Sequel: Happily Ever After
Status: Complete

Even Lovers Drown

Chapter 12

Silence wafted over the kitchen, suffocating Saylor. She sat alone at the counter, wary eyes skimming the empty room. The maroon, black, and white coloring hadn't been what she wanted. Dark colors made the kitchen look so uninviting, not at all how she pictured the kitchen of her first home. She wanted to repaint it, but the fresh paint bombarding her nostrils reminded her that this was what Katie wanted. Saylor had no input.

She sighed, still eyeing the kitchen and its black appliances. A picture stood out against the shining onyx surface of the refrigerator, held in place by a tiny apple magnet. In it, she and Katie stood in the kitchen of her apartment. Flour covered every inch of the counter and blotched their faces. Despite the mess, they were smiling, they were happy. Saylor had put the picture there, barely managed to convince Katie the picture would look fine in their kitchen. She needed it there to remind her that there were good times and that their rough patch would clear up.

Her eyes dropped to her plate, the ceramic white contrasting with the dark countertop. Lettuce, tomatoes, and a sprinkle of olive oil. Allegedly a salad that was healthier than those she normally ate, ones with ranch dressing and multitudes of other vegetables. It didn't look very appetizing to her but she knew she shouldn't judge her lunch before trying it. But that didn't keep her from moving the lettuce leaves around with her fork and debating on eating it.

Tennis shoes padded across the kitchen's tile floor. Saylor didn't need to pull her attention away from her plate to know who was behind her. Katie. She didn't even need to turn around to know Katie's button up work shirt was unbuttoned, showing the cute white tank top underneath, and that her black hair, pulled out of its ponytail on her way up the front steps, cascaded down her back.

So she didn't look up. Not when Katie's bag dropped to the floor, a move that would have angered Katie if Saylor had done it. Not when Katie walked around the counter. Not when Katie stopped mid-reach into the cabinet and stared at her. Saylor kept her head down, fiddling with the alleged salad.

"What are you doing?" Katie asked.

The accusatory tone Saylor had grown used to in the weeks she and Katie had lived together coated her intoxicating voice. She wasn't sure what she had done this time. But, whatever it was, it wasn't what Katie wanted her to do. It seemed her existence in Katie's life over the past weeks was a complete bother. Nothing she did was right. She didn't fold towels right, didn't wash dishes right, didn't breathe right. She tried, she did. She wanted her life with Katie to work.

"Eating," Saylor mumbled.

"Didn't I tell you, you're getting porky?" Katie asked.

"You did and I'm on a diet."

Saylor spoke in a docile manner. The comment hurt her the first time, cut her deeper than she thought it would. The second time was no better. She wanted nothing more than to snap at Katie and tell her she didn't need to diet. She wanted to yell, scream, cry. But that didn't work with Katie, only served in angering her further. The last thing Saylor wanted to do was make her angry.

"You shouldn't be eating at all."

Saylor's eyes shot from her plate to Katie in disbelief, but Katie wasn't looking at her. She had resumed reaching for something in the high shelves of the cabinet, all of her concentration focused on getting what she wanted. The tank top rode up with her stretch, and a sliver of tantalizing skin peeked out. Enough for Saylor to let the statement go without another thought.

"It's just a salad," she mumbled, dropping her eyes back to the plate and pushing the olive oil-sprinkled tomatoes and lettuce around.

Katie snorted. "Just a salad? Yeah, right. I'm sure you've already eaten at least one with gallops of ranch dressing, half a block of cheese, and the whole bag of croutons. A salad is only good for you if you don't put all that crap on it." She scoffed and Saylor could picture her rolling her gorgeous blue eyes. "You're never going to lose weight at this rate."

Saylor wouldn't argue with her, though the accusation was far from true. At five o'clock in the evening, the salad would be the first thing she had eaten all day if she managed to stop pushing the unappetizing lettuce leaves around on the plate. Drinking multitudes of water drowned her hunger pangs, helped her ignore how empty she felt. But she wouldn't tell Katie and risk being yelled at for arguing with her or proving her wrong or whatever other reason Katie would give for her anger.

Starvation hadn't been intentional. Saylor just didn't have the time to sit down and eat. Katie left her with a list of chores that needed to be taken care of around the house, a multitude of small tasks that would take the rest of the evening for Saylor to actually finish. The small breaks she took were to catch up on school work, not relax. She was so behind on her French course workbook pages, she wasn't sure she could get them done in time to turn in. And her Adult Health and Illness course, she didn't want to think about it. She was afraid she would have to drop out of the Nursing program.

And it had been Katie's insistence that kept her from attending classes. There was always something Katie wanted to do or needed done around the house that required Saylor's presence. Saylor would keep all comments to herself and do what Katie wanted, succumbing to the will of the woman she loved.

"Do you really want me to starve myself?" Saylor asked.

"Just for a week."

Saylor peaked from under her lashes, watching Katie start the coffee maker, searching for some sign of sarcasm. In her calm movements around the kitchen, Saylor found no humor or care. Katie meant it and expected Saylor to comply without question. But Saylor had to draw the line somewhere, give Katie boundaries on how much of her life she could control.

"Katie," Saylor said, keeping her eyes on her plate, too afraid to look up at Katie and deny her request. The attempted strength in her voice still sounded timid, the exact opposite of how she hoped to sound. "I can't do that."

Seemingly calm, Katie opened the refrigerator. Saylor knew that underneath her exterior was a ticking time bomb. At any moment she would explode, and Saylor would be on the receiving end.

"You can for me," she said.

"But—"

Katie slammed the refrigerator door shut and Saylor jumped in shock, her sentence coming to a premature end. Eyes wide, she looked at Katie. Anger filled her startling blue eyes. The snarl on her lips made Saylor want to retract her statement and agree that starvation was the best method for her weight loss.

"Don't you love me?" Katie hissed.

"I do, but—"

"Then stop being such a pig," she snapped.

Katie grabbed the plate of salad from the counter and hurled it into the pristine sink that Saylor had cleaned earlier in the day. It shattered, a few small pieces of ceramic plate leaping out of the sink. Fear grasped Saylor, keeping her motionless in her seat. She could do nothing more than stare.

Katie leaned against the counter, her palms flat against the surface. A curtain of midnight black hair shielded her face from view. She took a deep breath, exhaling loudly, and pushed away from the counter. Anger no longer radiated from her eyes, a sheet of tranquility hiding it.

"I'm only doing this because I love you," Katie said.

Saylor's vocal cords refused to work, fright strangling them. Katie had thrown things out of anger before. She punched walls when she couldn't reach something that she could throw easily. An almost daily happening, but that didn't make it any less terrifying.

"Hey." Katie walked around the counter, gripped Saylor's chin between her index finger and thumb, and forced her to look her in the eyes. "I love you."

The phrase was innocent, sweet to those on the outside of their relationship. The underlying forcefulness was there though, in Katie's tone, in her false-tranquil expression. Her love was the ball and chain that kept Saylor doing as she was told.

"I love you, too," Saylor mumbled.

"Good." Katie said and pressed her lips against Saylor's, igniting the butterflies that reminded Saylor why she fell in love in the first place.


Saylor's eyes slid open. She wasn't stunned by her surroundings this time. The cushion of the seat against her body, the slight cramp running through her leg from her curled up position, the immediate view of the middle seat's back. She knew where she was, lying on the back most seat of the van. That was where she crashed after loading merchandise.

She pushed herself up, ignoring the pain surging through her shoulder from the awkward position she slept in, and perused the van. Davy sat in the middle seat, where he had fallen asleep. One of the two merch girls was at the wheel and the other was in the passenger seat. Music blared from the speakers, noise Saylor vaguely recalled from the concert. From the backmost seat, she couldn't hear the girls talking but could see their mouths moving rapidly. Everything was at it should have been.

Her eyes drifted to the window. She fully expected to see the road passing by, the gray asphalt ribbon that could lull her back to sleep. But she didn't. Instead, the van was carefully being pulled into a parking lot that appeared to belong to a fast food restaurant. The tour buses were already parked, taking up mass amounts of spaces amongst other vans and U-Haul's. A small flame of anxiety ignited in Saylor's stomach, a burst left over from the memory she encountered in her sleep.

"Where are we?" Saylor asked.
♠ ♠ ♠
Thank you to unkemptRose, BesosDeMariposa, and heatherxdee.
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Look, more Saylor and Katie.
And there's more later on.
I was going to wait till tomorrow to post this but I figured I may as well do it now.
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xoxo
Dakota Ray