I Hate Goodbye (The Kihanna Saga)

by Amare, Mercy

  Part of me wishes that this was happening to somebody else, but I feel bad for even thinking it. It is selfish to wish somebody else was dealing with this besides me.

  “You need to be strong, Kihanna. The stalker is seeing how easy it would be to break you. You’re not even trying.”

  I don’t want to be weak. I want to show my stalker that I am strong. Toby’s words motivate me. I am not weak, and I refuse to be a victim. My mom raised me to be strong. My mom taught me to stand up to my bullies… Of course my stalker takes bullying to a whole new level, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t fight for what is right.

  “You’re right,” I tell Toby. “I am being weak. I hate that I am letting them get to me, but I just feel so out of control right now. I am overwhelmed.”

  “So take control,” Toby says.

  Could it really be that easy? Just take control of my life? I suppose I could try. Really, could things get any worse than they already are? Of course it could, but they are going to get worse either way. At least this way I will go down with a fight… Maybe I will even win.

  “Can you stop by Gabe’s house before we go home?” I ask him.

  Toby smiles. “I was actually planning on you saying that.”

  “So what changed your mind about Gabe and me dating?” I ask him. “When we first got together you seemed very against it.”

  “I’ve just know Gabe for a very long time. He’s never treated his girlfriends very well, and I didn’t want to see you get hurt. After seeing you two together, I know that he’s different with you. He genuinely likes you. Plus, he knows that if he hurts you again, I will kill him.”

  “I don’t know how he could be any other way,” I say. “He’s always been very sweet to me.”

  “That’s because the boy is crazy about you.”

  “I’m crazy about him too, which scares me. I don’t want him to break my heart.”

  “You don’t have to worry,” Toby says. “If there is going to be any heartbreaking going on, it will be you breaking his heart.”

  “I highly doubt that,” I say. “But I keep thinking about college. What happens if we don’t get into the same college, or we both decide to go to a different college?”

  “You remember when you filled out your college applications?” Toby asks.

  “Yep.” How could I forget? I spent two weeks doing nothing but writing essays about myself.

  “Gabe only applied to colleges that you applied to. He specifically asked me where you applied. The boy is crazy about you.”

  “But we weren’t even dating then. I was with Ty…” I shake my head. “Why?”

  “Are you really that dense?” Toby asks. “Gabriel has been in love with you since the day you showed up in your devil worshiping clothes. He loves how you don’t conform, and you don’t let anybody control you.”

  I roll my eyes. “How could he know that? Love at first sight isn’t real. I didn’t really start falling for him until I started dating Ty, and I only did because of all the attention he paid to me. Ty was a very unobservant boyfriend.”

  “Ty is an ass,” Toby says.

  “Ty isn’t always an ass. He’s sweet, but he’s not boyfriend material. Maybe when he’s older and can keep his dick out of other girls’ vaginas… But he’s not for me,” I say. “Though, I thought you were an ass when I first moved here…”

  “I was an ass… am an ass… I don’t know. Since you’ve moved here, I have changed a lot.” His phone goes off and he smiles as he looks at the screen. He starts to text, so I grab his phone from him.

  “No texting and driving!” I look at the text on the screen. It’s from Victoria.

  Victoria: Counting down the minutes until Friday night.

  “Victoria, as in Victoria Spencer?” I ask.

  Toby’s face turns a deep shade of red. “Yes,” he says, grabbing his phone back.

  “Are you taking her on a date?”

  “Maybe,” he answers.

  I let out a little squeal. “Oh my God. You have a date!”

  “It’s not even a big deal. I take girls on dates all the time.”

  I roll my eyes. “No. You take girls to your bedroom all the time. I’ve never seen you actually take a girl out.”

  “I like her,” he says. “I have a thing for redheads. Plus, she’s a cheerleader, and she’s probably one of the nicest girls that I’ve ever met. I think she could turn into something more… like maybe a girlfriend, eventually.”

  “Aw!” I can’t stop smiling. “You and my best friend. Who knew?”

  “You fell for your boyfriend’s best friend, so you really can’t say anything bad about this,” Toby says.

  “I actually wasn’t going to, but thanks for bringing up how big of a skank I am.”

  Toby shakes his head at me. “You’re not a skank. Dumping Ty for Gabe is probably one of the smartest things you’ve ever done. I applaud your decision.”

  “Thanks.”

  Finally, we arrive at Gabe’s house. Toby and I get out of his car to head inside. We don’t ring the doorbell, we just go right in. We are basically family, and Gabe’s house is our second home.

  Marco, their butler, greets us as we run up the stairs toward Gabe’s room, and we wave back to him. He says something else, but we don’t hear because we’re already halfway to Gabe’s room. Again, we walk inside without knocking.

  “I could have been naked,” Gabe says dramatically when he sees us. He’s lying in his bed, watching a show on Netflix. He looks miserable and bored.

  “There’s nothing I haven’t seen,” Toby says, rolling his eyes.

  “Ditto,” I say.

  Toby fake gags.

  “So, I have officially come to a decision,” I tell Gabe. “About us. Well, actually it was more Toby that encouraged me, but he was right.”

  Gabe shuts off his TV, and attempts to sit up a little. He ends up wincing from the pain and lies back down. I prop up his pillows slightly.

  “What’s your decision?” he asks once he’s situated. His voice is timid, and I can tell he’s a little nervous to hear my answer. Just this morning I was dead set on breaking up with him.

  “I’ve decided that my stalker can just fuck off,” I tell him. “You’re my boyfriend, and I want the whole world to know it despite all consequences that may, and probably will, happen.”

  Gabe smiles, and his whole face lights up. “That’s one of the many reasons that I love you. You are so brave. And I know that bad things might happen, but you have to remember that they’re not your fault.”

  “I have told her,” Toby says. “Even if she does exactly what the stalker says, she’s just prolonging the inevitable.”

  “Exactly,” Gabe agrees.

  “So did they find out about your brakes?” Toby asks.

  Gabe nods and looks at me. I can tell that whatever he is about to say I am not going to like. “My brake line was cut by somebody. They’re doing an investigation, but there really isn’t a lot to go on. It could have happened at any point during the weekend. I didn’t drive my car anywhere on Saturday or Sunday.”

  For a moment, I want to second guess my decision, but I don’t. I chose to fight, and it’s what I’m going to do. “Just please don’t give up on trying to find whoever is doing this.”

  “I won’t,” Gabe says with a firmly. I know that he will do everything in his power to figure out who this is. I just hope that we figure it out soon.

  6:17 PM

  Always use condoms.

  Before therapy, Veronica takes me out to eat. She says we can have whatever I want, so I choose tacos. I must say, watching her eat tacos is pretty freaking hilarious. She’s so prim and proper. I swear she’s been through like twenty napkins.

  “It’s okay to get messy,” I tell her as I lick the sour cream off my fingers. I don’t care if I’m not following the proper etiquette guidelines — you don’t waste sour cream.

  “I wasn’t always afraid to get messy,” she says. “But then
I saw a picture of myself in a magazine with chocolate on my face, and I decided to never suffer the humiliation again. I’m just Mark Evers’s wife. I don’t get why they needed a photo of me. Mark just created a website.”

  “You’re a billionaire’s wife. People are fascinated by the rich just as much as they are by the famous,” I tell her. “And I think that a picture of you with chocolate on the side of your face would still be gorgeous.”

  Yeah, I just paid Veronica a compliment. I never thought I’d see the day, but it’s true. She’s very beautiful for her age — especially since I suggested she get a lighter color of spray tan. The super dark tan just made her look older. Now I just need to convince her to dye her hair dark. Blonde hair doesn’t suit her well.

  “Thanks,” she says. “So what is going on with Gabriel and you?”

  “Gabriel and I are together officially,” I answer. “Originally we wanted to wait because we didn’t want to hurt Ty’s feelings, but we just decided to tell everybody. Now our Staying Connected relationship status officially says in a relationship with each other.”

  “How does Ty feel about this?” Veronica asks.

  I shrug my shoulders, because I really don’t care what Ty thinks. “Ty cheated on me, so he doesn’t get to have a say in who I date. We are friends, and he is friends with Gabe, but that’s it. I will never get back together with him.”

  “I didn’t like Ty,” she says. “Gabriel is a much better catch.”

  “What did you not like about Ty?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. There was just something off about him,” she says. “I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

  “You’re obviously a better judge of character than I am,” I tell her. “I fell for all of Ty’s bad boy moves. I am just glad I never slept with him. Gabe was the perfect person to lose my virginity too. I will never regret it, even if he breaks my heart.”

  Veronica chokes on her taco. “Yeah, it’s good that you didn’t lose it to Ty.”

  Okay, maybe sex talk with my stepmom is too much? “Does this make you uncomfortable? I usually talk about this stuff with my mom, but now I can’t… and Dad, well, he’s very uncomfortable when I talk about sex.”

  “Your father isn’t very good with talking about sex. He had the sex-talk when Toby when he was twelve,” she says. “His advice was always use condoms. It’s good advice, but obviously there is a lot more to it. So, I asked Libby to have Jack talk to Toby. So, if you have questions about sex, I would definitely be the person to come to.”

  I have to laugh at the picture in my head. My dad would say something like that to Toby. “So what do you think is the probability of staying with the first person you have sex with forever?”

  “I don’t know,” Veronica says. “The first person I had sex with was Toby’s father. I would have stayed with him forever if he hadn’t started drinking, but he did. When he drank, he was mean. I left him and started dating your father within a few months.”

  “So if you didn’t sleep around, Toby was have gotten his man-whoring ways from his dad.”

  Veronica laughs and chooses not to comment. “You know, when I first heard about you I was a little scared… especially when I found out you were going to come live with us. I’ve always wanted a daughter, but I didn’t know what to expect. I am glad you are here. I know you’re going through a lot right now, but even with all the crap you have such a positive outlook on life. Your mom raised you right… I only wish that I could have gotten to know her.”

  “Thanks,” I say. There is a lot of truth in my words. I don’t feel like the same carefree girl I was when I moved here. Circumstances have changed, and a lot of bad things have happened. It feels good to know that I haven’t lost myself through all of this. I want to hold onto the real me as hard as I can.

  “For what it’s worth, I think that Gabriel and you are good together. If anybody can last forever, you two can,” she says.

  Veronica is officially the best stepmom ever.

  Wednesday, December 8

  8:03 AM

  In another life.

  I really wish there weren’t assigned seats in my first class. Or better yet, I wish on my first day of school here I would’ve let Kasbian move the second he found out who my father was. Now I am stuck by him for all of my senior year, and his brooding silence gives me a headache.

  He’s mad at me. I don’t blame him for being mad. I made a date with him so Gabe wouldn’t move on, and then I forgot about the date, which makes me the biggest bitch on the planet… But I’m mad at him too. He completely judged me and all of my friends. He doesn’t even know us. Sure, we go to the same school, but not once has he tried to talk to my friends. My friends haven’t tried either, sure, but my friends also don’t judge him.

  Today when I take my seat beside him, he actually looks up at me. I resist the urge to roll my eyes, and turn my attention forward. Class starts in two minutes, but our teacher is always ten minutes late.

  “I’m still mad at you for completely blowing off our date,” Kasbian tells me. “But you’re right, I shouldn’t judge you and your friends.”

  “Thank you,” I say, accepting his apology. “And I’m sorry that I blew off our date. I really did forget, and I feel bad. I have a lot going on right now with my family, and it’s pretty stressful.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened to your mom,” he says.

  I hate when people say that they’re sorry for something they didn’t cause. I know that he’s just being polite, but it still bothers me. Maybe because I don’t want sympathy. I just want to forget. “Thanks,” I say again.

  “Do you think that if you and I met under different circumstances that things would be different?” he asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…” he sighs, and runs his hands through his dark hair. “Do you think if I met you before you moved here that we would maybe be together?”

  I think about his question.

  Kasbian is a very sexy guy. The week that I had to work on the janitorial staff, I really got to know him. He’s smart, he’s funny, and despite his judgmental ways, he is a pretty good person. He works very hard so he can go to this school, and I know it will pay off for him. I’ve never met anybody so driven.

  Kihanna Evers, however, isn’t interested in him. She is completely head over heels, crazy over a blonde hair, blue-eyed boy. Sure, he’s got baggage, he spoiled, and sometimes he’s selfish, but I love him. I can’t help what my heart wants.

  Though, Kihanna Foster probably would have been all over Kasbian.

  “In another life, I think we would have definitely been together,” I tell him. “If you would have lived in St. Louis with me, it would be way different. But if you were there, you probably wouldn’t have noticed me. I was kind of a nerd.” Ha, I still am a nerd. Well, sort of. All the things that make me nerdy have taken a backseat to my current situation. I don’t read anymore, I don’t make ridiculously pointless YouTube videos anymore, and I don’t play online games anymore… But let me tell you, I am the queen of Guild Wars 2… Or at least I was…

  “I think I would like the nerdy you,” he says.

  “I was a real nerd. I even had a vlog,” I tell him.

  He smiles at me. “I know. I’ve seen your videos.”

  “Oh my God! No way!” I feel my face grow warm. I lean toward him and whisper, “You didn’t tell anybody, did you?”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” he whispers back.

  It’s not really a secret… come on, it’s on the internet, but it would be hard to find the videos. I’ve never told anybody my old name.

  Suddenly, I miss my old life. I am losing little pieces of myself every day, and I’m not okay with that. So tonight, I am going to make a vlog about — something. Maybe I’ll even get Toby to be in it with me. It’ll be fun.

  I smile at my decision.

  I may not be Kihanna Foster anymore, but I refuse to lose that part of myself.

  12:00
PM

  Small…

  When I get to the table, Courtney, Ariana, and Victoria are already sitting there. Courtney has her head down on the table and she crying. Ariana is rubbing her back, and Victoria is telling her “It’ll be okay,” over and over.

  My heart thumps hard against my chest. I am worried. What if the stalker did something to Courtney. “What’s wrong?” I ask them.

  Courtney lifts up her head. Black mascara is running down her cheeks, and her face is all scrunched up. If she weren’t crying, I would probably laugh at her face. “Emmett…” sob… “broke up…” sob… “with me.” She starts bawling even harder.

  I feel immediate relief. Nothing bad happened because of me or my stalker. This is good. Then I feel sad for Courtney. Even though she and Emmett only dated a few days, I could tell she really liked him.

  “Why did he break up with you?” I ask her.

  She stops crying for a second and slaps her hand down on the table. “He said I was crazy — that I was too high and too low all the time.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “At least I’m not a sloppy-kissing man-whore, who drinks way too much, and has crappy taste in music. I can change my attitude. His small dick however will always be small.”

  I laugh really hard, and then cover my mouth with my hand. I shouldn’t be laughing while my best friend is crying, but what she said is hilarious.

  Emmett is tall, probably 6’5”, and he has huge muscles. No guy in high school should look the way he does — all the girls drool when he walks by, even the teachers. He drives a Hummer, and I’ve never seen him wear anything but dark, manly clothing. If you look up manly in the dictionary, Emmett’s picture is there. I just assumed he was… big. Hearing that he’s not just makes me look at him in a whole different light.

  I can’t stop laughing, and pretty soon the three of them join in.

  “I always just assumed he was… big,” Ariana says.

  “Me too,” Courtney says between laughs. “I didn’t even get off. It was the worst sex I’ve ever had.”