After Nothing (5 page)

‘Natalie! Fuck! She’s dead.’

‘I know. I just wanted to see what it would be like. To be like her.’

‘Don’t do it again. It’s crazy.’

‘Kane, I said I won’t. Just stop talking about it.’

I walked over to the desk we always had sex on and sat on it. I pulled the pink headband out of my hair and tossed it to one side.

‘You get tested?’ asked Kane.

‘For what?’ I looked at him confused and then realized what he was talking about. ‘I didn't. I didn’t even think to.’

‘You ain’t caught anything off me.’

‘You got tested?’

‘Yeah. I’m clean. For everything.’

‘I’m sorry, Kane.’

He came closer.

‘That was shit, Nat.’

‘I know. I’m so sorry.’

Kane sat down beside me.

‘Are you going to want me again?’ I asked, looking at him.

‘Might.’

‘So, not yes, and not no?’

‘Might more than want you, but I ain’t got time for your fucking crazy.’

‘Are you always going to bring that up now?’

‘What do you expect?’

‘I want you to forget about it.’

‘You told me to hit you.’

‘You treated me like nothing.’

It was an accusation. Tears welled in my eyes. ‘I’ve never been close to anyone.’ I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. Kane’s arms went around me. He didn’t say anything. But he was warm and he smelt good. And after a short while he kissed me. Not demanding, or wanting more, just a simple, plain, perfect kiss. When he released me one of his hands entwined in mine.

‘Did you win some fights while you were away?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘How many?’

‘All of them,’ said Kane, as though it was no big deal.

‘That’s good, Kane.’

‘Yeah, it’ll shut Wayne up for a bit.’

‘Were you with other girls this summer?’

I wasn’t even really thinking about it when I asked. It just came out. I would have taken the question back but then Kane released his hold on my hand.

‘Who have you been with?’ I asked.

‘No one.’

‘Who?’ There was a waver in my voice.

‘I didn’t know you’d been waiting outside my place, Nat.’

Tears pricked at my eyes.

‘Just tell me.’

‘We weren’t together over the summer,’ said Kane. ‘You hooked up with someone else.’

‘I know that. Tell me who she is?’

Kane looked away, his eyes casting around the dim room.

‘There were a few bitches round is all. But no one like you.’

It felt like someone was both twisting and squeezing my heart simultaneously.

‘You slept with them?’

‘I didn’t take any risks with them, Nat,’ he said, reaching for my hand again.

I moved away from him, slid off the table and went toward the door.

He followed me, and said with increased urgency, ‘We weren’t together.’

My throat hurt, and hot tears spilled down my cheeks. I stopped just short of opening the door. I couldn’t go outside. School was outside. The world was outside. I didn’t want to be in either.

‘Nat?’

‘How many girls were there?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’ I said, choking on the words as a sob broke through.

‘I’ve been away for two months.’

‘So? You can’t remember?’

‘It don’t matter how many there were. There ain’t any now. That’s what matters.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Can’t what?’

‘It hurts.’

‘I didn’t know you wanted to be with me, Natalie.’

We stared at each other. I could tell he wanted to touch me, but I didn’t give him the opportunity. Instead I used the backs of my hands to wipe my eyes and then folded my arms across my chest.

‘Just tell me, Kane.’

He did. I felt sick. He’d been in all those other girls, touching them, talking to them, kissing them. I slid down the closed door, huddled against it. I covered my head with my arms and sobbed into my knees.

‘Nat, you kissed someone else. You could have slept with other guys.’ That just made me cry harder. ‘Not that I would have wanted you to,’ said Kane hurriedly. ‘I’m glad you didn’t.’

I kept on crying.

‘Fuck,’ said Kane, and then crouched down in front of me. ‘I didn’t know them, okay? I was trying to forget about you. Couldn’t though. Baby, you know how we left it.’

‘I didn’t leave anything,’ I sobbed. ‘You left it that way. You didn’t even tell me you were going away.’

‘I didn’t know I was going away. I weren’t even fit enough to fight, but that’s all I wanted to do after you told me why you were with me. I was into you, Natalie, and it was like you couldn’t have given a shit about being with me.’

‘No. I wanted to be with you.’

‘That ain’t true and you know it.’

‘Why’d you have to sleep with so many girls?’

‘They were there, you know? ’Sides I hate being alone.’

‘You never told me that.’

Kane moved so he was sitting beside me. He leaned back against the door, the bruising on his face emphasizing his weary expression.

‘I stay busy, and then it’s alright.’

‘Your uncle made it sound like you’re not allowed people at his house.’

‘He always wants us to keep a distance from other people. But I never felt like that ’bout you. I wanted
you
there. Thought you wanted to be there, though. If you said you just wanted to fuck and that’s it, I would have just fucked you here at school. But you always wanted to come back to mine. I mean, I ain’t complaining I got you all those times. You’re beautiful and everything. It’s just I thought you wanted to be with me.’

‘I do.’

‘So we start again now.’

He put an arm around my shoulder, but I shook my head.

‘It hurts too much.’

‘What does?’

‘You. I know we weren’t going out, and I know what I did. I just couldn’t feel that it was wrong at the time. And now I feel like what you did was really wrong. Like you betrayed me.’

‘Being betrayed hurts,’ said Kane matter-of-factly. ‘Even more than being hit.’

I was crying less now, and felt a new heat of humiliation rise up my face.

‘I’m sorry I asked you to do that.’

‘That’s not in me,’ said Kane. ‘To hit you. I mean, I’m pretty sure that ain’t in me. And Nat, you can’t want to be hit. Not really. Being hit – like, hit hard – it fucking hurts. Worse even when you got no way of defending yourself. Even sometimes if you feel like you want to be hurt. Nat, that shit’s not for you. Ever. Don’t go looking for it.’

He still had his arm around me, and I leaned my head on his shoulder.

‘You okay?’ he asked, pulling me closer.

‘I know you didn’t really betray me.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kane. ‘Think I knew I was gonna come back and try and start something again between us. I mean, I’m still into you. Don’t know how I’d stop being into you.’

‘You really think I’m beautiful?’

‘You know you are.’

‘People like different things.’

‘Yeah, I can’t stand this bangin’ body of yours.’ Kane wrapped a hand around my knee and then ran his fingers up the inside of my thigh. It tickled and made me squirm. It wasn’t the first time he’d teased me, but it was the first time it felt familiar.

‘You really waited at my place all those times?’

‘Yes. I just kept wanting you to come back, and you didn’t.’

‘Here now.’

It was different with Kane now. Neither of us could shut up when we were talking to each other. I don’t even know what we talked about some days, but he was always making me laugh. I could just think about him and I’d smile, and he could just give me a certain look and I’d laugh. I hadn’t been too familiar with my own laugh up till then. I liked it though. I liked the sound of it. I liked how it felt when it kind of gurgled up inside of me, and then burst out. I liked that my laugh automatically made Kane laugh.

And he was so sweet to me. Like, all the time. Never said nothing mean, or in a mean way. And as much as he called me Nat, he also called me girl, and baby, and it all felt so natural.

We went to the movies one day and there was hardly anyone there. It was supposed to be a good story, like funny and everything, but Kane and I sat in the empty back row and just about as soon as the opening titles were done we stopped eating popcorn and candy and started making out. We were the clichéd teenagers in love. Him feeling me up and me stopping him going further. Both of us trying to be quiet, me stifling my giggling as good as I could and then him trying to convince me in a whisper it would be a good idea if I went down on him. I found this so funny that I shook in almost-silent fits of laughter until my stomach hurt. Then Kane acted all offended, moving a seat away, crossing his arms, saying ‘Whatever, girl,’ and ‘A man’s got pride,’ but also laughing because I was. Someone halfway down the theatre yelled at us to shut up, so Kane moved back beside me, and we went back to just making out, tasting salted buttered popcorn and the sweetness of M&M’s in each other’s mouths.

On school mornings, rather than walk by Kane’s locker like I used to do, I’d stand with him until the bell went for class. He wasn’t robbing houses, and he wasn’t dealing drugs. He was selling stolen car parts. He’d arrange everything at school: get addresses and take half the money from other guys at school who were buying on behalf of those wanting the parts. Then Kane and another guy would deliver the goods in the early hours of the morning and collect the rest of the money.

We got to know more about each other pretty quickly. He already knew about my sister, of course, but I told him a lot about my parents as well. Then he told me about his mom. Showed me the photos he had of her, and then told me his one memory of her. Of his mom singing, and how she kept walking past him with her arms full of stuff. He was playing with a blue truck on brown carpet. That was it. That was all he could remember of her.

I stayed close with Melissa. We got each other. It was weird to think I’d known her most my life without realizing my best friend was right there, outspoken, and kind, and funny as hell. We’d hang out, just the two of us, but I stopped spending time with her friends. I stayed friendly with them at school though. I even sat with them all at lunch sometimes, but only if Kane was busy.

I was always thinking about Kane. If I wasn’t with him my mind would be filled up with where he was, what he was doing and who he was with. I was constantly texting him, except late at night when I was asleep – but even then my phone would wake me every few hours with a text from him. The screensaver on my phone was a picture of him smiling at me as I took his photo. A photo of the side of my breast, which he’d taken so closely you couldn’t really tell it was my breast, was the screensaver on his phone.

One freezing cold fall day when the streets were full of windblown trash and Kane and I had nearly frozen walking from the bus stop to his place, I asked Kane who his best friend was. We were lying under his blankets by then, fully clothed and trying to warm up in his room, which seemed just about the same temperature as it was outside.

Kane took his time answering my question, finally saying, ‘Wayne.’

‘No, I mean, guys at school.’

‘Don’t have friends at school.’

I had been beginning to suspect that was the case, but I pushed it further.

‘You got friends out of school?’

‘Some.’

‘You never talk about them, and I haven’t met any of them.’

‘You don’t need to meet them. And you’ve met the guys at the gym.’

‘Yeah, but they don’t like me.’

Kane smiled across the pillow at me.

‘Baby, they just don’t like women in the gym period. But, it didn’t help none that you yelled down the phone to Mel the whole time you were there.’

‘I couldn’t hear her over the music.’

‘That means she shouts, not you. ’Sides, they put that music on to drown you out.’

‘Whatever,’ I said, looking up at the ceiling.

Kane moved over on top of me. I kept my eyes fixed on the ceiling.

‘Baby?’

‘Yes.’

‘You grumpy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I show you something?’

My eyes flicked to his. ‘I’ve already seen it.’

He laughed.

‘This is something different.’

‘Fine, show me.’

‘You gotta be cool. ’Cause it looks permanent but it don’t have to be.’

I frowned. He was smiling, but he was also looking a bit nervous.

‘What have you done, Kane?’

He sat up, and then pulled his hoodie and his t-shirt off in one go.

Inked on his chest were intricately designed letters, the A linking the N and the T directly over his heart. NAT.

It was still healing, fresh scabs in the places where the needle had gone deep.

‘That’s my name,’ I said in disbelief.

‘You good with that?’

I looked up from his chest into the steady gaze of his eyes.

‘I can always cover over it,’ said Kane.

‘No, that’s staying forever.’

The following day we were back in his bed. This time unclothed.

Beginning with my name on his chest, I’d traced just about every tattoo on his body. At the base of his neck,
Richmond
, which was the street he’d lived on with his mom. Below that, an inked pattern he’d designed, which he said didn’t mean anything. It traveled across to his right shoulder, where it wrapped around the head of a nasty looking snake with huge fangs. Covering the ribs Wayne had bruised at the beginning of summer break was Da Vinci’s drawing of what Kane said was the first design of a helicopter.

‘Half a millennium ago, Nat, and he thought up a design for a helicopter. Can you even imagine?’

I had to ask him what a millennium was.

There were twenty-two tattoos on Kane’s body. I counted them. Kane said most of them had been done by his friend, Chuck, who was a tattoo artist. There were a couple on Kane’s left arm though that Chuck had let Kane use his kit to do himself. Like his tattoo of Shys’ name.

I ran my finger over each letter.

‘Who shot him?’

Kane moved his arm away, and I didn’t think he was going to answer.

‘You don’t want me to know?’ I asked.

‘Not that. No one knows who it was. Shys was just chillin’ with Bey, his brother, and some of the boys in the park. Some motherfucker pulled a gun on them.’

‘Did anyone else die?’

‘No. Bey, he took one in the arm trying to reach Shys, but he was already dead. Bey stayed with him though. Everyone else ran but Bey stayed.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Home. Wayne didn’t let me do shit by then except homework and train. And he hated Shys’ dad. Shys and me were tight. Met when we were eight, and Wayne was fine for a while but after a few years me and Shys were mostly only allowed to hang at school.’

‘Why didn’t Wayne like his dad?’

‘’Cause the nigga was evil. He dead and I still hate him.’

‘How old were you when Shys died?’

‘Eleven.’

‘Shys was eleven?’

‘Yep. Bey was fourteen.’

‘Where’s Bey now?

‘He around.’

‘You see him?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How did their dad die?’

‘He weren’t Bey’s dad. And he just got what was coming. The whole thing was fucked up. Their mom killed herself when some asshole at the hospital said Bey wasn’t gonna make it.’

I frowned at him.

‘From being shot in the arm?’

‘No. From Shys’ dad beating the shit out of him. He fucked Bey up real good, just about kicked his head all the way in. But Bey, he’s tough as hell.’

I took a moment to digest this, then I said, ‘How come I haven’t met Bey?’

‘Lots of reasons,’ said Kane.

‘Like what?’

His eyes met mine and then he pulled me on to his chest.

‘I’m glad about you,’ he said.

‘What are you glad about?’

‘You. Meeting you.’

Another afternoon in bed I asked him about Wayne.

‘So, did he just get you when your mom died?’

‘No. I was put in a foster home and he took me from it. They wouldn’t give him custody of me because he’d just done a stint, and he didn’t have a job he could tell them about. But he said where I was, was a shithole. All these kids, dirty, with sores and everything, and he knew he could do better. He just took me one day when he was visiting.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Two.’

I paused, thinking maybe I shouldn’t ask, but then went ahead and asked anyway.

‘Why do you have to sleep down here and not in the house?’

‘Nat, he my uncle.’

‘So?’

‘I owe him. He didn’t have to take me, and he did.’

‘What’s that got to do with why he kicked you out?’

‘Baby, some things between me and him.’

I thought about that for a moment. ‘Okay.’

Kane sighed, pulling me closer. ‘I’ll tell you about it. But we ain’t having a discussion about it. Fact is, I stopped boosting cars last year. Wayne didn’t agree with my decision.’

‘He had you stealing cars?’

‘Didn’t have me doing it. Was just what I did. You know, helping out. Keeping me ain’t cheap, you know. Eating, fighting, traveling.’

‘You’re working now.’

‘Had to pay the rent while Wayne was away, and you know, he still ain’t got no work.’

‘Why didn’t you move back upstairs when he was in prison?’

‘If your dad kicked you out of your house, would you move back in without his say so?’

‘Even now he won’t let you back upstairs?’

‘Not if I want company.’

‘I’m the reason? You’ll freeze down here in winter.’

‘Be glad to,’ said Kane, his brown eyes looking deep into me. ‘I swear, Nat, I can’t get enough of you.’

‘I love you,’ I said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes.’

‘Me too.’

That’s what happened to me, with him.

But another thing that happened was that now, moments spent away from him felt like torture. Being in my house, a mausoleum to my sister, and a tomb for the rest of us, it was killing me. Some nights alone in my room, I would see my old self stare back at me in my bedroom mirror; blank eyes, shadowed face, and that feeling of there just being
nothing
inside me. I’d have to look down at my hand and delve for the image of what it looked like when Kane held it. That was how I could remember that away from home I had something that wasn’t nothing.

I told Kane I hated, hated being at that house. He said we should find our own place. Then he looked indecisive, and I knew he was thinking about Wayne.

‘Maybe one day we could live together,’ I said.

‘Yeah, but not “maybe”. More like “soon”,’ said Kane. ‘Once I’ve finished school, and got a job, then we will.’

I smiled because the thought of it was amazing. Us living together, and eating together and sleeping in the same bed. I’d never yet had Kane fall asleep beside me.

But for now, each afternoon I had to leave him. Had to go back to that house where my rapidly aging father was diminishing in size and person; where my dead sister still occupied the bedroom beside mine. Where my mother was holed up in the darkness, and wanted nothing to do with me.