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I sat with my back to the bathroom door, the still sleeping kitten cradled against me.
I could feel her on the other side of the door, her body propped up against it.
"Diablo is trying to get to you," I told her. "She's crying. She misses you."
Her voice came muffled and forlorn. "No, she's not. I'd hear it if she was."
"She's so sad, tiger. Baby wants her mama."
For some reason, that set her off sobbing the hardest of all.
I turned, leaning my forehead against the door. Sometimes it felt like my whole life was this. Waiting on the other side of the door from her, hoping to be let in.
Diablo was awake by then, rubbing up against my stroking fingers and purring loud enough that I wondered if Scarlett could hear her through the wall.
"She's really upset, tiger," I tried again. "Don't you want to at least check on her?"
"You're mean!" she called back, sounding like a forlorn child.
It made my heart turn to a tender pile of mush in my chest.
"My white flag is up, tiger. I won't say one more upsetting thing tonight if you'll just unlock the door."
"It's not you I'm worried about," she said, dread in her voice.
Wasn't that the damn truth. "I can take it. What I can't take is a locked door between you and me. C'mon, angel. Let me in."
Diablo was a good wing kitten. Suddenly and loudly, as though she'd just realized Scarlett was close, she let out a loud and plaintive meow. And then another.
Slowly the door opened behind me. She leaned down, plucked Diablo from my arms, and moved away, not toward the bed but to the chaise in the corner.
She sat down, not looking at me, and restlessly stroked her hand over the kitten's fluffy coat, over and over.
I thought that was the end of it, but our demons were not finished with us yet.
I rose, was about to move to her, when she said, voice low and accusing, "I should have had a choice. You should have given me a choice."
I didn't have to clarify what she was talking about. I knew. I fucking knew. And just like that, I was furious again. "A choice?" I asked her bitingly.
"Yes. You had choices. You could have told your mother to go to hell, consequences be damned. I didn't have that privilege."
"Privilege? You're going to call that a privilege? To go to fucking prison? That's what you wanted? That was never an option. I would never have allowed that, and you fucking know it."
"Look at what you did allow! Was that any better? I'd have taken prison over what you let her do to us. That's a fact."
"No. No. No." I felt my head shaking, over and over. She was about two sentences away from me losing my temper. I felt my rage taking over and told myself to walk away. But I just couldn't do it. We had to fucking have this out. "Not an option. Not a fucking option."
"I should have had the choice," she repeated.
I pointed an unsteady finger at her, upper lip quivering with fury. "This is why. This is why I couldn't tell you. I'd have taken the fall for this; it was a solution I could have stomached, but you, you stubborn . . . "
She curled my lip at me. "What? Say it."
"Would you have let me take the fall for you?" I knew the answer. I'd always known. Her stubborn pride had ruined us both.
I could tell she wanted to lie, just for the sake of winning this argument, but she couldn't do it, she was too righteously furious for that. "Of course not. Never. I would never have stood by and let you take the fall for something I had done."
My eyes were wild, screaming at her. "See?" I was shouting now. "This was why you didn't get the choice! I know you, and I knew what you would do. If you can't forgive me for that, I don't know what to do, but I still don't see that I had another way. I won't apologize for protecting you the only way I knew how."
