Sunset ^beta

They said to dress conservatively, so dress conservatively is what I did. Knitted sweater, jeans, my shitty boots.

There was a time, where I knew the brand of each and every item of clothing I owned. I still know most, if only because I don´t have the kind of money that allows me to replace my stuff on a whim. I keep everything till it falls apart.

What´s currently falling apart is my shoes. My shoes and my dignity.

I hand in the visitor´s form and lock away my wallet in a tiny safe. I´m honestly surprised I´m on the approved visitor´s list.
They scan me for metal and drugs -I´ve brought neither- and I resist the temptation to pet the working dogs. Then I wait.

I´ve not been inside of a prison before. Had never planned to go either.
But who plans to go to prison anyways? Nobody.

I look around.
The waiting area of Long River Youth Development Centre (and isn´t that a whopper of a name) is sterile and nondescript, just a plain hallway with cold LED lighting and cheap plastic chairs lining the walls. I don´t know if that is how I pictured it.

The seats are sparsely occupied. By middle aged women, mostly.
Middle aged women and me.

They must be visiting their daughters, I realize.

I probably shouldn´t be here. I don´t know why I came.

The women are watching me.
I might be visiting my sister, I think, but I know how these things go. And ever since I´ve cut off my hair the stereotypes are pitted against me.
They think I´m visiting my girlfriend.

There are women who are attracted to criminals, attracted to murderers.
I never understood, how they could look at such violent men like that. At their disregard for life. Lives like theirs. Nine times out of ten these men that attracted these kinds of admirers had murdered romantic partners; women just like them. And these women wanted it.
I never understood. I didn´t.

And yet I am sitting in the visitor´s waiting room of a prison to see the girl who had tried to murder me.

*

My parents did not attend my graduation ceremony.

Too busy with the baby was the official excuse.
(My new brother – Seth. I´ve never seen him.)

I know better of course. I´m not an idiot.

But I graduated. I walked across the stage, got my diploma.
And spent the evening alone, holed up in Spencer´s bedroom while he celebrated his own graduation with his extended family.

We are on speaking terms, Spencer and me.
Brie and I, too. Even I and Greg. The same cannot be said about the rest of my Bates friends. The surviving ones at least.

The Kents attended the graduation ceremony.
Sat in the last row, so nobody would notice them. I noticed them right away. I waved.

They waited for me afterwards.
Congratulated me. Apologized again.
Asked where my parents were. I shrugged. “Couldn´t come.”

They invited me for tea.

We drove to a nice café in the village – not the cat café, something fancier – and we talked.

They asked how I was coping. How I was doing -
What I was doing, now, after school.
They actually seemed to care.

I told them about South-East Maine, the tiny community college with (and I left that part out) few redeeming qualities that I would be attending. They were the only ones who had offered me a scholarship.

Told them about the summer job I had gotten in order to save up some money, and so I would not have to return home in the coming months.

What surprised me was Mr. Kent´s - Bernie´s - reaction regarding my future college.

“A sensible choice.” he complimented.
Turns out several of his best employees have attended the same school. Coincidences.
I don´t know how to feel about that.

The only thing that we don´t discuss is Nola.
Nola, who is their daughter. Nola who is in prison. Nola who tried to kill me, tried to frame me for murder and destroy my life. At least in regard to my college education, she mostly succeeded.

I don´t know how to feel about that, either.

*

Nola slouches as she walks.

Her black hair is growing out, her roots are showing an un-Nola-like muddy brown. She´s wearing a white jumper and black sweatpants instead of the more stereotypical inmates uniform known from tv. At least in this facility, orange is not the new black.

“Hey.” I greet her.

She blinks at me. “I didn´t expect you would actually come.”

I shrug. “Thought I´d drop by.” I tell her. “After all, I live just around the corner.”
That one´s an exaggeration. I do live in Maine, but it´s over two hours by public transport.

Nola has been tried in Massachusetts. She´s only here because her parents got her transferred.

Brie told me when it happened, else I would have had no idea.

And now Nola is in visiting distance, so visiting is what I do.
Good God, this was a stupid idea.

“So, are you in college now?” She asks me.

I nod. “Community college. South-East Maine.”

She nods. Doesn´t comment. Doesn´t acknowledge that it´s her fault nowhere else would take me.

“I´m finishing school.” She informs me. “Three days a week.”

“Good.” I tell her. “What do you do the rest of the time?”

She shrugs. “Nothing mostly, it´s boring as fuck here. I work two days.”

I don´t know what to say, so we sit in silence.
Eventually I ask: “Was it worth it?”

She shrugs again.

*

A small campus in a smaller New England town, a heroine with a tragic past, and the beginning of fall… It sounds like a novel.

But if anything, Bates was my dark academia stint, South-East Maine is… mundane.

I attend college on a sports scholarship but the team I´m playing for is middling at best.
Guess Division 3 is better than no college education at all; and despite the fact that I never wanted to become a high school coach, that´s what´s going to await me down the road with the courses I´m taking. Unless I drop out.

It´s okay. The sea is nice.

In the month that I´ve been here, I´ve attended classes in the mornings, played soccer in the afternoons and at night I failed to sleep in the dorm room I share with a roommate I hardly talk to.
Insomniacs anonymous – still a member.

I don´t talk to Spence as often as I used to, but at least we do talk.
Despite everything, he has become one of my closest friends.

“I went to see Nola today.” I tell him in the evening, once I´ve made it back to my room. Melanie is still out – probably at her boyfriend´s again.

“Why?” I basically hear him frowning.

I shrug. “Dunno, maybe I thought I´d give me closure.”

“Did it?” he asks.

I huff “As if.”

I tried to do the whole freshman experience.
Dancing and drinking and sleeping around.

For the first time in my life, I am openly queer. Not just implicitly bisexual, but loudly out and proud: Closet adieu.

I even went to a lesbian bar once. Somehow, I ended up going home with the only guy in attendance. Somehow things like these were more entertaining in High School.

I don´t think I am built for this college thing. But I keep going regardless.
Keep getting up in the morning, keep going to classes and turning in homework, keep running up and down the coast and playing soccer.

Everything in me screams like reeling. Like spinning again, but I don´t.

I am eighteen. I´m in college. I have to act like it.
Katherine 3.0 is not allowed to be self-destructive.

Things with Brie are… complicated.

After everything that went down with Nola… after how I acted towards Brie…
I was lucky she took me back.

I finished school with Brie as my friend. I apologized and let Brie take the lead. Nursed myself back to health, while she dealt with the masses.

I even visited her for a couple of days in Cape Cod at the end of the summer. It was just like the old days. Almost.

The other times, I used to act as a second daughter, pretended to be part of the family, the future Mrs. Brie Matthews. Now I took my cues from Brie, keeping my place.
But I soaked it in, memories wrapped up and stored away before we both left for college.

Her for Cali and me for Maine.

We talk on the phone, at least once a week. I do not tell her that her calls are the highlight of my days. Especially now that she broke up with Justine.

Maybe the timing will be on my side this time.
I know better than to get my hopes up, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I can´t help but wonder.

*

Fall comes early to the lower forty-eight´s northernmost state, and I turn my collar up against the wind as I make my way towards Anatomy 101. I miss Todd´s old coat, now lost to the waves thanks to Nola.

I curse my disintegrating shoes as I step onto some rotting leaves which promptly soaks my foot, sock and all, when I see her.

Across the road she is still tall and beautiful.
Burberry coat in wine red and her long, pale hair slung over her shoulders.

I stop in my tracks; I didn´t think I´d ever see Tai Carter again.

She has stayed in Massachusetts, Brie told me. Attended Dartmouth like she always intended. Cori and Tricia have joined her there, presumably they are still friends.

I nod in greeting.
When she fails to nod back, I make my way towards her. Missing one class won´t be the end of my academic career.

“Hi.” I try again. It almost sounds like a question.

Tai frowns. “You know” she starts “I heard from Cori you enrolled in a dump like this, but I had to see for myself.”

I shrug. “It´s a college. It´s got some good courses. I like it.”

Tai seems to disagree “It´s a dump, where aspirations go to die.” The corner of her mouth twitches “so, in a way, it´s quite fitting for you.”

I frown. There are days where I question, how I could be friends with my Bates clique at all. With the others, not just Brie. I know I used to like them.
Seeing Tai in front of me, right now, I can´t remember why.

“Did you really drive all the way up here to mock my university?” I ask her.

“No.” she shrugs. “But I was in the area, and figured I might bear witness to what lows you´ve sunken to.”

“So, you´ve come to gloat.”

She regards me. “Do you regret what you did?” she asks.

The truth is, I don´t.
Yes, it almost ruined my life, definitely ruined my chances for going pro at soccer, but. Confronting Tai. Confronting Tricia and Cori. It was the right thing to do. And I´d do it again.

I raise my chin. “Not one bit.” I tell her.

*

I´m back in the waiting room two days later.
This time I am armed with cheap candy and cheaper coffee.

This time when she sees me, Nola smiles.

“I brought snacks.” I tell her, depositing them on the gray plastic surface of the table, as I fall into my seat opposite her.

“You didn´t have to” she tells me, but it´s obviously a lie, because she rips open a packet of skittles, her favorite, and starts to devour them by the handful.

I laugh. “Leave some for me.” I tell her.

“Nope.” she grins and takes even more. “You can get them all the time.” She is speaking with her mouth full; it is utterly disgusting. I grab some skittles of my own.

“Tai came to visit me.” I tell her, her forehead creases minutely. “Okay.” I correct “She came to gloat.”
Nola´s frown evens back out.

I slump forward.
“God.” I tell her. “Tai can be such a bitch. I should probably thank you that I´m not friends with her anymore.”

She looks up at me through her lashes. Thick and not nearly as dark as they used to be, all slathered in mascara as she used to wear them.

“Have you made any friends in here?”

“Not really” she shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “Most of the girls in here don´t stay for all that long. They´re mostly in for menial shit. Shoplifting – stuff like that.”
She regards her hands. Nola´s in for double homicide, one victim short of becoming a serial killer. If she ever gets out again, she will be in her thirties.

“And most of them are broken anyway.” She continues. “No personalities of their own, just lashing out, trying to survive their shitty families…” She trails of.

I knock my knuckles against hers, tell her: “At least you´ve got class.” She smiles.

*

I´m back the next week, bearing more refined sugar.

“My new cellmate has kids.” Nola tells me “Plural.”

I raise my eyebrows “that´s quite the achievement.”
Nola´s new cellmate is sixteen.

I wonder what a live somebody must have lived to have multiple children at sixteen. Given that she had also wound up in prison, probably not a nice one.

Nola goes on “She talks about them all day: my girls this, my girls that. Listening to her I want to shoot myself!”

I still. “Do you?” I ask her.
Nola used to be suicidal. Suddenly I am not so sure about the part with the ´used to´.

She looks at me like I am an idiot.
“I told you I don´t plan to die any sooner than absolutely necessary.”

She did. The Shakespeare conversation.

“Yeah. And after that, you told me you planned to kill yourself for your grand murder plot.”

She shrugs. “Death seemed an acceptable side effect.”
I am not a fan of Nola´s acceptable side effects. More than once they have involved bodies.

“And now?” I ask.

She tells me: “It varies. Life in this place sucks.”
Nola makes a face. “For what it´s worth I don´t think I wish I had died instead. More like wish that I hadn´t been caught.”

I laugh. Stop myself. This is no laughing matter.

Nola gifts me a poison-laced smile. “First chance to get out of here, prison break or whatever - I´ll be gone. Promise.”

*

We are approaching our anniversary. Mine and Nola´s.

I know I should not think of it as such, the night that Jessica died.
Halloween. The night of October the 31st. The day of November the 1st.

One year ago, my life was still on track.

Nola starts calling me.
One day my phone rings while I´m trying to write an essay about the Stages of Child Development, and a nameless woman asks me if I want to be connected to a call from the Long River Youth Development Centre.

I´m just glad the call wasn´t on speakerphone, I have no idea how I would explain that one to Melanie.

*

When Brie tells me she´s attending her cousin´s wedding in Cape Cod, I can´t help but drive down the coast to meet her.

She is as beautiful as ever, tall, statuesque and dressed impeccably. My breath catches.
I have missed her.

“Kay” she hugs me close, her chest soft, pressed against mine. “It is so great to see you!”
I wrap my arms around her waist, take in the scent of what used to be our shampoo (mine is a fair bit cheaper these days), and I hope I´ll never have to let her go again.

Eventually she untangles herself.

She scans me. “You look good,” she says. “Healthy.”

I truly don´t. It is Brie who looks healthy, bronzed golden by the California sun, whereas I´m bleached pale under the perpetual cloud cover of the New England sky. Even her hair seems to glow.

The only point of comparison where I´m looking good right now, is when you compare me to myself, roughly eleven months prior:
Not being in the middle of a nervous breakdown will do that for you.

Although I should maybe question if my sanity might be slipping again, what with me voluntarily spending time with Nola.

Brie would be worried if I told her. So, I don´t.

We trail through the shops at the Cape - the high-end ones, not the cheap tourist shit – and look for a wedding present for Brie´s cousin Leanne.

Everything is white and grey and pastel around us, and I can´t afford any of it.
It doesn´t matter. It´s not for me.

We talk about university. I bitch about my useless coach. Brie gushes about pre-law.

Stanford is good for her. She met her new girlfriend there.

Brie asks if I have a boyfriend.
I think about lesbian-bar-guy (what was his name, Patrick?) and can only laugh.

We´ll pick up Anneliese later. She had an essay to finish and thus took a different flight over from Brie.

She´s Brie´s plus-one for the wedding. Today, she will be introduced to the family.
I am not jealous. (I suck at lying to myself.)

Brie shows me a picture of her. She is perfect.
Almost as tall as Brie, kind eyed with perfectly full lips and absolutely beautiful.

And most importantly: Black.

Against a White girl I had a chance of winning. Add the shared life experience of being Black in Ivy, I might as well just pack up.

*

Anneliese arrives at the trains station at quarter to six. My train leaves half an hour later.
There is little time for introductions.

`An old friend` is what Brie calls me and even as my heart is breaking, I cannot deny that it is true.

I don´t know when we stopped being best friends, but whatever was between us before, it is fading. The magic is gone – Never quite reappeared.

When I finally make my way back to the dorm, I slump onto my bed and cry.

Then I open the bottle of wedding champagne that I nabbed from the Matthews´, and down as much of it as I can.
And then I vomit. And cry more. And drink more.

Rinse and repeat, till the whole thing is gone.

*

I know I must make a sight for sore eyes, when Melanie returns the next morning, takes one look at me, and goes to fetch me some coffee.

“Here” she tells me, all but holding the cup to my lips. “Drink.”

I down the coffee and I down the painkillers and I down some water too, for good measure.

Not getting dehydrated is the first step to fighting the hangover.

*

I spent the rest of the weekend by the beach, watching the ocean as it slams endless gray waves against the cold, rocky shore.

I know I should study, do homework, go running, but its one of those times, where keeping my sanity is effort enough.

I visit Nola again. This time she hugs me.

She looks different. Better.
Her hair is shorter, cut off at her shoulders, and she has touched up the black.
She still contorts herself into her seat opposite me, but at least she doesn´t slouch as much as she used to while walking.

My heart gives a pang taking note of the changes – putrid, rotten thing that it is.

“I went to see Brie.” I tell her; confess it like a cheating lover. (A familiar feeling, though I wish it weren´t.)

She frowns. “Good for you.”
Nola is a jealous person. I like that she doesn´t act on it.

I smile at her “It sucked.”

“Why?” she asks. “What did perfect Brie do now?”

“Nothing.” Nola doesn´t like Brie, weirdly it’s the one thing she has in common with Spencer.
But Nola has reasons; Brie has been a bitch towards her.

Then again - so have I. And what a massive bitch I have been.

“I met her new girlfriend.” I tell her. “Anneliese.”

She perks up; I shrug “It´s probably for the best.” Nola makes a face.

The will-they-won´t-they with Brie has always been the worst part.
First, she flirts with you for a while, then she gives you the cold shoulder over some minor disagreement or ignores you for a girlfriend she eventually cheats on. And if you do the same and find somebody else, she gets jealous and reels you right back in.
That´s how it was with Spencer. That´s how it was with Nola.

Of course, Brie disagrees with this interpretation of things, but I am over believing Brie is incapable of lying.

Brie is my friend and I like her. She is a better person than me.
Spencer was right about the pedestal, anyway.

“I´ll be fine.” I tell Nola. I´m a big girl.

*

“Katherine, is that you?”
I turn around.

Nola and I talked for the full forty-five minutes of our allotted visitation period; I am on my way out. And it seems I have bumped right into Nola´s mom.

“Mrs. Kent.” I greet her “Are you visiting Nola?”

“I´m visiting Bianca.” She confirms.

Despite knowing Bianca is her actual name I always find it odd when people call Nola anything but, well - Nola.
Which is also what I tell her mother.

“I only knew her as Nola” I shrug. “And I know she prefers it.”

She looks… considering.
We got off on the wrong foot, Mrs. Kent and me. Of course, Nola is to blame for that, like she is to blame for everything else.

My feelings about the Kents are mixed. They are affable, kind, but too clean for real warmth.

Well. At least it seems like they visit Nola in prison.
They got her transferred across several states just to keep her close. They might not win any parent of the year trophies, but at least they appear to beat my own family right now.

*

Mrs. Kent – Leonora - invites me for tea, so I hang around.

Once she is done with her own Nola-visit, we are picked up by Bernie in his fancy black car.
Which is when tea turns to dinner.

We eat in a former shack, on the rocks, that has been converted into a nice restaurant by the seaside. It is warm and there are tealights flickering on the tables while the fall storms are raging outside floor to ceiling windows.

“You have been visiting Bianca?” Leonora asks.

I nod, mouth filled with a delicious bite of flounder-and-fries.

She trades a glance with her husband.
“She has been doing better.” Bernie notes.

“I´ve noticed.”

“You two were… close.” Leonora pushes.
She knows we were, she walked in on us making out on the floor.

I shrug “It´s complicated.” Which is the understatement of the decade.

“But you are Nola´s friend.” Bernie asks, and that I can readily confirm.
It is an odd bond, that I share with Nola, but I liked her back in the day, and yes, at this point I would call it friendship.

Eventually the conversation turns to the upcoming holidays – thanksgiving – and isn´t that bringing back memories from last year´s disaster.

“I probably won´t go home for the week.” I tell them, “I put aside some money, I might rent a cabin for the duration.”
It´s probably going to be a motel - a cabin would overstretch my budget, but it does sound nicer.

“You´re not visiting your family?” Bernie asks, sounding worried.

I just shake my head. “We don´t have that type of relationship.”
If anything, the previous thanksgiving has cemented that.

Bernie frowns, doubtlessly recalling how he put me on a train home when things went south with Nola last year. “Do you want to stay with us for the week?”

His wife looks at him like he just grew a second head. I probably look much the same.

“I meant it when I said, we´d love to have you again. And you have been a good friend to Nola. You could even stay in her room.”

I feel like a deer in the headlights.
Staying with the Kents last year was an unmitigated catastrophe and I was Nola´s plus-one then. Now I would just be a houseguest; Type leech – the kind that Nola hated.

I talk him down to a maybe.

*

That night Nola calls me at eight fifty-five on the dot.

´You are receiving a call from the Long River Youth Development Centre; do you wish to be connected? ´
I do, its not even a question.

“Hey Noles.” I greet her.

Nola does not waste any time. ”What did my mom want from you?”

I can´t help but roll my eyes. “Dinner mostly.” I tell her.
“She also asked if we were fucking. Indirectly of course.”

“Ha.” Nola responds, “As if I could feasibly fuck anyone in this hellhole.”

“I don´t know. Did you not like that cellmate of yours?” I´m teasing, obviously.

I change the topic, ignoring Nola maligning her roommate (again).

“Your parents invited me to stay with them for thanksgiving.”

On the other end of the line descents a silence so tense I can practically feel it.
Nola is far from pleased. “Whyever, would they invite you to thanksgiving?”

I shrug “A do-over for last year I guess.”

She is not impressed. “Recruiting a better daughter, you mean.”

Of course. “I´m sure they intend nothing of the sort. They know I have nowhere to go, they probably pity me.”

She huffs. “My parents don´t do pity.”

“But they do try to fix their relationship with you, don´t they.”

“I guess.” Then “My mother still calls me Bianca.”

“I´m not planning to go anyway.” I assure her.

The frown is all but audible. “Why not?”

Why not? “I´d feel like one of your leeches. They are your family, not mine.”

“Go.” Nola instructs.

I blink “Why?”

“Go.” She repeats. “Stay with them. You said you had nowhere to go.”

“That´s not what I meant!”
There is no arguing with Nola.

*

In the end, I agree to two days. Well, two nights and three days.

The rest of the holidays will be mine and mine alone.

Bernie picks me up at the train station.

He tries to make small talk all the way to Tranquility, the Kent´s stately home, while I try to suppress my panic.

It feels like the worst kind of déjà vu.
This can´t end well. It didn´t last year, and it certainly won´t now.

“Anyway, I finished my conversion.” Bernie narrates enthusiastically “Maybe you´ll get to meet Rabbi Gross some other time, he is such a great man. And what a character!”

I nod politely. I might be an atheist myself, but I know better than to be a bitch about somebody´s faith. Especially when the faith in question comes with a Rabbi stressing the importance of family and community.

I´ll have to thank him, if I ever do meet the man. For trying to mend the bridges between Bernie, Leonora and Nola.

Last year´s life planner seems to have had nothing on him.
Then again, last year´s life planner is probably unemployed now. Which is fine by me.

If only the Rabbi had shown up earlier.

*

Tranquility is just as massive as I remember it being.

Just as beautiful, too, just as marbled, and just as spotlessly clean.
Marla continues to do the most excellent job.

“Leonora is still at the country club.” Bernie tells me, as I trail inside after him “but you can make yourself right at home.”

I inspect the guest book, bound from read leather, and illustrated with masterful, golden calligraphy. The hobby must run in the family.
(I hope Nola´s calligraphies have been archived somewhere.)

Last year, the guestbook only used to contain couples, - theirs, not for us, Nola had judged - and the same couples do dominate its pages still, but I spot families there as well, and the occasional singles. I turn to Bernie.

I sign the book.

Nola´s room is tucked away in the tower, overlooking both village and the sea.

It feels like a hideaway. Secret, somehow.
I get to stay there, again.

I unpack my bags after a quick supper with Bernie - Marla´s shrimp quiche is still divine, if not exactly kosher – and I spend my evening cuddled into Family-Nola´s – Bianca´s - weirdly pink comforters, watching a Shakespeare production on my computer.

What was the saying? ´When in Rome´?

I´m not a real guest, after all, just a family friend staying over. I don´t need to be entertained.

*

Night falls and my insomnia strikes as usual.

And as is quickly become a habit, I decide to take a stroll by the sea.

I wrap myself into my coat (I bought it, it is not the old Burberry coat Nola had gifted me last year), and I carefully wind my way down the stairs.

The moon shines bright tonight, throwing stark shadows across the floorboards.

I try to be as quiet as possible, in order not to wake anybody.
I didn´t need to have bothered.

The Kents are still awake.
And by the sound of it they are fighting; loud voices ringing out past their room and into the hallway.

I stop in my tracks, helpless but to listen.

“And what about the Birnbaums?” Leonora argues. “Will you just drag her along to brunch when they arrive tomorrow? Do you think she´d enjoy that? And what are you going to tell them?”

“What should I tell them?” Bernie asks. I linger past the doorway, just out of sight.
“How about the truth for a change. Meet Katherine, she is a friend of our daughter´s and is staying with us for the holidays. There: simple as that.”

Leonora scoffs. Bernie is visibly pacing. ´Oh´, I think. They are arguing about me.

“Would you rather we lie to them, make up some hare-brained tale about taking in a stranger?
“If you absolutely have to, you can still introduce her as our future daughter-in-law, that one might be grand enough for your sensibilities.”

“You´d like that, wouldn´t you?” Leonora accuses. “We lost Bianca, so you´ll just up and replace her with another daughter.”

“Nola. Her name is Nola.” Bernie burst out “It may not be the name that we´ve given her and she may not be the daughter that we tried to raise, but she is what we have and we all but lost her because we couldn´t accept that.”

“And you´ll take her as she is! Is that it. A liar and a murderer, aren´t you proud? A life in prison? Our daughter deserves better.”

“Our daughter murdered two people. She deserves exactly what she´s got.”

“So, you´ll just let her rot and move on to the next one?”

I can´t take any more of this. I turn to leave. Behind me Bernie´s voice rings:
“I will fucking keep whatever part of our daughter I´ve left to keep!”

*

I all but run the rest of the way outside.

If I´m lucky they might not have heard me. They surely were loud enough.
I´m never lucky.

The large front-door bangs closed behind me. I stop.

Outside, the night is beautiful, despite the strong wind.
I catch my breath on the front steps. Then, I set out.

I make my way by memory, at least at first. When it fails and it inevitably does, I keep going, ever onward.

It is not far to the sea; I can hear it roaring.

The pines are swaying in the wind behind me, and I tread carefully over moss and lichen covered rocks.
I reach the cliffs.

It´s a steep drop to the sea. The wind tastes like salt.

I follow the course of the coastline, tracing the edge of the cliffs.
The sea is wild tonight, waves crashing high against pale rocks.

Nola told me the Kents used to have a tradition.
Back, when their family still was happy.

The first night of thanksgiving break they would gather and jump, off the cliff and into the ocean.

Of course, it was Nola who told me about it, so it might very well be made up entirely, but I´m stood at the top off that very cliff, on that very night and the wind roars around me.

I miss Nola. I miss her day-to-day at college, and I miss her especially now.

I should never have come. Should not have accepted Bernie´s polite offer, should not have tried the Kent´s hospitality. I am not their daughter.
They are kind for Nola´s sake. They don´t care about me.

I stare at the churning of the sea below me.
Step closer, as though in trance.

It is tradition, Nola told me.

I drop my coat onto the rocks. Drop my pullover, slip out of my shoes.
The icy wind stings like needles. In the bright moonlight, my skin is pale as bones.

The waves are too wild, tonight.
I stand at the edge.

I don´t know how to make the jump safely. Even Nola never made the jump on her own.

I jump.

*

“I jumped.” I tell Nola when she calls me the next morning.

The sea was so cold it was painful.

Diving in felt like hitting concrete and once I was in the water, I was hitting rocks. The waves smashed me against them.

I didn´t know if I´d find a way out. Too many dark waves, cresting over my head. There were moments I felt like drowning.

But I dove down like I always did, pushed away from the rocks and into the open. And when I surfaced, I knew I would make it.

I´m in my tower room now, wrapped in both her pink comforters at once.

Leonora would not have needed to worry about introducing me to the Birnbaums, I am not in a shape to be brunching with anybody today.

“You did what?” Nola screeches. “Are you insane?”
She sounds just like her father, last night, when they found me – half frozen - pulling myself out onto the rocky beach.

According to Bernie Nola had not made up that particular family tradition. She had just slightly bent the truth to fit the occasion.

The Kents had jumped of the cliff into the sea, almost every year, as far as the weather allowed. But they did it in the daytime, when you could properly see the rocks below, and never when the sea was too wild.

Well, I´d already done it.

I laugh. “It was fun.” I tell Nola. God, the adrenaline. Katherine 3.0 was supposed to be more sensible than this.
I´ve missed it. The high persists.

“And the scolding I got from your father! Had me feeling all warm and fuzzy.”

Both Bernie and Leonora had been there, out in the cold November night, looking for me.
They´d wrapped me into Leonora´s fancy coat and walked me over to where I´d left my clothes.

Then, once I was no longer at risk of catching hypothermia, there was the scolding.

´What were you thinking?´
´You could have died!´
´What would we have told your parents? What would we have told Nola?´
´If something happened to you, we could have never forgiven ourselves!´

“You are Nola´s friend.” Bernie had told me.
“Her only friend. You stand by her even after all that she´s done. All that she´s done to you. As far as I´m concerned, that makes you our family. And we look after our own.”

They´d force fed me Irish coffee to warm me up, then bundled me upstairs into my nest of pink blankets.
Honesty, I haven´t felt this cared for in a long while.

“Good.” Nola tells me, once she´s got the whole sorry tale out of me. “They ought to take care of you.”

“I´m a big girl. Nobody needs to take care of me.”

“I did.” She declares, and I remember a horrible night spend in way to small clothes in her bed. “And until I´m back out of here, my parents better pick up the slack.”

*

The remainder of my stay with the Kents goes… fine.

There are no high society visits, instead I am plied with cold medicine and warm drinks. Marla has the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day off, but the dinner is prepared, and we feast until late in the evening.

I fall asleep grinning, half-drunk from happiness and cranberry vodka.

When I leave the next day, I am sorry to go.

“Do stay with us over Christmas.” Leonora demands when they drop me off at the station, and this time I agree readily.

*

“You didn´t need to stay in a motel.” Brie tells me, for the third time this conversation.

“I know.” I reply, repeating the same conversational dance as before.

“You could have stayed with my parents. They would have loved to have you.”

“I know.” I assure her.
I do know. Brie´s parents like me. They were always happy to welcome me as their guest, when I visited them alongside Brie. But Brie spends thanksgiving in the Hamptons this year, where she is getting to know Anneliese´s family.

And I´ve gotten to know Nola´s family. Again.
I like them better now. It is better this way.

“I don´t like it.” Brie tells me “You´re all alone, and with that cold too.”

I roll my eyes. “It´s my own fault, can´t be surprised that I caught a cold when I go swimming in November.”

“You went swimming? Are you trying to catch your death?”

I laugh, I can´t help it. “It was just a quick dip. One jump in the ocean. Nola said it´s tradition.”
An icy silence descends and of course I notice my mistake at once.

“Nola said?” Brie asks, incredulous. “Don´t tell me you´re in contact with Nola.”

“I am.” I don´t deny it.

“Kay, she tried to kill you.”

“I know.”

“She is a murderer.”

“I know.” So am I, but Brie doesn´t know that. Nobody does.

“She almost ruined your life. She almost destroyed our friendship.”

“I know.” I tell her, but Nola didn´t. Not the last part. Brie had managed that all on her own.

“So, if you know what Nola has done,” Brie asks me “why are you writing to her?”

“I´m not writing to her.”

“Are you visiting her?” Brie is scandalized.

I shrug. “She was my friend, and her prison is right around the corner.” Two and a half hours by bus. “She is my friend.”

“I´ve said it before, but I don´t like the kind of friends you keep.”

“And yet we´ve shared most of them. Tai, Tricia, Cori…” Brie and Cori are still in touch; I´ve dropped all contact with the rest of our Bates clique. Or rather they´ve dropped contact with me.

“Why is Nola worse than all of them.” A beat. “Apart from the murders.”

“Apart from the-
“Kay are you even hearing yourself?”

I scoff. “I´m hearing myself. I´m hearing myself just fine.”

*

Nola hangs on to me like a limpet, the next time I go to visit.
“How was my family?” she asks. “Did they treat you well.”

“Of course, they did.” I tell her, as I have told her before, on the phone. “Spoilt me rotten. Made me feel right at home.” I might be exaggerating, but with Nola looking at me like this, it is the only answer I can give her.

“How was prison thanksgiving?” I ask, once I have deposited her in her seat, and taken my place opposite her. No excessive physical contact allowed; it would encourage smuggling.

Nola makes a face. “I am thankful for…” she sing-songs “every day of my sentence I´ve completed, because its one day I´m closer to getting out of here.” I laugh.
I get it. Prison sucks, especially for a free spirit like Nola.

“Prison break plan still on?” I ask her.

“You bet.” She grins. “Just wait, one day I´ll stand on your doorstep in college and then you´ll have to hide me.”

“Hide you in my dorm? Impossible.”

She shrugs. “Guess you´ll have to drop out then, because hiding me from the cops is non-negotiable.”

“Well, I´ll just have to become a lumberjack then.”

I thought about it.
About what I would do if I didn´t get a scholarship. My grades are okay, but I´m hardly the book-smartest person around. My best alternative would have probably been learning a trade.
At least these days I am sufficiently butch for that lumberjack lifestyle.

“But I fear my prison-break plan will have to wait for now.” Nola tells me and there´s a rare twinkle in her eyes.
“The lit program in this place is putting on a play. Shakespeare.”

Ah, the bard. Nola´s one and only true love. And the reason she got caught in the first place.
“What play?” I ask her.

“Midsummer night´s dream.”

“What part are you playing?”

She smiles. “The Puck.”

I congratulate her. I don´t know much about Shakespeare, know only the bare bones of the play. But I can see the spark already; something in Nola is catching fire again.
I´ll have to acquaint myself with the play soon, because this is all that Nola´s going to talk about in the foreseeable future.

I take her hand and smile back.

*

The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is exam time, which means between Nola and soccer games, my free time dwindles to all but nothing.

But I keep going.

I study between classes, study on the bus on my way to prison, study late at night, at the pup, where I confuse the bar tenders by ordering mug after mug of black coffee. I barely sleep.
But I write my exams. And I pass them all.

When it is over, I cry from relief.

I hate academia, I hate college, I return to my room from Anatomy 101, and I fall straight into bed. Asleep, before my head hits the pillow. I sleep for ten hours.

*

Eventually I am roused from sleep by Melanie´s bustling.
I blink at her; she is hardly ever home. She is fiddling with her computer.

“What are you doing here?” I mumble and she huffs.

“I live here.”

“Do you?” We never talked, Melanie and I. Not really, at least.

We talk now. We talk about her boyfriend Paul, and about the girl friend that he has that has Melanie steaming with jealousy.

I tell her about my relationship with Spencer and about the mess that we´ve made of things. Me cheating with Brie, him cheating with Jess…

About the fighting, and the love and the post break-up hook-ups.
She asks if he is the person I go to see when I disappear. If it is Brie.

So, I tell her about Nola.
Nola who we bullied, who we tormented. Valentines signed with blood.

Surprisingly, she takes it in stride.
“I always figured that you were a mean-girl.”

I tell her about Nola the hacker, Nola the liar, Nola the eminently homicidal. Nola who I keep going back for.

“I never understood why serial killers have groupies.” She tells me. “And here I am sharing a dorm-room with one.” I bark out a laugh.

“It´s only a serial killer from three victims up.” But she rolls her eyes, and I know. Somehow, she´s not wrong.

We end up spending the evening watching nature documentaries and sharing marshmallows roasted over candles.
(Yes, the fumes are poisonous, no, I don´t care.)

Lying on her bed, I rest my head on Melanie´s shoulder as we watch a falcon couple, raising their young. The male brings his kills back to the roost, tearing apart tender flesh to distribute it to its mate and its children.

In the animal kingdom this is what loving a killer looks like. Like a full stomach, and a bloodstained nest of healthy offspring.

In the human world it looks like waiting rooms and prison visits.

*

“Visiting your girlfriend, again?” one of the other regulars asks me in the waiting room.

She is one of the mothers - middle-aged, Hispanic - and stood in line after me, while I milk the shitty vending machine for as many sweets as I can afford.

I smile at her. “Yeah.
“Katherine.” I introduce myself.

She shakes my hand. Her name is Mariella, and she is visiting her youngest daughter. She is fifteen and stole at her babysitting job. It was a trifle, really, but her employers insisted to press charges.

Rich bastards, good lawyers. I get it.

When Nola hurries towards me she all but dances.

“Hey Puck.” I grin and lift her up in her standard hug.

“Hey-Kay” She beams at me. “What goodies are you bringing me this time?”

I distribute the goods. Skittles, smarties, chocolate bars. And coffee, we need to at least try to counterbalance the sugar somehow.

“Do these sugar orgies ever impact your career as a sports person?” Nola asks.

I shrug. “Not too much. I´m still young and it´s not like I ever ate healthy anyways.”

She grins. “So, what you´re saying is that the second you stop with soccer, you´re going to get fat.”

I roll my eyes. “Just as fat as you are getting in here, sitting around all day.”

“I do sports.” She defends herself. “And I work. And go to school. And do theatre. I´m a very busy convict!”

I laugh. “At least you´re not as bored anymore.”

“Plus.” Nola adds. “School and Work are put on my prison record. That´d be a reduced sentence if I wasn´t in here for life. Now it improves my chances of getting parole. Even the play is for charity and is, thus, earning me cookie points.”

“Do you think you´ll get out.” I ask. We don´t normally talk about this.

“Probably.” She shrugs. “I was a minor when I ´perpetrated my crimes´, and I had mental heath issues. Plus, my family has some kick-ass lawyers.”
(Rich bastards, I think. This is the other side.)

“All that´s left for me to do, is tnot insane from boredom and to not kill that annoying bitch that plays Oberon.”

Oh Nola, my lovely homicidal Nola. “What?” she asks.
“She thinks that just course she´s in for manslaughter and she´s built like a brick-shithouse she can push the rest of us around. You know I hate bullies.”

“You could make it look like an accident.” I suggest. “Or a suicide.”

I should not jest about these things. Then again, I don´t know if I am jesting.
She smiles at me. The suicide thing almost worked last time, and it hadn´t even been Nola´s intention.

“Nah.” She dismisses my notions of homicide. “Just applied us for a conjugal visit. Wouldn´t want to risk that.”

I freeze. “You applied us for what?”

She rolls her eyes. “An ´extended-family visit´” Nola informs me, air quotes and all.

“This shithole is privately run, and they do a visitation program for spouses and family. I applied us. “It´s two hours unsupervised in a semi-nice room with a bed.
“We don´t actually have to fuck. I just thought I´d be nice having a little more time to ourselves.”

I smile. “That would be nice.” I admit “But I´m not your family or your spouse.”

“That is where you´re wrong. At least where the prison records are concerned.”

Oh Nola. “Did you hack into your prison record.”

She beams at me like a kid with a secret: “The computer in the library is not as safe as they think it is.”

I shake my head. “You are incorrigible.”

*

I hand in the visitor´s form and lock my wallet away in the designated safe.
They scan me for metal and drugs -I´ve brought neither- and I resist the temptation to pet the working dogs. Then I wait.

The room is nice, in a cheap kind of way. Nola was right about that.

There is a table and chairs, plywood not plastic and much more comfortable than it is in the visitation room.
There is a bed as well, because while the extended-family visitation program in this place advertises itself as being family focused, nobody can deny how it started: By allowing inmates a chance to fuck.

Nola gets brought in by a pair of guards, she has likely been searched even more thoroughly than I was, and I grin at her as she rolls her eyes. Patiently waiting for her guards to unlock her.

The next two hours will be ours and ours alone. No visitation rules, no cameras, just us.
The handcuffs come loose, and the guards retreat outside, locking us in together.

I rise from my seat.
I make my way over to Nola and for a moment, I hesitate. Then I wrap her tightly into my arms.
She melts into it.

“Fuck.” I breathe.
We see each other regularly; my visits have become a habit. Once a week, every week, I come to spend time with Nola. Somehow this feels different.

“Fuck, Kay.” She whispers back and I stroke her hair, keeping her close. We stay like this for what feels like forever.

Gossip and sugar, that is how it goes.
And it does go like this, now as always. Only now we are not sat several feet apart, on opposite sides of a table, touching as little as possible to prevent smuggling.

Now we are sprawled across the bed with its cheap cotton sheets, that I don´t even want to know how many inmates have previously fucked on, our limbs are tangled, as we throw gummy-worms at the ceiling and try to catch them with our mouths as they fall.

Now Nola looks at me, with her perpetually wide eyes, and she asks: “If you could undo it all, go back to the way things were, would you do it?”

I regard her and think.

The truth is, I don´t know the answer.
If I could turn back time, would I?
I have regrets. Have regrets over regrets over regrets.
But if I could undo them, would I?

Would I undo my fight with Nola, would I undo turning her in?
No. Jessica and Maddie deserved justice.

Would I undo confronting Cori, Tricia and Tai?
Never, they got nothing more than what they deserved.

Would I undo what we did to Nola? Dear Valentine, never sent?
It is a nice thought, if a naïve one. The ´what could have been´. What might have happened had I just accepted her suit.
But I had loved Brie then, and I would never have been able to forgive Nola, for just not being her.

I would have undone Todd, if I´d had the chance. Would have undone Megan.
But that has nothing to do with Nola, that one is just me.

No, Nola and I were doomed from the start. Not by fate, just by ourselves.

I tuck a strand of hair, behind her ears and smile.

“No.” I tell her “I fear we are right where we were always supposed to be.”

She raises her eyebrows. “What a thoroughly depressing thought.”

“Fitting, for such utterly tragic personalities like us.”

She smiles at me, not one of her usual grins, fainter, softer somehow.
“And you are going to stick with me, indefinitely?”

“Absolutely.” I promise. “I´m in it for long haul.”

“Why?” she can´t help but ask.

“Because I like you quite a bit. And because you and I are the same.”

“Blood Promise?” she asks, and I smile.

“No sharp objects around.”

“We´ll have to think of an alternative, then.” Of course. We were always going to come back to this.

I tell her. “You just want to kiss me again.”

“And what if I did? Would you want me to.”

Yes. I laugh. “Go ahead.”

She does. And oh, how she does.
Her hands frame my face as her lips capture mine, and I smile into her mouth as I let her kiss me.

We have kissed before, Nola and I, but it has never felt like this.
This doesn´t just feel good, it feels right. And horribly, it feels like it is not enough. I take charge of the kiss.

Feel her give in, under me.
Feel her tremble when I explore her neck with my mouth, her body with my hands.
I roll myself above her, reveling in how she gasps. Our clothes come off soon after.

*

I may be a habitual liar, but I´m telling the truth when I say, sleeping with Nola had not been my intention.
Falling for her had not been my intention, and neither had been befriending her, all the way back when.

But Nola and I are to sides of the same coin.
Unfit for human society – maybe – we are predators, and we have created each other.

Nola will remain imprisoned for the foreseeable future, and I´ll try to graduate college, somehow, without burning it down.
Maintaining my sanity, scheduling visits with my favorite murderer. Fucking her in pre-planned two-hour slivers of privacy.

I don´t think Katherine 3.0 is going to be my final version. I don´t think I am done spinning.

I have never been a good person, and even though I am better than I used to be my heart is rotten, still.

After all of it loves Nola.

And I refuse to let her go now.