a feeling of obligation, Laura thought it was time to release her from what Carmilla now thought of as duty. “Carm?”
The girl swallowed whatever she was drinking; from the strong scent, Laura knew it was some type of alcohol. It was only seven in the morning. I wonder how long this has been going on. “Yes, Laura.”
Laura had not heard her use one of her nicknames since she had fallen asleep crying in Carmilla’s arms the night Carmilla returned. Usually, whenever Carmilla used her actual name it was because what she was saying held some kind of importance. Laura loved to hear her name on Carmilla’s lips; it contained so much love and care and respect. This time it was uttered without any emotion; just a name in the air. “I’ve been thinking and maybe it would be better if you didn’t stay here. I think you should go back to your house. And if you can’t do that…I think you should go to the cabin for a while.”
Her attention never wavered from whatever she was looking at outside the window. The snow had come the day before but now everything was silent and unmoving. They mirrored each other. She set the cup down on the counter, “As you wish.”
Laura opened her mouth to say something along the lines of, “This isn’t what I wish,” but nothing came out and Carmilla opened the door of the apartment and left, just how she was, without grabbing any of her belongings.
And soon she found herself on a plane headed for a place far from any of the people or places she considered home. Her stomach left her when the plane lifted off but so did her heart. She felt as if a string was still attached as it floated through the air being tugged around by the wind; she winced at each pull. The magnificence of the clouds being so close has no effect on her demeanor. When she was younger her eyes would grow wide and light up at the thought of being so close to the fluffy whiteness in the sky. Her nose would smush against the plane window and her hands would leave outlines as she tried to get as close as she could.
Instead her forehead felt cold against the Plexiglas and her breath fogged up the window, inhibiting her view; her eyes would not focus on anything in the first place so she could not see it anyway.
It wasn’t a long plane ride. When she was awkwardly forcing her way through the narrow aisle with her two bags a child ran out of the seat in front of her. A fatigued looking mother apologized and Laura instinctually smiled. It was just a polite curve of her lips without actual sincerity, but the woman was already chasing after her son.
When she stepped into the airport, the hustle and bustle of the holidays was in full swing but she felt like she was alone, walking down the long corridor, everyone else miles away. Even when they jostled her, she did not connect it to a real experience. It was hazy; she was locked up inside her head. She mechanically handed her bags to the taxi driver and rattled off the address before falling silent. She couldn’t remember the last time she had spoken. I just don’t want to remember. That had been the day Carmilla walked out. She hadn’t told anyone she was leaving, she had just bought the plane ticket, quickly texted her dad so he would be home and hopped on the plane. If she wasn’t in the same city, she wouldn’t have the same feelings. Crap logic but that was all she had to work with.
“Hey, little bear!” Her dad sounded excited but from past experience, he was overcompensating. He wrapped her up in a tight hug and she squeezed back half-heartedly. She didn’t have it in her to show any type of loving emotion, she was drained. At least it would not be a surprise to him though his face was hesitant as if he could feel something was not quite right; that her attitude was not the usual “let’s put up with this because we’re supposed to be a father and daughter” attitude that they usually agreed upon. She continued up the sidewalk to the house, leaving her father at the road.
She closed her eyes at the familiar smell of her childhood home. It was intoxicating and brought back memories that were joyous and beautiful and then all of a sudden wracked with despair. She shut it out because if she let that in on top of Carmilla, then she would internally combust. She dragged her stuff upstairs to her bedroom that her father had not touched since she had left for college. Nothing was out of place; it was exactly as it had been. She fell onto her bed feeling vacant and not quite sure how to deal with being there. It had been her decision though so she would have to make it work somehow.
There was a tentative knock at her door; Laura wiped the water from her eyes and sat up in her bed quickly, “Yeah?”
She made her voice sound as steady as she could but it did not work very well. Her bed was a mess of wrinkles; there was a wet stain on her pillow, evidence of her crying. Her dad entered the room, an expression she had not seen on his face in a long while. She flashbacked to when she was a just a little girl and was rejected by her crush at her own birthday party. It was a harmless thing overall but when she was eight, it was everything. He looked more like her dad than he had in a while. “I can still tell when something’s up, Laura.”
he looked at him, shrinking back to her eight year old self. She sniffled and rubbed at her noise as her dad came and sat down next to her on her bed. “What’s up?”
She laughed through the tears, “Since when do we do this?”
“When did we stop, Laur? That should be the question. I hate how we are. I’ve hated it for a while. All I’ve ever wanted was to be your dad and I know I fell short of that for so many years. So, so many years. And it wasn’t fair to you. You had every right to pull away like you did. You had every right to close me out and move on. I don’t blame you for any of this.”
Laura’s eyes grew wide. Out of everything that could have happened when she returned home, her father trying to make amends was not on the list she imagined. “Things were bad,” he threw up his hands, “I’m not making excuses, I’m just stating the facts. And it was hard on you and it was hard on me and I was the weaker of the both of us. I can’t get back any of the time I lost. I know that.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she replied, the use of “dad” had been gone for a while. Even with his sudden revelation, she wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. She really didn’t know how to respond to him. Could she imagine having her father back? Of course. She had wished it forever but it only existed in a foggy, uncertain future. She couldn’t have him back just for him to decide its too hard again. She couldn’t feel that same pain. She wouldn’t let herself feel that pain.
“I’m going to be the man I used to be for you. And I want you to try to let me back into your life. I don’t care how long it takes. I’m in this forever.”
“Where did this come from?” she pulled her knees up to her chest.
“I spent last Christmas alone and it was suddenly apparent that I never wanted to experience that again. I may have lost one person I loved and I could do nothing about that but I actively lost you. So now I’m being selfish. Through all of these years, I’ve cared about you and always thought about you. From afar maybe, I’ll agree to that. I never showed it. I never tried to break down the walls before that.” His sincerity was the hammer at Laura’s feelings, breaking them apart, her chest heaving in attempts to not start crying again.
“You’ve been here for three days. I haven’t seen you except when you grab something from the kitchen and scurry back up heard. I’ve heard you sobbing through the door. It broke my heart. I hate to see you like this. I don’t want you to be hurting. I can’t control everything that happens to you so what I should’ve been doing was…just helping you. You chose to come back here when you didn’t have to. I have hope in that.”
Laura threw her arms around her dad’s neck, latching on tightly and finding security in the feeling of his arms wrapping around her back. She couldn’t put herself one hundred percent into this relationship at the start; she needed wiggle room to escape. But when he spoke, she knew that all she wanted was her dad back. He had never stopped being over protective but she would take all of that if it came with the actual man. There was a lot a truth in the statement, “You don’t know what you have until its gone. “ And in this case, she hadn’t realized she missed him as much as she did until she had the opportunity to have him back. “I want to try too, dad.”
He whispered in her ear, so overcome by emotion, “I’ve missed you so much, baby girl.”
He was weeping and she was crying and it was such a cliché but in that moment she felt at home in the house she hadn’t felt a connection toward in many years. But if he asked again, she still would not talk about Carmilla. Because over the past few days she had been thinking about how they had only been dating for five months and it was over already. The buildup to their relationship had taken almost a year and in that year, Laura had fallen completely in love with that woman. She had learned by watching and seen Carmilla in ways that people didn’t take the time to look for. She had been loved by someone with an all consuming love that she had no idea could exist and then all of a sudden it was imperceptible and it was almost as if Carmilla had lost the ability to love her how she had. That was what hurt most; that Carmilla could just walk away from what they had. And it still seemed crazy because it had been only a short period of time but never had Laura ever seen an end to them. Maybe it was naïve and from such a youthful mindset but it had been the truth she was living and that truth was crushed. Her heart strained against itself, clenching and unclenching, tightening until she was sure it would burst. If Laura said her name aloud…she wasn’t sure her mouth would even form the correct sounds.
So, when her dad asked again what was wrong, she told him the truth, “I really don’t want to talk about it. I can’t talk about it.”
And he nodded, hugged her again and said, “I’m here whenever you’re ready.”
And for the next two days, they talked and talked and talked. They talked through the things that should have been talked about years ago. They caught each other up on their lives. Laura spouted all about her new job, her friends and their new adventures, though she left Carmilla out of the equation entirely. Her dad made a face when her stories didn’t coincide very well but he let her continue on without intruding.
Her dad was still working wonky hours for a security firm that was halfway freelance and the other half not so much. He had been with the same company for as long as she could remember and he still liked it there; he had no intentions of leaving for something else. She knew that there were better jobs out there for him and she could never understand why he didn’t move on. She had never asked him either and this seemed to be an opening. He cocked his head to the side, thinking in the way that he always did, hand resting against his chin, “I don’t think I’ve ever put much thought into it, Laur. It’s a security thing."
He chuckled at his joke and Laura rolled her eyes. “There’s no need for me to change. I have a steady income; a very nice one if I may add. I might lose that if I left. I’ve built up such loyalty with this company that they are pretty lenient when I need time off or just a change in my schedule.”
“Dad, when was the last time you took time off?” she reprimanded.
“Exactly why they’d give it to me if I asked them for it. I don’t need the stress of searching for another job when I have a very good one.”
“But don’t you ever want change? Don’t you ever want something new or better?” Laura herself would get antsy if she never moved around. She wasn’t good at being stagnant. She squirmed in her chair just thinking about it, making her dad chuckle.
“That’s where we’re different. I’m very settled and have no need to move around much. I like it where I am. I’ll stay here for as long as possible.”
Her dad asked about Kirsch a lot and she told him what she knew. She even disclosed her opinion on him dating Danny with whom her father was acquainted. They hadn’t spent that much time together but Danny had met her father and he had been involved in the going ons of their relationship from time to time. She hadn’t gone crying to him when they broke up though so he didn’t know about that time of her life. She could spare him the worst parts; there was no use drudging it back up when she no longer felt anything of the sort. She told him all she knew of Kirsch’s job, which wasn’t that much. She felt a little guilty for neglecting her best friend; they hadn’t talked in awhile. She hadn’t really talked to anyone since Thanksgiving, Carmilla had been the most important thing but that seemed to have backfired.
The fire was roaring in the fireplace, radiating a large circle of heat throughout the room and throwing dancing shadows across the walls. The curtains on the far window were drawn but the one next to her head, that looked out across the backyard, was unobstructed so they could see the silhouette of the snow as it fell from the sky to land silently on the ground. It wasn’t a storm, a quaint snowfall instead. It was beautiful for Christmas Eve.
Laura was curled up in the corner of the couch under a heavy purple blanket, a steaming mug of hot chocolate in her hand. Her father was next to her in his recliner, his own mug on the table beside him, the rising smoke swirling into nonexistence. It’s A Wonderful Life was flashing scene to scene on the television. To Laura’s excitement, their tradition had come right back. She saw the happiness in her dad’s eyes when she had brought up the movie and even with him sitting on a different piece of furniture, she could feel a familial connection; one that had been missing for a long time.
Just as George was running back to his house that was no longer his, there came a knock from the front door. Laura shot an enquiring look at her father who was staring at the door, hesitating as he thought through whom it could possibly at this time on Christmas Eve. He pushed himself off the chair, the springs groaning beneath the strain. Laura reached over to grab the remote, pausing the movie so he wouldn’t miss anything, even though he had seen this move dozens of times. She could hear his slippers patter along the wooden floor and the locks of the door click as he unlocked them. The door creaked open and a cold breeze swiftly invaded the house, sending a chill through Laura who was quite far from the door. His voice was soft but questioning, “Hello. Who are you?”
****************************************************************************************************************************************
“Are you going to your parents?” Kirsch leaned through the open window in the kitchen that led straight to the living room. Danny turned her head past her right shoulder to look at him, “I wasn’t planning on it. Why?”
Kirsch shrugged, “I just figured you would go see them for Christmas.”
“Oh, shit.”
Kirsch guffawed, “Did you forget?”
Danny glowered at him, her cheeks just a hint of red, “No, butthead.”
“I think you did,” Kirsch threw the towel down next to the sink, “So does that change your answer?”
“I should probably call them, huh?”
“That’s an option.” Danny threw a pillow at him but he caught it before it hit his chest. She got up from the couch, pulling out her phone, “Don’t be an ass.”
He pushed out his lips, “You love it.”
“Very debatable.”
He could just hear her conversation from the other room. The polite hello and small talk before she tried to figure out what the plans were for Christmas without offending her parents by telling them she entirely forgot about the day. Kirsch himself wasn’t sure what he was going to be doing that day. He thought about going home but it felt weird to leave the house. It should be christened with a first Christmas, not left all alone without any holiday spirit. The tree was shining with white lights in the corner of the living room, next to the television set. Makeshift stocking were hung over the fireplace. He had even bought cinnamon and evergreen scented candles that were burning softly on the kitchen table. Garland was wrapped around the staircase, but other than those few things, the house felt bare. They didn’t have the resources to buy the amount of decorations it would take to fill the rooms in the house but it was theirs.
He smiled because “theirs” was a reality. Maybe it would be best if Danny did not go home for Christmas. They would have their own Christmas, just the two of them. He could totally get down with that.
Kirsch had sat down to go over some plays for the basketball team; he was trying to come up with a couple new ones to implement when they started up practices again after the new year. Danny had been talking to her parents for a little over an hour now though it was not surprising; she didn’t call them very often, they had a lot to discuss. He was furiously erasing a line he had drawn on the paper when she came up behind him and squeezed his shoulder. She leaned down, wrapping her arms over his shoulders and draping them across his chest. Soft lips pressed into his cheek, “Working hard?”
He smiled and angled his head so he could see her, “Trying. You’re a little distracting.”
“I can leave -”
She let out a loud laugh as he pulled her around the chair and into his lap, pressing kisses against her face wherever he could reach. She twisted, still laughing, trying to get away from his onslaught of affection. Eventually he let her go but she didn’t make a move to get up. Her eyes met his and they were shining green, the color they always were when she was happy. His arms settled around her waist, “How are your parents?”
“They’re doing pretty good. They keep telling me I should call more often just like they do every time we talk.”
“Maybe you should.” She shrugged, “I just don’t have anything new to tell them at this point. Same old same old.”
Even if Kirsch didn’t go home much, he still considered himself close with his family and they talked sometimes weekly but if not, as often as they could. Danny didn’t think the same way as him and if there wasn’t anything important either side needed to say, she didn’t feel the need to just call and chat. “They are a little disappointed that I won’t be coming home for Christmas.”
Kirsch’s lips pulled wide in a smile and Danny laughed at what must have been a crazed look on his face. “I can’t say I envy them.”
“Big words you’re using there.”
“Hey,” he said, acting offended, “I know stuff. I did grow up with our little nerd of a friend. She rubs off.”
Danny scoffed, “Yeah, alright, sure. What are we doing for Christmas then?”
He pulled her closer to him on his lap, “I was hoping you’d be okay if we kept it to just us. I don’t know what anyone’s doing, but this is our first Christmas in the house and I thought it would be nice if it was only the two of us. We could start our own traditions.”
“Traditions?”
He tried to backtrack. It sounded like a lot of commitment to make traditions and he didn’t want to scare her off by sounding like he was in this for a long time even though he very much was. Danny seemed to want to take their relationship day by day and he had been playing along even though he could already see months and years ahead; he never spoke of that to her. “I don’t know. Nothing big or anything. It’s not a huge deal.”
“Kirsch,” her smile was small, enough to show she understood and was on the same page, “I think it sounds nice. I would love to spend Christmas with you.”
“Good,” he leaned in for a kiss, but his phone interrupted him. He reached around Danny and grabbed it from the table to see who had just ruined the moment. At the name of the screen, his eyebrows shot upwards, a rather obvious sign for Danny to ask, “Who is it?”
“Um…it’s Carmilla…I’m gonna take this.” Danny took the hint and hopped off his lap, looking at him with a strange expression on her face as he disappeared into the other room to answer the call privately. “Carmilla?”
“Is Laura there?”
It was a strange question to be coming from her girlfriend. Kirsch hadn’t seen or even spoke to his best friend since Thanksgiving. That was weird enough in the first place but now to know that Carmilla was looking for her too scared him. Laura was a grown up but that didn’t mean she still didn’t have the same tendencies she had grown up with. She could be naïve and oblivious and she got herself into unsafe situations all the time. He knew Laura well enough though and if she wasn’t with Carmilla, that would mean they were fighting or arguing or something of that sort. It was nearing the holidays and Laura refused to ever be by herself around them, for good reason. She had not sought out Kirsch, which left one place for her to have gone, and though it was a little bit weird because of the history, he knew she was there. “But I might know where she is.”
When he hung up with Carmilla he shut his eyes and rubbed his jaw with his fingers. He didn’t know what to think. If anyone hurt Laura, they needed to watch out but he had also somehow managed to take Carmilla under his wing and could not imagine cutting her off now. No, they didn’t talk much but they seemed to have an unspoken understanding. She felt like a sister in an entirely different way than Laura did. Laura was his little sister who he took care of and protected from anything that could possibly harm her. Carmilla…she was more difficult. She was his sister in a way that he was there to catch her when she fell and help her back to her feet. He never even let Laura trip and she was always open to help. He helped Carmilla when she asked even if his mind urged him to when he knew it best to let her be; she could take care of herself and she made that known.
“What was that about?” Danny’s voice made him jump from his thoughts. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Do you get calls from Carmilla often?”
“Not really.” Kirsch had not told Danny where he disappeared to a few weeks back in the middle of the night. He had snuck out to keep Carmilla’s secret. He felt guilty keeping something from his girlfriend but it wasn’t about him and he knew that Carmilla wouldn’t want anyone to know.
“What was it? You can tell me,” Danny rubbed his upper arm. “She was asking after Laura. That’s all.”
Danny’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement, “She thought she was here? Wouldn’t she be with Carmilla?”
Kirsch shrugged, “Its really none of my business. I didn’t ask too many questions.”
Danny hugged him and he looked past her head, his body tensing with her touch, knowing he had lied. “You don’t mind that she called me, right?”
She leaned back from him, “Why would I care?”
“Well, the whole Laura thing -”
“Wilson, Laura and I are just friends now. Yeah, we had a history but that’s over. I don’t have those feelings for Laura anymore. I only have them for you,” she pecked him on the lips, “And despite everything, Carmilla’s not absolutely terrible.”
Kirsch was amused, “Someone’s growing on you.”
Danny nodded her head a few times, “All I said was she’s not terrible. She’s not the greatest. But Laura’s happy. I might never be friends with her, but you are. And that’s okay because you are so kind and caring. I would expect nothing less.”
“How did I get so lucky to end up with you?”
“The truth? I really have no idea.” That got them both laughing. Their history was very weird and acknowledging that was hilarious. Danny pulled on his arm, tugging him toward the living room, “Come on. Let’s go figure out our Christmas traditions.”
Kirsch beamed and had no problem whatsoever with following Danny to plan out what he could only imagine as the best holiday in a long time.
****************************************************************************************************************************************
“What the fuck are you doing?” The discontent and exhaustion filtered through each word. Carmilla looked over the top of the whiskey glass, the room spinning. She blinked a few times but her mind stayed cloudy, blurring the images of the brunette in her head. Will stood in the doorway, the frame diminished him; he looked like a child. She could almost see him as a toddler running around the hallways being chased by their father; both of them with smiles too large for their face. Their dad would always catch Will and lift him up over his shoulders as Will giggled, the little high pitch sound of a child’s laughter.
But that boy was all grown up, using swears and shaking his head at the disappointment of a sister that he still found a way of loving. She held the glass out to him, “Cheers.”
“You’re drunk.” Stating the obvious filled the empty space that he was unsure of entering. She’d been drunk for…how many days now? She wasn’t sure of the date but even that number would tell her nothing. When she had walked out of Laura’s apartment, time stopped having meaning and the world stilled. “Tatsächlich.”
“Du bist erbärmlich.” His words started an angry roiling in the pit of her stomach and she lurched forward out of the chair, the stumbling lightening the threat she wished to impose. She licked her lips trying to get rid of the dryness in her mouth; she downed the last bit of whiskey which did not help and used the glass in her exaggerated gestures. The chuckle that left her throat was almost maniacal, “Pathetic? Such hurtful words, Willia-”
“I have enough of that from Mattie, thank you very much. I don’t want you to call me William and you don’t want to call me that either so cut the act.”
“As you wish,” she fell into her chair with the weight of her last words to Laura being repeated.
“GET YOUR ASS UP, CARMILLA!” All sense of haziness was instantly gone and she was wide awake, staring at her brother, a man whom she suddenly did not recognize. “You’re just letting mother win and you never let her win. Remember? That’s what you always told me. You might put your head down sometimes but you never lose. You never give up. Fucking listen to your own advice sometimes and stop wallowing in self-pity that honestly, should have been gone a long time ago. It’s hard when she’s around; it’s unfair, it’s terrible but we’ve survived thus far. Stop acting like this was the end of the road.”
So much for a pep talk. But it was working. He was weaseling his way into and changing her mind word by word. It was like the unfolding of DNA, slow but structured, everything was falling back into place. Where she wanted to be, where she should be. She had vowed to fight against her mother until her last breath and even if she had hoped for that to come sooner rather than later, she was at the moment, still breathing regularly. It wasn’t time to give into her mother’s cruel intentions for her life. She was still deliberating when Will spoke again, “Go after her, Millie.”
She almost threw the dirty class onto the tray with her haste to follow his advice but stopped when she passed him near the doorway. She looked him over, not being able to hold back a proud smile at who he had grown into. “Danke,” and then she added as a side note, “Pass auf dich auf.”
“Laura! Laura!” She burst through the apartment door to be met with darkness and silence. Her heart fell to the bottom of her stomach and she collapsed forward into the sink. There was no sign of Laura in the apartment and when she went into the bedroom, she found some of Laura’s clothes removed; more than just for a day or night. She rubbed at her temples trying to figure out where the girl would have gone off too and decided to call through the list of her friends, starting with Lafontaine.
“No, sorry Carmilla. Laura’s not here. We haven’t heard from her since Thanksgiving. Since…I hope you’re doing better.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Thanks,” she hung up before they could ask any invasive questions. Kirsch was next on the list, “She’s not here.”
Carmilla thought that was the end of the line because there was not anyone else. Perry was with Lafontaine so her answer would be the same and as far as Carmilla knew, Danny was still living in the same house as Kirsch so her’s would not vary either. “Thank, Kirsch -”
“But I might know where she is.” Carmilla’s heart caught in her throat but she didn’t want to get her hopes up if his hunch did not come through. “She might have gone to see her dad.”
That was a strange suggestion. Carmilla knew their relationship was very unstable and Laura never seemed to want to spend time with the man whom was still a stranger to Carmilla. “Are you sure?”
“No but I’ve known her the longest here and it’s the only place I can think of she would have gone to…” he trailed off but Carmilla wanted to know what he had left out.
“Is there a “but” there?”
“More like an “unless.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t think of any other place because…well, I don’t -”
Carmilla shrugged away from her, standing up from the bed, “I try not to show them off.”
“Just say it, ya big giant, before I have to come over there and pull it out of you.”
“Alright, alright.” She could see him putting up his arms to defend himself. “I just can’t really think of her being anywhere but with you anymore and so I’m never sure if you’re not in the picture. It feels wrong so I can’t be sure.”
Carmilla did not know what to say in return because that had not been what she was expecting. She thought he would say maybe Laura was at the office or in the library. Even though they were on break, Carmilla could see Laura holed up in either place, working until she exhausted herself and came home to fall into the bed next to Carmilla. She could smell the lavendar shampoo Laura used and and the feel of Laura’s body curled into her arms. It had been weeks since…she realized she still was not certain of the date, “Kirsch, weird question, what day is it?”
“Uh, the 23rd.”
“She’s at home.” It was such a simple statement of fact.
“She’s there now, that’s good -”
“No, at home with her dad.”
“Oh…I’m not so sure she would call that home anymore.” There this kid is again with the intuition. He sure seemed to have made many assumptions, whether they were true or not, Carmilla was not going to argue, about his best friend’s relationship. At least there was someone with enough sense to get her through her huge error of leaving.”Thanks, Kirsch.”
“Tell her you love her.”
“I’m not sure that’s enough.”
“Say it anyway. Actually say it.”
“Okay -”
“Promise me you’ll say it.”
“I promise.”
“Good luck, Carmilla.”