kaleidoscope-story

[kaleidoscope-story]

inez & betty

So yeah, it's a fire, it's a goddamn blaze in the dark

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[kaleidoscope-story]

james & inez

For you, I would ruin myself a million little times

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[kaleidoscope-story]

betty & james

When you are young, they assume you know nothing, but I knew you

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[kaleidoscope-story]

it's time to go

James had suggested they leave, once. One of the times when they were just making time so Betty wouldn't have to go home, and shortly after he'd learned why, he'd waxed poetic about going and never turning back, making their own way as artists, or explorers, or pirates.

Her heart warmed, and Betty laughed, shook her head, and reminded him they still had school the next day. She kissed him, held onto him all the way home, and felt safe, because there was someone who knew her inside and out and would always be with her.

He'd suggested it. She'd said no. She'd thought 'not yet'.

Really, she could've left sooner. They could've gone the first time James brought it up. She could've ran the first time she thought about it, years ago. But it hadn't ever felt right. It felt like quitting. Betty didn't want to run away from her nightmares. She wanted to run towards her dreams.

So this, now? This feels like winning. She has everything she could ever need from this place. A diploma, a history, a soulmate, and plenty of reasons to never look back.

Now, it feels right. Now, she knows.

She turns to James with an unwavering smile once they get in his car and drive away from her father's house one last time.

"Let's do it." she says. "Let's run away together."

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[kaleidoscope-story]

right where you left me

They are in the same place as the last time they saw each other. Years have passed, and it's a different restaurant, in a different city, but Inez is still sitting across from her mother at a cafe, even in the same positions.

Except that last time, her mother was frowning and fidgeting and could barely look her in the eye as she asked her for money. This time, she sits up straight and steady as she tells her she's sorry and wants to make amends - it's like she's reciting right off of a 12 step program.

She's all shiny and put together, and Inez is trying to decide if she hates her more now or if she did then. It was easy to hate her then. Inez is fairly sure she even told her as much, as she threw the hastily written check on the table and walked out. Her mother had wanted nothing to do with her while she was nothing, but came crawling back the minute she'd made something of herself. But now... Now that she's healthy, and good, but good for someone else, for a whole new family, not for her daughter... well, it's pretty easy to hate her now, too.

Her mother went ahead and changed. Her mother grew up and got better. Inez is the one who's in the exact same place.

She has the same hate, the same money, the same issues - she's even going through the same break up with the same guy! One thing is different, though. When she walked away last time, it was with a promise to herself to never think about that afternoon again. Today, she walks away and can't help thinking about it.

She used to constantly assure herself that she was nothing like her mother - even as she went down a similar looking path. All she ever wanted was to distance herself from her, which she did. She got rich and famous and kept her promise and never thought about that day until her mother called her up again. But she also got selfish, and sick, and had her heart broken more times than she can count. The similarities she'd been avoiding have never been so clear.

As she walks away one more time, she can't help but wonder if maybe they might have one more thing in common, and if Inez might be capable of pulling herself together too.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

evermore

There was nothing. Nothing else. Nothing more.

Nothing other than the ghosts of everyone he'd lost and everything he'd done wrong. James couldn't think, couldn't see, couldn't feel anything else. Anything at all. The days and nights blurred together, and time passed by, taking more and more hope with it each passing day.

He was hungry, but couldn't eat. He was tired, but couldn't sleep. He was bored, but couldn't move. He was sick, but couldn't get better.

Nothing would make him better, nothing could make it better. Nothing could take away the memories, the pain, the emptiness deep within him. Nothing was all he had, all he was. How could the sum of all that he'd seen, all that he'd done, everything that haunted him end up with nothing?

Maybe it wasn't nothing, though. Maybe it was too much. Maybe his mind had run away with his emotions just like he had run from a war that he couldn't handle. Maybe all of him was like that. Maybe all he was was a coward.

He was supposed to stop thoughts like that. To talk to other people instead, to find help in other places. How could they help? Anyone who knew what he'd gone through was either gone or halfway across the world. Any doctors or experts would just give him painkillers, anti depressants and expect him to be okay. His family, most of his loved ones, were miles away and wouldn't, couldn't understand. And the person he loved most of all felt the furthest away of them all. There was no one he could turn to. There was nothing he could do.

There was nothing.

There was nothing...

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[kaleidoscope-story]

closure

She sent her a letter. A goddamned letter. A goddamned letter from the ex-wife of her ex-boyfriend. A divorce she just learned about from said letter, by the way.

Part of her is pleased by that. She'd felt so angry, and used, and cheated (which is truly ironic) when James told her he loved his wife more than anything, more than her. Was she just supposed to get screwed while they got their happy ending, then? Well, apparently not. Justice was served, in her book.

But Inez' satisfaction paled in comparison to her indignation. Because a letter? Seriously? A detailed letter all about Betty and her new life and just wanting to "know if you're doing better", sounding all fake and concerned and freaking evolved or something. She just had to be better than Inez at absolutely everything, including moving on! Not that she hadn't moved on from James, of course she had, just that... Well, both of them could fuck off, is all, and Inez would be all the better if she never heard from either of them again!

She took another swig of the glass she'd poured earlier and considered throwing away the letter, or maybe even burning it. She was fine. She was great, even, and she could damn well keep her spite if she wanted. She had zero intentions of making amends.

In the end, she kept the letter, though. Shoved in between some books on a shelf she was sure she would forget about just as soon as she turned away. It was just... something Betty wrote in it, it stuck. Inez thought she might want to revisit it. Betty said she thought they could all use some closure.

Closure.

Inez can't help but wonder what that's like.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

marjorie

Betty had ran fast and far from a home filled with memories, pain and fear. She'd made a new life for herself, forced it out of the hurt and tears of the past. She'd thought, for years, that if she could only do that, if she could hold on and get away and be free, she'd finally be truly happy. But that was just another childhood dream.

She can move out. She can dodge calls. She can ignore questions. But she can't outrun the memories. She can't shut down her thoughts. She can't breathe freely.

Her breath hitches and her hands shake thinking about the papers she hands in. She forces herself thorough the panic and tries to connect with people. She second guesses herself every time she looks at James and sees the guilt in his eyes. And through all of it, just like most of her life, she feels scared and miserable and alone.

And most of all, inexplicably but undeniably, Betty misses her mom. She misses her more than when she died, more than ever before.

She finds herself thinking of all the details she can remember about her mother, all the details slipping away from her. Her voice. Her handwriting. Her arms.

Betty wants to be hugged by her again. She wants to talk to her, wants her to listen, wants her to help, needs her to help. She needs someone, needs anyone to help.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

long story short

James tells Inez about his battles. Inez tells him about her losses. They'd had a long way to get here, full of wrong turns, fake starts, and late calls. But they got here. They reached something. Friendship perhaps, or more. Something James never thought they'd have. Something he never thought he'd have. Peace.

Fall after fall, night after night, mistake after mistake, with the right person once or twice and the wrong person more than that, but together even less. They learn about it all. They made it through it all. Years of surviving and trying and getting it wrong, and finding a balance now. Inez tells him they're making up for lost time, once. Talking, accepting, breathing, even just being, at last. It's all they do now. They never did that, before, through all the times they were together.

After the first time they parted ways, James used to keep count of how many times he saw Inez. Somewhat frequently, that first year. Then nothing at all. A few times, here and there. A chance encounter, and then too much. After, their longest stretch of time apart. And finally, he stopped counting.

There was no point, when he knew they'd always meet again. There was no point, when they started seeing each other every day.

So here they are once more. A small town, a beach house, and a couple holding hands, watching the waves reach the shore.

Not burning, but keeping each other warm.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

cowboy like me

They meet at a club, or maybe a bar. He is nothing like James. He is everything like her. She thinks this must be meant to be.

They have the same tastes, the same humour, they've been through the same things. They go out every night. They drink and do lines and tell her rich friends everything they want to hear. She thinks it's funny, how they all fall for it. She never considers how he's telling her everything she wants to hear too.

She gets lost in him. She gets lost in everything. She wants to get lost. She doesn't ever want to go back. She wants to drown out the heartache, leave it and everything and everyone else behind. So, she goes. She falls deeper and deeper until she doesn't know how to get up.

He tells her he loves her as he passes her a shot. She takes it and tells him she loves him too, because she knows it's what he wants to hear. Distantly, she thinks she doesn't ever want to be in love again.

She will never love again.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

ivy

Betty meets someone. And now, she feels like she can breathe again.

It's not the only factor, of course. She moved out of the home she'd lived in for years. She got a divorce from the man who knew her best in the world, but lately she felt she didn't know at all. She got a new job, one that didn't make her feel like she was dying herself. She started going to meetings and talking to people about her past, instead of letting it consume her from the inside out. But it's when she meets someone new that she realizes she hasn't felt like this for a long time.

She feels guilty, at first. She hasn't dated anyone else in almost a decade. If she ever thought of romance, it was always only about James, ever since they met, ever since they were kids.

But now, she's kissing someone else, touching someone else, holding someone else's hand, and she never expected it'd fit with hers so perfectly.

It's all so new. Betty feels like a fire has burned through her, a blaze that brought everything down only so it can blossom again. She feels like she's growing, after so long trapped within the stones of her past.

And now she can finally breathe.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

coney island

The first time they came to Coney Island was on their first wedding anniversary. Despite having lived in New York for years at that point, they'd never been, and from then on, it became a tradition.

They went every year, on their anniversary if they could, or the closest possible time, if James was on assignment, or if Betty was on call. The one time they didn't go was in the year following their divorce, in which they'd barely even talked. The year after that, though, James reached out and asked Betty if she wanted to meet. To both their surprises, she said yes. And so, they met, on a bench in Coney Island, where they'd sat together many times before.

They thought about all those times. They talked about all their years, like the first time they rode the big wheel, or the year they spent the whole day eating junk food. They reflected upon all the good in their marriage. They remembered together, the good parts, as well as the bad. When they got food poisoning from one of the vendors, or the time they almost didn't make it and got in a huge fight. All the ways when they weren't there for each other, or didn't communicate. The distance that built and built over time. The cracks they ignored because they loved each other and wanted it to be enough. All the hurt they ended up causing because of that.

James had apologized to Betty hundreds of times in the months between her discovering his affair and their divorce. But it's here, physically and emotionally surrounded by reminders of all sides of their marriage, that he says it again, and means it not as a supplication, not as a request of forgiveness or proof of affection, but as an acknowledgement of the pain he caused her. And it's here that Betty accepts it, not in a desperate plea to believe it, not in a need to ignore the wrong and make everything okay, but with genuine understanding.

They see their marriage for all that it was. All the bad and all the good. They hold hands, take each other in, and say goodbye, for now.

Both ready, and open, for whatever comes next.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

dorothea

Inez is different. That should be obvious, since it has been decades since they were in the same place, but it strikes Betty all the same. She's not just older, though. She seems to be more tired, maybe wearier. She carries herself differently.

When they first met, she was a girl, shining and hurting, looking for someone or something, but her smile lit up the whole street. The next time she saw Inez, it was on a tiny screen, and she reminds her a little of her character, now, when Betty runs into her, totally by chance. She'd played a party girl, one of those rich wild child with a heart of gold redemption stories. She has that same look in her eyes - wandering, jaded, empty of the hope they'd both had more of when they were kids.

Back then, Betty had seen her, and thought she looked like someone she'd like to know, and like someone who could use her help. Right now, she can't help but think the same.

When they talk, it's surprisingly civil. Betty wasn't sure if she expected rage, or sorrow, from the other woman, but she's greeted with pleasantries, and a regular bit of awkwardness, but also genuine desire to make amends. Inez seems weary, yes, but settled at the same time. Now closer, Betty thinks she recognizes something in her. The posture of someone who's fallen and gotten back up. The look in her eyes of regret for the past but hope for the future. All things she sees in herself as well.

She had reached out once before, actually. A letter, with no reply, encouraged by her sponsor in her efforts to move on from the whole mess. Maybe that's why she can't seem to hate her, now. Perhaps she had, once, but she's already moved on. Now, looking at Inez, she doesn't think of the woman who broke up her marriage, or the cause of her first heartbreak. She thinks of the girl she'd sat on the bleachers with for a brief moment, and of two women going through the same pain.

She'd talked about closure, in her letter. But maybe there's something beyond that.

A start of something new.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

happiness

Through the years, every time she and James were almost over, Betty got this feeling that that wasn't it. That it wasn't supposed to happen like that, that they were meant to be together. Now she doesn't. It's so much more complicated than that. She feels so much. And most of all, she feels so tired, she just wants to close the door on the whole thing, no matter whether it's right or wrong.

There were months of barely talking, then weeks of fighting, then not talking at all, and before all that, there were years of happiness. James was her husband, and now he isn't. She loves him, and hates him, and sometimes she is just indifferent to him. Betty can't focus on just one of those things.

Sometimes she detests even the sight of him with a passion. Other times, all she wants from the bottom of her heart is for him to be able to be joyful again. And after the mess of arguing, and lawyers, and dividing up their things, that is the feeling that remains.

Once she's had some distance from all of it, she knows she wants James to feel happy again. She wants herself to be happy again. She wants them both to be okay. And she knows they won't be able to do that together.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

no body, no crime

It's probably a good movie. From the questions she gets, the interview requests, the articles her manager sends her about awards buzz, Inez gathers there's a lot of excitement for this to come out, and a lot of excitement about her performance in it. She wonders if that means she should be more excited too.

She gets the deal, sure. It did sound like a good movie, when she read the script, and when she gets to watch bits and pieces of the day's shoot here and there, she thinks she did pretty well.

But she's not excited. She just can't bring herself to care that much.

It's a movie. It's all fake, so painfully, mind numbingly fake. Inez is tired of it. The role is different, sure - a thriller, a very different direction than the role that made her famous, or the romantic comedies that followed, which is why she even took the part. But it's not different, not really.

It's memorizing her lines, standing where she's supposed to stand, answering stupid questions from reporters, watching her weight even though it should have nothing to do with the part she's playing, reading every article that says she's not good enough for this. And washing it all down with a bottle at the end of the day. It has been the same for years now. Inez might have felt a spark for acting at the beginning, and she's not sure when it faded, but she has been searching to feel it again ever since.

Searching for a way to feel happy again.

Searching for something real.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

tolerate it

When James was abroad, all Betty wanted was for them to be able to share the same bed. When he returned, all she wanted was for him to be awake and healthy. Now that he's up, and moving, and going out, all she wants is for him to be still for a moment, to be with her, to talk to her.

James has been gone for a long time. He might've come back, but he hasn't been here, not really. And he hasn't been hers. Her James, who talked to her about everything, who convinced her to try crazy things, the one she never doubted loved her. The one she loved. The one she married.

Her only solution, when he went away, was to go away too. She had to distance herself from the heartache of not having him with her. But she doesn't know how to bridge that gap now. She doesn't know how to be close to him again, how to help him, and she can try, but she doesn't know how to figure out what's going on with him, what it is that's keeping him from crossing that distance, too.

Betty can feel there's something there. Something else, something more, keeping him away, keeping him from her.

Now, all she wants is to find out what. Later, when she's discovered what, or rather who, it was, all she'll want is to have never known it at all.

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[kaleidoscope-story]

tis the damn season

James is staying at his parents' house for the holidays. Well, it's just his mom's house, now, but the house he associates with his childhood will always be called, in his mind, his parents' house. Even if it looks completely different than it did during that childhood. It's older, and emptier, and sadder. Much like James himself.

Either way, that's what James calls it when he runs into Inez. There's no reason to say it. Where else would he be staying, after all? But he wants her to know it. He wants her to be able to come and see him if she wants to. He wants to see her. There's no reason for that, either. Or at least there shouldn't be.

Except that, once, Inez had asked him if he'd ever wanted to go back to when they were kids. The answer had been no, at the time, at least not in the way she wanted it. But now... Now, James thinks of a happy childhood, a carefree summer, and the girl with the permanent smile.

He can't remember the last time he was happy. Summer is over and winter has come. And both of them are faking their smiles now.

James has been trying to escape reality for years. First, it was the war. Now, it's his life in New York. Always, it's his own mind. And Inez tells him she doesn't want to go back to LA either. So, what's wrong with them both escaping towards the fantasy of their shared past for a while? What's wrong with a drive around town? With looking back at their school, at their beach, at their homes? What's wrong with trying to reach that happiness again?

What's wrong is that it wasn't just happiness then. And it's not happiness now. And while most of the things they're running from have changed, one hasn't, James realizes, as he goes to sleep in Inez's bed, once again, thinking of someone else.

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