Love sucks. It really does. And it’s not just love either, it’s… caring about people. Emotions other than hate just really suck so much, especially for Kayla. Love just put a giant sign over her head so her enemies knew exactly where to hit her the hardest. Love, some say, is strength. To Kayla, it’s a chink in her armor.
That’s not to say that Kayla was in love with Ariana, she wasn’t really. Not yet. No, her feelings for Ariana were something altogether different. Something enticing, something beautiful, and something Kayla truly wished would just go die in a fire.
She’d been running on rage, hatred, and pure adrenaline for so long that suddenly discovering that she could still feel… whatever it was she was feeling now was not unlike waking up one morning and finding out that you can fly. Regardless of whether or not what she felt for Ariana was love or not, it still made her weak.
Kayla didn’t like weakness. Claire had been a weakness, the one place she could be hurt… and she’d been hurt badly. Ariana was now that same weakness, and more terrifying, the redhead was far more vulnerable than Claire had ever been. Ariana was completely defenseless.
So, what was Kayla to do? Walling off her heart had worked up until now, but Ariana hadn’t so much knocked the walls down as she had dropped a thermonuclear bomb on them. She couldn’t keep Ariana out. Ariana was… how had Cooper put it? Endearing? But no, she was much more than that. She was intoxicating.
She weighed her options very carefully. She could leave, of course. Pack up in the night, put Detroit, the warehouse, and Ariana in her rear-view mirror and never look back. She would hate herself for it, but she could live with it. She could put distance between herself and what made her weak.
It would devastate Ariana, naturally, but she would survive. They both would. As selfish as it was, Kayla could deal with destroying the girl, but having her die like Claire had, holding her as she took her last breath, choking to death on her own blood… Kayla knew she couldn’t handle that again. Even the mental picture made her feel sick.
But then that same resolve she’d felt as she’d danced with Ariana returned to her and she knew that she would never leave the redhead behind. So, what to do? It was the first time she’d seriously given thought to turning herself in. She could drive to the next town and turn herself in there. No one would ever think to look for her at Ariana’s, so the girl would be safe. Maybe she could tell Ariana what she had done and make her understand that it was time to stop running. But would she understand?
Kayla didn’t know exactly how much of anything Ariana truly understood. She lived in a world that was entirely her own and that made it difficult to really know what she knew and could understand. She certainly wasn’t dumb, but something in her mind was missing, or damaged, or… something.
But both of those options still didn’t solve her core problem; living without Ariana. Either way, the girl was out of her life for good and she wasn’t sure she could handle that. She was so confused that she knew if she didn’t stop thinking about it, her brain would explode. She already had a headache that wouldn’t stop and another night had passed with her only getting a couple of hours of sleep.
Luckily for her, the distraction she needed was coming that very day… if not in the way she expected. Kayla’s third full day at the warehouse started much like the previous two had done. Ariana prepared ham and cheese omelets, which they ate at their small table. Kayla then watched the news on the sofa while Ariana played with Fluffers.
After the news went off, Kayla decided she could use a walk. She told Ariana she was going to do a lap or two around the warehouse. She’d been there for three days and she had only ever been in the general area around the apartment and the showers. Admittedly, there wasn’t much to see. While the warehouse was massive, over 450,000 square feet, it was almost all just empty floor space with support beams here and there to support the ceiling.
Kayla wandered through the warehouse, following the right side wall to the far end. Behind her, the apartment looked miniscule. It struck her just how huge the warehouse was and what a marvel of modern engineering it took to create something of this size.
She opened all of the side doors she came across as she walked, but almost all of them were storage rooms, maintenance rooms, or toilets. She didn’t bother exploring many of them, but when she opened one and found herself in storage room filled to capacity with stacks of folders, many of them spilling out of a row of filing cabinets, she paused.
Papers littered the floor as though someone had tossed them about and never bothered to pick them up. Taking a closer look, she found that most of the paperwork was not warehouse related as she would have believed, but instead appeared to be medical documents from both the Detroit Medical Center and other from the Cancer Treatment Center of Michigan.
Kayla stooped and picked up a few of the papers and found that they were the medical reports for a man named James Henry Laine. Given his date of birth, Kayla concluded that these must be the medical reports for Ariana’s grandfather. From what she could gather, he had died of kidney cancer a year earlier.
She kept flipping through the paperwork, eventually assembling a timeline of the poor man’s disease. It must have been horrible for Ariana. She had lost her parents and her grandfather as well. Kayla thought losing Claire was bad… if her parents had died too… She couldn’t even imagine it. As she searched, she came across some papers with a different logo in the upper right corner and she took a closer look.
The papers were release forms from the Harbor Bay Mental Health Institute… and they were for Ariana. The papers revealed that Ariana had been released into James Laine’s custody sixteen months earlier… and according to the old man’s medical reports, he had died barely four months later.
There was nothing else in the release forms that indicated why Ariana had been in a mental institution or why her grandfather had seen fit to take her away. She had so hoped to find something, some shred of information that would give her an idea of what had happened to the redhead. She kept searching, tearing through files and folders but in all of the paperwork she only found one other ragged piece of paper from Harbor Bay with Ariana’s name on it.
The paper was torn and shredded and she could only make out a portion of a single sentence, but it was enough to confirm her very worst fear. It read; …of the abuse, causing severe physical and psychological trauma in the patient. A full regimen of rehabilitation and… The remainder of the sentence had been ripped away.
Kayla still didn’t know the truth, the full story, but she had an idea. Someone, somewhere, had hurt Ariana… had hurt her enough that she had ended up in a mental hospital. It made Kayla’s blood boil. She wanted to hunt down the person who had harmed the sweet girl and tear them to pieces. She wanted them dead.
Kayla made no mention of what she’d found on her walk when she returned to the apartment. In fact, she did her very best to act completely normal. Ariana had made more cupcakes while she’d been gone and was sitting on the sofa idly flipping through a catalog of paint samples while watching some horrible cartoon with brightly colored horses that seemed to strongly believe in the power of friendship.
Kayla took a cupcake and sat down beside her. She glanced sideways at the catalog.
“Planning on redecorating?” she asked, nibbling on the cupcake. Ariana nodded excitedly.
“Yep,” she said. “I thought about repainting the apartment this color,” she pointed to a sample that was roughly the same color pink as Pepto Bismol.
“Don’t you think that might be a little… distracting?” Kayla said delicately. Ariana considered the sample for a moment before nodding slowly.
“Yeah, okay, I guess it would be,” she said. She scooted closer to Kayla so they could both easily see the catalog. “Which ones do you like?” she asked. They spent the next half hour discussing the samples. They finally settled on, of course, a shade of pink, but it was much lighter. A soft, could-almost-be-white shade that they both could agree on. However, when Ariana stood up from the couch and suggested they go to the store and buy paint, Kayla posed a question that had been at the back of her mind for some time.
“Should we really be repainting this place?” she asked. “I mean, whoever owns this place might not appreciate it… of course, I doubt they’ll appreciate anything else you’ve done in here either.”
“What are you talking about?” Ariana asked, looking genuinely confused. “I own this place.”
“Deciding you want to live here and moving your stuff into it doesn’t mean you own it,” said Kayla. “Somebody out there owns this warehouse. A company or something, and they could…”
“I own it, Kayla,” said Ariana firmly. “My grandpa left it to me in his will.” Kayla hadn’t expected that. She’d thought they’d been squatting in an abandoned building all this time. Thinking back, it did make sense. They had running water, lights, power… if it was abandoned, they wouldn’t have those services… but then yet another thought occurred to her.
“Then who’s paying to keep the power on and the water running?” she asked.
“Me,” said Ariana brightly. She seemed quite proud of herself.
“But you don’t have a job,” said Kayla. “Where do you get the money for utility bills?”
“I sold the other warehouse,” Ariana replied. It was truly quite difficult getting the full story about anything out of Ariana. Luckily, Kayla was patient.
“What other warehouse?” Ariana’s eyes widened.
“Oh! My grandpa left me two. The other one is much bigger than this one. But it’s all gray and dark and smells funny. I didn’t like it... it reminded me of... of someplace terrible... so I sold it.”
“To who?” asked Kayla. “How much did you sell it for?” Ariana shrugged.
“I don’t remember. This funny looking man who always wore a fancy suit bought it. I don’t remember his name. They gave me some papers, though… I’ve got them here somewhere.” She went into the bedroom and returned a minute later with a cream colored folder. She held it out to Kayla, who took it and pulled out the paperwork detailing the sale. She looked at the first page and saw that Ariana had sold the other warehouse, which was located on the other side of town according to the address, to the Dharma Avionics and Aerospace Initiative for…
“Nine point seven million dollars!” Kayla exclaimed. Ariana nodded swiftly.
“Yeah, that sounds right,” she said thoughtfully.
“Ari…” Kayla couldn’t breathe. “Ari, you have nine point seven million dollars?” Ariana shook her head.
“No,” she said. “There’s a nice lady at the bank who keeps it for me. I go there when I need some and she gives it to me.” Kayla’s mind was reeling, as it so often did around Ariana. So, this must have been what Cooper meant when he mentioned the options that were open to Ariana for places to live. She most certainly had a long list of places to choose from.
If anything was going to take Kayla’s mind off of her feelings for the redhead and her worry about what to do about said feelings, finding out that her only friend was sitting on nearly ten million dollars was about as good as she was going to get. Kayla suddenly felt weak at the knees and slowly sank back onto the sofa.
“Ari, if you’ve got that kind of money, why are you living here?” Kayla asked exasperatedly.
“I like it here,” said Ariana, sounding slightly hurt. Kayla immediately felt horrible.
“No, no, Ari… I… I didn’t mean the warehouse was bad or anything,” she said quickly. “I like it here too. I just meant… you could live in a mansion somewhere.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Ariana asked. “Lots of people live in mansions. How many people do you know that live in a warehouse?” The redhead had her there. She couldn’t think of anyone else who lived in a warehouse by their own choice. She had to admit that the warehouse and Ariana just… fit together. The warehouse was almost an extension of Ariana. She had created a home here, all by herself.
“Well,” said Kayla thoughtfully. “You could always use a little of that money to spruce up the place,”
“Where would I put a tree?” Ariana asked. Kayla sighed heavily.
“I didn’t mean… I know a spruce is a… never mind. I meant that we could get all new furniture.” When Ariana still looked doubtful, Kayla continued. “We could get you a brand new stove! In fact, a whole set of new kitchen appliances! Ooooh, we could get Fluffers a kitty condo!”
“But… I don’t want Fluffers to move into a condo!” Ariana exclaimed. “There aren’t any nearby!” Kayla gripped Ariana’s shoulders gently.
“Work with me, kiddo,” she said softly. “Work with me. A kitty condo is… well, it’s like a big playground only for cats.” Ariana’s eyes widened and a broad smile appeared on her face.
“And where would we get all of this stuff?” she asked. Kayla grinned.
“Sweetie, have you ever been to the mall?”
-.-
Shopping. Kayla couldn’t remember the last time she had been able to actually go shopping. She and Claire had spent many a weekend in San Diego’s numerous shopping centers, so being able to go now, with Ariana, was something Kayla really needed.
Ariana was, of course, bubbly and overly excited in the mass of humanity that descended on the local mall the following day. It was the last Saturday in November, which meant Christmas was right around the corner. Kayla guessed that half of Detroit was in the mall with them, trying to wrap up their Christmas shopping.
The girls spent the day moving from store to store, buying anything and everything they wanted. Ariana spent over an hour in a toy store and spent well over three thousand dollars. Kayla couldn't believe it, but it was Ariana's money. She asked the store manager to hold her purchases for her and she would be back before closing that evening.
They stopped by Sears and purchased a new washing machine, dryer, dish washer, refrigerator, and a TV with all of the latest video game consoles. They were told a crew would come by the warehouse the following day to deliver and install their purchases.
They visited a pet store where Ariana bought the largest kitty condo tower she could find. Kayla had to step in when she told the assistant that she wanted every single condo they had. Ariana also requested a diamond tiara and a purple robe for Fluffers, but was told they didn't sell such things, much to the redhead's disappointment.
They bought all new bookcases for the library, a new table and chairs for the kitchen, and a new stand for the TV. Ariana picked out a new set of cookware and pink, patterned dishes. They stopped by an electronics store and bought a laptop and smart phone for each of them.
By the end of the day, Kayla was beginning to feel rather bad. Ariana had spent a very great deal of money, much of it on gifts for her. She felt as though she was taking advantage of the redhead. It had been she, Kayla, who had brought Ariana here and encouraged her to buy new things. Maybe she'd gone too far...
But Ariana certainly seemed pleased. She'd insisted that Kayla pick out anything she liked and appeared happier each time she selected something. Kayla would get the greatest surprise of all when it came to Ariana's generosity when they were ready to leave. She returned to the toy store and had the employees help her cart all of the toys down to the donation booth near the entrance. The volunteers at the booth were shocked but grateful. Kayla could hardly believe what Ariana had done. She was incredibly moved by the redhead's kindness and generosity.
The afternoon had been perfect. It would've been the best day in recent memory for Kayla had it not been for something that terrified her to her very soul. As the girls were making their way toward the exit, Kayla saw someone who couldn't have been there. No... he couldn't have found her. It was impossible... She'd covered her tracks, he couldn't be here.
Kayla pulled Ariana into a staff only hallway and peeked out through a small window in the door. Ariana gave her a quizzical look. Kayla ignored her and a moment later the man passed their hiding place. Kayla let out a sigh of relief. It wasn't him... it wasn't him. It had looked so much like him, but it wasn't. They were safe.
Kayla turned to Ariana, who was staring at her with one eyebrow arched and her hands on her hips.
"Do you want to tell me what that was all about?" Ariana said sharply. Kayla sighed. She didn't, she really didn't. But she knew it was time. She should have told her the truth days before. She had to do it now.
"Okay," said Kayla. "C'mon." She led Ariana to a small cafe and bought them both milkshakes. That was what her mom had always done whenever she had to tell her bad news. That Kayla’s dog ran away or when her grandmother had passed… she always said bad news wasn’t half as bad if you had a milkshake. Kayla wasn’t sure she believed it, but right now she’d take whatever she could get.
“Alright,” said Kayla as she passed the redhead the strawberry treat. “Let’s sit down.” They picked a secluded table in the corner and sank into seats. Ariana sipped her shake, looking at Kayla expectantly.
“Okay…” she took a deep breath. “What I’m about to tell you… I really should have told you the day we met. I’ve put you in danger without you even knowing it and I can’t keep putting you at risk. You deserve to know and I can’t keep it from you any more. This story… it doesn’t make me look like a very good person… Hell, maybe I’m not... but all the same, I’ve got to tell you. So, please, listen closely Ariana. I’m going to tell you everything.”524Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8qnFmX2BX5
