Thin Love (25 page)

“You’re running your mouth and it’s pissing me off.” Kona stepped forward, shoulders tight, forehead hard with tension. “You really don’t want to piss me off.” Tonya’s smile wavered as Kona’s frown grew and she shot a glance at Keira as if she couldn’t believe Kona was remotely interested in her. “Stay away from her,” he said. “Don’t even look at her.”

“I can fight my own battles, thanks.” Keira said, ignoring Kona as she stood in front of him. “We’re just hanging out. He isn’t mine so your warning is pointless. But he’s right, the mouth running isn’t necessary and you need to walk away.”

It took three quick backward steps before Tonya darted around and left them. She didn’t bother looking at him or even acknowledging his presence until she went to her knees, trying to gather the few sheets of her notes still on the floor. Kona knelt down next to her and reached for several, but she grabbed them before he could even stretch his fingers and Keira ignored his low, frustrated grunts. “I got it,” she said, when Kona snagged two sheets to her left. He reached for her folder, and she moved quick, taking it away from him. “I said I got it.”

“Are we fighting?” A quick glance told Keira that his eyes were on her face as, he slid to his haunches and then stood, rubbing his fingers against the back of his neck. She continued to ignore him. “Is that what this is? You’re gonna let some stupid bitch mess with your head?”

Her composure crumbled and Keira got to her feet, stuffing her notes and folders into her already full back pack. “The same stupid bitch you fucked? No, not her, Kona, she’s not the one messing with my head.” She wouldn’t let his open mouth, his guilty grimace stop her. Keira threw her bag over her shoulder, knowing he was right behind her, not caring that classes had let out and the lobby was filling with a crowd. They waited side by side for the throng in front of the door to thin, but Keira’s temper was at high tide, waving anger and rage inside her chest. “It’s the same line of bullshit Tonya said you fed her and every other girl you’ve been with that’s messing with my head. You said the same thing to me like I was one of your whores, Kona.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Wild—” Keira jerked her head up and her piercing glare stopped Kona from calling her that stupid nickname. “I didn’t mean that, I swear.” He tried taking her heavy bag and Keira, seething and feeling stupid, shoved him back. Kona let her, seemed so shocked by her anger that he moved away from her. Around them people were staring, a small circle of eyes and ears eating up the drama like it was chocolate. Kona reached for her bag again and Keira twisted out of his grasp, coming close to falling from the weight before Kona steadied her.

“Get off me, asshole. Now!” Keira’s voiced carried, lifted up into the high ceiling, up to the second floor balcony where Kona’s mother was walking toward her office. Kona twisted his neck, watching his oblivious mother as she stopped to speak to one of the art history professors. Another grunt and Kona snapped his gaze to Keira before he grabbed her bag from her and pulled Keira by the arm, shouldering his way through the crowd that stepped back from his looming stature and simmering frown, ignoring Keira’s feeble attempts to jerk out of his grip.

He had a tight grip on her elbow that pinched and twisted and before they reached his car, Keira dug in her feet, yanking back. “Let me go, you gorilla.” Kona stopped, turned toward her as though he might pull her against him and Keira saw red and stomped on his foot.

He dropped her bag, wincing against the pain in his foot. “Keira, calm the hell down.” She didn’t want him controlling her, demanding that she stop acting like a brat. All Keira wanted was space from him, distance that would leave Kona miles behind her. Her bag was in her hand and over her shoulder before Kona realized what she was doing and she headed down the sidewalk, thinking of nothing but a hot shower to lessen her chill and the disgusting Neanderthal darting after her.

Kona caught up to her easily, a few strides and his long legs had him in front of her, holding up his hands. “You’re not walking away like a coward.” Keira darted to the left, but Kona followed and easily lifted her over his shoulder. “We’re going to finish this shit, Wildcat.”

“Put me down you freaking prick! Right the hell now!”

The crowd had followed them out of the lobby, had descended on Kona’s Camaro, but Keira was too angry to be embarrassed. Her blood boiled, resentment cresting until it vibrated into her hands, until that rage had her pounding her fists against Kona’s back.

He kept walking, waving random gawkers away from his car and before Keira realized what was happening, Kona had her in the passenger’s seat and buckled. She breathed, hard exhales she knew wouldn’t calm her and she unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the door and was ready to run, but Kona slammed his door and threw her heavy bag onto her lap before he reached over her and jerked her door closed.

Kona sped out of the parking lot and down the street before Keira could attempt another escape. He ignored the speed limit, didn’t seem to care that he slipped through one speed trap after another.

“Let me out.” Keira braced herself against the door when Kona turned sharp, tires squealing. “Let me out of the car right now.”

“I’m not yours?” She glanced at him, but didn’t quite meet his eyes, her attention was too focused on his white knuckles gripping the steering wheel and the jerks he made against the gear shift. “That’s what you think?”

Kona left campus proper and took three side streets through the city, heading toward the interstate and away from New Orleans, still speeding, still seemingly careless that the ramps were curved and steep, that traffic was getting heavier.

“Slow down, Kona.” He took an exit, flew past it too quickly for Keira to notice where he was going and didn’t pump his brakes once as they soared through four green lights. Keira’s heart pounded, her fingers hurt from the hold she kept on the small space between the door and window and her temper cooled, replaced by quickly rising fear. She didn’t want to die in the middle of nowhere because Kona decided driving like a maniac was the only way to get Keira to finish their fight. “I’m serious. Slow. Down.”

“Hanging out? What the hell does that even mean?” He punched the dashboard, rattling the stereo beneath it.

“Kona, stop the car! Stop!”

Her shout distracted him, had him taking his eyes off the road to stare at her and the median to their right came up too fast. Kona tried to right the wheels, tried swerving back onto the road, but he acted too slowly, reaction dulled by diversion and the Camaro shifted hard, then Keira’s head slammed against the window.

“Oh my God.” Kona reached for her, keeping barely a finger on the steering wheel. “Oh God. Keira… baby…”

Dazed, with a swift throb pounding next to her temple, Keira shook her head, trying to get her dizzy, unfocused vision to clear. Her tears came quick and she didn’t know if it was the slap of pain that had her weepy or the bright spark of anger that made her eyes wet.

Traffic moved around them as Kona pulled off the median and down a side street, and the horns sounding around them only made Keira’s head throb harder. She touched her head, grateful no blood darkened her fingertips.

There was a click of Kona’s seatbelt unfastening and then he was around the car, opening Keira’s door. “Let me see,” he said, pulling on her knees so that she faced him.

“Quit it. Just don’t touch me.” She didn’t want his comfort or concern. She wanted his guilt, wanted him to feel like the asshole he was.

Keira’s immediate thought was to get out of the car and as far away from Kona as she could manage. She had no idea where they were; New Orleans was a second home, a place she’d only just started to get familiar with, but she guessed she could find a cab, maybe get Leann to pick her up if she figured out which exit they’d taken.

“You can’t leave.” His voice was low, cautious and when Keira pushed him out of her way in her weak attempt to leave the car, it became desperate. “I have to take you to the hospital.”

“Leann can take me.” She managed two steps before dizziness rushed in her head and she leaned against the car.

“Let me help you.” Kona stood behind her, not touching, not doing anything more than leaning next to her with his large arm stretched over the hood. “Please let me help you.” His voice cracked, elevated and Keira finally looked at him, stepping back when she noticed his black eyes shining like glass. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” She let him move the hair from her forehead, let him shift her head to examine what was fast becoming a nice little knot. Against her face, she felt the tremors in his fingers. Kona cussed, under his breath, soft oaths he seemed to use to curse himself and then he kissed Keira’s forehead, rested his brow on her shoulder. “What are you doing to me?” He looked up at her. “I’m not right, not about you. I don’t know who I am when I’m with you. It scares the shit out of me.”

“Then maybe this isn’t going to work.” It was something she’d thought about, something she tried not to examine for too long. It had been two short weeks of Keira and Kona playing like a couple. Two weeks that had her laughing more, smiling easier. But in the back of her mind had been the reality of their lives, the people they were when they weren’t around each other. The nagging voice that sounded suspiciously like her mother, whispered that this was pretend, that one day soon the differences between them, the quick anger and easy tempers, would lead to destruction. “I don’t know if I can handle this, Kona.” She waved between them.

She didn’t like the look he gave her, didn’t like how hard he frowned, as though it took effort not to argue with her. Instead, Kona leaned against his car, his hands covering his face, then stilling in his hair as he looked up at the sky.

Keira turned from him, resting her aching head on the back windshield and left Kona with whatever thoughts kept him away from her. It was a moment he seemed to need, but Keira’s dizzy head only got worse, the throbbing beating like a pulse and she couldn’t take the quiet or the cold wind that started to make her fingers burn.

“Take me back to my dorm. I’ll get Leann to bring me to the ER.”

“No. I’ll do it.”

“Kona…” she faced him, still leaning against the car and his shook his head, guided her into her seat and fastened her belt.

“Let me do this, okay? This is my fault. At least let me do this.”

Keira wasn’t the type of girl who cried into her pillow. Not since her father’s death had she spent nights awake, soaking the fine cotton fabric against her face. She thought there was nothing left in her, no feeling that warranted any semblance of an emotional catharsis. Her greatest love, her fiercest protector, left her when she was ten and at that time, Keira understood that her tears would not help. In the morning, with her face puffy and eyes swollen, she’d still wake to a world her father had escaped. Why cry? It wouldn’t bring him back. It wouldn’t do anything but have her mother complaining about the dark circles under her eyes.

But as she rested in her dorm, waiting for Kona to return with her filled prescription, Keira let those long-restricted tears fall. It didn’t make her feel any better. It didn’t take away the searing pain working in her head and it didn’t have her eager to forget how all of this happened.

Keira couldn’t tell the difference anymore between anger and sadness. She knew loss; it had been the slow burn that tightened her stomach for eight years. But heartache? Grief for something she’d never really had? Why did that make her sob like a toddler for a missing teddy bear?

Maybe it was how Kona had acted at the hospital. Maybe it was the way he held her close, how he paced outside Radiology when the doctors scanned her brain. Maybe it was the weight of guilt she felt coming off of him like a fever. Keira couldn’t be sure, didn’t know how to analyze all that emotion and identify it for what it was. She thought maybe it was the sense of something disappearing; the death of something bright and brilliant that she almost held between her fingers.

I’m stupid,
she thought, rolling onto her back.

Really, she figured it was Kona’s silence that brought on the full weight of her tears. How he had barely spoken, how the entire two hours they were in that ER he never said more than “are you okay?” and “I’m so fucking sorry.” He hadn’t been the Kona she’d come to know. He hadn’t told her a dumb joke to make her smile. He’d only listened as the doctor told her she was fine, that a few Lortabs would sort out her headache.

Annoyed by a new wave of tears clouding her vision, Keira got up from her bed, made ginger steps to the bathroom to wash her face before Kona returned, knocking twice on her door before he came inside.

“Keira?”

She stepped out of the bathroom, not even attempting to return the smile he gave her.

“You need to take one of these.” He lifted the white, stapled bag at her and pulled a bottle of water from his jacket pocket.

“Did Leann call back?” she asked, returning to her bed.

“Yeah. She’s on her way. Shouldn’t be too long.”

She took the pill when Kona handed it to her and washed it down with Kona’s water. He watched her closely, eyes sharp as she swallowed. “Did you tell her what happened?”