Forgiven (Ruined) (15 page)

             
But the other?  Definitely stirring up the past.  In response to something.

             
My guess?  In response to the documentaries.  I put myself out there, thinking I'd defuse some situations and help some people with others.

             
And found myself a stalker.  I leave my cup on the counter, collect my stuff and head out the door.

             
"Willow!"

             
Emmy hurries to catch up with me, flushed and smiling.  "Where have you been?"

             
It's still always my first instinct to ask if we had plans that I blew.  I'm not used to people wanting to know where I am just because they're being friendly or because they missed me.

             
"Math lab!" I announce as if vastly pleased.

             
Emmy just makes a face.  "Enjoy it?"

             
"Oh, yes."  Sarcasm.  "What about you?"  We're walking side by side through the early afternoon.  I have an art history class after this and I'm just wondering how mandatory attending would be today when Emmy answers me.

             
"Something weird," she says.  "I went looking for you at the station, see if you wanted to get dinner."  She breaks off, which is not Emmy-like.

             
"Ye-ah?" I prompt.

             
She frowns.  "I was sure I saw you right outside the building.  Kind of dressed down, jeans and a t-shirt.  Flats of some kind.  When I called, you went away."  She frowns at me.

             
Gripping my books with one hand, I wave at what I'm wearing – sundress, light jacket, sandals.  Not jeans and a t-shirt.

             
"Right," Emmy says.  "Going crazy."

             
"Crazier," I agree, dodging the elbow to my ribs.  "But seriously, everybody has a double."

             
Emmy looks skeptical.  "At the same tiny school they go to?"

             
No.  But my math skills aren't good enough to have to count any additional complications.  "Why not?  Otherwise you wouldn't know there was a double."

             
She screws up her face and really squints at me.  "Is that supposed to make sense?"

             
"Anyway," I say, ignoring that.  "You probably only saw her from behind.  Height, weight, red-blond hair."

             
"Nope," Emmy says, sounding like we're in some kind of contest.  "Wrong.  I saw her from the side.  She's got your profile, Will. 
And
your hair. 
And
your height."

             
I consider.  "Could she have my problems, too?"

             
"Fine, don't take me seriously."  She tries to sound put out.

             
I laugh.  "I believe you.  I just don't know what you want me to do about it.  Tell her to stop looking like me?"

             
We keep walking together, not saying anything for a couple minutes.  The sun is hot and feels wonderful on my skin.  Other students pass us, wearing sandals and shorts, sun dresses, mini skirts.  There's a tiny, tiny ocean breeze, keeping the day from being too hot.  The campus is small – it's just a small, liberal arts college – but I don't know everybody on it.  there's a feeling of energy, of things happening, that sweeps me up with it and I realize I love it here.  I'm happy in college, going to classes (except math), working at the station. 

             
Making friends.  Emmy's bounding along beside me, talking a mile a minute about classes and the guy she's met and I suddenly realize how much I like her. She really is a friend, the first one I made here.  She was the one who brushed aside all my efforts to drive off other people because I thought I was ruined, had ruined myself, and didn't deserve a life.

             
I also realize she's always the one asking me to go do things.  When she takes a breath, having just told me way more than any sane person needed to know about a term paper she's writing this semester, I ask, "Do you want to go see a movie tonight?"

             
Emmy pauses, as if this is a trick or a test, and I hate myself for that.

             
"What about Kellan?"

             
I give her a look meant to be teasing.  "Do you want to date him or something?"

             
Emmy doesn't laugh.  "I just meant – "

             
I shrug as I interrupt.  "Kellan and I aren't getting along."  I take a deep breath and plunge on, determined to stop keeping secrets that don't have a reason to be kept.  Whatever is going on with Kellan and his stalker, it will only fester in the dark.  "Look, not everything is about Kellan.  I like being with you!"

             
She grins.

             
"In addition, Kellan is dealing with some stuff."

             
No.  Honesty.

             
"Kellan is being stalked."

             
Emmy stares at me.  "Guys get stalked?  Guys who aren't rock stars?  Not that he couldn't be."

             
"He's got the look, but I don't think he plays an instrument."  And before Emmy, the Queen of double entendres, can say anything, "And he can't sing.  No, this is somebody about the accident."

             
"That's horrible!"  Her big brown eyes are worried.

             
I nod, and spill out the rest of the story, about the box that was thrown at the front door, and about how Kellan seems determined to either "protect" me by keeping me at a distance (and pissing me off, I might add) or is really pissed because I tried to help.

             
Then I tell her who I think it might be and when I get done with the whole story we've walked all the way to Emmy's car in the parking lot, which puts me on the other side of the campus from my art history class and pretty much means I'm not going.  So I get in the car when Emmy unlocks it for me and once we're off campus, we decide where to go.  There's a movie playing with Chris Hemsworth in it, so really that decision is pretty easy to make.

             
First thing I don't have to wait and see about. 

             
It's not until I get home that I think again about what Emmy told me about seeing someone who looks like me.  It's one thing too many on the weird scale.  Why is everything happening at once? 

             
And again I think: Because you came out of the proverbial closet.  Not the gay closet.  The guilt closet.  I came out and people found me.  And Kellan.  And had never thought about that.  I'd never stopped to think that when I opened up to the world and allowed everyone everywhere to start expressing their sorrow at wronging others and gave the others a chance to say "Oh, its all right, I forgive you," that some of them might not.

             
No, that part I'd thought of.  From the very beginning, when I was afraid David Reynolds
wouldn't
forgive Kellan.  When I thought the video I ended up with might turn out to be nothing but fury and venting or worse, grief and anguish that couldn't ever be assuaged. 

             
What I hadn't gone on to think about was what might be awakened in those who were doing the forgiving.  Even if they forgave, did everyone around them do so?  One girl had talked about a childhood bully, a girl named Jill who had been menaced by Cindy, a borderline personality.  All through high school Cindy worked to get close to Jill until she managed to become her best friend.  And as soon as she did, she turned on Jill at graduation, competing with her for scholarships and boyfriends and anything else she could and usually winning, because she was damned good at the game.  Maybe Jill was ready to forgive and move on, but if Cindy saw it, what then?  Would she recognize herself?  Consider it slander?  Be ready to move on?  Or to start up again?

             
Another entry in the series was a teacher who had falsified some of his credentials when he started teaching.  Since then he'd earned enough degrees to have a string of professional letters after his name, and he was well loved in his department, but what about anyone who disliked him now?  Couldn't they go to the Dean of that department and, I don't know, make trouble?

             
We'd discussed some of these things going in to the series.  But not all of them.  We hadn't thought through the idea that people who didn't even think they
needed
to be forgiven might reappear in the interview subject's life, angry and maybe dangerous.

             
I'd put myself out there and I'd given it plenty of thought.  But in one small, not-so-brave move, I'd put myself out there as Willow Blake.

             
And someone had come back looking for Kate Lambert.

             
And Kellan, braver than I was, put himself out there as himself.  Had I brought his stalker down on him?  If I was being stalked, was it from the documentary?

             
I'm still mulling things over, my head in the fridge like some kind of weird suicide attempt as I forage, when Carmelita comes into the room.  Before she knows I'm there, she gives a watery sniff.

             
I pull myself out of the refrigerator and ask, "What's wrong?" nearly giving her heart failure since she hadn't seen me.

             
"Willow!  I did not know you were home.  Nothing is wrong, little girl.  Can I fix you something to eat?"  She's surreptitiously wiping her eyes and starting to bustle.  She wasn't bustling when she came in; she was dragging.

             
"No," I say, closing the refrigerator and taking her hand.  I lead her over to the breakfast bar and tell her to sit.  She looks like someone's going to walk into the kitchen and fire her if she does but we've had more than one conversation like this.  I think it's just that I'm the one initiating it this time.  Or maybe that she thinks she can get out of telling me what's wrong.  But I've never seen this sunny woman cry.

             
"I'm making tea," I tell her, putting the kettle on the stove.  One of her pies is on the counter, cooling.  "Is this ready?  Or is it for dinner?"

             
"It's for whenever," she says.  "It's apple."

             
"That's my favorite."  I don't really have a favorite.  I just want something to eat while we talk.  Built in distraction.

             
By the time I've made tea and served the apple pie she's got herself under control but her eyes are still watery red.

             
"Now, tell me what's going on," I say. 

             
Carmelita looks at her lap.  She's always been a member of this family, even more so since Kellan got home, so I'm not going to back down over some version of "it's not my place" if she tries that.

             
She doesn't.  She looks me in the eye and says, "I am just being silly.  It's not like he won't come to visit.  He can't even leave the city."  She wipes her eyes and gives a tiny laugh that she clearly doesn't mean.  "He can't even cook."

             
Confused, I lean forward across the breakfast bar.  "Who?"

             
She looks surprised.  "Mr. Kellan."

             
I shake my head, frustrated.  "What about Mister – what about Kellan?"

             
Now she looks wary, like she's talking out of turn.  Or like I might fly off the handle.  And I almost do.

             
"He's moved out today."

* * *

             
The rest of the story comes out in bits and pieces.  Kellan's taken an apartment across town near the VA hospital.  Bruce is paying the rent for now, until Kellan can get on his feet, but it looks like he might be able to get a job there, probably some kind of orderly position, or whatever it is that doesn't require a degree right away.  Apparently he's been checking into physician assistant careers, and he'll need some experience and time to take courses, the kind of directed study that doesn't require college like English and math courses and the rest.

             
My head hurts and the apple pie, which moments ago was wonderful, tastes like ashes.

             
He's moved out.  He's gone away without discussing it with me at all.  I swallow over a lump in my throat and take Carmelita's hand.  I know she's known him longer.  He's almost like a son to her. 

             
He was almost like a boyfriend to me.

             
We say things to each other.  He'll come visit.  He can't cook, that much is true.  He'll have to do laundry.  All those comforting things I suspect empty nest parents say.