And You And I

S207 (U2): And in the end, it's only round and round, and round

Author's note:

Right, two down, two to go. For this chapter, we're returning to Pink Floyd (yeah, that obsession will never die) and to the song Us and Them, from their 1973 masterpiece The dark side of the moon. I think I've probably taken more chapter titles from this one album than any other. However, given that its concept is all about the people and the pressures of modern life, it seems somewhat appropriate. Anyway, the chapter title, And in the end, it's only round and round, and round, is a lyric from Us and Them and describes perfectly the situation that Kim currently finds herself in. I hope you all enjoy.

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After her impromptu encounter with Ron on Monday, Kim's week had gone majorly downhill. By Tuesday morning, she had felt so suffocated having been stuck at home, that she'd called Wade and told him she'd take the job his colleague had put in a request for. After dangling the threat of going back to Amy over Ru-Ru's head if he wrecked her apartment, she had left for what should have been a blue milk run. A simple task of ensuring cargo X got from point A to point B. What could possibly have gone wrong? Answer: everything. No less than three different villains had attempted to steal said cargo, the last of which had actually succeeded. While she had fended off villain number one with little trouble, villain two had been much better prepared. And while she had been dealing with him and his hired muscle, villain three had snuck in and swiped the cargo from behind both of their backs. He'd then escaped in a hovercraft and it had taken her four whole days to track him down, retrieve it and get it safely to point B.

Matters had not been helped by the constant need to fend off thoughts about her newfound sexual preferences and what it meant for her. It seemed that was one problem that had refused to be left back in Middleton. At the most inopportune moments, she'd found thoughts creeping into her mind about how she would go about finding a girl to ask out, how she would manage to ask said girl out, what having a relationship with another girl would be like, how things would work between them, including in the sexual department and what her family, friends and the world at large would think about her now being a lesbian. That last point had been the most difficult and contributed to the worst part of the mission; the stares of everyone she had encountered. Even though she knew it was all in her head, Kim could not help but feel that everyone who looked at her knew her secret and were judging her because of it. She'd felt so self-conscious that she'd struggled to hold a conversation with anyone during the initial phase of the mission (prior to the cargo being stolen) and almost been grateful to villain number three for stealing it, as it had allowed her to set out on her own to retrieve it. By mission's end, she'd genuinely been relieved to go home and shut herself away in her apartment.

Kim sat huddled on her sofa, wearing a pair of blue pyjamas and her fluffy pink dressing gown. What the hell am I going to do? She'd arrived home yesterday afternoon to find her apartment surprisingly still intact, bar a bit of a mess in the kitchen. After the cargo had been stolen and she'd realised it could take her days to retrieve it, she'd called home to ask Ru-Ru if he would be able to feed himself during her extended absence. She'd received an, "uh-hu, uh-hu," which had not filled her with confidence, but convinced her enough that she could leave him to his own devices and not return to find the apartment building reduced to a pile of smoking rubble. However, the naked-mole-shark had got creative when it came to opening the fridge and eaten most of the contents. Thus, she'd been forced to go out that morning to re-stock.

The stares of everyone she had passed in Middleton, largely because she'd known a lot of the individuals, had been far more intense than those of the strangers she'd encountered while out on her mission and made her skin crawl. "They have no idea that you're a lesbian," Kim had told herself over and over inside her head, as she'd pushed her cart around Smarty Mart. Her palms had been uncontrollably sweaty and she'd pulled the hood of her hoodie up to try and avoid attention. Neither action had helped. With every gaze that landed on her, she'd imagined a disdainful sneer in place of a smile and heard something like, "get away from me, Freak," or, "eww, stop checking me out, Lezzie," in place of hello. If that wasn't bad enough, fate had decided to shit on her by having her mom appear. Fortunately, she'd seen the woman first and so been able to bolt down a different aisle and make a hasty dash to the checkout, having only got two-thirds of her list.