Utopia

Chapter Twenty-Two - The Dreams are Still the Same

When Kira woke in the morning, she was still naked beneath the covers. She was sore from the violent heaving, from the punishment of vice, from the tension she carried like her own weight.

Kira woke and she could hardly stand it. Her dreams faded like the closing of her eyes against the sun—the effect burned red long into her eyes.

The door opened with less gusto than the night before, but still too little reticence. She did not turn her head.

"You're awake," Susannah stated. It sounded like a rebuke.

"It seems so," Kira returned flatly.

"Get up," she said in that voice she used for opposing counsel. "You have work."

Kira snorted. "I'm not going to work."

"Well you're not going to lay in bed all day."

"Lie."

"Excuse me?"

Kira lifted her hands into the air and ticked a finger. "Lie in bed. Not lay." She ticked a second finger. "And it's a lie because you're not my mother."

The doorknob rattled as the lawyer's grip tightened. "No," she ground out, and somehow Kira had landed a touch which wounded her. "I'm not your mother. I'm your friend, and that used to mean something to you."

Wordlessly, Kira spread her hands against the air. It was a pretty speech, but Kira existed where only the cotton could touch her.

"Get out."

"What?"

"I said, get out," Susannah repeated, and though there was reluctance with it, there was no leniency. "You can do as you like, but so can I. And I'd like to not spend the next however long cleaning up after you."

"You can't kick me out," Kira argued uncertainly.

"No, but if you're not working then you can't pay rent, and if you can't pay rent, I can evict you."

Kira didn't know enough to know if it was true.

"You can pack a bag and get out, or you can go to work," Susannah finished imperiously.

What did it mean that Kira had to consider it? But in the end, she needed more things than just a place to sleep. Susannah drove her to work to make sure she went. Yet making sure she went wasn't the problem after she agreed, it was what she came home with.

Susannah had gone back to pick her up again, but there were two doors, and it was hard to determine when Kira would be done with the final dish.

When she was done, when she saw her roommate's car, she chose the other door.

It meant she had to walk around the building, but walking gave her a chance to stop somewhere that Susannah would never let her. Sure, most stores were closed by that time of night, but gas stations were always open, and though she didn't particularly like beer, it would do.

It was a long walk with a thirty-six, but Susannah made the mistake of waiting for her. Her waiting gave Kira enough time to get into her cups before the lawyer returned.

She came into Kira's room without knocking, and worry turned into shock into anger into a rant about missed calls and 911 and how did she ever get to this point.

She went to work, Kira said, and it became her mantra.

Susannah wanted her to go to work, and she had gone.

She wanted her to pay rent, and she had gone.

She wanted her to do better, and she had gone.

She had gone, and there was nothing else the lawyer could say to refute that. In the end, Susannah surrendered the argument simply to end it.