All Out of Breath (Kenlie)

[Clover]

All Out of Breath
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OOC: Backdated to May 25th
TRIGGER WARNING: Self harm

<Clover> For once, the bar was the last place she wanted to be. Jesse didn’t like it there. The bar fight wasn’t that long ago. And the memories. God, the memories. Clover had the keys to her motorcycle crammed in one pocket of her skinny jeans, and she tucked her phone into the other. When Kenny texted that she was ready, Clo asked if they could meet at Larch instead. Only passersby went through Larch. The old home had become a station, just a connector between Circle and the fadeportals placed throughout the city. In the past, Clo went there with her game station, hooked it up in the front room, and played and smoked until Jesse finished work.

And that’s exactly what she wanted to do. After she lugged the game station through the fadeportal and up to the main room, she grabbed two cushions from the sofa and placed them in front of the television. There were games stored there, all of them options for Kenny. And Clo still believed there were blood bags in the fridge, maybe even Arbor Vitae, if they were lucky enough.


<Kenlie> Kenlie decided to forgo the use of her tome, so she could instead take out her frustrations on the road. It hadn't been very long ago that it was just her, her bike, and the road beneath her tires. How simple her life was during that time--but for what? To ruin her marriage, her family? ****. She didn't know who to be anymore. It used to be that he admired her strength and crassness, but now she got the feeling that it was her silence that he admired the most. Maybe he had just gotten too used to that.

She flung open the front door, boots thudding against the floor as she made her way inside. Unaware that Clo had yet to arrive, she slammed that door shut behind her and tossed her keys onto the nearest table. Two zips later, and another thud as her boots dropped to the carpet.

"Asshole," she muttered, shoving a hand into her curls and fluffing them up, out and away from her neck. It wasn't even hot, but she still felt suffocated. "****."


<Clover> Clover could have heard Kenny’s arrival from a mile away. The door slamming. The keys clanging. The boots thumping. It was only after she set everything up that she went after the woman. She’d been downstairs, having gone down in search of spare games she might have stashed, ones she wanted hidden. Clo should have rushed back up the spiral staircase, but she took her time and allowed Kenny a bit more privacy.

Since their scheduled meeting, Clover even needed some time to herself. Victor’s words hung over her like a dark cloud. Every attempt, every single attempt, was another failure. And maybe Vic was right. Maybe Jesse couldn’t be trusted to make a sound decision, when it came to Kaelyn. It didn’t take much thought for her to take her cellphone out and chuck it into the bedroom she passed. Her own keys followed.

“Yes, he’s an asshole. Yes, she’s an asshole. Yes, Jesse’s kind of an asshole. We’re the only ones with any sense left,” Clo joked, though the humor was dry and her expression passive. It was the truth. They were the ones thinking clearly, in her opinion. “We can talk about it over video games? I think we might have Arbor Vitae leftover. Or we could break **** and blame it on someone else.” Her humor came out when she was feeling insecure and vulnerable; she relied on it then to keep from blurting out what it was they both needed said aloud.


<Kenlie> Ken turned around at the sound of her friend's voice, and instantly was greeted with that familiar face. Relief flooded her, and she sighed. "Wine would be ******* fantastic," she said. "I'll grab that. Any way we can lock the ******* doors?" She didn't want any unexpected visitors, especially their partners. Or worse, Kaelyn. The thought made her narrow her eyes.


<Clover> “Yeah. Yeah, we can lock the doors.” Clo arched a brow, but she crossed the room and locked the set of locks on the front door. After a couple of clicks, Clo went toward the cushions she’d prepared and sunk down onto one. “I know you probably have a lot you want to say,” she began, crossing her legs atop the cushion, “and I’ll listen. You’ve been there for me. And...well, I also had an interesting week. We can trade stories.”


<Kenlie> "Thanks," she murmured. It was genuine. Her smile faded while she made her way to the kitchen, in which she flung open the fridge and stuck her head into the cool, closed space. She grabbed a blood pack, since she had yet to feed, and then a chilled bottle of Arbor Vitae. Mm. The fridge gently shut as she opened up a drawer in search of a wine bottle opener.

"I think you and I both have, honestly. We needed a break. Both of us." She stabbed the sharp end of the opener into the cork, then followed behind the other.


<Clover> Clo moved toward the game system and turned it on, followed by the television. Whether or not Kenny wanted to play, Clo wanted--needed--some type of distraction. The words just kept replaying in her head. As she went about loading a racing game, there was a tight frown on her lips. She’d meant for Kenny to choose, hadn’t she? Well, they were racing. “You can go first,” she encouraged. When she returned to her spot, she leaned back onto her palms and watched the intro to the game. One controller was on her lap, the other controller on the cushion next to her. “Does he treat you right? I’m serious. I hate to ask this, but it worries me sometimes. Does he honestly treat you right?”


<Kenlie> Ken didn't bother bringing glasses. She knew Clo wasn't bothered by sharing a bottle, as they used to--way back before her wedding, back before she'd stepped in front of a bullet for the very man she'd married.

As she sat down, the sound of the game's intro had her being grounded back into now. She offered the bottle to Clover so she could pick up her controller and choose which car she wanted, focusing more on the specs than anything else.

The question caught her off-guard. No one but Doc had ever asked her such a question--and it was likely that no one else had even thought to do so. Still, she furrowed her 'brow and stared at the screen as she selected an ugly, cherry red car with white racing stripes. "Does something make you think he doesn't?"


<Clover> The bottle was more important than selecting her car. She didn’t care what kind of car she got. All she wanted to do was crash the car into the side and grind it down until it couldn’t go on. Clo closed her eyes and took a long pull from the bottle, and then she sat it down between them, the bottle making a small thud as it connected with the hardwood floor. She took her controller in her hands and picked a dark purple car, one with great speed and mediocre handling, and then her attention went back to Kenny.

“Because of how he acts. I worry that he might be treating you the same way he comes off. I know he and I aren’t friends anymore, but I notice the difference. He was a joker. He was a romantic. He worshipped the ground you walked on. Is he still doing those things or is his public persona all that’s left? Sorry if I offended you,” she muttered.

[Kenlie (DELETED 4989)]

<Kenlie> Kenlie was silent for a while, as they flipped through the different racing scenarios. There was everything, from your run-of-the-mill racing track, to one that went around a ******* volcano. Still, she loved it.

Taking a deep breath, Kenlie selected the one that she thought seemed the most outrageous, therefore the most fun. The volcano. Duh. "He was a romantic."

Could she leave it at that? She supposed so--but she really didn't want to. Deep inside, she wanted to get it all off her chest. Wanted to make him see just how terrible he was being, how demeaning, how cruel. Or was she crazy?

"He hasn't treated me like that in a very long time."


<Clover> As soon as the race started, Clover mashed the buttons and sent her car darting forward. Instead of crashing it against the turns, she actually made them as smooth as possible. Her purple car looked good as it hugged the turns, accelerating and braking at just the right moments. “This is a loaded question, and I want you to really think about it,” Clo sighed, turning her attention from the television. Where her car went didn’t matter then. The race didn’t matter then. For a few moments, she just wanted to look at Kenny. “Why are you with him? Right now. Why are you with him right now?”

And then she turned her head back toward the television and picked up racing again, as if she hadn’t said anything at all. Maybe Vic was abusive. Maybe he was neglectful. Maybe the two had just drifted apart. Clo’s car scraped the left side and she swore.


<Kenlie> Tears are already threatening to blur her vision. She can feel them starting behind her eyes, hot and brimming. Damn it. Her hand acquires the slightest tremble, and she smacks the front end of her car into a sharp turn. She's distracted, and it shows.

"Because I made a promise when I married him."

"Because I still see the man that I love. Because... maybe I can fix it."

The shake in her fingers is more apparent, and she drops the controller to rest in her lap. She still hasn't made it to tears, but she feels that pressure threatening its way with her. Just the right buttons, just the right pressure, and it'll happen.

"It's my fault for leaving. If I had put my foot down, it wouldn't be like this."


<Clover> It wasn’t her place to say whether or not the old Victor still existed. It wasn’t her place to say whether or not the marriage could be salvaged. Clo only understood independence, so it made no sense for Kenny to stay in an unhappy or tumultuous situation. It made sense to leave. Clo had watched the front end of Kenny’s car crash, and then she’d heard the slight noise of the controller shifting around. She wanted to keep racing, to avoid looking at her friend, her sister, but she couldn’t. They were discussing things that were uncomfortable.

Clover put her own controller down on the floor and looked over at Kenlie. “It’s not your fault, Kenny. People take breaks. People need space,” she spoke in a soft tone. “Things just happen.” That was all she knew to say then.

“What happened? You talked to him, so what did he say? Are you both going to try?” It was at that point that she picked up her controller again and toyed with the buttons, her car remaining still on the track.


<Kenlie> Kenlie stared straight ahead at the screen, fumbling with her controls to get the car back up to speed. Her vision was unclear, but she could see the vague outlines of the track--it was good enough.

"I don't know. He's not the same."


<Clover> Such a simple answer had Clo’s car sideswiping the edge of the track, bouncing from one side to the other. It took her a few seconds to regain control, but Clo righted the car. It wasn’t about racing anyway. It was a distraction. It was something necessary to make the medicine go down, so to speak. “He’s being the passivist isn’t he? He came off as a selfish asshole. He refused to take responsibility for anything. He just moped.” Clover used her controller to nudge at the bottle between them, as if reminding Kenny that it was there, that it was okay to do something other than race. “Marriage is a lot of work. He has to work,” she sighed.


<Kenlie> "He wanted me to go away, Clo. After I died defending him. And when I went away, he wanted me back. Now that I'm back, I'm not good enough. I just don't..."

A very distinct, familiar sound came ringing from the kitchen. It was a phone--her phone. And it was Victor's ringtone.

As sweet as the honey from the rock,
You're pretty, you're bitter, and you can't stop, so
Come on, treat me mean

Kenlie quite literally dropped her controller this time, and went running. She felt--no, she knew that something was wrong, because her gut sank and she felt nauseous. It took her a couple of seconds to find her phone, and when she did, a slew of notifications popped up on her screen.

Victor transferred $309320 into your account.

She knew what he was trying to do.

"Clo, I have to go."


<Clover> Understand.

The word went unspoken, replaced by the ringtone from a cellphone. She knew it wasn’t her phone, since the noise came from the kitchen. When Kenny dropped her controller, Clo paused the game and jerked around to check on the woman. Clover didn’t know whether to ask if everything was okay; she didn’t know whether she wanted to know the answer. Kenny had darted, moving with such purpose, that Clover knew something was up. There was no way around it. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

Neither of them needed to say Victor’s name to know it was the him in question. Clover turned back around, got onto her hands and knees, and made her way over to the console. She didn’t really need an answer, and she didn’t expect an answer. She shut down the system and grabbed the bottle of Arbor. “I’ll be around. I better go get my phone. I thought I heard it chirping,” she said.

At first, she was focused on retrieving her phone. But from the back bedroom of the main floor, she heard the screaming. She couldn’t make out any of the words, but she heard the change in volume and she recognized the voice.

The sound of the television lingered in the background, just like white noise. The constant buzzing, a cross between the sound of a waterfall and the buzz of bees. When had the noise taken on such a specific sound? Had the television, on its own, become a new entity? If the screaming wasn’t enough, the sound of drums and a guitar emerged, mixing in and overtaking the sound of the television. It was a ringtone, but it didn’t matter at all. All of the noises became one, mixing together, uniting into one beautiful symphony. And just when it seemed like everything would be okay, when the noises had turned into something so similar to comfort, there was a loud bang, and everything stopped. The buzzing from the television no longer seemed as loud. The ringtone had ended. The screaming turned to sobbing. That’s the only thing that remained. The sobbing. Oh how the sobbing had risen up from around the sound of the gunshot, as if nothing else existed but the sadness that lingered there. Bang had been the beginning and end of something, of someone.