Documentary (44 page)

             
“Thanks. Yeah. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.” She spun directly into his path and jumped into his arms to hug him. “Tonight was the best, Kai. And today and last night and yesterday…I’m glad I didn’t go with Jamie.”

             
“Me too,” Kai said as he carried her the rest of the way to the house. As soon as he locked the front door, she backed him against the wall. Gripping the back of his neck, Dylan pressed his lips against hers and her body mashed into his. She wanted to lose herself, fall into him. She wanted to sink into an abyss where this moment existed forever. And there was a kind of conviction behind the way he held her as he took control of the kiss, tipping her back until she was slightly off balance, and his fingers pressed into the base of her spine as his lips moved with voracity and a craving against hers, like he wanted not to consume, but meld with all the essence of her. Maybe it was even an unspoken declaration that he belonged to her. Dylan had never been kissed like this before, and she never wanted to be kissed again if it wasn’t this.

Kai
lifted and carried her into her room. As they stood in the middle of the space, Dylan went for the strings of her top knotted around her neck as Kai loosened the ties on her bikini bottom, letting the materials fall to the carpet. A sly smile tugged on his lips when she got on her knees and pulled his swim trunks down. In seconds, he had Dylan against the wall, supporting her legs while her upper back was flat against it. She cried out in pleasure and looked directly into his eyes when she felt him move inside her. Kai shut his eyes for a second and groaned in ecstasy as he thrust into her. When he re-opened them, there was a clenching in her chest, and she finally reached an understanding. She was looking at him the same way he always looked at her. The way you did when you were afraid to lose someone. But deep down, she knew she had been looking at him that way for a long time.

              Kai pulled the bed sheet down, pushed Dylan’s hair out of the way and kissed the back of her neck. His warm hand slipped under her flannel pajama top to caress her stomach. “You awake?”

             
Dylan’s eyes went to the clock on the nightstand. It was 2:48 A.M. “Yeah…what’s up?” She was dreading the daybreak, so much so that it pained her to sleep. She flipped over and put her head on his shoulder and ran her fingers down his bare chest. “Can’t sleep either?”

             
“I want summer memories with you,” he said quickly. “Not involving Mexican wrestling and fake burned passports, of course, but I want them.” Kai swiveled her body so that she was sitting on top of him, and he clutched her waist. “And not just summer…winter, spring, fall. I want to make plans with you. And I know my life is crazy and hectic and there’s so much to deal with, and I know you’ll be busy, but I want this. I want how we are, all the time. I want us. Everything I do with you, I never want it to end. I just…I want everything. I want everything with you. For now, forever, for as long as we drive each other crazy and make each other laugh. I want to see where this goes.” Kai finally took a breath. “I want
you
, Dylan.”

             
“Uh...” Dylan scrambled backward off the bed until she was on her feet, feeling dizzy from the impact of his words. It was like a switch had suddenly been flipped inside her. This was the moment she had been dreading. All the emotions she had been suppressing for weeks pushed up into her throat. Before long, warm tears spilled down to her arms crossed over her stomach. It was the unfairness of all of it; the unfairness of what she had to do next. She stood shaking in the dark room. Dylan wanted to say yes so badly but she couldn’t. She couldn’t focus on him. Now was not the time for this. She had to do everything her brother couldn’t. There was no room for herself anymore when she had replaced it with someone else’s lost chances.

             
“Dyl? You okay?” The mattress whined in response to his moving weight. Knowing she would collapse in his arms if he touched her, Dylan went for the bathroom. She locked the door behind her, and he started knocking as soon as she leaned against it.

             
“What I said was a little unexpected, I admit,” he said with a soft, awkward laugh. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I wanted to tell you the night we were together on the bus at Wintervention. Tonight was so great. Every night has been great the past few days. But there are many nights with you that have been great. You said it yourself. And you make me happy. Dylan, you never look at me like I’m Butch or even
Kai White
. You look at me like I’m just
Kai
, a kid who got lucky because he can sing a little. And I like to think I make you happy too. You make things feel okay. You in my life, it’s…it’s starting to feel like it should’ve always been this way. I’m not asking you to alter your life like crazy or anything…not beyond having me in it.” The door rocked against the doorjamb. “But I’ll take it all back if it means you’ll come out and talk to me. I’d be lying, but…I just want you to come out and talk to me. You’re scaring me a little.” His voice was on the edge of panic.

“Kai, I can’t do this right now. It’s just my sister and me left. And I told you she’s a mess.
It’s bad enough I chose this crazy career path. I have to…I can’t think of myself. I have to be…” She trailed off when the pain in her chest, the wrenching of her heart, became too much. “…I have to be the person my brother never gets to be. I have to do certain things without thinking of myself. My life has to be different. I hope you can understand.” Dylan slid down against the door, hugged her knees to her chest and cried quietly.

             
Kai didn’t speak but she heard him breathe out dramatically. He had to feel like shit. He had put himself out there, done something as brave as reveal his feelings, and she was rejecting him, in spite of how she really felt. He deserved better. He pounded once on the door. Then his voice was near her ear because he was on the floor, too.

“Can you come out?” he asked. When s
he didn’t respond, he continued speaking. “Okay, baby…how do I fix it then? Just tell me. ‘Cause you’re locking yourself away right now…”

Dylan spun around, resting on her haunches, and faced the door like she could see through it, but she was thankful that she couldn’t see his face. That would’ve destroyed her. “Kai, it’s not you. It’s so hard for me to say, because I care about you, and I have for a while now, but I can’t—”

She cut herself off when she heard movement on the other side of the door. His footsteps drifted across the floor and she flinched from the slam of her bedroom door. Dylan rested her forehead on the door with her palms on her knees. Her emotions were all over the place, and they felt like they would explode out, leaving just pieces of her. It was far more terrible than she had imagined about them getting here. Her insides felt like they were being wrung out, and she cried until her shoulders were shaking uncontrollably.
What have I done?

Suddenly the bedroom door flew open, and she heard it bounce against the wall as his footsteps barreled toward the bathroom door. “You know what?
I can
…I can because I know you
. I know you.
I understand more than you even think.” There was silence. When he spoke again, he sounded so wounded, so annihilated. “And you know me. You know me, Dylan Carroll.” The door swayed gently against the jamb. “You have to believe that. You have to trust that.”

Dylan covered her mouth with her hands to keep from crying aloud. When he walked away this time, he pulled the bedroom door behind him quieter than before.

“Hey, I’m at Jamie’s. Can you come get me?” Kai said, his voice shaking, “I’ll meet you out front.”

A muffled opening and closing of the front door followed it. He was gone and she suspected he probably wouldn’t be back. She stayed on the bathroom floor unable to move
for hours.

Dylan’s intention had been to go for a morning run when she got outside, as tired as she was, but she had ended up outside of Kai’s house. She was too exhausted for rigorous activity in actuality after having not really slept, and she needed to see him, unsure of what she was even going to say. Never, ever had she wanted to hurt or reject him. Starting with an apology, explaining that she had royally fucked up, seemed necessary. The deck was quiet and empty for once, and it was odd to see the house simply looking like a place of residence. She knocked on the back door, and after several minutes, Kai’s roommate, Micah, stumbled toward her in a sleepy daze to let her in.

“Hey, Dylan. Kai’s not here. He came home briefly last night, then he took off.”

“Took off,” she parroted in a breath that burned her throat. He really was gone.

“Yeah. You guys aren’t supposed to leave until tomorrow, right?” Micah yawned. “He had all his luggage with him. Is everything okay?”

Not even remotely. ‘Okay’ and ‘everything’ don’t even deserve to be in the same sentence.
“Yeah. Yup.” Dylan shot him a quick, forced smile. “Thanks. See ya.” She was dialing Leko before her soles touched the deck again.

“Early, baby girl…” Leko grumbled. “…Very early.”

“I know, Lek. I’m sorry,” Dylan said in a whimper. “I can’t find Kai.”

Leko sighed. “I’m not supposed to tell you this but he’s in Kauai. He took a flight this morning.”

“Is he coming back?” Dylan brushed her tears away with her forearm.

“I think he’s going straight to San Diego,” Leko said after a
loud yawn. She didn’t even bother to mute the phone when the sniffles came. Leko sighed repeatedly. “He just needs some time, Dylan.”

“I seriously fucked up, Lek. I gotta go,” Dylan said before hanging up. She cried the entire way back to Jamie’s house where she packed her things in preparation for her trip tomorrow. Jamie would be back in the afternoon, and she didn’t know when Odette would be back, but
she didn’t want them to see her like that. The problem that came with only being friends with Kai’s friends was that she had no one to hang out with who didn’t know him, but today it felt like a blessing. There was a tour of Hana, a largely untouched and underdeveloped part of the island that was famous for its black sand beach, leaving from one of the hotels, and since it was one of the “must do’s” while visiting Maui, and she needed the mental break, Dylan took an expensive cab ride into Wailea.

Dusk had settled over the world when they left Hana for the return trip, but night was thick when they got back to Wailea. Hana had been rainy but beautiful. She would’ve been more in awe of seeing black sand for the first time at Wai
’anapanapa State Park if she wasn’t so down. After the beach, the tour guide had taken them to other places Hana was famous for—waterfalls, a hiking trail and a general store—and none of it had sparked a better mood either. She had tried Kai’s cell when her signal (finally) caught a bar, but it had gone straight to voicemail.
Okay, baby…how do I fix it then,
he had said.
She
should’ve been the one saying that, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave that in a message though. And she realized for the first time that she didn’t want to talk to Mac through all of this. She longed only to talk to Kai. Maybe it was just a temporary feeling, but it was enough. She wanted to fix this for herself…for
them.
If she
could
fix this.

Neither Jamie nor Odette was back when she returned, and she could not have been more relieved. After trying Kai one last time, Dylan occupied herself with Dan Middleton’s website and application process.
Middle of the Road Production
s selected five filmmakers every year and financed their projects for up to $50,000. The submission package required a detailed explanation of the proposed project, a few references and three different samples of past work. This was exactly the type of thing she had been waiting for. Her heart raced just in anticipation of applying, and Dan Middleton had approached her personally to encourage her to consider it. Though, she wondered if his enthusiasm would vanish if he found out she had broken Nina’s rule. Dylan sighed, remembering that she still had that situation to contend with.
After Vegas
, she decided.

Kai’s tour crew reconvened at the airport in San Diego early the next morning, and the tour buses traveled to a hotel near the beaches. Kai wasn’t on the bus but was at the hotel already, and Dylan was anxious to track him down. Her pulse raged and her legs turned to noodles when she saw him as the entire group met in the hotel’s large conference room for Ashley’s announcements and review of the schedule. Kai squeezed out a weak smile for her when they locked eyes
, but his gaze darted away almost immediately. A feeling of despair choked her heart in a viselike grip as she wondered if they were going back to the time where they had stopped speaking. Maybe it was what she deserved. But when everyone cleared out of the room, Kai stayed behind, sensing she wanted to talk. He pushed his chair away from the table when she walked to him.

“Hey,” she said, her voice small and shaky.

“Hey.” Kai looked up at her and smiled, but there was so much pain reflecting in his eyes. He swiveled the chair side to side slowly.

“How was Kauai?”
Stupid freaking question.
She was just so nervous.