Page 38 of The Wrong Side of Kai
I drop to my knees in the snow. The tears break free before I can stop them, streaming down my cold, rosy cheeks. My chapped lips tremble and my chest rises and falls with each sob that escapes my throat.
“I’m sorry,” I weep, my voice a whisper. “Mom, I’m so sorry.”
I think of all the mistakes I’ve made in the two years that I’ve been forced to live without a mother to guide me. All the cries for attention from Dad, all the distractions, all the pretending to be someone I’m not. I don’t know who I am. I’ve drank too much beer, I’ve skipped classes too many times, I’ve said and done too many things I regret. I look up at the cloudy sky through my blurred vision and imagine Mom watching over me. How disappointed would she be now? I’m not the daughter she raised.
Mom raised me to be a good person. To look out for people, to always smile, to do my best. And I tried. I really did, but this is hard. Dad barely remembers that I exist, too consumed by his own grief to realize he still has two daughters who need a parent. I let Harrison film that stupid video and now it’s out there in the world, following me wherever I go. I even kissed Kai last night, a boy who did not want to kiss me, because I have no idea what I’m doing anymore.
I hear the crunching of footsteps in the snow behind me, then a body sits down next to me. I glance sideways, entirely numb, and stare blankly at Kai. It’s so cold my tears feel frozen against my cheeks. Kai is staring straight ahead at the headstone, his knees pulled up to his chest. His gaze shifts to meet mine.
“Your grandma?” he asks gently.
My heart seizes and I look down at my lap, blinking back a fresh batch of tears that are brimming. He obviously hasn’t processed the dates fully – it can’t possibly be my grandmother – so I’m forced to correct him. To say it out loud. “My mom,” I croak. “Brain aneurysm.”
“Oh,” Kai says. I can hear the surprise in his voice, no doubt taken aback. Just the other night I told him my mom wasat work. He looks back at the gravestone.
A guttural sob rises in my throat. I even lied about Mom. Ideniedmy mom her own truth. I’m the worst daughter in the world. I press my hands to my face, muffling my cries with my gloves. I’m shuddering uncontrollably, but it’s long overdue. I always like to tell myself I’m strong, I’m someone who keeps her head up and just keeps on moving forward, but every once in a while, I lose it. I guess it reminds me that I’m human.
I drop my hands and look at Kai again. “What are you doing here?” I ask through my tears, sniffing. I thought I was alone. Just me, Mom, and the snow. I feel so vulnerable right now, so bare and exposed, more so than I did on Monday when that video was being watched by everyone. I’m stripped bare in a totally different way.
“Couldn’t bike to school in this weather, so I had to walk, which made me late,” Kai says quietly, though I notice the soft way his eyes are taking in my expression, trying to understand the pain in my eyes. “I got to school just as you were leaving. You looked upset. I’m sorry, but I had to follow you. What happened?”
I wipe away my tears and shake my head. “Just Harrison and Noah. They were trying to scare me. It was nothing,” I lie, playing it down. Being assaulted and harassed inside a janitor’s closet feels like a new low for me, but I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to get Kai involved.
He looks skeptical. “Nothing, but yet you’re in tears?”
“I’m not crying because of that,” I mumble, which is partly the truth. I’m crying because ofeverything. It feels like I’ve made too many mistakes. Nothing seems to be going in the right direction, but I’m pretty sure I’m the one to blame. It’s like I can’t drag myself off this train of self-destruction. “I’m just having a rough morning, okay?”
To my surprise, Kai inches closer to me so that our bodies touch. He slides a bare hand into my gloved one. I stare down at our interlocked hands, both of us silent as the breeze whips around us. It’s such a small gesture, Kai’s hand in mine, but it feels so warm and intimate. It lifts the weight off my chest.
“Okay, well, I’m here. Why don’t you tell me about her? Your mom.”
I force my gaze up to look at him through eyes full of tears, and I realize then that no one has ever asked me to talk about my mom before. Most people probably want to think I’ve moved on. I keep my head up in the hallways at school with a smile plastered across my face. I show up to parties and football games and am often the center of attention. I’m happy, right? Except, no, I’m not. Not really. I fake it, so no one ever asks how I’m doing, or if I’m okay, or if I want to talk.
“We lost her two years ago. . .” My voice hitches and I inhale a fresh breath of air, staring back at her gravestone in front of us. “Completely out of nowhere. It was like the ground disappeared from under my feet. Mom was like the backbone of our family, and without her. . . we haven’t been doing too great.”
I look down at my hand in Kai’s again, and he is massaging soft circles against the back of my hand with his thumb, never taking his eyes off me. I canfeelhim watching me, even though I can’t bring myself to glance over at him. He is listening carefully and giving me all the time I need to get my words in order. I’m grateful, because I’ve never really spoken these thoughts out loud. Never really admitted the truth to anyone.
“My dad. . . my dad. . .” I stutter. “He’s not the same anymore. I don’t even know who he is lately, and he’s drowning so deep in his own grief that he doesn’t care about my sister and me. It’s like when mom died, a big part of him died too.”
“You miss them, huh?” he asks, and it catches me off guard that he asks if I missthem, and not justher.
His words hit home at full force, because it’s true – I don’t just miss my mom, I miss my dad too. Imissmy dad, which sounds insane when I see him every day. I pass him every morning in the kitchen while we silently navigate around one another, and I see him smoking in the armchair in the living room every evening, and I watch him slip further away from me with every day that passes, but I miss feeling safe. I miss feeling cared for and I miss feeling loved. That awful day two years ago, I lost both of my parents.
I nod in response to Kai and squeeze my eyes shut again as a new batch of tears wells up. I choke a little as I try to suppress my sobs, but then I let go and allow myself to feel the way that I do. I let myself cry and I don’t care that Kai can see me; I don’t care that he knows I’m not as strong as I make myself out to be.
Kai hooks an arm around my shoulders and pulls me in close. I collapse against his chest, burying my face into his coat while he rests his chin softly on my head. I can feel the warmth of his breath as he holds me tight, securing me in his embrace like a safety blanket. He holds me for a long time until I’ve wept two years’ worth of tears.
“You’re a nice guy, Kai,” I murmur with a small smile as, at last, I dab at my eyes and sit up. “Do you know that?”
Kai’s face brightens. “This is my better side,” he admits with a breath of laughter. He gives my hand a squeeze and playfully nudges my shoulder. “And since we’re both skipping school right now anyway, there’s no point in going back there. Hot chocolate on me?”
15
Kai and I grab an Uber to downtown Columbus. It’s totally random. We should be at school, but I’m happy to roll with Kai’s reasoning – we’ve already missed first period, so there’s no point going back. I don’t want to go back anyway. I want to get as far away from Westerville North and Harrison Boyd as I possibly can, with or without Kai. But having him accompany me is a definite bonus.
We climb out of the Uber twenty minutes later, out into the cold city streets of Columbus alongside the riverfront. There’s something about the city that’s so refreshing, like it’s less suffocating than the suburbs, even though it’s way more crowded. Maybe it’s knowing that all these people around me have no idea who I am. None of them know that there’s a video out there of me. The city feels more freeing that way – I’m anonymous and invisible. No one can judge me.
“So,” Kai says as we slide into a booth by the window of a café just across from the river. It’s so warm inside that the glass in the windows is fogged up with condensation, blurring the passersby on the sidewalk outside. “Do you come downtown a lot?”
