Together Again
by Katie

PART 12

After Carrie did the unthinkable, Madison got into her car and started driving. The destination was unknown in her mind. All she knew was that she had to sit down and think everything through.

When Madison got home, she was welcomed by a silence that had become way too familiar to her. It seemed as though right as she was beginning to repair the lack of a mother daughter relationship with Jessie, Katie had to come into the picture. Now Jessie was less at home than before. Madison couldn't help but feel an immense amount of alienation from her mother, despite the fact that it most likely wasn't her intentions. Maddy had nothing against Katie, really. There was actually nothing about Katie that she could not like. As much as she didn't want to admit it, Madison liked being the only girl in Jessie's life, even though Jess rarely got a chance to show her affection to her growing child. Having only talked to Katie a
few times, Madison already had a certain opinion about her. In Madison's mind, Katie broke her mother's heart. But perhaps more importantly, she believed that Katie was helping her mom forget about her dad.

Madison went into the bathroom, got out of her sopping wet clothes and changed into something that fit her mood of confusion and teenage angst. She emerged from the room wearing a dark blue slightly ribbed sweater with a gray tank top underneath and a pair of boy cut khakis. Her hair in a wet mess and a slight amount of make up and running mascara on her face, a very melancholy Madison made her way downstairs to her room, but first made a stop to the freezer to grab a pint of mint chocolate chip and a spoon.

Once in the confines of her own sanctuary, Madison sat down on her bed. While wrapped in her blankets with her pint of ice cream resting gently in her lap, a spoon in one hand and her personal journal tape recorder in the other, she pressed the record button and ended up recording her most personal journal to date.

"Saturday October 15th, 2030. Journal of Madison Marie Walker. What am I doing??? I'm so confused right now I don't even know where to begin! There are so many things in my life that are making me feel so many different emotions. School is an obvious for stress but for some reason it all feels so complicated this year. None of my classes are too hard or difficult for me but I just don't even want to deal with them right now. I'm starting to doubt myself more and more. This isn't the Madison Walker that I used to be, and I'm really scared. I find myself juggling more than I can handle. I know I should just make myself less busy, but it's never that simple. Anyways, I'll talk about that later. I didn't start this tape to talk about the drama and insecurities that is high school. What I want to talk about is something WAY more serious and WAY more complicated and confusing than anything else in my life; my love life. I think I did something horribly bad today. Carrie and I were in the parking lot of the skate arena and she…well, she kissed me. At first I didn't know what to do. I mean what do you do when someone just out of the blue kisses you?! I hate even saying this in my private journal, but I liked kissing Carrie. I like Carrie, a lot actually. I never thought I did, more than a friend anyways, until she kissed me. Now I have this horrible pit in my stomach. I'm at a crossroad. I wish someone could tell me the right thing to do. Do I tell Carrie that I was just lying in the parking lot when I said I didn't want her to kiss me? Do I admit that yes, I am gay and I like Carrie? What the hell am I going to do about Kelly? I love Kelly, as much as I like Carrie, I really do love that girl. Kelly has been my sun when all I could see was thunderstorms and clouds. She has been my shoulder to cry on when no one else seemed to notice the pain in my heart and the sorrow in my mind. I know what you must be thinking. If I can't make up my mind between two amazing girls, than I don't like either one of them. Like, if I really liked one of them, I wouldn't be having this problem, but I do have this problem! I like both of them. They both have their pluses. I like being with both of them, even though Carrie doesn't even know that we swing for the same team. I don't know how things got this way, but they have and now I'm stuck. I wish I could talk to someone about this, but there's no one. I have a really big feeling that Aunt Grace and Uncle Eli know what's going on, but I've never flat out told them, as well as anyone else, except for Kelly. I'm pretty sure that Aunt Grace would understand, because I remember when Mom said that Grace knew that she liked Katie before she did and after Mom admitted that she did indeed like Katie, the two of them started more of a bond than a friendship, which has been a little rocky at times, but overall will always remain. As much as I like being an only child, I have always felt like I've missed out on part of my childhood. Oh well, I guess my high academics and sports makes up for it. Life is far from perfect. Now back to the subject on hand. I wish my brain would stop getting in the way of my heart, but that would probably lead me to Carrie and I don't know if I could ever do that to Kelly. They're both so different; I could never try to compare them, to see which one I want to be with. You can't turn love and your heart into logic. Both Carrie and Kelly are beautiful, amazing people, but in different ways. Kelly has sort of a natural, flowing beauty to her. Her artsy style, heart, and passion can sweep you away into a magical world. She will always be there for you and is kind to everyone. But, when Beautiful gets into a bad mood, it takes her awhile to get over it. If you do something that she doesn't particularly like, she won't ever come out and say, `hey, don't do that' or something like that, but she'll keep everything bottled up inside and then all of a sudden she'll explode on you. The last time she did that to me was at the beginning of the summer. When she was screaming at me, some of the stuff she was mad about happened like freshman year! It's hard for Kelly to get over the past, which I can't necessarily blame her for. Kelly never shows it, but she always blames herself when something goes wrong. She some how thinks that it's her fault her parents barely speak to her now and she must have done something wrong in her life to deserve that kind of rejection from her parents. In her parents' minds, she HAD done something wrong; she was a lesbian. When a child is brave enough to open up to their parents, they shouldn't shut down their own flesh and blood so crudely. Mr. and Mrs. Shipman are pretty liberal when it comes to most things, except for this. In a way I'm kind of glad that they don't know about Kelly and I because if they did, they'd probably never speak to me again. Now there's Carrie. Carrie is so, enigmatic sometimes. Because I don't know her as well as Kelly, she's like a mystery to me. There's something about her that intrigues me. I have more in common with Carrie than I do Kelly. But all three of us seem to have one unjust thing in common; all of our parents have almost abandoned us. Kelly's parents have stopped caring because she's gay. Carrie's parents have pretty much done the same thing, but more so, they focus on Danielle, their golden child. My mom has never really shown her affection because she's never around. I'm sure that if she ever finds out that I am gay, I'm pretty sure that alienated feeling I've had since I was like five, will continue to grow. Back to Carrie. She's probably not as pretty as Kelly is, but nonetheless she has her perks. Even though 90% of the time you'll see her in traditional skater style, she just has this stunning glow to her. She doesn't care what other people think and that makes her really stand out. On the inside, she really does care, well not about the morons at our school, but others like her parents and such. God, I really don't know what I'm going to do about this. I don't want to hurt either of them, but that's what I'll end up doing, as much as I try not to. Ever since this dilemma started, these Something Corporate lyrics keep piercing my mind. `There was never any place For someone like me to be totally happy I'm running out of clock and that ain't a shock Some things never do change Never do change.' These don't really deal with my girl problems, but with my life in general. I just keep thinking that I'll never find my place in the world. I'm so worried that I'm just going to be wondering this earth, dazed and confused, trying to figure things out. I want to have everything in my life come together, to fit like pieces of a puzzle. But my life will never be that easy. Sometimes I just want to go away, to leave every dear and close to me, and go out into the world to hopefullycome back and know exactly whom I am. The strong and confident me is just a façade. Inside, I'm still that frightened little girl from North Carolina, completely oblivious to the world around me. Well, it's almost 6 o'clock and even though I just finished off a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream, I still need to eat dinner. (Sigh) I guess Mom's not coming home for dinner anyways, so once again, I'll be eating alone tonight. So, until we meet again, this is Madison Marie Walker signing off." After wiping away a few tears, Madison took her thumb off of the record button and pressed stop. She got up, threw away the empty container of ice cream, and made her way to the kitchen.

Meanwhile…

When Carrie pulled up to her driveway, the pain inside was almost unbearable. It wasn't as if she was in love with Madison, but it didn't matter. Carrie walked right past the rest of her family and straight into her room. Even though her mother was yelling right behind her as she made her way, Carrie didn't care. She had just learned to ignore the ugly tones from everyone in the house. After locking the door, Carrie went over to her c.d. player and pressed play. The sounds of Something Corporate began to play. Carrie didn't know much about them, but she got interested in the group through none other than Madison. But despite Madison's influence of the band to Carrie, she was beginning to like them anyways. Carrie turned the volume knob as far as she could and began to scream/sing along with the music.

"I close my eyes
Thought I was lost but I was stranded
I go outside
To my surprise the sky had landed
I thought it made more sense
If I could only keep you guessing
Now I'm believing all the words you say
That I can't say back to you
To you

So I fall
I don't want to feel this small
You know I just can't handle this
Handle this at all
And I'll just fall
I let my heartbeat drop
I falter as the music stops
And you watch me as I stall
And wonder when I fall"

Well, that wasn't/isn't all of the lyrics to "Fall" but those are the ones that pertain to Carrie's life. All Carrie could think of was, "How stupid am I?! To think that Madison Walker would be into ME! God, how pathetic am I? I really thought we had something going, but I guess she just doesn't think the same way I do. I made such a fool of myself today."

Carrie jumped onto her bed and just started screaming. "AHHHHHHHHH! WHY CAN'T I JUST BE NORMAL FOR ONCE??? WHY CAN'T I JUST FIND SOMEONE TO LOVE ME? WHY CAN'T MADISON…" Just then, Carrie started gasping for air. She quickly clenched the middle of her shirt, right in front of her chest. Still gasping, Carrie slammed her body against the back wall and tried yelling for help. Realizing that her c.d. player was still blaring, she soon discovered that no one would hear her anyways. Tears were running down Carrie's now pale face. Losing any energy that was left in her body, she slowly began to slide down onto her bed. Her eyes began to close and soon enough…

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