square_the_circle_chapter_14_ crOwl scott was frightened by the look in kayla's eyes, but it didn't take him long to realize what she secretly did in his absence, as they gazed back at him heavy-lidded. she mumbled something about sammy and fone messages but he couldn't make sense of the incoherent mess of words. who am i to say anything? scott reasoned. our deep dark pain is love. he just wrapped his arms around her while she sobbed into his shoulder and led her slowly back to the table they shared in the cafeteria, where his half-eaten mashed potatoes and soggy asparagus turned cold. "forget this place," scott said, looking down at the remnants of his pitiful lunch. with kayla's face buried into his neck and his arm cradling her, he looked around to the opposite side of the cafeteria where there existed a small, benefactor-funded courtyard with small trees, statues, a fountain, a brick footpath, and flowers. "are you looking for the emergency room?" a voice to scott's left caught his attention. it was an african-american nurse with beaded braids. her solicitous look was a bit alarming and tinged with snobbery. "thanks for your concern," scott said, smiling slightly, when all he wanted to was tell her to fuck off. "she's just really tired." the nurse flashed him an upturned brow and downturned mouth that suggested the pupils she saw earlier when kayla was alone were much more than fatigue, or even exhaustion. she said something about drugs to a male nurse that was beside her and he turned back quickly to give scott and kayla a condescending stare of judgement. "fuck you," scott hissed under his breath and he pushed past the tangle of people, many of them carrying their trays of scraped-clean lunch and dessert plates to the conveyer belt. no wonder people are sick and overweight, scott thought. an intern holding a large medical textbook in his left hand held the door to the courtyard open for scott. he thanked him and led kayla into the warm, bright nevada afternoon sunlight, and then upon the herringbone pattern of antique bricks to a teakwood bench next to a moss-laden concrete basin that emitted a delicate bubbling of water. the trickling, intimate sound was immediately soothing to scott, so much better than the gossipy racket of the cafeteria. he sat down and guided kayla next to him. she snuggled in tight, melting her body against his and he pressed his arms firmly around her as if they were alone at the end of the world. he kissed the top of her head and felt her arms respond, hugging him, loving him. moments later, she was asleep. 050326 ... unhinged tim laid in his bed trying to lift his eyelids. he wasn't sure if it was the heavy dose of painkillers or the damage to his face that prevented his eyes from opening all the way. after a few punches, he couldn't remember what happened to him in that bathroom. all he could remember after that was the far away sound of a medic's voice: 'sir, sir, can you hear me?' and then he woke up to kayla sleeping, holding his hand. at first he thought maybe it was some drug-induced dream or he somehow managed to get into heaven. but when she woke up and gave him that guilty look, tim realized he was just laying broken in a hospital bed. slowly, every little cut, bruise, and broken bone came to the forefront of his conciousness. those dudes kicked the shit out of him. tim wondered how long they would make him stay in the hospital. the nurse came in to check on him. 'how are you doing mr. readle?' he tried to answer her and he could only mumble and moan. why wasn't his tongue working right? 'well i guess you wouldn't be able to talk to well on all the painkillers you are taking right now. the doctor isn't sure if you can go home today or not. he will come in to talk to you later.' the nurse disappeared as quietly as she came. at that point the car popped into his head. the duponts car...it was still at the mall. he began to panic. the heart monitor started to beep. the car. DAMNIT. clara walked in the front door. it was strangely quiet; it was the middle of the day and the house sounded empty. 'kayla? tim? scott? anyone home?' no answer. a pout formed on her lips. she had wanted to surprise them. she hadn't snaked a plane ticket and convinced the airline her mother knew where she was without them calling her for nothing. 'hey babe, i told you they weren't home.' eric walked in the door behind her. eric knew exactly where the three of them were. but, he didn't want to tell clara that shawn and jake had beat the shit out of tim at the mall and landed him in the hospital. 'well i guess it will be a better surprise when they come home and i'm here waiting for them.' she got a big child-like smile on her face. 'well in the meantime, you know what we can do.' eric smacked her on the ass and chased her up the stairs. 050327 ... crOwl clara had a good head start on eric and made it to the top of the spiraled staircase as he was only halfway up. she was wearing a very short denim skirt offering eric an unhibited flash of panties, which slowed him even more, fueling the raging fire of his lust. reaching the polished wooden floor of the landing, she had the choice between her bedroom where tim had been staying on her left or her parent's room which kayla and scott had been, to the right. she chose her parent's room because the bed was bigger. she raced past a bathroom and an office and pushed the solid door open with her shoulder and lurched inside, her heart racing, and slammed it shut. its tightly bound, french-style curtian covered glass panes rattled. in an effort to tease him she locked the door, kicked her spanish sandals off, yanked her half t-shirt over her head and tossed it to the persian rug that covered the marble floor. she dove backwards upon the bed, her legs sprawled out, her breasts nearly spilling out of her lavendar-laced perla bra. she pressed her head into the goose down pillow and squealed, tingling between her legs, shaking her once pink-blonde hair now blue across her face. extending both thin arms to the side, she looked like a starfish, and then white-knuckle gripped a bunch of comforter in both hands and waited for eric's discovery of the locked door. just as the friction of the knob turn set off a frustrated alarm of expletives, followed by a series of angry pounding and desperate shouts, clara brought her legs up sharply. she rolled to the side. with one hand she brushed the hair out of her face and with the other she brought up a small piece of paper that she had accidently grabbed. it was the note that kayla had scribbled to scott informing him about tim being in the hospital. the same note that eric had found when he had snuck into the house and used to place his creepy, drunken message on kayla's voice mail. clara read it. "tim is in the hospital?" she said aloud. her voice was high-pitched and youthful. eric continued to pound. "CLARA! OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR!" she blinked her eyes, narrowing them, all manner of thoughts racing through her brain concerning the reasons, the possibilities, and the depth of tim's plight. she was expecting to be received with pleasant surprise and warm hugs from all three of them, but this sudden, unexpected news gripped her with an unavoidable sense of dread. tim was a nice boy who was turned on by her. it was she that fucked things up by overdosing. she wanted to make it up to him. besides, kayla and scott had saved her life and she had all kinds of plans to show her gratitude and appreciation. the curiousity was killing her. she had to find out what hapened to tim. she stretched and reached behind her for the portable fone. "CLARA! WHAT THE FUCK!? STOP THIS FUCKING GAME AND OPEN THE DOOR!" clara dialed the number. 050328 ... unhinged memories flashed by in her dreams like a hazy fog. the morning that sammy had told her he wanted to die but didn't see the point in killing himself. small details; the way the sunlight cut his face diagonally in half. the caged animal she saw in her own eyes when she looked at the mirror desperately pacing in his. and her heart broke; that was how he hooked her. she understood that kind of lack of self worth and didn't wish it on anyone else in the world. she couldn't speak and grabbed his hand and squeezed. sitting in a pizza bar downtown the day after he told her he couldn't have sex with her anymore 'because it depressed him.' she wanted to tell him everything. every detail of why sex, even with him, was meaningless to her. but he was older, more experienced. she was afraid he would laugh at her. they sat at the table barely speaking to each other and he meanly said 'well you're just a lesbian.' many nights of him rescuing her from the confines of her bathroom. scenes stilted like a flipbook, every frame with different clothes or lack there of. sitting on his new bandmates' couch and the way the viola player smiled at them. she knew they were the couple she used to gag to see. the obviously visibly in love couple that used to make her naseous. she realized then that her old violent reaction was just primal jealousy. somehow, he made her a complete human being. scott just held kayla on the outdoor bench. he could see her eyes frantically moving back in forth in a rem cycle; they couldn't have been very happy dreams for the most part because her brow was furrowed and panicked noises whimpered from her mouth at times. he still had dreams of paige that he would wake to find kayla petting him from. dreams are just the human way of working things out of our systems. scott knew kayla was dreaming about sammy and he let her sleep. but how could they ever really be together when they both were still with someone else in their dreams? kayla's phone started to ring. scott slipped her purse from under her arm and somehow managed to manuver digging it out of her purse without waking her up. he answered the phone 'kayla's phone...' 'who is this?' the voice was young, female and vaguely familiar. 'ummmm....a friend. scott.' 'oh, scott. it's clara. i'm back at my parents house and found this note saying tim's in the hospital...' clara just kept rattling away and scott's mouth dropped. what was clara doing at the house? weren't her and her brother and her mom supposed to be on an extended vacation in new york state? what the fuck was going on? ever since he got on that damn greyhound, it seemed as if he had entered into some weird bubble of bizarreness. 'scott...hello...what are you guys doing at the hospital?' he snapped out of his daydream. 'oh, sorry clara. i'm just shocked to hear your voice. tim got the shit kicked out of him at the mall.' suddenly the phone went dead. scott shrugged and put the phone back in kayla's purse. clara knew that eric and his goons had something to do with tim's condition. she ran to the door and wrenched it open. eric started pawing her and she kicked him in the shin. he doubled over. 'what the fuck is wrong with you clara? you are getting too damn crazy.' 'i didn't tell you to beat the shit out of him. i just told you he was a creep. but what happened wasn't his fault. why did you do it? WHY?' eric grinned, 'i didn't beat the shit out of him baby.' 050405 ... crOwl tim's doctor wasn't having a good day. the back left tire of his escalade was flat when he started out and when he finally got to the hospital he had urgent email from his lawyer's downtown office concerning possible malpractice allegations. right before lunch, he had to tell a longtime patient's family that their wife and mother's lung cancer was inoperable and now he was reading tim's cat scan and it didn't look good. previously, he was pleased with the initial signs of tim's rapid healing. the bruising and swelling on his face was expected, the cuts were sutured, and the vast series of x-rays he received picked up some cracked ribs and a broken bone in his right wrist which were wrapped, set, and cast. he was even considering sending tim home to recuperate. but the recent off and on headaches, general weakness, numbness in his feet, slurred speech, and bouts of nausea he was experiencing were symptoms his doctor was definately concerned about. he ordered the scan in hopes of ruling out a serious condition from the blow he must have received from hitting his head against the concrete bathroom floor. since there weren't any seizures, a cat scan at first didn't seem necessary. now, as he read the scan, he wished he would have ordered one immediately because it picked up what the regular x-rays didn't: a subdural hematoma. tim's brain was bleeding. eric reached out for clara's slim waist and ran his hands slowly up her velvety sides, drawing them over her soft bra, sneaking his thumbs under, finding her rosebud nipples. irritated by his clueless lust, she twisted away from him. "it was jake and shawn wasn't it?" she yelled, reaching down to the floor for her shirt. she picked it up and clenched it in her fist. "i swear eric, if i find out it was them, i'm going to call the fucking police!" eric moved slowly towards her, reaching out for her shirt. he grabbed it and threw it back on the bed. "let's just forget about that loser," he said, sliding his hand along her shoulder, down her arm to the swell of her ass. "tim was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, poor fuck." she backed away from him, yanked her shirt back up from the bed and pulled it over her blue hair and smoothed it across her pert body. eric pouted and tried his best to act disappointed. he sauntered over and tried to lift it back off. "you don't get it do you?" she said, slapping his hands. her eyes were two balls of fire. eric tilted his head to the right and raised his eyebrows, nonchalantly waiting for her to continue. "i didn't come back to reno for you." she said, pointing a finger at his black t-shirt, the long, red painted nail catching the light from the bedside light. she snatched the note from kayla to scott where it rested on the nightstand, wrinkled with use. she flashed it angrily in front of eric's face. "this is who i came for you, SELFISH fuck!" eric reached out for the paper to snatch it away from her, but clara turned and tried to stuff it in the small pocket of her skirt. he wrestled with her, grabbing roughly for her hands, but she struggled away from him, squealing and shrieking. suddenly, he slapped her open-handed, the sound of it, a sickening thud. she dropped the note to the carpet, reaching up to her nose where blood was already flowing down into her mouth. she rushed away from him into her parent's bathroom crying frantically. eric picked up the note and shoved it victoriously into the pocket of his dirty jeans. he walked over to the bathroom and stood in the shallow light of the doorway. clara was leaning over the marble sink, staring desperately into the make-up mirror, dabbing a warm, wet washcloth against her nose. the off white fabric was stained bright red with her blood. her sobs were muffled and her shoulders shook with disbelief. "listen, baby," eric said, rubbing the back of his neck. "i shouldn't have hit you." "FUCK YOU!" clara screamed. she looked over at him, her face a mess of bloodshot eyes and ruined mascara. "I HATE YOU!" eric laughed. "you'll love me again when you come down," he said. "you'll know where to find me," he slapped his hand against the door and turned around. in a fit of malice, clara picked up the first thing she could find, a bottle of her mother's chanel no.5, and hurled it at him as he left. it hit a bookshelf and exploded into tiny bits of glittering glass. "smells like sex," eric said, stopping. he snickered and disappeared out of the bedroom. 050407 ... unhinged when they got back to tim's room he was gone. they made their way to the nurse's station and scott flagged down one of the nurses. 'excuse me, nurse. nurse...' she replied without looking up from the charts she was studying 'yes sir?' 'where is tim readle? he was in that room right over there and now he's gone.' 'emergency surgery.' 'for what?' the nurse finally looked up at him and her eyes narrowed 'who are you? are you related to mr. readle?' 'no, but...' 'then i'm afraid i can't give you any more information.' 'could you at least tell me when he is expected to come out of surgery?' scott could feel kayla drifting away behind him. he turned to see her headed towards the elevator. 'no i can't; the doctor was unsure.' 'thank you.' scott turned and bolted towards the elevator. he slipped in right before it shut. 'kayla....' 'take me home.' when they pulled in the driveway, scott saw clara sitting on the front porch. the rocking chair she was sitting on was rocking precariously fast. he didn't even bother to pull the car into the garage. 'clara?' when she turned to look at him, he saw the bruise on her nose. 'what happened to you?' kayla was already beside her, kneeling down and whispering to her as she stubbornly turned her head every which way to avoid kayla's stare. 'clara, you need to stay away from him. is this the first time he hit you?' clara played dumb 'who are you talking about?' 'eric.' 'he didn't....' kayla grabbed clara's hands and yanked her up off the chair. 'he didn't do this. right.' kayla led clara back into the house. 'what's his number?' 'kayla, chill.' scott put his hands on kayla's shoulders. 'you don't need to get into anything else with that creep. you need to sleep. let's go.' the three of them wandered upstairs. scott helped kayla get undressed and put some pajamas on and put her to bed. he watched her fall asleep and then went down into the kitchen to make some dinner. clara went to her room and dug her stash box out from under the bed. her father had given her the antique wooden box when she was too young to appreciate it and as she got older, she could only appreciate the dramatic irony of the fact that she used it to store her drugs. a hand-pressed pill with a red 'x' on it caught her attention. x and a nap with kayla. she chewed the pill so that it would work faster. eventually, she heard scott go downstairs and slipped across the hall into her parents' room where kayla was sleeping. in her altered state, clara could only think of the bathroom in indiana. she crawled under the covers and scooted close to kayla's warm, still body. clara laid her cheek on kayla's shoulder and draped her arm across kayla's stomach. suddenly, kayla turned in her sleep and gathered clara up in her arms. the x made clara giggle. kayla lazily opened one eye. 'you don't smell like scott to me.' 050411 ... crOwl square_the_circle_chapter_15_ 050414 ... a must read red blathe . 050808 what's it to you? who go blather from