Chapter 9: Apple Pie and Pound Cake

Within four days Cliff was able to get up again, but he had a limited range of motions and was dependent on help to get around. Kylie was at his side almost around the clock, delighting in the chance to be of help. It was something that Cliff accepted as an inevitable side effect of the shooting. He also saw how desperately eager Kylie was and he had not the heart to reject her, especially after Janet showed him pictures taken of Kylie right after the shooting, when her hair was splattered and her lips and nose caked with his dried blood.

Ten days after the shooting Cliff was released from the hospital. He was not yet able to take care of himself and his parents were busy at their store. Kylie made her pitch to Cliff's mother and wheedled her until she received a key to the house. Thus when Cliff awoke on his first morning back home, a smiling and eager Kylie served him breakfast and helped him to dress in a fresh pajama.

The latter was decidedly awkward. Being naked in front of Kylie made Cliff self-conscious and resentful again. Kylie felt a deep sadness. Both had been completely at ease with each other's nakedness when they had been a couple. She knew every vein on Cliff's penis, and in turn, he could have drawn her vulva from memory. Now, seeing Cliff's semi-turgid penis only made it clear that a huge rift still separated them. They covered their feelings as best as they could but the easy mood that had pervaded the last days of his hospital stay was gone.

For the rest of the day, Kylie tried to anticipate each and every wish or mood Cliff developed, but her desperate attempts to bridge the gap only served to keep it at the front of their thinking. When Cliff's mother came home at six, Kylie almost fled the Hensons' house. She spent the night sleepless, tossing and turning and plagued by feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Yet when her alarm clock went off at six a.m., she went through her morning rituals and then walked over to the Hensons' house with grim determination.

Cliff was already up. He had managed to wash himself and had changed into long sweats, but Kylie was able to beat him to the kitchen and she prepared breakfast. He sat down obediently when she called him, and he ate the full breakfast she had readied with seemingly good appetite. Taking a deep breath before she spoke Kylie asked the dreaded question.

"Cliff, umh, you're doing a lot better already and you can probably get along without me. Listen, I like to come and help you, but I don't want to overstay my welcome. Do you want me to stay away?"

There was a pained expression on Cliff's face when he answered. "Honestly, I don't know. For a while during the first days, I could simply forget about our ... our past? Anyway, they juiced me up pretty good and it felt good to simply pretend you were still my Kylie. You even wore those old jeans and sweaters and I swear you looked like ... like..."

"Like the girl you once loved?" Kylie asked with a voice close to breaking.

He stared at her and answered in a rough, almost accusing tone. "Forget the 'once', okay? I know it's stupid and useless. I still see you as that girl but you're not her anymore. You're a singer and a celebrity, and I don't even know the person you've become. Still, when we're together I get ideas, hopes, and then the reality crashes in. Like yesterday. You took off my pajamas and back then there would have been some teasing. You would've goosed me for sure. But yesterday we were both afraid to touch each other."

"You had it too, that feeling of loss?" Kylie asked not bothering to wipe off the tears that ran over her cheeks. "Cliff, I felt the same and it made me so sad! I remember the closeness and fun we had. I'd give just about anything to have that back."

Cliff nodded at first but then he shook his head. "Much of the closeness came with the trust we had. We'd known each other for years before we became a couple. Trust takes a long time to build and even longer to repair."

He looked deep into her eyes, trying to confer the full meaning of his words. Kylie stared back and he saw comprehension dawn in her blue eyes. Those eyes had always been an open window to her soul and now Cliff could read in them again. She had understood. He saw it. She had noted that he did not exclude that the trust between them could be rebuilt. He could see it in her posture, too. Her shoulders rose and suddenly her hands were clutching his lower arm.

"One day I'll be that girl for you again. No singer, no celebrity; just Kylie, your girlfriend. If we both want it and if I avoid screw-ups, we can do it."

Cliff smiled at first, but then he smirked. "How do you figure this to work? You'll be going back to L.A. at some point to get on with your career. Next fall I'll go to law school. That's going to be a grind. You in L.A. and I, say, in Missoula or some other place I can afford. How can we rebuild something?"

Kylie was not easily daunted. She saw an opening and she refused to give in.

"Well, who says I have to go back? And even if I do, there's law schools in L.A., don't you think? I have an apartment; it's paid for and it's big enough. USC is in easy driving distance. You'll need, what, three years? So I'm gonna be a musician for another three years, maybe more depending where you'll land at first. I can be a musician afterwards as long as there is a basement and some recording equipment. Say you want to come back here and settle as my father's crown prince. What's the problem? We'll get a house here, and I'll play in old Elias's barn while you'll be busy prosecuting people."

"Could you do that? Would you give up your career to follow me back to Clearwater?"

"In a word: yes, if the alternative is to lose you."

"But you'll resent it."

"Perhaps, I don't know. Maybe I'll be fed up with the business even before you graduate. Or maybe you'll find out you can be a lawyer without aiming at being the District Attorney of Clearwater County. There's a DA's office in L.A. where you could prosecute to your heart's content."

She took a deep breath, but then she took the plunge.

"Cliff, I don't mean this as an excuse for my behavior, but somehow what I wanted never mattered. We'd marry after college and you would go to law school while I worked. Then you'd start to work and I would get my teaching degree. That done, we'd go back to Clearwater. Cliff, hard as I try to remember, you never asked me if this was what I wanted. Of course I never protested. After all I was not supposed to be difficult. I was Miss Well Behaved, the daughter my parents could be proud of.

"I felt caged. Part of what I did was a rebellion against my parents, against that image I had, that 'good girl' who always called when she was running late, who never missed her curfew, never ran with the bad crowd. I rebelled against you, against your set plans for how our life would be. I should have stood up for my own dreams, but I was too well conditioned.

"I've learned a few things in Hillview during those sessions. I must stand up for myself. I know I'm in a bad position to make demands and I'd rather give up my own dreams than lose you for good, but if you could just meet me halfway on a few issues, if you could make just one step towards me, I can make those steps too. If we both give in a little there can be no resentment."

Cliff had listened to her as she emptied her heart and he looked down. "I've been thinking about that a lot. You know, that I just assumed that you shared my plans. It was easy though. You never said anything, so why bother asking?"

"Cliff, do you think you can make compromises? I may not ask for anything at all, mind you, but I'd like the feeling that my dreams count for something."

"You mean your singing?"

"Not only that. I mean everything that may come up. If and when we want children, if and where we move. I mean, say you get a job offered in North Dakota, will you talk to me before you accept and if I say 'No way!', will you listen to me?"

Cliff smiled a little. "Partners in other words. I have no problems with that but you'd have to speak up. You have to say what you want and not just react. You just never spoke up. Hell, even when we went parking you never told me what you wanted, you never initiated things on your own. You just let me go by trial and error. I realized that I never found out what you like."

"You mean sex?"

"Yeah. Do you like rough handling? Was I too gentle for you? Do you like dominance? Do you need something else I didn't think of?"