"You told me not to go anywhere," she tells me. "Now...there's nowhere I can escape."

The grass starts weaving, shooting up, tangling in the sunset colors of her hair, rooting her to the ground.

"No!" I cry out, desperately trying to reach her, to rip the thick blades off her, to free her from this, whatever it is that I did.

"I'll never be whole again without you, Philip. I'll never be free of you now, and neither will you. I suppose it's only fair."

"Kenna-Baby, I'll get you out, I swear!"

"I'll be here, waiting." Her voice is muffled, captured by the grass weaving a cocoon around her.

I keep trying, tugging and yanking at the fuckin' grass, but it does no good. She's trapped beneath it, looking like a tiny hill.

Where the fuck am I?

Looking around, it seems far too familiar. It takes a few moments before I realize I've been here before.

It's that old woman's backyard, the one who lived next door to us when we were kids, except there are no houses. It's just the yard that stretches out to the horizon in all directions.

"Philip?"

The sky has turned the color of my Baby Girl's hair.

I turn around to see a woman standing behind me, and the old woman's house magically appears behind her. For a split second, I'm thinking it's my mom, but the woman comes closer, and I see that it's not.

She's beautiful though in a lot of the same ways my mom was. She has long dark brown hair, dark-chocolate eyes, high cheekbones...but this woman is part white, like me. Her nose, cheeks, and chin look an awful lot like my Baby Girl's.

"She's not going anywhere, Philip. I made sure of that."

"Did you do this to her?" I demand, pointing at the human-sized grassy knoll.

"She's yours now. My greatest achievement is for you to cherish."

Kenna Perhaps against better judgment, I decided not to take a leave of absence from school. I jumped straight back in, catching up fairly quickly and staying at the top of the class. I found that in doing so, I was able to distract myself from my depression-or ignore it completely.

Life really did go on.

Before I knew it, the holidays were here, but we had very little to celebrate.

For Thanksgiving, Lili, Grandma, Connor, Gloria, and I headed over to Mama Sally and Papa David's place for a humongous feast. Da had decided to take a haul, getting paid extra for working the holiday.

"That man has abandoned you!" Grandma hissed at me when I'd told her he wouldn't make it. "He left your mother in her time of need, and he's left you now to try to pick up the pieces of your life!"

"Grandma, he's in pain, too. Honestly, I don't feel that way," I assured her.

My anger with my father had dissipated as the weeks passed. There was a time when I'd agreed wholeheartedly with my grandmother but not anymore. I really didn't see the difference between what Da was doing and my own drive to be so busy, so I wouldn't have time to think about anything else. He was working the holiday, so he didn't have to see how much Mom's absence hurt all of us. I was okay with that.

"Grandma Betty looks so old now," Alys whispered as we hid out on the side of her parents' house, smoking a spliff before heading inside and tackling a mountain of food. "Does she sleep at all anymore?"

"I don't think she gets much," I replied, hitting the joint and holding it in, passing it off to Connor. "It's weird. I never see her cry. At least, she doesn't when I'm home. I don't know what she does while I'm at school."

"I'll tell Mom to start checking up on her throughout the week," said Alys. "Just sort of stop by and spring visits on her."

I nodded. "She's too Southern not to be polite and refuse a guest. It might help her out."

"What about you though?" my brother quietly asked me. "Who's checking up on you?"

I smiled as warmly as I could possibly manage. "I have you guys to keep me in line."

He draped his arm around my shoulder. "I'll come stay over more."

Like when Da is home, no doubt.

I had a feeling that Da must be the hardest to be around. How Gloria was still with him, I had no clue. His temper was really short these days, and to my understanding, Connor would take the brunt of his verbal abuse. Da never had and never would raise a hand to any of us, but the man's words could cut to the quick.

The four-day holiday weekend was over before we knew it, and Alys drove back to Lafayette. It would be another five weeks before she returned to us, but I'd speak with her nearly every day, so it wasn't like she was out of reach.

In school, I'd befriended a guy named Gavin Francis. With a head shaved down to an impressive shine, he was short and stacked like a tank. He was just as serious about our education as I was. His goals concerning education and work mirrored mine, and we'd formed a tight bond in that respect. We didn't socialize much outside of school, except when we needed to study. Our tastes were very different in our personal lives, and there was no sexual chemistry between us whatsoever. But he made class more fun, and I sure as hell needed more of that in my life.

Christmas break was a bit of a pain in the ass.

My mother had adored the Christmas season but not for any religious reasons. It was just the fact that it was a fun, lively time, and she'd liked having a big fat tree in her home. It didn't bother me that Grandma hadn't wanted to decorate. The woman had all but banned it. Besides, I would be the one who'd be putting them up and taking them down, so that saved me the trouble.

However, the nightmare reared its ugly head when Da invited us over for Christmas dinner. My grandmother threw a fit and refused to leave the house. I was tempted to just leave her sullen ass and let her stew in her own misery. In the end, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't leave her alone on her first Christmas without her daughter.

"I'm sorry, Da, but it's just a really bad time, okay? I don't want to leave her like this," I explained to him on Christmas Eve.

"It's bluidy Christmas!" he howled in my ear over the phone.

"And you skipped out on Thanksgiving," I snapped. "Just let this one go, all right? I'll come over with Alys and Lili during the day, and we'll exchange gifts."

"It's no' the bluidy same thing, Kenna. We're still a family-"

"Which is why I'm coming over during the day and spending the evening with her! Get over it!" I hung up, finding my own temper was on a pretty short fuse.

When Alys, Lili, and I made our way over there late in the morning on Christmas Day, Grandma retreated to her cave without saying good-bye and locked the door.

"Why is she so upset that we're going?" Lili whispered. "He might've been a bit of an ass, but he's still your Da."

"She thinks I'm siding with him against her," I replied as we walked out the front door. "I really don't understand it. I didn't realize that there's some sort of war going on between them. I know she's pissy about him not being around a lot at the end, but it was my mother who did that, not him. And I think Grandma was offended over Thanksgiving, and she's mad at me for not being upset about that. I just hope this shit blows over soon because it's hard enough not having Mom around. I don't need to deal with this garbage on top of it."

"It will," consoled Alys as we climbed into the gold Honda Accord. She turned on the engine. "She just needs to take it out on someone, and your father is the best target."

"Yeah, it's hard to miss a man that ginger and soulless," piped Lili from the backseat.

Gloria looked tired, but she had put together a beautiful brunch for us to enjoy. Connor was particularly quiet and subdued. Da was a horrible grump of a bear, but we plowed through it like soldiers making a mad dash for the trenches.

"Can I come with you guys after?" Connor asked as I brought the dirty dishes into the kitchen.

"No, you bluidy well can't leave yer family on Christmas!" barked Da from behind us.

"She's my sister!"

"Yer no' leavin'!"

Connor glared at him and slunk off to his room to brood.

"Da, quit being an ass," I said hotly.

We left not long after that.

New Year's found all of us, even Da and Gloria, at Grandma's.

Grandma did her best to hold on to her apathy, snipping viciousness at Da at every turn, but he'd finally had enough. He restrained her in his patented Papa Bear Hug in front of everyone and squeezed her tight. He started crying, and she started crying and actually hugged him back.

"Ye auld bitch. How can ye hate me so much? I loved her, too!" he wailed.

I was afraid he might be trying to kill her with his love, squeezing her like that. I couldn't say I blamed him though, if that was what he was going for.

But she returned his embrace. "Because you're an asshole, Sigmund!"

Happy fucking New Year.

Time was relentless in its drive to move forward. Back into the swing of things after the holidays, I was busier than ever.

I kept myself very much unavailable between school, study, yoga, and meditation.

Lili would come over just to be around, and I was cool with that. We didn't need to actually hang out when we were together. After class, she would stay with me in the house, no matter what I was doing, and she'd most definitely stick around for dinner, too. Sometimes, she would just crash over without bothering to notify anyone.

I thought she was worried about me, but she never really said anything. Perhaps she was also trying to stay away from her own home life. Her father's deep-seated need to control her was only growing stronger the older she got.

Spring break came as a welcome respite.

For the therapist program, there was only a month until graduation. I'd be taking the boards soon, and I would hopefully be certified and ready to find some work before I continued with my education in the fall.

With the completed program and boards, I needed another three years to earn my doctorate, and then afterwards, I'd intern for two years. I'd be finished with all of it before I turned twenty-four years old.

In the middle of the break, Lili ended up pissing off her father on one of her rare visits back home. He flew off the handle, deciding it was necessary to beat some discipline into her. That was the final straw for all of us really. She called me in tears. That was extremely rare because Lili hardly ever cried.

The next day while her father was away at work, Alys-who was home, too-and I headed over to Lili's. We packed up all her stuff into huge black trash bags and moved her in with Grandma and me.

"Well, she's over here all the time anyway. It's not like it'd be much of a difference," Grandma drawled.

Grandma decided to take the downstairs guest bedroom that had always been Connor's room.

"He hardly stays over here as it is, and I think it'd be nice to have my own bathroom. You and Lili can reside upstairs and share the bath up there," she stated.

"Why don't you take Mom's old room?" I suggested.

Mom's old room had once belonged to my grandparents as it was the master bedroom of the house. After he'd died when my mother was nine, Grandma had moved into a guest room. When Mom had become a teenager, Grandma had given her the massive bedroom with its en suite bathroom and badass little balcony overlooking the backyard.

Grandma just shook her head. "I'm getting too old for the stairs anymore."

I'd caught her in there a few times, just sitting on Mom's bed and looking over her belongings. Grandma would dust and vacuum in there on occasion. I had the feeling she didn't really want anyone to go in there and touch Mom's things. I respected that, but I wasn't sure if it was really healthy. Grandma still wouldn't cry in front of us, but I'd heard her doing so behind the closed door to that bedroom.

So, Lili got Grandma's room, and Grandma had moved into Connor's old room. Mom's room remained an eternal shrine to her life.

After I completed the program in May at the top of the class, I was rewarded with NOLA's Junk's first official album, Adopted Son. The release day found Lili and me outside of the music store the minute they opened. Filled with so much excitement, I might have been in danger of pissing myself.

The album cover was gorgeous-black background with a beautifully executed anatomical heart in reds, blues, and purples, created in a tattoo-esque style with flames surrounding it. The name NOLA's Junk looked like it had been carved or branded into the organ with Adopted Son in hard script beneath it. On the back, I read where they gave credit to Darren Wright as the cover artist.

Badass.

While waiting for Lili to finish poking around in the bargain bins, I snapped through the poster displays.

They had a poster, too. It was a fantastic photo of the four of them, looking all hardcore and cool. Phil's face had an angry look that only he could pull off so well, the one that had the power to melt my crotch.

For the first time in nine months, I felt something. Standing in line at the register, I became fully aware that I was still very much alive. It probably wouldn't last, but it gave me hope that, one day, I would be a real human being again.

The poster ended up framed and hung on the opposite wall from my bed. While I lay back and relaxed, I could stare and fantasize about Phil like the lovesick teenage loser I was. I would sometimes pretend he was all angry with me for moving on with my life-as if-while he pined for me.

"You're such a dork," said Lili, poking her head into my room.

"I know," I sighed, staring at Phil.

Lili and I sat in Gretchen late one evening, smoking some of Jimi's sweetest cheebah. Hoping Grandma wouldn't bust us, we listened to Adopted Son as loudly as we felt was safe. I adored this album. I had actually gone back to the music store and bought a second CD specifically to keep in the car. There was not one song on it that was not a favorite of mine. But there was one that had ended up being my all-time favorite, and it wasn't for its musical brilliance-track number seven, "A Madman's Love Letter."

Seriously raw and erotic, audio-pornographically intense, there was absolutely no way it would ever get any radio play. It was that graphic.

It started out with Phil breathing heavily, moaning a bit, like he was wonderfully turned on and possibly jacking off or maybe getting a blow job in the sound box while recording. Either way, it was totally inspiring in a base, sexually deviant manner.

I can't stop thinkin' about you.

I want to feel my fists in your hair, pullin' back your head...

Makin' you beg.

I can't help myself.

I see my hand around your throat, my dick in your mouth.

Pushin' in...pullin' out.

Ah, shit!

(Some seriously fucking hot groaning.) I wanna throw you on the floor.

Smack your ass.