A Word of Praise — Chapter FOURTY-EIGHT

Push through. Those were the only words on Kiara’s mind as she felt herself slipping. Her breath was becoming shallow, but she couldn’t let it show. If she could just leave, and be alone for a while, she’d be able to get her grip back. Why was she getting like that again? It was not fair.

In the first few minutes after Harry mentioned her mother, she was still there. Fading, but there. But after Chris’ words hit her, she felt her grip on reality escaping. There was a distant barking sound somewhere, and a doorknob that caused her pain when she touched it. A car stopped by the sidewalk and she got in. Did she call for it?

Everything around her was a blur, and her hands hurt every time she touched something. Why did they hurt? Someone talked to her, but she couldn’t answer. After a while, she wasn’t sure they were talking to her at all.

Her keys worked on a door to an apartment she didn’t know how she reached. Push through. The furniture looked weird, her clothes against her body felt odd. What was that sound that disappeared every time she tried to focus on it?

Water, she needed water. Her feet led her to the bathroom, but the shower tap was blurred, and sharp, and she didn’t know if it was alright to touch it. Open the tap. Just open the tap. Once the cold water ran down her spine, she focused on that feeling.

Little by little, the fog that clouded her eyes dissipated, the bathroom objects went back to their regular sizes and shapes. With a large gasp, her eyes widened, and she fell back into reality. Shit. Fucking hell, not again. Kiara was shaking under the cold shower, so she turned it to hot and took off the clothes that gripped her body in a chilling hug. How long has it been since her last episode? Five years? Not fucking fair.

She carried on with her shower feeling an excruciating pain in her hands. She probably used them a lot in her trip from Chris’ place to her own. Fuck. Did he notice? She hoped not.

Kiara tried to think back to her last memory before the derealization. She had agreed to go to Harry’s for lunch, and he mentioned her mother’s death anniversary. She didn’t realize…. She wouldn’t have stayed at Chris’ if she had remembered.

When the water was no longer soothing the aftermath of her episode, Kiara stepped out and tried to dry out her regret along with the waterdrops. The man opened his heart for her, why couldn’t she do the same? But she couldn’t. She knew the words wouldn’t come out, even if she tried.

Harry shouldn’t have mentioned it. Or maybe she shouldn’t have reacted the way she did. Not that she had any sort of control over it, but it’s been so long… she should at least be able to handle another person mentioning it. But Harry had referred to it as an accident as if there was no one to blame for her death. She simply didn’t have another reaction set inside her.

Maybe he had noticed something. He must have known she was a bit fucked up inside, considering her reaction twice on the island. Both when Patricia asked about spending the holidays without her family and during her fight with Chris, she was able to stick to reality and get into a cold shower before shutting down. The only difference this time was that he pushed her to talk about it, and hell, she almost did.

A chill ran down her spine thinking she almost told him everything. How smitten was she with the man to think it was alright to tell him? No, that couldn’t happen.

***

When she reached Harry and Carol’s, there was a lingering sadness in her. Chris had come for her, and she pushed him away because of her own troubles this time. It was not fair, she knew. But she just couldn’t.

“Welcome, darling! It’s so great to see you again!” Carol’s voice was motherly, even though she wasn’t a mother herself.

“Thanks for having me,” Kiara answered, shaking off the bad feelings. That was not a happy occasion, but she wouldn’t treat it like a funeral either.

The three of them sat to eat on the five-seat round table, that used to be full during her childhood. Then it began to host only four people, and now the same old wooden table held just the three of them. But the company was good, and the food was nice, so Kiara didn’t feel the emptiness she thought she would.

“What happened to your hands, Kia?” Carol asked. She loved it when people called her Kia, though not many did.

“One of my lovers got jealous of the other.” She winked, feeling more like herself.

“So… circus?” Harry replied in an amused tone. He was a witness to most of her bruises and burns throughout adolescence, when she decided to truly dedicate herself to the craft.

“You know it.” She smiled, struggling to fork another shrimp directly from the tray ahead. Carol would have chastised her in a different situation, but she was just too happy to complain. Seven years apart was definitely enough to miss them.

“But that’s probably the worst you ever had!”

“Of course not, the accident in the club was way worse!” Kiara replied, but noticed a bit too late the shocked expressions of her hosts. Shit, of course they didn’t know.

“What are you talking about Kiara? What accident?” Well, now the cat was out of the bag. Again. She should really learn how to control her tongue sometimes.

“It was no big deal, Harry. A couple of years ago I fell during a performance. I even got a souvenir out of it!” She turned her sidecut to them to show the little scar that adorned her shaven head. She expected them to lighten up in face of her dark humor, but luck was not in her favor.

“You cut your head?” Carol’s shrieking voice told her that her goal was not achieved at all. She covered the spot to avoid the virtual magnifying glass they were trying to put on it.

“I didn’t even faint.” She did. “And it was not that high.” It actually was.

“Why didn’t you call us?” Harry’s voice was troubled, and she began to feel bad about it.

“Let’s talk about something else, it’s been ages!”

“You need to let us take care of you, Kiara. It’s what your father wanted.”

Go to hell. The words almost spilled out of her mouth, but they didn’t. What came out instead was perhaps worse.

“He can’t want things from a grave, can he?” Shit. Her words were hurtful to all of them and she knew it was not ok to say it. She knew, but she couldn’t take it back.

“Kia…” Carol tried to reach out to her.

“This shrimp is really something else,” she said in a terrible attempt to change the subject. She didn’t fail to notice the uncomfortable stares exchanged between the couple, but luckily they said nothing else. The dinner resumed with a few other words, until she thought it was fine to leave.

She left feeling the weight of her words crushing her once again. That was not her day. Or week, or month. She was not one to dwell on her bad luck, but she was ready for the hidden camera revelation already. There must be someone purposefully fucking her up, destiny couldn’t be so mean.

She went to jail, was led into forced cohabitation with the most opulent people in the world, got interested in a guy that didn’t have his shit together in the family department, and got a derealization episode after who knows how many years. Now she couldn’t even get through a Sunday lunch without some sort of drama going on.

Her trip back home was drowned in self-pity, and Kiara hated it. So she decided to count her blessings as her mother taught her to. The woman might have been dead for eleven years, but her advice was timeless. Jail was just for a day. The island was beautiful, and she met amazing people there. Chris was… there.

What? Chris was literally there in front of her building sitting on the sidewalk like a lost puppy.

“What the hell are you doing here?”