by Lydia Sharp
“You can call me Gabi,” I say.
Her brows shoot toward her thinning hairline. “New girlfriend, eh? Nice to meet you, Gabi, I’m Clarabelle Martin. But you can call me Claire.” She winks and then turns back to Kai. “How’s Hunter doing?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Kai unloads a couple of suitcases from the airport taxi idling by the curb as his aunt tips the driver. “He’s inside with everyone else if you want to ask him yourself.”
Claire waddles into the house and Kai moves to follow her, but then he stops, sets down the suitcases, and pulls me into his arms.
“What’s that for?”
“Aunt Claire being here is a really good thing. It’s just put me in an extra good mood.”
I lightly elbow him in the ribs. “Don’t I put you in a good mood?”
“Always.” He laughs. “But this is different. This was an unexpected gift.”
“Good answer.”
While Kai takes care of the suitcases, then guts and fillets his fish, I go back to my side of the house to get ready to go out to the movie and whatever else we end up doing. I’ve got half my hair wrapped up in hot rollers when my cell phone buzzes with a text from Kai.
Change of plans. Have to run some errands. Movie another time?
I sigh. This isn’t the first time his family’s needs have interrupted our plans. It’s not that I don’t agree with him helping them over going on a movie date with me, and I don’t mean to be clingy, but he’s the only person I have around to do stuff with out here. Okay, I text him, and finish rolling my hair. Just because I’m alone doesn’t mean I can’t look good.
After dinner, there’s a commotion in the driveway. I take a peek out the front window and see Kai packing a bunch of stuff into his Outback in the dark. I put on a coat and slippers and rush outside, immediately pulling up my hood. The wind blows fiercely, sucking away the last bits of warmth left over from summer.
“What are you doing?”
“Just selling some junk,” Kai says.
I notice his snowboard in the pile before he closes the back hatch. That isn’t junk. “Why would you get rid of your board now? It’s almost winter.”
“I need money.”
Well, if that’s all it is … “You don’t have to sell anything. I can give you money. My mom sends me more than I’ll ever use.”
His jaw hardens. “I don’t take charity, Gabi. I’d rather earn it.”
“Then you can pay me back. Think of it as a loan. I’ll even charge interest—in kisses.”
“Tempting.” His face softens. “I don’t want to owe you for anything, though, okay? I can get another board … whenever. It’s not a big deal.”
He stands right in front of me, but his mind is somewhere far away. He’s not thinking straight, forgetting things we’ve talked about more than once before.
“You were going to teach me how to snowboard, remember? So I don’t die of boredom this winter?” I figure snowboarding is the closest I’ll get to surfing out here, my favorite hobby back home. I’ve even been looking forward to it snowing just so I can learn.
“Of course I remember,” he says.
The wind tears my hood off my head, and my hair whips my cheeks. There go the curls. I can’t stop my teeth from chattering.
“Go back inside, Gabi, it’s too cold out here.” He kisses me, pulls my hood back up, and then gets in the car and backs out of the driveway. Weren’t we in the middle of a conversation? I didn’t even have a chance to ask what he needs the money for.
Inside, I slam the door hard behind me.
“Everything okay, querida?” Dad says.
“Yes, Papi.” Everything is fine, except my boyfriend just took off and I don’t know why. But … he kissed me before he left. It’s the only reason my lips are warm while the rest of me is frigid. You don’t kiss someone on the lips if you’re mad at them, right? You don’t kiss them at all. Okay, I actually have no idea what happened between us. Maybe it had nothing to do with me, but I can’t help feeling he’s hiding something. Why would he do that? We don’t tell each other everything, but we also don’t keep big secrets from each other. “The wind slammed the door shut,” I tell Dad. “It’s crazy out there.”
I settle on the couch next to him, and he tries to open Netflix, but our wireless is spotty. It refuses to stream tonight. He takes his sleeping pills and calls it a night. I aimlessly flip through channels, for I don’t know how long, wondering what has become of my life in such a short period of time. I never used to get bored like this. Channel-flipping on the couch didn’t exist on my agenda. There was always some party to be seen at, some beach to get lost in, some movie to go to that some friend of a friend played an extra in. I never had to stay holed up in my house if I didn’t want to be there. Whenever I needed an escape from my parents’ arguments, I could easily find one. That’s what first drew me to surfing—it helped me escape both physically and mentally. The boyfriend who introduced me to it didn’t stick around, but the habit did.
My cell phone rings, startling me, and the remote jumps from my hands. But the caller ID is even more of a surprise than the sudden ringtone.
It’s Mom’s assistant, Amy. Because Mom will never call me again. I don’t have regular communication with Amy, either, not like the daily almost-conversations we used to have before my parents’ divorce, so her calling now isn’t expected. Mom must have added “check on my exiled daughter once every three months” to Amy’s to-do list.
I try for a casual tone, like this is a normal part of my nightly routine. “Hey, Amy.”
“Gabriella, darling, hello, how are you.” It’s not a question. That’s just how Amy answers the phone, complete with her fake Hollywood-snob accent.
In answer to her questions, I tell her yes, I’m fine, and yes, I’ve been getting the money. She doesn’t ask about Dad, whose depression is only slightly under control. She doesn’t ask about school, or whether I’ve found an acting coach, or if I have a social life. Amy is Mom’s assistant because she is extremely efficient. The woman has earned her paycheck tonight.
“Is there anything you’d like me to relay to Ms. Cruz?” she concludes.
“Why didn’t she call me herself?” I know the reason, but I don’t know if Amy does.
Amy sputters for a moment, then blows out a sharp breath, rattling the speaker against my ear. “She’s in a very important meeting with her talent manager, Gabriella. She has a very important reading coming up for a part that will improve her public image, which she so desperately needs since … since …” Another forced breath. “Things still haven’t settled around here. Last week, they claimed she had gained a hundred pounds. The week before that, she apparently joined a cult. We have to get this target off her back. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, I understand.” I’m not very important, like her career. If I were, would I be talking to her assistant right now instead of her—from Alaska?
This shouldn’t bother me. It doesn’t. I’m the one who chose to shut her out, because she completely uprooted my life to salvage hers. I told her exactly how I felt about that before we got on the plane—explicitly told her to never talk to me again— and if she really wanted to fix things between us, or at least apologize, she’d be the one to call me, not her assistant. I’m so angry at her that most of the time, I don’t even care if she calls me or not, or if she never apologizes. I’m just glad she’s out of my life. I’m glad she doesn’t get a say in it anymore. After this mess blows over, after I’m done with school, I’ll decide where I go from there, not her.
I’m not following in her footsteps anymore. I will not become a liar and a cheater.
“Sorry, darling. Really, I am. Is there a message you’d like me to relay to her?” Amy asks again.
Yes. “No. Thanks, anyway.” Thanks for nothing.
I’m buying my first pair of winter boots online when Dad tells me Kai is downstairs asking if he can see me. We didn’t have plans for tonight,
though.
“Sure, send him up.” I reach for a stick of cinnamon gum, Kai’s favorite flavor on me, not sure if I should be excited or worried. He’s been quieter and busier than usual, and we haven’t gone out together since that day at the lake, more than a week ago. This could be a surprise date or it could be … I don’t know, just bad somehow. As well as I’ve gotten to know Kai over the past three months and despite how close we feel, there’s still so much I don’t know about him. His distance lately could be nothing or a really big something.
Kai enters my room, leaving the door open behind him—one of Dad’s few rules for us. His normally bright eyes are dim, deep shadows hanging beneath them. Talking isn’t the only thing he hasn’t been doing. Sleep doesn’t appear to have been on his agenda, either.
Without a word, he scoops me into an embrace. Sleep deprived or not, he’s still warm and feels like home. He holds me a little longer than our usual welcome hug, though, like he’s just returned from a very long trip away from me. We haven’t done anything together the last few days, but we still live right next door to each other.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “You seem … tired.” Among other things. But we’ll start with that.
“I am tired,” he says. “I haven’t slept much lately.”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just …” He rubs his hands over his face and blows out a breath. “Going to see my dad … leaving you and my family … it’s gonna be hard. But after talking to you about it, and then Aunt Claire showing up … it was like this push from, I don’t know, God, the universe …” He whispers a curse. “This isn’t coming out right. Sorry. Everything about this is hard, but I have to do it. You know?”
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “When you go, I’ll still be here when you get back. How long will you be gone?”
“A few weeks, maybe more. Like I said before, it depends.”
“That’s nothing in the broad scheme of things!” I say cheerily, trying anything to brighten him up. “And I’ll be glad you did it when it’s over. You will, too.”
He stares at me for a moment, and I can almost hear the gears of his mind clicking in the silence. It isn’t like him to not say what he’s thinking, but this is an unusual circumstance, with emotions that cut deep. This is the first time I’ve seen him so low. But he was bound to show me another side of himself eventually. He’s seen my darkness already, and he’s still with me. It’s only fair that I see his, too, so I can show him it’s not going to scare me away, either.
“We don’t have to talk about it now if you don’t want to,” I say. “But if you do want to, we can. It’s up to you. Okay?”
He nods. “I think it’d be easier if I just … if you just …” His mouth twists as he looks to the side, and then he digs something out of his jeans pocket. He extends his closed fist toward me, turns it so his curled fingers face the ceiling, and says, “Open it.”
A gift? This is a first for us. My lips twitch with the urge to smile before I even see what he’s giving me. I wonder if this is what he needed money for the other day and why he was irritated when I suggested he borrow it from me. That would have been like I was buying my own gift. I nearly laugh in relief. It all makes sense now.
A mixture of excitement and uncertainty sets off my nerves like fireworks. I uncurl his fist, hoping he doesn’t notice my fingers trembling against his, until his hand is open. A small stone pendant rests in his flat palm, attached to a simple silver chain. I’ve seen plenty of stones in my lifetime, both in my mother’s personal jewelry collection and on sets, everything from brilliantly faceted diamonds to clunky costume jewelry, but never anything like this. It’s literally just a gray rock, polished smooth. Not even lacquered. The letters GF have been engraved onto it and the grooves painted black.
“My initials?”
“Yeah.” Kai flips the stone to show me the letters KL engraved and painted black on the other side. Not just my initials; mine and his, together. “It means you and me,” he says, then holds the chain open toward my neck. I hold my hair up so he can fasten the clasp in the back. When he’s done, the stone rests against my chest, near my heart. It isn’t as heavy as I was expecting.
“I know it isn’t much to look at.” His tone is as tremulous as my fingers were a moment ago. Why would he be nervous? He’s the calm and confident one in this relationship. Stressing out and questioning everything is my job. He goes on, “It’s just meant to be a symbol of us, together, even when we’re apart. Whether I’m on the other side of this wall or the other side of the world, I want you to know I’m thinking of you, of how good I feel whenever I’m with you.”
I clutch the stone. It’s still warm from Kai’s hand. “This is the most perfect gift anyone has ever given me. I love it.”
He smiles wide and lets out a breathy laugh. “I have one, too, just like it.” He pulls out an identical pendant attached to a chain from underneath his shirt collar, then his brow wrinkles and he swallows hard. His emotions are all over the place. He really needs to get some sleep. “I gotta go now.”
“Okay.” I push up onto my toes and kiss him more innocently than I want to, just enough to give him a taste of cinnamon, an invitation to stay with me a little bit longer. We have a couple of hours yet before he would need to help his mom with dinner. But he pulls back, says, “Good-bye, Gabi,” his voice strained, and then he’s gone.
I haven’t seen Kai in two days, and he’s been here-but-not-really-here for the past two weeks, ever since our chat by the lake and even more so since his aunt Claire arrived. When he gave me the rock necklace I didn’t think that gave him liberty to disappear on me without a word. It’s not like we’re so goo-goo-eyed for each other that we can’t go two days without so much as talking—although it is rare, since our houses share a wall—but Jase’s Halloween party is tonight, and we told him we were going for sure. I shoot Kai a quick text, hoping the crappy cell service doesn’t eat it in transit.
Jase’s party yes no?
I add a kissy-face emoji for good measure. And wait. And remove things from Dad’s Netflix queue that would fuel his depression. And wait some more. And still nothing. I peek out the front window. Kai and Hunter’s rusty Outback is in the driveway, so he’s either out with someone else or he walked somewhere. The clock is ticking, and my patience is about as thick as a butterfly’s wings.
Where are you? Are you coming?
The signal bars disappear before I can hit send. Fan-flipping-tastic. My boyfriend is AWOL and our costumes for this party don’t work individually; we’re going as two halves of a whole. If I’m there alone, no one will get it. I’ll look stupid. God, Gabi, like that’s even the least of your concerns right now. Find Kai so you can give him hell.
I check my phone again. The signal’s weak, but it’s there. I hit send and then let out a little squeal of victory when it says message delivered beneath my text.
By the time Dad gets home from work, Kai still hasn’t replied to my text. I tried to call and it went straight to voice mail, so I assume his phone is just turned off. I’m dressed, makeup on, hair done, and ready to go. Dad unfastens the top button of his blue USPS shirt—a far cry from the Italian suits he used to wear to the law office he dominated in LA—the exhaustion in his dark eyes so heavy it’s tugging his head down. When he clicks on the TV, the local news is doing the forecast. Tomorrow’s date is covered in a cute little blizzard icon. With a face, even. That’ll be the first time I’ll see an actual snowstorm. I’m not sure what to expect.
“Good thing your party’s not tomorrow night,” Dad says, then he squints at me. “What are you supposed to be again?”
I have a feeling I’ll be hearing this question a lot. “The TARDIS. Kai is going as Doctor Who.” And without him at my side, I just look like a girl in a blue dress that’s poorly decorated like a phone booth. A sad, empty phone booth.
“Ah, I see it now,” Dad says. “Clever.”
Not clever e
nough, apparently, if I have to explain it. But it’s too late to change it now. I plaster on a giant smile, the one I perfected by watching Mom on the red carpet, and go to Kai’s side of the house. Mrs. Locklear answers the door, holding the phone against her ear and a bowl of candy in her other hand. She must have thought I was a trick-or-treater. As she gestures for me to come in, I notice the silver chain around her neck, similar to the one Kai gave me. I’ve seen it on her before, never gave it a second thought, but now I look at it more closely. It dips below the crewneck collar of her shirt, so I can’t see if there’s a pendant attached. She goes back to her phone conversation, venting to someone about the increase in grocery prices and the decrease in government aid.
The house is spotless, the cleanest, most organized I’ve ever seen it, and I have to assume Claire is responsible. Even the picture frames on the mantel have been dusted.
Hunter is lying across the couch on his back, one hand dropped over the side, absently petting the top of Diesel’s head. His other arm is draped over his face. No kids are around, but I hear laughter and splashing and feet thumping around upstairs.
“Hey, Hunter. Is Kai here?”
“Haven’t seen him,” he mutters.
“Do you know where he went?”
“Wait a minute.” He stops petting the dog, and his other arm slowly drops away, revealing his signature look of utter conflict. “He didn’t tell you where he was going?”
I try to keep my expression neutral. “I’ll ask him at the party. Would you mind giving me a ride there?”
“What party—Oh, right. Halloween.” He sits up and gives me a hard look. “What are you going as?”
I grit my teeth, silently cursing Kai for abandoning me. Hunter can’t see my full costume beneath my coat, but still. This is already getting old. “The TARDIS. And unfortunately I can’t really control time, so if I don’t get going soon, I’ll be late. And if I’m late,” I add in a weak attempt to lighten the mood, “all the pumpkin-spice desserts will be gone. That’s really the only reason I’m going.”