“Can I show you my room?” He offered his hand, palm up, on the balcony railing.
“I . . .” I had to say something. “I’m leaving.”
“But you just got here,” he said. I wanted so much to look at him. But if I did, I was afraid I’d cry. Or worse, that I’d poet. “Didn’t you just walk in?”
I was having the worst kind of heart canal. I needed to get out of there. So I turned and, trying to smile, went to open the sliding door.
“Wait. Waitwaitwait.” His hand found my elbow, and I stopped, hand on the door.
I was just steps from the kitchen. If I could get inside and through the house, I would not make a fool of myself in any number of ways I was currently considering: crying fit, screaming fit, kicking fit, biting fit, or tearing-my-curls-out fit.
“Did you . . . you didn’t see . . . you did see.” I didn’t turn from the door. Inside, Emma was talking to someone I didn’t recognize. He took her glasses off and put them on himself. She snatched them back and twirled around, her hair flying around her face in a playful mess. How was she so cool, so confident, so easy? I was nothing like her. I was panicky and terrified and as hard as glass slippers.
“See what?” I asked. I wasn’t going to make this easy on him. No way. He might think a kiss was nothing, but the way he’d made me feel was something. I turned toward him and raised my eyebrows in my best Maryann Interiors imitation.
“Okay, so you saw Emma do that thing. To my neck, and you probably—”
“So, she was doing what to your neck? Because it kind of looked like she was making out with it. And you were just standing there, like she and your neck make out all the time. Which is fine. But I’m out.”
He dropped my arm and laughed sardonically. “Who am I kidding? That looked really bad, didn’t it?”
“Only if us kissing yesterday wasn’t in my imagination.” For a second, I wondered: Was it my imagination? This whole conversation felt like it might be happening in a dream. A very bad, very realistic dream that smelled of pine trees, cheap beer, and cigarette butts.
“It was not in your imagination. It was pretty awesome. I was hoping to make a habit of it.” He touched his heart, then dropped his hand. “If you felt what I felt yesterday, please let me explain.” I tried to pretend he wasn’t pumping my heart full of adrenaline, that I wasn’t hoping again.
“Give me a reason,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt that I really could walk away from him.
He licked his lips. “I have one good reason: I promise if you hear me out, you’ll forgive me.” I looked at him for a long time. My eyes dipped to where Emma’s lips had touched the curve of his neck. In what scenario would her kissing him make sense? What could he say that would give me back the feeling I had when I walked in here tonight? I tried to turn away. But I wanted him to explain. I wanted him to make sense of this moment. I wanted to stop feeling like my hope bird was a sick little pile of feathers and hollow bones and go back to feeling like she was soaring through the sky.
So I nodded.
“Okay.” He let out a breath and sagged against the balcony railing. “It’s cold out here. Will you come inside?” I nodded again but crossed my arms over my chest when he reached for my hand. I followed as he led me through the apartment and halfway down a hall I hadn’t seen before. Kai opened a door, and we were about to slip through when someone called Kai’s name.
“Please tell me you’re not going to study.” Keanu was there, a beer in hand. Kai stepped aside so his brother could see me, then took my elbow and led me through the door as his brother called over his shoulder, “Oh, Sa-bean, I see what you mean. Don’t forget to think safety!” Kai closed the door, shutting out the noise of the party. He spoke in the dark, closer to me than I thought he was. “Sorry about that. It’s what our dad always says. Think safety. Mover motto.” He sighed, and I could feel his breath on my bare shoulder. “I hope he didn’t offend you.”
I stepped away from him, shaking my head to dispel the heat in my cheeks. I didn’t dare open my mouth, afraid of what would come out.
Kai hit the light switch, and an ethereal Tiffany lamp illuminated the large space. It would have been the master bedroom if it hadn’t been converted into what looked like the Lost Boys dormitory. I fidgeted, running my hands up and down my arms. “People are weird about my name because they don’t meet many Sabines.” How could it feel so awkward to be alone with Kai? “But my dad grew up in Louisiana. French names are common there.” Just a day ago, being with Kai felt like falling into a faux-fur coat. And now? I thought of Anna Sui’s spike-adorned peacoat—this was more like that; I was afraid I’d cut myself.
“I love your name,” Kai said. He walked to one of the oversized built-in bunk beds that sat on opposite walls. On either side of the far window was an arcade-style Donkey Kong, and a foosball table. The bottom bunks were desks, so instead of mattresses, they were covered with stacks of papers, piled books, and humming laptops. Two fat black beanbag chairs patched up with silver duct tape acted as desk chairs. Kai’s beanbag had his soccer sweatshirt thrown over it. The room should have smelled dank and gymnasium-y, like boys, but it didn’t. It had that same night-air smell that Kai did, and beneath everything was the smell of just-cut oak. I breathed in deeply, hating myself.
I wanted to tell him that I loved his name, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Instead, I nodded to the bunks. “Did your dad build these?”
“My dad made one for each of us and one just in case. Kind of a family joke.” He blushed, his eyes skittering away from mine. “I guess I wasn’t planned.” I swallowed, wondering if Blythe and I were planned, or if we were the reason that this whole mixed-up marriage began. I didn’t want to think about it. Instead, I focused on Kai’s bunk—on the unexpected third boy of the family. A scrap of paper was tacked up beside a map and a few other keepsakes. It said, S— Want desperately need a Rolly tour guide? —K” I walked over to it. It looked like it’d been there awhile. Whatever we were, at least we weren’t a joke.
I gathered every piece of bravery I had. “Make me forgive you.” He took a step toward me and let out a long breath.
His throat bobbed. “I’m not supposed to tell anybody this.”
18
THEY SAY THAT “TIME ASSUAGES”—BUT
Kai snatched his sweatshirt off the beanbag chair and gestured for me to sit. I shook my head. This dress did not allow for . . . beanbag chairs. Instead, I perched on the edge of his desk in front of a world map covered in red tacks and a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) trifold hanging.
“Okay,” he said and sank into the beanbag chair. “Emma would kill me for telling you this, but . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck. When he looked up, I made the mistake of looking right back. His eyes were hooks, and I was the dumb fish. “You know the messages I got yesterday? I had to pick Emma up from the police station.”
The police station? “What happened?”
Kai covered his mouth with one hand. “Her dad was arrested,” he said. Then he started at the beginning. “Emma’s mom died in sixth grade, and her dad moved them in downstairs. That was the first secret I ever kept for her—where she lived. I guess they weren’t welcome in the McMichaels estate anymore, but Emma didn’t want anyone to know where she lived.” He looked up at me. “And I swear I’ve never told anyone until today.”
I didn’t even know about her mom. I dug my nails into the raw wood edge of the bunk, ashamed of my jealousy.
“And her dad started drinking.” Kai ran a hand through his hair, turning it punk. “We never heard any . . . disturbances. And Emma never complained. But this past summer, they moved out, and she didn’t tell me where. I should have asked. I should have found out.” He shook his head and sank lower in the beanbag. I shifted closer to him, listening. “Yesterday afternoon, Emma’s dad was pulled over and he was found to be over the legal limi
t. It wasn’t his first DUI, and they arrested him and took their minivan to impound. Now he’s in a court-mandated rehab center, and all Emma’s stuff is gone and she has nowhere to go.”
I frowned. Her stuff? “What do you mean?”
He cleared his throat. “I guess they were living in the van.” I pressed a hand to my stomach. I’d been complaining about living in a run-down mansion while she’d been living in a minivan.
“I have to talk to her.” I stood up, already thinking how I had to find Blythe so she could get Red Vines and fancy soda with straws. We needed to get home to our construction site so she could safely talk/cry/scream it out. Then we’d just keep her with us for as long as we could.
“Whoa.” Kai shot up. “This is a secret. Especially from Emma.”
“Wait. Why?” I dropped back down, thinking of her racks of clothes in the costume closet. Is it possible that the costume room wasn’t just for costumes—but that it was her closet? “She needs friends right now.”
Kai held up his hands in supplication. “I know. And I’m here for her. But Emma’s afraid if Mrs. McMichaels finds out her dad got another DUI, she’ll file for custody. Or get a restraining order.”
“A restraining order?” I shifted on the hardwood. I did not feel okay with this secret. “On her own son?”
“Son-in-law. He took his wife’s name.” I started to argue, but Kai held up his hands again, then dropped them into my own, and I froze. “Listen. I tried to get Emma to talk to her grandmother. I really tried.” He let out a snort of laughter. “My mom’s not too happy about a girl living here.”
I pulled my hands from his. “Emma’s living here? In this house?” I could swear my boots were crawling up my legs.
“Well not here.” Kai gestured around the room, pointing at Donkey Kong. “Her things are in the van and in my parents’ room. She’s sleeping on the living room pull-out couch.”
I dropped my head into my hands. These were more problems than I knew what to do with. But—I wished she’d called me, instead of Kai. I understood wanting to keep a secret. I did. But . . .
“It’s just for a month.” Kai said, shrugging. Just for a month. All of my righteous indignation returned, flooding my face with heat.
“Excuse me . . .” I looked at him, leveling him with a gaze I hoped would chop down a redwood tree someday. “How does Emma living in your house give her the right to hook up with your neck?”
“Oh.” He looked away, and his hands were in his hair again. “She moped around all day so Keanu gave her a pack of wine coolers. What with everything, I couldn’t just push her away. I figured tomorrow I’d pretend nothing happened.”
I stood up, completely done with this conversation. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” I put my hands on my hips and pinched so hard I dug into my ribs. “If this were my party and you’d walked in to find a guy kissing my neck, would you even be talking to me right now?”
Kai looked green. “I . . .” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “If that had happened, I’d probably be in a fight right now.”
“Yeah,” I said. At least yesterday had meant something to him, too. “Well, I might not beat her up.”
Kai watched me from lowered brows. “Do you hate her? Do you hate me?”
I started to speak, but my tongue tripped on all the words. I swallowed hard. “Of course not.” I couldn’t hate Emma. I knew what she saw in Kai, and I knew what it was like to lose one parent and have the other seem like a stranger. And I knew what it was like not to have friends to talk to. I swept my thumbnail over my lower lip, tracing my scar with my shiny, soft nail bed. “I had no time to hate—no time to hate. No time to hate. No hate.”
He lowered his lashes. “I had no time to hate, for the grave would hinder me.” My heart split in two. He was poeting.
“It’s because.” I smiled. “Because the grave would hinder me.” The words were still running over my tongue—I had no time to hate because the grave would hinder me.
Kai leaned forward in the beanbag until his chest met my knees where I sat on the desk. “You’re amazing.” He picked up my hand and turned it over, tracing my thumbnail.
“They’re just words.” But my hope bird hopped inside my chest. My body felt like a hundred magnets, each one pulsing toward him. I shivered. “So you’re memorizing Emily now, huh? She cure you of the Cure?”
He laughed. “No way. In fact . . .” He pulled his phone from his pocket and put on a song. “This is called ‘High.’”
I listened. It felt like someone eating candy through tears. “What do you like about them?”
He pressed his lips together, thinking. Then he smiled. “Robert Smith, the lead singer, has this completely nontraditional voice that’s almost part of the music. And he did some of his best writing when he was insanely down, just completely depressed. Even when we’re hurting, we can still be great. And those lyrics, especially on Disintegration, are poetry.” His words were mending something inside me.
I pressed my lips together in a smile. “They’re lyrics.”
“Oh, but let me remind you of my premise. Lyrics are poetry.” I felt the room changing, our sparkling energy converging. “I didn’t have poetry, like you did. I had song lyrics. Hanging out in bars will give you lyrics galore.”
“Bars?” I sat back, feeling like I needed to get my feet beneath me again.
“Yeah.” Kai cleared his throat. “My dad used to take us to bars while our mom worked nights at the hospital. My brothers would play foosball and order Cokes. I stole the cherries out of those little plastic bins. If we hadn’t had dinner, I’d steal the olives, too. And I memorized a lot of lyrics.” His eyes grew unfocused. “That sounds weird, doesn’t it?”
“No.” I leaned forward until he was looking at me again. “It sounds like you were hungry a lot.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Yeah. My dad finally got us this foosball table.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder. “That was a couple years ago. It was a message to himself: no more bars. Or maybe that message was from my mom.” He laughed. “Why am I talking so much?”
I grinned and tucked my legs beneath me, leaning toward him. “That’s usually my thing.”
Kai reached for a Hacky Sack from a row on the floor. He tossed the ball in the air, then threw it to me. “And now you know my secrets.”
I caught the ball. “And you know my secrets. All one million of them.” I placed the Hacky Sack on the desk. Kai reached for the Hacky Sack and placed it back in its ordered line. I looked at the foosball table. “Maybe it’s better not to have secrets at all.”
Kai’s hands hovered beside my knees. “When everything went down with my dad, my mom said people lie to protect the people they love.”
Would we tell Emma about us? How could we do that? I swallowed. “You know how much Emma likes you. Like, really likes you.” It was the worst infraction against friendship, and I couldn’t take it back. But he must know. It’s not like she was hiding it.
“It’s not like that. She’s a sister to me.” His eyes followed the line of Hacky Sacks, and I couldn’t tell if he was avoiding my eyes. “She was just drunk and lonely. It didn’t mean anything.”
“It might be different for her, though.” I knew how Emma felt. She’d made it plain. What I didn’t know was whether he knew and was ignoring it, or whether he really didn’t get it. “And if it is, how can we tell her that we’re . . . anything special to each other?”
“We’ll figure it out.” He traced the top edge of my boot where it met my knee. I closed my eyes. My resistance was fading. I inched my hand toward his, and he pulled me, slowly, to my feet, then into the beanbag beside him. He kept my hand in his and held our linked hands to his chest. “We’ll find a way to tell her. Soon.” I relaxed against his side. I could feel his heart pounding. “Will you go somewhere with me next Saturday?” he asked. “Just you
and me.”
I was afraid to speak. My heart might fall out of my mouth or something. So I nodded. He let out a breath and smiled that open, lopsided smile. I looped my wrists around his neck and settled against his chest. Slowly, his head dipped to mine. I closed my eyes as our lips met.
The clean smell of him was in my nose and the coarse thickness of his hair was in my hands, and the cinnamony taste of him was in my mouth. The noise of the party and the memory of the kitchen disappeared into nothing, until we were the only two people in the world, our hearts the only two beating, filling up all the space here and everywhere. When we broke apart, I placed my hand against his chest. It was like something was about to break out of a cage. I wondered if he knew about my hope bird, blinking at this amazing turn of events, at this new person growing grass where there had only been ashes. He twirled one of my curls then lifted a few pieces of my hair.
“Your hair is softer than I thought it would be.” He rubbed the strands together. I took it as permission to touch him back. I traced the line of one eyebrow, but lost myself in the blue of his eyes. Close-up, I could see his eyes were surrounded by a deep, dark blue, and shot through with lighter blues and dark green. “No poetry,” he said. “A good sign.”
I blushed, but before I could ruin the moment by stuttering, he kissed me again. Then he lifted me onto his lap so we pressed together, our mouths, our chests, our stomachs meeting perfectly. I could feel the planes of his chest beneath his shirt, the glide of his muscles as he pulled me closer, the thump of his heart pulsing against mine. My mind drifted into patterns and colors as tingles scattered down my spine. My hand drifted to where Kai’s shirt had come untucked, and I touched the smooth skin of his stomach. He sucked in a breath, and I was about to pull away, but he covered my hand with his, keeping it where it was. That’s when someone started pounding on the door.
I scurried off Kai’s lap as Nate ducked through the doorway. I folded my legs beneath me and crossed my hands as Blythe and Emma stepped in behind him. Emma looked from him to me and back to him. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, hoping I didn’t look thrown around a beanbag chair and kissed.
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