I want the aluminum bat Aarsi had.
Position spray-paint cans from Zoe’s house so they’re in every room.
How long until Alan’s security busts in to stop this?
Denial is a terminal addiction—make it a tab on my website.
It’s Tuesday.
Is Alan back in California?
I wonder if he’ll see this.
His security sure as fuck will since they’re spying on me.
Oh, he’ll eventually see this.
I go back to my laptop, trying to ignore Zoe’s fretting as she wanders in circles, and rapidly click away the necessary posts to make what I want to have happen here.
Zoe grabs my arm. “Kaley, just talk to me. I’m sorry I didn’t give you the lab results when they came. I didn’t know what to do. I was waiting until Bobby was back.”
I ignore her and whirl to face the great room, trying to figure out the best location to shoot the short video to launch this.
I turn the camera toward the far wall near the table with the weird family photo array atop it. Yep, know why those pictures are there now.
“You’re scaring me,” Zoe wails. “What are you doing? What is this?”
I look at her. “Stand here in the foyer. I don’t want you in the video.”
“What video? Nope, I’m not moving until you explain what this is.”
Oh fuck, Zoe, don’t get in my way now.
I shake my head, trying to figure out how to explain this in Zoe terms. “Have you ever seen that movie 8 Mile?”
She nods, sniffling and nervously gnawing her lower lip. “Eminem, right?”
I close my hands on her arms—crap, she’s shaking like an earthquake—and fix my eyes on her. “Remember the last scene. Focus, Zoe. Listen. I’m explaining. When Eminem battles and gets up there and tells everyone everything about him and then he tosses the microphone and says, ‘I’m outy. Tell these people something they don’t know about me’?”
The panic on her face rapidly increases but she nods.
I brush the hair back from her face, hoping to calm her. “That’s all I’m doing. I’m outing myself. I’m tired of the lies and the secrets. The tabloids. Natashas of this world. Alan. My mom. I’m just putting it all out there and maybe someone will hear me and it will get better and go away. I’m going live with the truth about everything. I’m outing myself. And if you’re really my friend, Zoe, you won’t stop me.”
She anxiously studies my face. “I don’t think you should do this. We can still get out of here. You’ve only wrecked one wall. It’s paint. It can be fixed, right? Isn’t that enough? It’s there. The truth. Alan will see it. Let’s stop this now. Let’s go.”
I go back to the camera and check the positioning through the viewfinder. “I can’t leave, Zoe. Not until I’m done.”
I hit record and hurry into the shot, kneeling down facing the camera, unable to hear the words in my head as I speak them.
Then I see the shot widen by the auto-programming, so the first tag on the wall I did with the spray-paints from Zoe’s garage will show in the film.
I stare into the camera. “This is the last episode of Kaley’s World. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be silenced after this. Shut down after today’s live feed. But I’d like to send one last message to my dad, Alan Manzone. I’d like to call the remainder of this feed ‘Denial is a Terminal Addiction.’ So here is our live family therapy.”
I hurry to the computer, stop the recording, and quickly edit the video. I add the frame with the link for the live feed. I load it on YouTube, Facebook and my Kaley’s World website. I see the Hootsuite notification that the auto-tweets have started. I check my phone to make sure the live feed is up and streaming. Yep, Alan’s house.
I grab the bat and the spray-paint. Showtime. Try denying this, Daddy. And then there is nothing—not in my head, not in my heart, and not in the room—except a blinding, raging need to swing the bat and cover the walls in spray-paint with the thoughts I don’t even recognize as my own as I destroy everything in my father’s house.
* * *
My body is limp, drained of strength and tears, but the bat keeps going. It’s like it’s running on its own and I can’t stop it. Not even now when there is nothing left to destroy in Alan’s bedroom.
How long have we been here?
Why hasn’t anyone come to stop it?
I check the security monitor—there are people out front starting to gather on the street.
Someone knows I’m doing this.
The tweets are working if there are sightseers here.
I look at the clock.
An hour.
Is that all this has been? It seems longer.
Zoe is sitting just out of view of the cameras against the wall by the open bedroom door, sobbing hysterically. But she didn’t bail. She stayed with me. I shut down the rising emotions and crash the aluminum into a wall mirror.
“Kaley, put down the bat.”
I whirl.
Bobby.
He starts reaching over to shut off the camera.
I rush across the room. “No, don’t turn it off.”
He freezes, those green eyes holding me in an anxious stare. “OK, I won’t shut it off. I’ll just pause it. OK, baby? Watch. I’m only pausing it.”
He halts the feed and then steps around the equipment, his eyes wide and dismayed as he stares at the walls, the room, and then me.
“How did you get into the house?” I wail. “I didn’t want you here. I didn’t want you involved in this, Bobby.”
He pulls me up against him. “Shush, Kaley. I got in the same way you did. The panel. Your mom’s birthday. We came here the last time together. Remember?”
I stare up at him. “You need to go. Quickly.”
“No point. There are people on the street. Press. I’m in this whether you want me to be or not. What’s happening here? Why did you do this, Kaley?”
I rummage in my pocket and shove the test results at him. He reads them, then starts raking a hand over and over again through his hair.
“Oh fuck,” he groans as shock registers on his face. “Why didn’t you talk to me first instead of doing this?”
I snatch the paper back from him. “Because you would have stopped me, Bobby. And I couldn’t back down from this.”
His palms close on my cheeks, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Baby, you should have come to me first. You’ve hurt you. You’ve hurt me. You’ve hurt us. You’ve hurt Zoe. You’ve hurt your family. There’s a crowd and the media outside. There’s going to be cops soon. You’ve committed a crime. And you’ve put it on the Internet for everyone to see. They will arrest you. The cops won’t back down from this either, baby. Please, stop. Put down the bat. You have to be calm when the police get here. You’ve pushed it too far. Now you have to calm and we wait.”
Police?
I shake my head and step quickly back from him. “I’m not going anywhere. Not with anyone. Not until my dad gets here.”
Bobby studies me, his face ragged with alarm. “OK, baby,” he says soothingly. “Then we’ll stay until your dad gets here. But it’s time for you to pull it together. Don’t do anything else.”
I set down the bat, sink to the floor on my knees, and wait for Alan, turning the kinship analysis constantly in my trembling hands.
* * *
I hear a sound. I look up. Alan.
“Shut everything off. Cut the feed. Turn off the cameras. And get out of here. Both of you.”
I shut down my reaction to my dad being here, jump to my feet and rush across the room, dropping to where Bobby has done nothing but sit with his head in his hands waiting with me for this.
“Bobby, no. Don’t leave. Don’t leave me here alone with him.”
He pulls me against him, kisses my forehead and then holds my face in his hands. The look in his eyes rends my heart.
“It will be all right, Kaley. This is what you wanted. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right outside the door. But you need to do this with him alone.”
He springs to his feet and leaves with Zoe following close behind him.
Alan starts reading the walls.