Page 87 of Coiled Tight
“Mónica’s great.” Kara cleared her throat. She looked to the side before she lifted a hand and showed what looked like a car fob with a yellow and a red button. “She gave me this. If I press it, she’ll come here. She’s downstairs with one of my roommates. Yellow means she joins the call, and red means she ends it.”
“Okay.” My throat ran dry, and I was pretty sure my heartrate didn’t spike this high even when doing a HIIT workout, but I ignored it. “You can do that. Whenever.”
“Yeah.” Kara gulped. “So, how are you? How are the white tigers? Are there more gay ones?”
“Um, I don’t know,” I mumbled. “I’m not working at the zoo.”
“Oh. Right. You said the weird thing about living with your boss.” Right as the words were out, Kara’s brows furrowed. “Areyouokay? I know I’m far, but if you need resources, I still know places, and numbers you can call, and you can text them too if you want or talking out loud is too hard. I know the world is burning but people are still really trying, you know.”
“I’m good.” She was kind of like me. If someone let us get carried away, we could spiral forever and ever, and it was the worst when people thought the right thing was to let us get away with all of our stray thoughts. It wasn’t. I didn’t care what all the forums said. The knots in my stomach just grew ten times larger the longer I spoke. “I’m… I mean. I’m really good? But I kind of hate that, and I swear it wasn’t on purpose.”
Kara tilted her head to the side. “What does that mean?”
So I proceeded to tell her about getting a job interview to work at the sanctuary, and the job including boarding, and how I’d taken it to be in the middle of nowhere because I felt like I deserved it, but then I didn’t know I’d be living with Saúl or that he’d be a Daddy or everything else that happened since he found out I was Little and since we spent two weeks in Texas.
“You’re…” Kara blinked owlishly. Why was it so oddly comforting? She did that when she was trying to process. Or when I was speaking too fast and she needed a second to reset. “So you got rid of your support network for… me?”
I winced. “It sounds bad when you put it like that.”
Kara narrowed her eyes. “I don’t have to make anything sound good for you.” As soon as the words were out, she yelped, hand covering her mouth. “Sorry. I mean… Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I squirmed. I should’ve brought one of the puppies with me or something. I was bad at keeping still. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I… I fucked up. I was shitty with you, and then I… I should’ve never hired that investigator, or reached out to you, or fucked up with your life again. Y’know.”
“I just don’t understand,” she whispered. “You were… I know I leaned on you a lot, but like, I did it because Ireallytrusted you. I thought you really cared, and you were there for me. Just… If it was too much for you, why didn’t… Why not just tell me? We could’ve talked about other stuff. Figured it out.”
“No, it’s not on you,” I promised. “You deserved someone that was there for you. Unconditionally.”
Kara turned quieter, made herself smaller. “So why weren’t you?”
I averted my gaze. I didn’t know if she could see, if the spotty connection was suddenly a good thing. I didn’t know anything.
It felt bad.
Awful, actually.
Wrapping my arms around my chest helped some, but it wasn’t like I could ignore the woman on the screen and why everything was wrong.
“It’s stupid now. I just… It all snowballed.”
“Uh, Cam?” Kara repeated my name two more times, until I was glancing up and meeting her gaze. “Maybe you’re the one who needs your Daddy there?”
“N-no,” I protested. It was weak, I knew, but the sentiment was there. Daddy would come if I called, but he was working. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair. Kara was the one whohad gotten hurt. She was the one who deserved comfort. Not me. “No, it’s fine. I just… I’m really sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t understand why you’re being so nice.”
I sniffled, wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand.
“Because I am?” Kara’s voice tilted up as if it was a question. “I’ve never… Well, okay, no, I’ve been really angry with you, but I never resented you. I mean, I guess I was a lot back then, and I wouldn’t have done the same, but like… It is what it is, I guess.”
“I’m sorry.”
I didn’t know how many more times I could say it, but if it was all I could utter during the call… Well, it would be fair.
“Cam, you sound really bad. You’re worrying me.” Kara chewed on her lip. “It’s kind of unfair, you know, because I’m supposed to be calling you out on violating my privacy and like hiring a fucking PI when you knew I was paranoid about my ex being able to find me. and now you’ve proven my fear is right because Icanbe found.”
I really should’ve brought one of the pups with me. “I know. I’m sorry. I… I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I was thinking that I missed her, and that I didn’t know how she was doing and couldn’t find her anywhere. I just wanted to check that she was all right, that her ex hadn’t found her and that she hadn’t gone back to her. Not that I could’ve done much, but I wasn’t the most rational.
“Okay.” She spoke slowly. “That’s… okay. You’re still worrying me. Do you have your meds? Or maybe you can check in with your therapist? Does she offer emergency sessions?”
