agirllost

Once safely behind the door, Kim can let the tears fall. She sits on the bed and looks over at Niles. She gives him some fish food and he swims around the bowl.

She lies back and stares at the ceiling. For a moment she wishes she was back in her old room with the stick on glow-in-the-dark stars she had when she was much younger. There she could turn out her lights and pretend she was in space. Here she could actually look out a window and see the universe ending but it was still too much to comprehend.

Chris sat next to her and they talked like Kim's dad hadn't pulled the trigger, like Kim's dad hadn't shot her dad. She's reminded for a moment of Jane, that long car ride knowing that her dad would do anything to bring down Jane's dad. Except Chris's dad never did anything to deserve it and Kim can't stop imagining the moment so very clearly.

Chris isn't the woman in her dream but she's close and she isn't sure how Chris will react to the truth, if she should even know.

It was her birthday, that somehow makes it even worse. There's a small part of her that wants to tell her dad that information, but she knows it would only hurt him. Why does she keep hurting him? Why is this different from anything else?

'I can't say I love you' she thinks. It's not that she doesn't love him, she can't imagine ever not loving him and if anything happened to him she'd be crushed but...she can't reconcile the man who pulled the trigger with the one who used to read her to sleep.

There's a disconnect she can't get beyond, not this time and she's also afraid that there are other secrets, other skeletons that she hasn't discovered yet.

But Chase forgave her. Chase forgave her for her weakness and her mistake and he told her that if you loved someone you didn't have a choice about forgiveness.

She doesn't sob, but tears slip down her face, and she wipes at them miserably.

She's not even sure why she's crying.

And Tony and she hasn't thought about him in days for any length of time. How is Tony going to react to her actually going back to Chase? And why does she care?

But her dad...she feels him slipping away, distancing himself, and why is she letting him go? She doesn't know. She's not sure. It's hard to think clearly because truly forgiving her dad feels like a betrayal of Chris. Chris who is an orphan because Kim's dad pulled the trigger.

And she had to get away from Chris because she was remembering that moment that Jack grabbed her and there was something not quite sane in his eyes. And now she knows why, he was terrified of losing her, even more so than before.

Kim told her dad he'd never hurt her and she really wants to believe that. But then she looks at Chris and wonders, would he hurt her if he had to? And she isn't sure.

There's a part of her that wants to tell Chris the truth. But she's also afraid because if Chris goes after Jack...

He was suicidal in the past. He thought she didn't love him. And she can't stop being concerned for him anymore than she can stop breathing.

It's not a fair position for her to be in...but she doesn't know what to do.

She wants her mom. She closes her eyes.