Thoughtless (63 page)

When he pulled away, he kissed my bruised face once, before I laid my head back on his shoulder. I squeezed his free hand while his other held my body close to his, and we waited. Waited for them to announce he would leave. Waited for our separation to be permanent. Waited for our deep, but broken connection, to be physically severed.

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Eventually it did happen and with a long sigh he pulled away from me. After grabbing his bag from where he’d dropped it when he’d taken Kellan’s hand, he kissed my head in farewell. I clutched his hand and held on to him until the last possible second. The very tips of our fingers were the last pieces of our bodies to stop touching each other. I felt something leave me when the contact stopped. Something warm and safe, and at one point in my life, something that had been everything to me. He held my watery eye contact with his own until he disappeared around the corner, and I knew that those warm, deep brown eyes and that charming goofy grin, were finally lost forever to me.

My body shut down. I felt it going. I felt my legs leaden and my knees buckle, and my head fade to a hazy gray-black. My legs hit the floor with a thud that I was sure shook the bolted seats in front of me, and just as I waited for my still tender head to smack painfully onto one of those seats, warm hands cradled me.

I recognized the scent first, the unmistakably delicious odor of leather and earth and man that was Kellan Kyle. I didn’t know how he was with me, and I couldn’t see him yet through my foggy vision, but I felt him and knew it was his arms that held me.

He lowered my head carefully to his knees as he huddled on the floor beside me. One hand stroked my back, while the other felt my face, making sure I was okay. “Kiera?” His voice still sounded distant, even though I knew he was right beside me.

My vision started clearing and his faded jeans came into focus. I weakly lifted my head and attempted to understand what was happening. His eyes softened as he gazed down at me, his casted hand rubbing my back, his other fingers tracing my face lovingly. Instantly I realized I‘d fainted, and he’d been watching me, always watching me, and had saved me from a world of pain. Then I remembered our distance, and my ache and overwhelming grief at watching Denny leave. I sat up and threw myself into his arms, straddling his knees on the floor and tangling my arms around his neck, never wanting to let go. He stiffened and convulsed like I’d hurt him, but eventually he brought his arms around my back and held me tight to him, rocking us gently on the floor and murmuring that it would be okay.

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The roar of the airplane’s engines brought our attention back to the ache forefront in our minds, and we both turned to look at the window and watch the huge plane begin to taxi away from us. We both watched it silently, tears streaming down my face and soft sobs escaping my lips.

Kellan continued to rub my back and rested his head against mine, occasionally bringing his lips to my hair. I clutched at him fiercely and when the plane left my sight, I dropped my head to his shoulder and sobbed mercilessly.

He let me hold him until my pain eased, if not stopped. When I was hiccupping and attempting to breathe with some normalcy, he gently, but firmly, pushed me off his lap. I tried to stay, embarrassingly clutching at his clothes, but he was persistent and eventually he released himself from under me and stood.

His face was resolute as he stood in front of me. I had to look down. I had to stare at the floor. For a brief moment I’d thought we’d reconnected in our mutual grief, but I must have been wrong. His face didn’t look like he was welcoming me back to him. His face looked like he was about to say goodbye again. I didn’t want to hear it again.

A hand reached out and gently touched the top of my head as I stared at my knees on the floor. I tentatively looked up into Kellan’s amazingly perfect, bruised face. A soft smile played on his lips and his eyes had warmed a bit, although, the sadness never really left them.

“Can you drive?” he asked lowly.

Grief threatened to wrench through me again at the thought of driving home alone and sitting in my empty apartment alone. I wanted to tell him no, that I needed him , that I needed to stay with him, and we needed to find a way back to each other, back from my mistake. But I couldn’t. I nodded my head, yes, and prepared myself for the one thing that had always sort of terrified me…being alone.

He nodded and held his hand out to me to help me stand. I took it and clutched his warmth tightly as he pulled me up. I stumbled a bit and put my hand on his chest to steady myself. I felt a bandage under my fingertips and he flinched in pain. My hand was resting on his Pecs not his
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ribs, so I wasn’t sure why that hurt him. Maybe his injuries were worse than I knew. Maybe he just didn’t like me touching him.

He removed my hand, but continued holding my fingers. We faced each other, both hands clasped together and standing close, but an almost insurmountable distance was between us.

I’d chosen him and then left him. How would he ever forgive me?

“I’m so sorry, Kellan…I was wrong.” I didn’t offer any more explanation than that. I couldn’t, since my throat closed up completely and speech just wasn’t possible.

His eyes misted over and he nodded. Did he understand what I meant? That I meant I was wrong for leaving him…not wrong for loving him. I couldn’t explain and he didn’t ask. He bent his head down to me and I instinctually raised my chin. Our lips met in the middle - soft and passionate, pulling apart, before fully sinking into the feeling of being together. Dozens of tiny, hungry, not nearly long enough kisses that spiked my heart rate.

Finally, he forced himself to stop, and pulled away before it got to be too much, and we both caved to the underlying sexual tension that was always between us. He dropped my hands and took a reluctant step back from me. “I’m sorry too, Kiera. I’ll see you…around.” Then he turned and left me, breathless, spinning with confusion and grief, and…alone. His words echoed in my ears and I felt one hundred percent positive that he hadn’t meant them. I felt positive that I’d just seen the last of Kellan Kyle.

Somehow I made it home. Somehow I managed to not break down while driving, and smack right into the back of someone in my tear-ob-scured vision. No, I saved all of my tears for the heart-shaped pillow my sister had scrounged somewhere for me. I drenched that thing, and then mercifully fell asleep.

My world felt a little lighter when I woke the next day. Maybe it was because my head felt better and the bruising was switching colors, indicating that some healing was going on somewhere in my body. Or maybe
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it was because the final painful break with Denny had been made, and I didn’t have to be anxious about it anymore. It was done…we were done…and even though those words hurt my heart, I felt okay.

Showering and getting dressed brought even more relief, and as I looked over my beaten skull, I wondered where my life would go from here. Certainly I needed to find a job. And I definitely needed to catch up on schoolwork. Winter break had already hit while I’d been recovering, but a few phone calls from my doctor, and me, and surprisingly Denny, had gotten me an extension on the classes I was behind in. And if I poured myself into school, I was confident I’d be caught up before next quarter.

I clenched my jaw and decided that was what I’d do. I may have lost my job, my boyfriend, and my lover, but if I focused hard enough, I could possibly keep my precious scholarship. And if I did that…maybe, just maybe, my heart would heal as slowly and assuredly as my head.

Denny called me two days later, right before my sister and I were about to fly home for Christmas. My parents had the tickets they’d gotten for Denny and me, switched over to my sister and me, and seemed genuinely sorry when I’d told them that things hadn’t worked out between us. They’d also grilled me for two hours on when I was coming back to Ohio U.

Denny told me all about his new job and his upcoming plans with his family. He seemed genuinely happy, and his good spirits lifted mine. Of course, his voice did break when he wished me a Merry Christmas, followed immediately by, “I love you.” It seemed to slip out of his mouth without him thinking about it, and a silence hovered in the air between us as I wondered what to say to that. In the end, I told him that I loved him too. And I did, there would always be a level of love between us.

The next day, my sister and I braved going home for the holidays. She artfully covered the slight yellowing of my bruise with makeup, and vowed that she wouldn’t mention the accident to mom or dad; they’d never let me come back to Seattle.

Before I left my bedroom, I rifled through my dresser for the hundredth time, looking for the necklace that Kellan had given me. Every
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day I wanted to wear it, wear a piece of him with me, since I hadn’t seen him in so long, but I hadn’t been able to find it since the night he’d given it to me. A part of me feared that it had been lost or stolen in the fiasco. A part of me feared that Kellan had decided to take it back. That would almost be the worst scenario. It would be like he was taking back his heart.

I still couldn’t find it, and had to leave the city without my symbolic representation of him…and it cut deep to do so.

Home with my family was odd. It was warm and welcoming and a barrage of childhood memories hit me, but it didn’t feel like “home” anymore. It felt like I was walking into a best friend’s house, or an aunt’s house. Somewhere comfortable and familiar, but still a little foreign. It had the overall vibe of childhood safety, but I felt no desire to stay and wrap myself in that feeling. I wanted to be home…my home.

We stayed a couple days after the holidays and then, my sister even itchier than me, we said tearful goodbyes to our parents at the airport.

My mother was a blubbering mess as she watched her two girls depart, and I momentarily felt bad that my heart was anchored so far away from them. I’d told myself that I’d just fallen hopelessly in love with the city…but a tiny part of my brain, that I forcefully ignored, knew that wasn’t it. A place was just a place. And it wasn’t the city that made my heart pulse and my breath quicken. It wasn’t the city that drove me to distraction, and left me sobbing in the still of the night.

After my frantic catch-up on schoolwork over the holiday break, and wistfully watching my sister duck out on New Year’s Eve for a special D-Bag performance that twisted my heart into knots, I focused on the second most important thing I needed to get squared away – a job. What I ended up getting, early on in the New Year, was a waitressing job at a popular little diner in Pioneer Square, where Jenny’s roommate Rachel worked. The place was famous for its all night breakfast, I guess, and drew quite a crowd of college kids. It was hopping busy on my first night there, but Rachel gleefully showed me the ropes.

Rachel was an interesting mix of Asian and Latin with latte skin and mocha hair, and a smile that charmed quite a few frat boys out of some large bills. She was as sweet as Jenny, but quiet like me. She didn’t ask about my injury and even though she had to know the whole torrid love
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triangle (being Jenny’s roommate and all), she never once commented on my romances. Her quiet was soothing.

I fell into my new job easily enough. Along with great managers and amusing cooks, the tips were good there, the other waitresses welcoming, and the regulars were patient. It didn’t take me too long to feel moderately comfortable in my new home.

Of course, I missed Pete’s like crazy. I missed the smell of the bar. I missed Scott in the kitchen, even though I didn’t really spend too much time with him. I missed talking and laughing with Jenny and Kate. I missed dancing to the music from the jukebox. I even missed horny Rita, and her never-ending stories that made me blush all over. But of course, what I missed the most about Pete’s, was the entertainment.

I saw Griffin repeatedly, as he came over often to “entertain” my sister. Actually, I saw way more of him than I ever wanted to see. In fact, I now know that he has a piercing in a spot that I’d never imagine a guy voluntarily asking someone to push a needle through. I considered scrubbing out my eyes after that little naked encounter in the hallway, one evening.

Matt would occasionally stop by with him, and we’d chat quietly. I’d ask how the band was going, and he’d start talking about instruments and gear and songs and melodies and shows that went really well and a few places that he’d managed to line up gigs, and on and on about the business end of it. Not exactly what I wanted to hear about, but I nodded and politely listened to him, watching his pale eyes sparkle as he talked about the love of his life. I was glad after talking to him, that Kellan hadn’t left Seattle; Matt would be crushed if their little band broke up.

He really believed that they had a shot at going big one day. Thinking over their performances, with a painful tug in my heart, I did agree. With Kellan as their front man…they could go all the way.

Sometimes Matt and my sister would talk about Kellan, only to stop when I entered the room. One such conversation left an icy pit in my stomach. I’d just quietly cracked open the front door and heard them talking in the kitchen. I heard Matt’s soft voice finishing telling her,

“…right over his heart. Romantic, huh?”

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“What’s romantic?” I muttered, as I walked into the room, thinking they were surely talking about Griffin, although, I couldn’t imagine what he’d do that was “romantic”. I grabbed a glass and started filling it with water, when I finally noticed the awkward silence suddenly in the room.

Pausing, I noticed my sister staring at the floor, biting her lip, and Matt looking out into the living room, like he really wanted to be over there.

That was when I understood that they weren’t talking about Griffin.

They were talking about Kellan.

“What’s romantic?” I said automatically, even as my stomach clenched. Had he moved on?

Anna and Matt looked briefly at each other for a second, before simultaneously saying, “Nothing.” I set down the glass and left the room.