A Saturday Confrontation

A Saturday Confrontation

It was, perhaps, less of a confrontation than a straight-up argument. But it was definitely the first time Kyle and I fought.

A Comparison I Could Not Help But Make:
Kyle and I had a serious fight within a month of the start of our relationship. Ian and I had a serious fight within three and a half years of the start of our relationship. And so many it had been a mere three or so months within the start of our marriage, but that was a different issue altogether.

The most upsetting part of the fight was not the fight itself. And the most upsetting part of the fight was not even that we fought, or that we fought so soon. The most upsetting part was that it was over something so stupid. We fought over the fact that on Saturday I had plans to go with Kay to pick up my stuff at the old trailer and he wanted to come.

Which, of course, was out of the question. I had arranged this meeting not only with Kay but also with Mark, and there was no way Mark was going to tolerate Kyle in his home. As far as the members of Feral Children went, Mark was the most even-tempered, but even he was not going to stand for that. It simply was not going to happen. But Kyle wasn’t listening to that rationale.
“What I don’t understand,” he growled in that obnoxious, self-suffering voice of his, “is why you want to go to your ex-husband’s house without me. Seems a little suspicious, don’t you think?”

That made me very, very angry. It made me furious that he called Ian my ex-husband, when he really wasn’t, not yet. And it made me furious that he would insinuate anything like that.
But then again, I had cheated on Ian with him, so I supposed it stood to reason that he would think I would cheat. Because I had. Of course, I had regretted it for quite some time, but he didn’t know that.

“For the love of God,” I shrieked, balling my hands up into fists at my side. “It’s not about you, you stupid, obstinate boy. I told you a hundred times that you can’t come because Mark will be there. It has absolutely nothing to do with Ian.” It had a little something to do with Ian: I wouldn’t make him suffer having Kyle in his house. That would just be an insult-to-injury situation.

No matter what I said, though, Kyle wasn’t buying it. It got to the point where I slapped him—on the shoulder, though, so it wasn’t quite so offensive—and stormed out. Luckily, by that point, it was time for me to go see Kay, anyway.

When I got there, I knocked. It was a little bizarre to knock. After all, I had lived here at one point. Though, given that time when Adnan had barged in on me with Ian, perhaps it would have been a good habit for all of us to develop. I smiled at the memory.

That was a first. For the first time since I’d been apart from Ian, I had smiled at the thought of something we’d done together. It was a bizarre circumstance. I was saying that an awful lot, recently. Everything that happened was a bizarre circumstance for me. I guess I just had to accept it. These were new waters and I had no choice but to swim in them, God damn the consequences.

And that was how things were going to be from now on, I supposed.

It was Mark that answered the door. He didn’t look at me so much as through me, like he was trying very hard not to see me at all. Things had always been rather hard for Mark. His loyalty and patronage really would be his downfall, eventually. He took the downfall to the point of a fault, he did.

“Hey Mark.” I greeted him as if nothing was wrong. It was the same approach I planned to take with Ian—if I acted like nothing was wrong, maybe he would begin to believe that nothing was wrong. Maybe it wouldn’t work and maybe it would just annoy them, but it was worth a shot, at least from where I was standing.

But apparently my many charms were not enough to take out Mark with one hit, since he chose not to return my greeting; instead, he stepped aside reluctantly, letting me in against his better judgment. I would win him over eventually—I hoped.

Inside, Kay was just chilling, a little too cavalier to be natural. She, apparently, was a little uncomfortable with my being here, even though we’d hung out twice already. This seemed it was going to be a gradual process. Well, that was better than nothing. “Yo,” I greeted her playfully.

“S’up,” she teased back. I grinned at her. This felt like back in the day. “I didn’t pack any of your stuff,” she told me, “because I didn’t know where you kept it all.”

I hadn’t expected her to even think that she should pack my stuff. “No problem,” I told her, grabbing my backpack off the bedpost where I’d left it nearly a month earlier. This was weird. It was almost like stepping back into a past life—like it would be all too easy to fall into my old routine, being here. With nothing moved, it was almost as if the past month hadn’t even happened. I could almost, for a few moments, pretend it hadn’t happened. I was still at that morning, where I’d shoved my wallet—did I mention that I’d gone an entire month without my wallet, and that it had been very difficult, indeed—into the back pocket of the jeans I’d thought I was going to be wearing. I’d changed my mind and forgotten to move it.

And the creepiest, most unreal part? When I unthinkingly shoved my hand under the pillow for my pajamas, they were still there. Ian hadn’t moved them, in a month. I pulled them out and looked at Kay with what I’m sure was a shocked expression on my face. That one hit me hard.
She bit her lip guiltily. Mark had come in and was sitting next to her on their bunk. “I didn’t exactly tell Ian that you were coming, by the way,” she informed me like a puppy waiting to be smacked. That hadn’t been the confession I had been looking for. I’d really wanted something more in the way of the explanation of the pajamas. “Should I have told him? I should have told him, right?”

I thought a moment before answering. “Well,” I said slowly, thinking about my words before they came out, “it’s not like he isn’t going to figure it out when he gets back and all my stuff is gone. So, yeah, you probably should have told him.”

“Shit,” she said. Poor Kay really was lacking the people skills required to get along in this world. She was great in situations where she could exercise her dominance. In fact, I’d be willing to put money on her terrorizing Ian when he came home, terrorizing him into not giving her a hard time about not telling him I was coming. That was just the way Kay did things.

She wasn’t very good at subtlety, though.

To distract her from her inner agony, I held up the pajamas. “Rae must have loved this, huh?” I couldn’t quite keep the note of bitterness from my tone. “My stuff all over the place. Bet she was really fucking thrilled.” Now I was getting worked up, ahead of myself. “Glad I can make her happy by taking it away.”

Sure enough, my distraction had worked, but now Kay looked concerned for another reason. Was she, perhaps, fighting a battle of loyalty? It was hard to imagine anyone who cared about me not hating Rae—god, there had never in my life been anyone I had hated more than I hated her—but apparently that was not the case.

“He doesn’t bring her here,” Kay said slowly, sinking back into the safety of Mark’s arms.
I tilted my head to the side, questioningly, even though she was looking down and probably couldn’t see it. “Why not?” I’d meant for it to sound like a casual question; my words came out as more like a demand. I winced at my own tone.

Kay shrugged. And then she said something that surprised me very much.

What Kay Said That Surprised Me:
“Pete hates her, and Ian doesn’t really cross Pete.”

Now, this surprised me on two levels. One was that Pete hated the girl who had effectively gotten rid of me, whom he’d hated more than I could ever comprehend. I would have thought that, even though my leaving had probably hurt Ian in some way, Rae had been there to soothe his wounded feelings and wounded pride. And Pete would have definitely approved of that, right?

The second level was that Ian chose not to bring her here in the face of Pete’s antagonistic irritation. After all, as I mentioned above, Pete hated my guts, and that didn’t stop Ian from bringing me around. In fact, Pete’s strenuous disapproval hadn’t even stopped Ian from marrying me, for God’s sake.

None of it made any sense, let me tell you.

“Really?” I asked Kay, disbelief coloring my tone. “Seriously?” I couldn’t believe it. I simply could not believe it. It just didn’t make any sense.

She looked up at me and nodded with a strange twist in her mouth. For the first time in so many weeks, I felt something akin to hope. I know it was stupid and irrational and wrong, but I felt sort of hopeful, as if something might just go my way.

I felt that way as I left. I was wrong, of course, in thinking that something was about to go my way. But I felt it, anyway.