Windows are for cheaters, chimneys for the poor....

"Hello?", I answered the phone.

Silence. Faint sound of Concrete Blonde playing in the background. Guess who? So, I went on.

"What are you doing?", I asked.

"Can I come over?", Kara said.

"Sure; what do you wanna do?"

"I just wanna talk.", she answered.

"Alright, then...come over whenever", I told her.

"Is anybody there?", she asked.

"What do you mean? I'm here..."

"No, like, is Alan or anybody else there?"

"Yeah, he's home, I think..I'm in my room. Mindy might be out there with him, why?"

"Ok, I'm gonna climb in through the balcony...", she said.

"The bal...why?", I asked her.

"I just don't want to deal with anybody else tonight, I'm just not in the mood...". I could tell that something was on her mind.

"You don't...want to deal with anybody?"

"No.", she said.

"So you're gonna scale the wall & sneak into the building?", I asked with a sigh.

"Yep!". Without a hint of irony.

"Alright....fine. Climb up the damn balcony, in full view of one of the busiest streets in town; see if I care. I'll just be here watching TV." Truthfully, I wasn't all that surprised. By that point, just climbing up a building was almost on the normal side of things for her. She hung up the phone & I went in the other room & told Alan that if he heard anything strange outside the window, not to call the cops.

About an hour later, I heard a sound outside and knew Kara was there. She opened the door from the deck & strolled inside like it was something she did every day. I remember wondering to myself, not for the first time, what she would look like dressed as Catwoman. I opened my mouth to say hello to her, and she cut me off before I had a chance. She just looked right at me & said "Ted knows".

Well, I thought, took him long enough to figure it out. "What happened?", I asked her.

"Well, when I came home the other night, it was late, and I walked in the kitchen, and he had made a big pot of spaghetti on the stove, and dinner was all set out, and he was just sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me. He said he waited until almost 11, then he called my brother, and found out I wasn't with him..."

I remember she walked over to the desk where my CD's were stacked up & started picking them up & absent-mindedly looking through them as she talked. She'd look at the cover of one, scruntch her face up in this way she had, and toss the CD back down on the desk..totally destroying what little semblance of organization I had managed to maintain, and completely unaware that she was doing it. She went on...

"So, he asked me where I had been all these nights, and I asked him 'where do you think I've been', and he said 'I think you were with X'."

"Well, what did you say?", I asked her.

"I told him he was right. I couldn't lie to him...I'm a bad liar; you know that." Truthfully, I don't know if she was a bad liar or not; to the best of my knowledge, I never saw her lie to anyone about anything. "I told him I had been seeing you again."

"So...what did he do?", I asked.

"He wasn't surprised", she said. "He said he guessed he was just getting what was coming to him. Tit for tat, and all that."

"So, he wasn't mad?", I asked.

"No, he's just....I dunno, I guess I've gone & broken his heart now, too. I'm just a bad person, X..."

"No, you're not...", I said to her; trying to convince myself as much as her.

"Well, I know Ted doesn't think too highly of me right now...and honestly, I don't know why you do, X."

"Well, I don't know either sometimes, but I do", I told her. She hugged me then, and held on to me tighter than normal. I knew she felt terrible about the whole situation, and I knew she was upset, no matter how hard she tried not to show it...but inside, I was secretly thrilled that Ted had found out. I knew that it was petty, but it also felt good to have the shoe on the other foot for once.

"So, what happened when you left tonight? What did you tell him?", I asked.

"Nothing; he had already left himself. We were up all last night, and he was crying & upset, and when he got home today, we got into it again, and he said he couldn't handle it right now and left to go over to his parent's house".

"So, you haven't broken up, then?" I asked. Priorities, you understand...

"No, X, we haven't broken up....is that all you care about?"

I figured the best thing to say was nothing at all, so I just kept hugging her. I knew that she was expecting the next question to come out of my mouth, and she knew that, even though I knew she didn't want me to ask it, that I had to, anyway. So, I did...

"Well...what are you going to do, then?", I said. She let out a big sigh before she replied.

"What do you mean, what am I gonna do?", she asked...knowing everything that was going to be said, before we even said it.

"Well, you're here now, Kara...with me, instead of trying to work it out with him. So, what are you going to do?", I asked. She broke away from me & started to pace around the room, in her way, twisting that lock of hair around her finger & sticking it in her mouth to chew on.

"You knew it was gonna come to this, Kara....I know it's no fun, but you've always known it would just come down to you deciding what you want.", I told her.

I remember she waited for a good, long minute, looking out the window before she replied. "But I don't know what I want, X...I never do. This is me we're talking about, here...". She was right; this was Kara we were talking about here.

"Well...you've just got to figure it out, for once. You can't have it both ways, Kara...you know that." Before I was even finished speaking, she whirled around, pointing her finger at me.

"I don't want it both ways! I know you think it's all fun for me caught in the middle of this, but I'm not trying to have my cake & eat it, too....I don't care what you think! I don't want all this to be happening, and I know I'm just going to end up hurting someone who doesn't deserve it, and I hate that!", she yelled so loud the neighbors could hear. Good thing she had climbed in through the window, or someone might know she was here...

"So, who's that going to be?", I asked her.

"Who's what going to be?", she said.

"The person you hurt...who doesn't deserve it. Who is that gonna be?", I asked. She just turned, looked out the window & shook her head; she never answered me. After a minute or so, I walked over behind her & put my hands on her shoulders. She stood stiff at first, but after a second, she relaxed & leaned back into me. After another minute, I spoke again:

"I know this isn't easy for anybody involved, Kara...least of all me. And I know you care about Ted, and you don't want to hurt him. But something keeps bringing you here...something keeps bringing us together, no matter how far we drift apart, and I know you recognize that just like I do."

"I do...", she said after a moment; "It's hard for me not to be around you, X."

"Is it like this between the two of you?", I asked her. "Do you guys talk the way we do...get along the way we do? Tell me the truth...I'm asking 'cus I want to know."

She waited for so long that I didn't think she was going to answer, then she did. "No. Not like we do. We get along, and we talk, and we have things in common, but...."

"Not like we do?", I finished for her.

"No...", she said; "...not like we do."

This time, I was the one who hesitated. I just stood there & held her with her back to me, the both of us looking out at the streetlights. After a moment, I went on again:

"Then you know this is something special, just like I do, Kara. That's why you keep coming back here."

She turned around & looked up at me with those big, brown eyes, and I was lucky I didn't get hypnotized.

"I know it's special...but that doesn't make any of this any easier.", she said to me. She moved her lips toward me & we kissed. After a long moment, we parted & she spoke to me in a whisper:

"I don't want to think about it all anymore tonight..I don't want to feel bad anymore. Just kiss me again, please..."


Three guesses what happened next.


Afterwards, I thought that she might actually spend the night, but as the hours started to get smaller, she got out of bed & started getting dressed. I remember waking up to her squeezing into her cutoff shorts, and asking her to stay. She said that she had to go home...if for no other reason than to feed her dogs, in case Ted hadn't come home yet. I lied there while she put her clothes on, and didn't say anything else until she had gotten ready to leave. Then I just looked up at her & said what she was expecting me to say, anyway.

"So, what are you gonna do, Kara?"

She looked down at me and just stared for a minute, so I reached out my hand to her & she took it. I pulled her down on top of me & kissed her deeply. We broke apart & just looked at each other for a minute, before she said "I don't know....but I know I have to do something."

She kissed me again, grabbed her keys from off the desk, and hopped out over the balcony, landing on the hood of my truck & putting a dent in it that still exists today. I watched her disappear into the parking garage across the alley & drive away, and I remember I stood there, just staring out the window at the city, for what seemed like hours. Then, I got back in my bed, turned out the light, and closed my eyes...and realized that I still had absolutely no idea where I stood in all this drama...and no idea at all what was going to happen next.