Dissolve (13 page)

“Hey, Ev!” Hayley smiles. “We were just talking about you. Kai’s up for the Hildebrant scholarship too, did you know?”

I can’t look at him, staring at his shoes instead. “Oh? That’s…great.”

“So you two will be going to the awards ceremony together, right?” Hayley asks. I see Kai frown.

“No – we’re not –”

“I don’t know him very well,” I brave a smile at him, trying to hurt him with it. “So, no. I’m going with my mom.”

“Oh neat!” Hayley winks at me, a sort of quiet ‘good job’ for my half-insult. Kai looks uncomfortable, and finally says something.

“I have to go. See you later, Hayley. And Evelyn –”

“Bye,” I say shortly. I can’t bear to hear his name on my lips. Even as he walks away, he looks a little less proud. Wounded. Hayley thumps me on the back.

“Nice going, girl. Get that revenge snipe in when you can.”

“Is that why you called me over?”

“You bet,” She grins, but it fades. “Sorry. If you didn’t want to, I shouldn’t have –”

“No, it’s fine,” I shake my head. “It’s good. It’s helping me get over him, I think, little by little.”

“That’s what I was hoping,” Hayley smiles. “Good luck with the scholarship this week, by the way.”

“Thanks. You’ve been – you’ve been a good friend, Hayley. I really appreciate it.”

“You’ve been equally good,” She assures me, and starts off down the path. “Text me if you wanna hang out later!”

I watch her go. My eyes catch on someone tall and dark, lingering in a hallway and watching us. He turns and leaves before I can see him properly, but his height, his posture – it looked like Kai.

I hope he regrets leaving, at the very least. But some small part of me hopes even more he’s moving on, past me, to someone he likes better. Someone who he doesn’t leave in the morning after. Someone who’s better in bed, or smarter, or less naïve.

Anybody but me.

NINE

In four days, the Hildebrant scholarship dinner is on. Mom picks me up, looking twenty years younger in her floor-length cream dress. She has long sleeves where I have none, my black dress swishing somewhere near my knees with thick ruffles.

“You look beautiful, honey!” Mom squeals. I smile awkwardly.

“I feel like a dress-up doll.”

“A dress-up doll who’s won a very prestigious scholarship.”

“We don’t know that yet!”

“I do,” Mom asserts. “In my heart. I’ve always had a good gut instinct.”

“I thought you knew it in your heart?” I tease. Mom shoves at my shoulder playfully.

“Alright, alright. Let’s just get there with marginally less snark than normal, that’s all I ask.”

Bernard’s is an ancient, dignified black building downtown, trimmed in gold and the impressive glass doors flanked by gold-painted lion statues. Cars pull into the hotel’s roundabout, unloading other people in gorgeous dresses and tuxedos. I spot Ms. Smalls and wave to her, and introduce her and Mom. We go into together, the crushed velvet carpet soft on my heels. Artistic orb lights hang from the ceiling, and Hildebrant organizers usher people past the front desk and into the ballroom. Pristine white tables crowd before a stage, laid with fine silverware and nameplates. Ms. Smalls pulls me aside when Mom goes to the bathroom, her voice low.

“Okay, I know it’s a little fancy –” She starts.

“It’s way fancier than you let on!” I say. “I didn’t know it was gonna be Titanic-level fancy.”

“You’ll do fine,” Ms. Smalls assures me. “There’s going to be the opening speech, and then we’ll eat dinner, and dessert. During coffee the MC is going to ask you to come up to the stage, and they’ll announce the winners.”

I clutch my shaking hands. “Ack, now I’m nervous.”

She pats my shoulder and smiles. “Trust me, Evelyn. You’ll do great. Just play it as cool as you can.”

Halfway through pork roulade stuffed with spinach and walnuts and crisp red cabbage sliced thin and seasoned with lemon-ginger aioli, I look up. Mom’s been chatting with our tablemates nonstop, and one of them sounds familiar. I recognize her face.

“Mrs. Green?” I raise my voice. The woman looks to me, squints, and then smiles brightly.

“Evelyn Jones? Is that you?”

“Oh my god,” I breathe. “It is you. How have you been?”

Mrs. Green was my AP psychology teacher in high school, and the only teacher who noticed when I started retreating into my shell. She was kind, yet ineffectual, but I didn’t blame her – I was so withdrawn at that point, she wouldn’t have been able to help me out of my shell. No one except Kyle could’ve. But I didn’t keep up with him, and we fell apart. Mrs. Green is here because they called in teachers from all over the state to judge the participants. We catch up across the table, talking about how the school has changed, and about the people we both knew.

“That boy,” Mrs. Green digs into her cheesecake. “The one that followed your every shadow. What was his name?”

“Kyle?”

“Yes, that’s the one!” She points her fork at me. “Very quiet, very polite, very bright. Did you two keep in touch after you moved?”

“Not as much as I wanted to,” I say quietly. She nods.

“That’s understandable.”

“What happened to him after I left?”

“Oh, he became quite different! He talked more, made some friends with the football team, and I think he joined the Varsity team in his Junior year! He got so much taller and stronger – like all boys do at that age if they’re given a bit of room to grow.”

Kyle, the Kyle I knew, on the football team? I feel my brow quirking on its own.

“Good for him,” I say.

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Green agrees. “I know he had problems at home, so seeing him flourish was really heartwarming.”

I tilt my head. “Problems at home?”

“He didn’t tell you? You two seemed so close, I’m shocked he didn’t mention it.” She looks surprised, then leans in and murmurs so only we can hear. “His father beat him quite bad. In places we couldn’t see, of course. But I knew the signs.”

I knew he lived in a trailer park with his Mom and Dad, of course. He told me that. I knew his Dad was hard on him, but not that hard. I never saw bruises on him. He must’ve taken great care to hide them from me. Part of me is confused; why would he hide them from me? Was he ashamed? Did he think I’d think he was weak or something? I know it’s pointless now, but I want to ask him.

I hope even harder now that - wherever he is - he’s happier.

“Do you know what college he went to?” I ask. Mrs. Green thinks on it, then shakes her head.

“I think he might’ve taken a year off.”

I furrow my brows. It’d be nice to know where he got to after high school. I’ve checked his facebook occasionally, but it was deactivated years ago.

“Eve, are you getting nervous?” Mom asks, forcing me out of old memories. She pats my hand, and nods at the stage, where the MC is setting up. My stomach instantly starts roiling. An entire year’s worth of tuition is huge. I’m barely scraping by with my job, and even if my GPA hasn’t dropped yet, I know I’m doing worse in my schoolwork. All my focus grinds down to just the MC, who calls us up. Me and seven other well-dressed people approach the stage. We shuffle nervously, the stagelights blaring into our faces. Only one name comes from the MC’s lips, but it’s not mine.

“Kyle Jackson.”

I feel my body go numb as I watch the winner walk up to the MC. He’s tall, in a fitted tux, his hair dark and shaggy and falling in his eyes.

Mismatched eyes.

He stops in front of me, our gazes meeting, and he goes stock-still.

“Eve?” He whispers.

“You,” I feel my lips forming the word, but I don’t recognize my own voice. IT’s drowned by the applause from the crowd. The MC’s voice cuts through my shock.

“Kyle Jackson? Come on up! You’re the winner!”

We’re transfixed, staring at each other disbelievingly. His brown eye is suddenly two brown eyes – a deep, rich mahogany color. I’ve seen these eyes before – these are Kyle’s eyes. I’ve seen them full of tears, uncertain, nervous, angry, smiling. Now that his real name is attached to his face, I remember it all.

‘I’ve lied to you,’
his voice echoes in my head.
‘I’ve been lying to you since the moment we met in the alley’
.

How? How did he change his eye color? Is he really –

“Kyle!” The MC shouts with higher intensity. “Come here young man, and let’s get you your prize.”

Kai’s eyes flicker, and before I can blink he’s grabbed my hand. Unlike the mall, this time I run with him, out of the hotel ballroom, out of the hotel itself.

“W-Wait,” I say breathlessly. He slows, and I kick my heels off and grab them. We keep running until we’re surrounded by the trees of the park, until the hotel is a faint outline on the block. I pull my hand from his, and while I’m panting and struggling for breath, he looks barely winded.

“I-It’s not possible,” I struggle. “You can’t be –”

“I changed my name,” He says instantly, coolly, almost like he’s practiced this. “I took my mother’s last name when I turned eighteen, and told everyone to start calling me Kai.”

“But your eyes –”

“I wore contacts through all of high school,” He continues. “My dad hated my eyes. He thought I was a demon.”

“Is that why he beat you?”

His mismatched eyes flash with sharpness, softening quickly. “How did you know about that?”

“Do you remember Mrs. Green from AP Psych? She was there, at the awards ceremony.”

“The one we just ran from?”

I can’t help the tiny laugh that bubbles up. “Yeah, that one. Did you – Did you follow me to this college?”

“No! This was my third choice. When I saw you I thought –” Kai shakes his head, and exhales. “It sounds corny as hell, but I thought it was fate. It had to be fate.”

“And you – you didn’t tell me,” I say slowly. “You didn’t tell me you were Kyle. That whole time, that night in the motel room, you knew and I didn’t?”

Kai reaches out for my hand again. “Evelyn –”

“No!” I pull away. “I gave you a chance to tell me, and you didn’t do shit!”

“I didn’t want to lose you!” He growls. “Would you have believed me even if I told you that night?”

I want to spit something back, but nothing comes to my lips. He’s right. I wouldn’t have believed him, even if he told me, because I didn’t trust him.

“I didn’t trust you, and I slept with you,” I murmur. “I don’t trust you, so I only barely believe you now.”

“The dam,” he says. “That night when I said I’d jump with you, and you stopped me.”

Who else would know about it except Kyle and I? I’m suddenly awestruck by how much he’s changed, and reach out to his face. He doesn’t flinch away, closing his eyes as I run my hands over his eyebrows, softly over his eyelids. His browbone looks familiar – I saw it knit with worry all the time as a teenager. My fingers work their way to his jaw, admiring how sharp it is now, compared to the little pouches of baby fat I was used to seeing. His chin is the same as Kyle’s, and his broad lips - which looked so uneven on his teenage face – fit perfectly now. Those lips have kissed my throat, my chest, my legs. Those lips promised to die with me, as foolish a teenage flight of fancy as it was. He’d been my first friend – my best friend - up until the very moment I moved.

And now he’s more. My first love. My first heartbreak. My first night.

My fingers tremble upon touching his lips, and he reaches up and holds them.

“You should’ve let me jump,” I say. “That night.”

“Never,” He mutters, leaning in. His smell of leather and peppermint somehow impossibly lingers even when he’s in a tuxedo. “I could never let you.”

“Why me?” I ask. “You could have any girl you want. You had them all. So why me?”

Without a word, he reaches to the base of my neck and lifts my head up softly, kissing me with all the passion of that night in the motel; a dark, sweet fever that sends chills through every inch of my body. Somehow, beyond all belief, we’ve found each other again.

We pull away, and he leans in. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Only if it’s the truth.”

“I started trying to forget you the moment you left,” He says. “I came here, and tried to forget you even harder. Every girl was a way to drown you. But your voice would always be there, in my memories. No matter what I did, no matter how much noise I brought into my life, I could never drown you out.”

Everything in me goes soft, but I’m determined not to show it. I still can’t believe it’s really Kyle. His secret ran deep, and for a brief second I can understand why he didn’t want to tell me. I’ve got my own secret I haven’t told him – a secret that’s tainted me down to my very marrow, a secret that makes me distrustful and unpleasant.

“Any other girl would treat you nicer,” I say. “Don’t choose me.”

He kisses me again, until I’m breathless. “Too late. I can’t choose anyone else but you.”

TEN

I just want to melt in his arms, and let this moment last forever. I never thought the boy I’d grown up with would love me like this – so boldly, without hesitating. He dips his tongue in my mouth, and I push back against him, suddenly hungry for his touch.