Dissolve (4 page)

I sit at the bus stop after class, heavy dark clouds looming overhead. I pray it doesn’t rain, but it probably will, because my luck’s never been great. Just as I’m contemplating spending the next few hours in the library to escape potential downpours, my phone rings.

“Hey Mom!” I pick up.

“Hi, Ev.” Her soft voice relaxes me almost instantly. “How have you been?”

“I’m great. A thunderstorm is about to dump everything on my head any second now, but other than that I’m great.”

Mom laughs. “Oh, you poor thing. Did you bring an umbrella?”

“I didn’t bring it. It was so clear and sunny earlier!”

“That’s Connecticut for you. Are you walking home?”

“Nah, taking the bus. I’ll be okay.” I don’t want her to worry, so I change the subject. “How are things with the house?”

Mom is always in the middle of renovations on the tiny two-bedroom house she bought after the divorce. It keeps her busy, and most importantly, makes her happy.

“It’s fine! I cut my hand laying tile in the guest bathroom last night -”

“Mom!” I groan. “Please don’t die yet. I don’t even have one tiny grub of a kid to show you yet.”

She laughs. “Alright, alright. I’ll try not to die before then. Much. How’s everything at school?”

I tell her about the Hildebrant scholarship, and she’s excited as I am. She says if I need a date to the dinner, she’ll come with me, and we make plans for it. I hang up feeling a lot better than before she called - Mom just has that effect on me. I love her to pieces.

A single raindrop falls on my head. Then another, and another. A deluge rips the sky apart, and I frantically stuff my cellphone in my bag and rush to the nearest eave. I huddle under the library’s roof, my jacket and shirt and pants soaked through, my hair a drenched mess.

“Shit,” I swear, shivering. The December east coast cold is unforgiving. But I can’t hide inside the library - this is the last bus home for the next six hours. I just want to get back to the apartment before sundown. I have no other clothes. If I stay in these for too long, I might get sick. I can’t afford to get sick and let my grades slip while the scholarship is still up for grabs. Why is the bus so damn
late
?

“Lionesses are supposed to like water,” A familiar voice says to my left. I look over to see Kai sauntering up to me, all cocky grins and rain-kissed dark hair. In one hand he holds his motorcycle helmet.

“Well this just proves I’m not one,” I say. “So you can stop calling me that.”

“I don’t think so,” He smirks. “You’re definitely a lioness, down to the prickly pride and righteous fury. Which always seems directed at me, for some reason.”

“Wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact you purposefully annoy me every chance you get,” I counter.

“Annoy? I thought this was called having a friendly conversation.”

I snort, and he chuckles.

“You’re right. Most of my conversations with woman are a lot friendlier. You’re the exception.”

“Thank god we
all
haven’t lost our minds,” I grumble. We stand under the eaves together, my body keenly aware of just how close he is, and how much heat his skin beneath his jacket is radiating. For some reason I flash back to the night in the club when I was dancing, and his hypnotic two-tone eyes were fixed on me, staring at me, memorizing every part of who I was and how I moved.

“Are you waiting for the bus?” He asks.

“I’m waiting for lightning to strike me and end the misery of speaking to you.”

“Ouch. You’re really grumpy today. And wet. My favorite combination.”

His smirk this time has that heat beneath it. I will myself not to blush, not that I can anyway - the cold air is sapping me of all the warmth in my blood.

“Listen,” Kai clears his throat. “I don’t think the bus is coming. There was a massive traffic jam on the highway when I last checked.”

“Who keeps tabs on traffic?”

“I always check if it looks like rain. Motorcycles are dangerous when the roads are wet.”

“And yet you still drive one.”

“I live for the thrill.”

I’m quiet.

“Let me give you a ride home,” He says.

“That is the lamest pickup line I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not,” He frowns. Even his frown is handsome - his lips smooth and face somehow sharper in displeasure. “Sorry, lioness, but you aren’t really my type.”

“Fantastic, because neither are you.”

“Great. Now that that’s settled, let’s go.”

He tosses me a spare helmet from his bag. My rain-slick fingers barely manage to catch it. I shove it back at him.

“I don’t want your charity.”

“Christ, this isn’t charity, either,” He groans. “Why do you make it so hard for people to be nice to you?”

I flinch. Dr. Dowell’s voice instantly springs up in my mind.

‘If you be nice to me, I’ll be very nice to you.’

A shudder runs through me, and it has nothing to do with the cold. The smell of leather surrounds me suddenly as Kai puts his riding jacket around my shoulders, chasing away the dark memory. His frown deepens.

“You’re gonna catch pneumonia if you don’t get home soon, alright? Let’s go. No arguing.”

I open my mouth, but he turns on his heel abruptly and walks towards the parking garage. It’s just one ride. One ride, and I can be home, warm and in dry clothes. He saved Trist. He wouldn’t do anything bad to me, would he? How long has it been since I trusted a guy to do anything, let alone give me a ride home?

I trail after him uncertainly. The parking garage is dim and smells like oil spills, with people going in and out of their cars. There’s people. We’re in public. Even if he does try something, I can always scream. I’m safe. I’m safe, but I didn’t used to be, and it lingers in every one of my tensed muscles. I should try to act normal, like I’m totally fine with this. I don’t care what Kai thinks of me, as long as he doesn’t think I’m incapable of handling myself.

He walks up to his bike. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it, but it’s still pretty impressive. The black finish on the fuel tank shines, the chrome handlebars and accents glinting in the winter sun. He must take good care of it - there’s not even a single blemish. I pull my helmet on and buckle it.

“Don’t worry,” He assures me. “I drive safe. Most of the time.”

“’
Most of the time
’? What are the exceptions?”

“When a pretty girl wants me to go faster,” His smirk is practically insufferable. He straddles the bike and pats the seat behind him. “Come on, wet cat. No time to lose.”

I tentatively put my leg over the seat, careful not to press any part of my body against him. He turns and runs his finger under the strap of my helmet suddenly, against my jawline.

“Good. It’s nice and tight.”

I must’ve already contracted a fever, because my face gets hot at last. Kai doesn’t seem to notice. He kicks the bike to life and puts his own helmet on, the sputtering making it hard to hear his next words.

“Hold on to me,” he shouts.

“So you can what, measure my cup size with your spine?”

“So you don’t fall off,” he laughs. “Unless you want to add a broken arm to your list of potential ailments.”

I grimace and slowly put my hands on his waist. He rolls his eyes and pulls my hands forward, clasping my arms around his rock-hard stomach.

“Much better. Alright, any last words?”

“How about my address?” I shout. I can feel his laugh vibrate through his chest.

“That’d be great.”

I tell him it, and he revs the engine before kicking the brake up. All eyes are on us as the bike lurches across the pavement. The sudden wind blows rain into my face, and I bury it behind Kai’s broad back, a brief shelter from the storm. On every turn I feel like I’ll slip off, so I tighten my grip around him. I can’t control the scared shivers that run through me - part cold and part awe at how a two-wheeled bike can turn on a dime. He’s not going very fast - I’ve seen him go much faster than this. If anything, it feels like he’s going really slow for my sake.

Before I know it, I feel the bike slow down. I look up and see my apartment building.

“Is this it?” Kai turns and asks, his helmet dripping with rain. His shirt sticks to his shoulders, and his hands, even in their motorcycle gloves, are soaked.

“Yeah,” I nod. I get off and unclasp the helmet, handing it and the jacket back to him. I open my mouth to say thank you, but he holds up his hand.

“Don’t bother thanking me. I know you hate me.”

“I can’t -” I stop. “I can’t hate a guy who’s given me a ride home. And helped my friend.”

He props his visor open and smiles, and something about it makes my breathing stutter. It’s that same gentle smile he gave me the night he helped me with Trist. It’s so different from the smiles I’ve seen him flash at people all week. This one feels somehow more honest.

“That’s good to hear, lioness. We’ll just have to do it more often, huh?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

He laughs. “I never do. Now go on, get inside.”

I hug my bag to my chest and jog to the safety of the overhang. I stop on the steps, looking back one last time. Kai gives a facetious little salute off his forehead, and then drives away into the silver rain.

FOUR

Graveyards aren’t really my thing.

Then again, graveyards aren’t anyone’s thing. Anyone alive, anyway. I’m sure the dead like them. Personally, I want to be burned and my ashes spread somewhere beautiful, like the south of France. But I’m getting ahead of myself, here.

No one’s died, but Mrs. Tully, my Film Studies teacher and a massive jolly matron of a woman, has decided the best way to celebrate our studies on early film starlets is to visit Katherine Hepburn’s grave. She adores juxtapositions, and for the entire ride there (I’m the only student without a car or friend in the class with a car, so I ride with her), she regales me of the beautiful irony of death when compared to a starlet like Katherine.

“It doesn’t matter how skinny, or how beautiful, or how rich you,” She turns a little too hard, her huge bosom straining against the seatbelt. “Death takes us all in the end. Isn’t it poetic?”

No, I think. It’s just death - sad and lonely and final. But I don’t say that.

“Yeah,” I smile, and look back out the window at the passing graves. She parks, and we get out. Everyone else is already at Katherine’s grave, waiting for us. The grass is withered and brown, the trees bare and tragic-looking. A murder of crows sit on a naked maple tree, cawing out a dirge for the dead. Mrs. Tully has us take notes on her lecture as she goes on and on about Katherine’s dynamic life. I look up her picture on my phone; she’s the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen, even prettier than the redhead goddess Kai made out with at the club. Mrs. Tully informs us she wore pants before it was cool, advocated for women’s rights, and took her career into her own hands as soon as she could. She’s officially a badass in my book.

After the lecture’s over, Mrs. Tully dismisses us for lunch. I take my tuna sandwich and head for a tall hill a ways away. From up here, I can see the whole graveyard - every stone slab, every granite archangel hovering. Bouquets of flowers dot the lawn, left for loved mothers and brothers and husbands. There aren’t many people visiting on a Friday morning. The only person is a lone figure standing before a grave, a wine bottle in one hand. His jacket is black leather, his hair dark. I squint. There’s no way that’s who I think it is.

He doesn’t see me, but he turns, and I can clearly see his broad shoulders, his lean waist, and that familiar two-tone gaze, one green, one brown.

It’s Kai.

Who is he visiting?

I watch him pour out some of the wine on a grave, and shake his head as if he’s laughing. He drinks some wine, swigging it, and pours out a little more.

“Evelyn!” Mrs. Tully’s voice calls me from the bottom of the other side of the hill. “We’re leaving!”

My eyes linger on Kai as I stuff my crusts in my paper bag and walk down the hill, my curiosity burning. The entire ride home all I can think of is his hand emptying the wine bottle slowly, reverently, sadly.

***

That night, Trist is home before me. She’s boiling a pot of spaghetti on the stove, humming happily. She waves when I walk in.

“Hey! Do you feel like going to a party?”

I shake rain off my coat and hang it up. “Um, not especially?”

“Oh, come on. I promise I won’t get drugged this time.” She adds a laugh to it, but the sound only makes me more serious.

“If you’re going, then I’ll go. And this time, I won’t let you out of my sight.”

She sighs. “But what if I wanna make out with a guy? Or pass out on the couch drunk? Or dance on the table?”