square_the_circle_chapter_18_ crOwl kayla wrestled the remote out of scott's hands and flipped through the channels like pages through a boring magazine. she finally stopped at a purina dog chow competition of jack russel terriers racing. scott watched kayla put her hair behind her ears and laugh. it had been a long time since he saw her relaxed enough to just let go and be free enough to be happy. "who's your favorite?" he asked, looking back at the screen. the five eager dogs were scrambling around an obstacle course on their way to the finish. they each had a number fastened as a colored bib around their taut bodies. "i like number five," kayla said. "look it's catching up. GO!" she shouted, wriggling up closer. it ended up finishing second. "oh! almost!" scott pushed off the bed as kayla continued to watch. "scotty, look! it's border collies!" scott put his fingers on kayla's neck and gently squeezed. "cool," he said. "i would love to get one of those some day." he let go and headed out of the room. "i'm going to make us something to eat." "YUM!" kayla shouted, and then she yelled, "whoa! he ran like fifty yards to catch that frisbee!" her voice faded away and was swallowed up the shouts of the excited announcers. scott bounded down the creaky wooden stairs to their little kitchen, across the cracked linoleum floor, bumping against the small table with its white table cloth and two high-backed chairs. he opened the cabinets to inspect the possibilities and shrugged. there was a lonely can of beans, an already opened package of spaghetti, and a few boxes of jello. opening another, he found a couple bottles of spices and a crumpled hersheys bar wrapper. scott shut the doors and ran back up the stairs. their cat, max, a stray they had found shivering and soaking wet under a line of hedges across the street sat staring at its empty food bowl. scott found kayla pointing at the tv screen. "greyhounds, scotty! check them out!" he loved the little girl glow on her face, round pink cheeks, wide eyes, uplifted eyebrows. he wanted to frame this moment and hang it somewhere inside of himself. he had a hard time looking away from her. "i know. they're so awesome. so fast," he said, gazing at the small screen. "you know, we could adopt one from the racetrack?" she said and grabbed his arm. scott chuckled. "yeah, i heard about that." kayla shrieked. "oh my god! number seven won!" she threw herself back on the bed. her t-shirt rode up, exposing her tight belly. "i'm starving!" scott touched her naked skin and tickled her. "well, we're mother hubbard. how about a trip to vons?" "ok! let's go!" vons was a large grocery store chain at the east end of town. it took them ten minutes by beach cruiser bicycle to get there. scott standing up peddling and kayla sitting on the seat. she was wearing a black hoodie and a bandana around her long black hair. scott wore his board shorts and no socks. kayla held on to his waist. scott turned into the parking lot and narrowly avoided getting hit by an escalade, its driver a soccer mom oblivious on her cell phone. kayla never noticed. she was thinking about snap peas, mushrooms, shrimp, and garlic. 060114 ... unhinged when they got home from the grocery store, kayla took out the pots and pans to make the stir fry. 'hey, what are you doing? i said i was gonna cook.' 'i know, but i can't watch people cook if you haven't noticed.' she flashed a smile at him over her shoulder as she concentrated on turning the burns of the gas stove on. 'i hate gas stoves.' 'well then you should let me cook. i grew up with gas stoves.' scott was trying to bump her out of the way with his hips. she planted her feet and shoved him away from the stove. 'ok ok fine. i could at least help.' 'you don't need to....well you could defrost the shrimp i guess.' suddenly she was in her own little world and didn't notice that he was even there. she finally came back to earth when the food was done. after dinner was done and the dishes washed, they sat down to watch some more t.v. kayla stared straight ahead at the screen, blinking now and then. she didn't seem to notice that scott was staring at her. he poked her. 'hey, whatchya thinking about?' 'nothing' 'yeah, you were. what was it?' she got up from the couch and headed towards the stairs. 'how you shouldn't have quit your job because you are going to end up hating me.' she disappeared up the stairs. scott yelled after 'kayla....kayla come back.' 060115 ... crOwl silence. "kayla!" scott yelled again. he climbed the stairs, swearing under his breath. when he reached their bedroom, he pushed the closed door open and found her laying on the bed under the blankets, her face buried in the pillow, her long hair a pulled curtain to close him off and shut him out. scott sighed heavily and sat on the edge of the mattress. the bedsprings groaned slightly mirroring his frustration. "kayla?" she was motionless. scott lifted his right hand to his unshaven face and hard against his lips to hold back what he really wanted to say. he dropped it to kayla's shoulder and gently squeezed. she slowly turned her face enough to carefully look in his waiting eyes. she blinked twice and lifted her eyebrows in response to his entreaty, an arch of impatience. "we have plenty of savings to get us by," he said. "you don't have to worry." kayla rolled her eyes and looked away from him. she spoke into the pillow. "what?" scott asked, but he knew there was ocean of distance already forming between them. she turned back and then sat up, leaning hard against the headboard. "you just don't get it do you?" she said, her eyes filling with tears. "what are you talking about?" he said, his shoulders hunched with confusion. "this has NOTHING to do with money." kayla winced. scott looked away to the floor where he noticed max quietly arrived, drawn to the room by their talking. he rubbed against scott's legs and peered up longingly, requesting affection. scott ignored him. he felt like a vise was pressing his head. "i quit my job so we could have some kind of life together." he spoke into his hands, as if the words would fall to his open palms like useless dirt he would later have to wash away. suddenly, kayla sat up and pushed past him. he continued to sit, watching her move about the room in a hurried, frenzied pace. first, she yanked open the wooden closet door and grabbed a backpack that hung from a hook with her belts and a bathrobe. max jumped up on the bed and laid on kayla's pillow. "kayla?" scott said, standing. she ignored him and unzipped the bag. she moved hurridley over to the dresser drawers, pulled open the top one and reached for a handful of panties, bras, and then socks, stuffing them in the bottom. "what are you DOING?" scott moved towards her. max ran out of the room. kayla opened the next drawer and packed a few pairs of jeans and some t-shirts, still ignoring scott, pushing past him out of the room to the bathroom. scott followed her. his heart was racing. "kayla, this is CRAZY!" she lifted a bottle of shampoo from the tub and flung open the door of the medicine cabinet and loaded her toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. she reached for her bottle of pills. it fell and hit the sink. she turned quickly, her long hair flashing around smacking scott in the chest like an accusation. "no, scott...i'm crazy..." she snatched up the pills and stuffed them in the bag and zipped it. she slipped it through her arms and slid past him, slamming the door in his face. 060116 ... unhinged he ran out the door after her. 'where are you going?' 'to the bus station.' 'ok, so you are going to walk all the way to the bus station. where are you going to go after that?' she started to slow down. 'i could go anywhere.' 'sure, you could. but why do you want to be all alone?' 'i told you in reno that i needed to do this alone scott. i don't know any other way to do it. i never feel...' kayla stopped walking and sat down on the curb. 'you never feel what?' scott sat down on the curb next to her but was careful not to touch her. 'i never feel like i can be myself when i'm in a relationship. i don't want to disappoint the other person so i do or don't do things based on that.' 'honestly kayla, you leaving me right now would be the only thing that could possibly disappoint me.' she whipped her head in his direction and glared at him. 'i'm not just saying that to make you feel guilty or whatever. it's the truth. i guess we don't really talk about our feelings much, especially lately, but i feel like me and you ran into each other on that bus for a reason.' kayla was kicking gravel around her feet. 'what reason is that?' 'maybe you are my chance to make up for all the horrible shit i've done.' 'like what?' 'like drowning a sack of puppies when i was younger. or...' she started to snicker until she looked at him and realized he wasn't kidding. 'or...?' 'or slapping my high school girlfriend around.' 'you are telling me this sick shit to try to get me to stay here?' she stood up and started walking down the street towards the bus station. scott grabbed her elbow in just the right way that she couldn't squirm without being in pain. her eyes filled with alarm. 'scott, let me go.' 'no. no. i'm telling you this sick shit so you realize i'm fucked up too. i haven't brutalized animals since i was like 14 and i haven't hit a girl since thea cause it made me sick. i have this anger thing that makes me do stupid things. like that night in reno when i didn't come home...' 'i told you i didn't want to know. i still don't want to know what you did that night scott. that seems like forever ago and i'd almost forgotten it. i just....' 'you just can't think of any more excuses?' she glared at him again but she moved closer to him. 'is there any other sick shit i should know about?' 'plenty. i like to save my nail clippings and put them in piles so i can play with them whenever i want.' she burst out laughing and let him wrap his arms around her and give her a big hug. suddenly she started digging around in her bag. 'what are you doing?' kayla pulled the last bottle of pills she had been saving for a very rainy day out of the bag and took the cap off. she walked over to the storm sewer and poured them down. 'those were the last of them and i haven't been using them for awhile anyways.' she picked up her bag and walked back towards the house. 060117 ... crOwl scott was impressed by kayla's courage to toss her stash and he himself felt, what was it? clean? relieved? opening up to her about the demons that swirled about his past was definately liberating. he felt like it placed the two of them on the same level and almost like they were starting over. he caught up to her and walked along side of her back to the house. they enjoyed the comfortable silence that comes after something important's been said. just as he was going to slip his right hand into her left, his cell phone that he kept in the pocket of his knee length board shorts, rang, startling both of them. kayla stopped and turned to face him. she was also feeling better. hearing scott divulge his evil side was noble, the kind of honesty she needed from a boyfriend. she just wanted him to be real. pretense was such bullshit. we can only lie to ourselves, she thought. scott managed to dig it out and answered on the third ring. he checked the i.d. it was strange and appeared to be out of state. "this is scott." he looked over at kayla, pushed his lips down and hunched his shoulders. she was as curious as he was and came closer to him. scott narrowed his eyes and the corrugated lines on his forehead revealed his intensive attempt to remember. "oh yeah...tim's brother! hey, how are you, man?...good...good.......yeah. we've been out here now for some time. ventura... um, it's like fifty-some miles north of los angeles....what's that? reno?...oh..well... um... probably about six hours...." scott winced and swallowed hard. he didn't say anything for quite a while. kayla watched his eyebrows go up and down as if pulled by strings and then slid out of her backpack and set it on the sidewalk. she was momentarily distracted by two hispanic girls about ten years-old riding their bikes down the street. they were laughing about something in spanish. she turned back and studied scott's concentration. "yeah...it was in the bathroom of the mall...um...the security guards found him...dude...i don't know,man...i guess. yeah. his name is eric....um...clara....yeah...yeah...i'm sur they were his dudes...i guess we could...i don't know...i'll talk to kayla about it. yeah. she did." kayla grabbed on to his arm. "let me talk to him!!!" 060118 ... unhinged 'kayla hey, this is matt. tim's brother.' the smile left kayla's face when she heard matt's voice. it sounded just like tim's. her heart knotted up the slightest bit. ouch. 'um, hi. sorry. yeah, this is kayla.' 'scott seemed to imply that you had the address of clara dupont. i'm going to be headed to reno to investigate my brother's death a little more closely since the police there don't seem to be doing a very good job. i was wondering if i could have it.' he was nothing like his brother. kayla tried to imagine the things matt would say when he was high. probably something like : 'i was reading the journal today and the current stock trends are freaking me out a little dude.' she suppressed a giggle and it quickly turned into a pained frown. the memory of tim still stung. she never really got to explain to him why she picked scott. now that he was dead, she felt like she owed him that. her old therapist told her she had guilt issues and liked to internalize. 'hello...HELLO...kayla? are you still there?' 'oh dude...yeah i'm sorry. i do have clara's address but i'm not sure where it is. i'll have to look for it and call you back. can i reach you again at this number?' kayla held the cell phone away from her face to look at the number on the caller i.d. 'yes. i'm leaving for reno in three days. if you could get back to me before then, i would appreciate it.' the line went dead. kayla shook the sound of matt's voice out of her head and turned to scott. 'that was weird dude. he sounded just like tim....' scott reached his arm around her. they sat there like that for awhile. 'do you think we should go back too?' 'are you serious scott?' kayla's voice had a note of hysteria to it. the short loose hairs around her face wiggled with the tension of her holding still. 'i take that as a no.' 'hell no.' 'but maybe the police can't figure anything out because we left....' 'why do you think eric's dudes where the ones that did that to tim?' 'it just seems like....' 'no; i'll tell you what it just seems like. where i used to live, people like eric did do shit like that. call in friends to kick the shit out of other dudes. and i will not get in the middle of that. tim did leave clara for dead scott. i don't want to sound like i hated tim or anything, but....maybe it was just karmic justice. i almost shot eric. i don't want to go back there and start shit again. i just want to stay here with you and get better.' she kissed him and he shuddered. 'let's just go inside.' 060120 ... . square_the_circle_chapter_19_ 060121 what's it to you? who go blather from