Graphite

by Anne Leigh

  “Yeah right.” Even from here, I heard the snicker in Bridge’s voice and her friend joined in on the laughter. It was easy to identify them from where I sat because Bridge was in a full-on light blue ski outfit and her friend was decked out in all red. “Your age is catching up to you, brother.”

  They laughed again.

  It was fun to see my sister happy. For the first time in her life, I knew that she was truly at peace. Which was why, even when Mother tried to guilt me into not spending Thanksgiving with her in New York, I didn’t hesitate to say yes when Bridge asked if we could spend it in Aspen instead. We both knew Mom couldn’t get out of the New York these days because she was in the middle of launching a new collection which meant that all her time was spent in the office. Mother and Bridge had a long way to go before my sister would consider talking to our mother for more than five minutes. Trust, once gone, was hard to build. It wasn’t something that our mother could just resurrect once she realized what she’d done wrong.

  Bridge yelled, “We’re going downhill.”

  I called back, “Alright. I’ll catch up.”

  I took a deep breath and felt my warm breath spread through the inside of my microfleece jacket. Adjusting my goggles to clear the fog that was building up, I thought of how nice it would be when Kara arrived.

  It had only been two days since her body was warm next to me, but I felt her absence. It was nice to hear her voice through the phone and her stories about her mom’s lost hopes for Kara being a contender for Miss Texas amused me.

  I had nothing against beauty queens. I had no doubts that if my woman competed she’d be up there with the winners. The funny thing was I believed that Kara would be thrown out of the competition because she’d be too opinionated to go with the PC answer.

  I stood up and balanced myself on the board, keeping an eye downhill and figuring out that I’d try to navigate the left terrain this time. Bridge and her friend had a ten-minute advantage on me, but I wanted to take my time and do some tricks on the way down. I was smart enough to stay away from the steepest and dangerous slopes because I did play sports and if I wanted to keep playing, I better protect my knees and other integral parts of my body.

  Kara mentioned that she was a better skier than a snowboarder. I was planning on convincing her that snowboarding was better by giving her a personal lesson, but really, I just wanted my hands on her. When she was around, my dick wanted to be attached to her pussy so teaching her snowboarding would give us time away from the bed. And maybe time for her and my sister to get to know each other, too. I hated to share Kara, but this trip wasn’t just about me, it was also about introducing her to Bridge and maybe they’d find something in common with each other.

  It would be nice to see her hang out with my sister. I didn’t hold any high expectations or anything, but knowing that the two most important women in my life got along would make me happy.

  I pointed the lead of my board downhill, keeping my knees bent. These terrains were gentler compared to the wild Valdez terrains that Ian liked to go extreme freestyling at. I’d gone with him once and it was hella fun, but it was for experienced riders like us and ten times more dangerous than the bunny slopes that Bridge favored. I couldn’t go back there anymore, especially if I became pro and signed a contract.

  Bridge was an expert skier, but she always tended to be on the safer side.

  I relaxed my shoulders and looked down, eyeing their figures from the distance. They had about a ten-minute head start, but I knew that I could cut the time to two minutes.

  I loved going downhill fast.

  It was going to be a fun, fun ride.

  After riding the slopes, Bridge, Rianna, and I had lunch and the girls waved bye to me.

  They were going to do some sightseeing and shopping.

  Basically, they wanted me out of their way.

  Rianna was a nice girl. From what I’d gathered, they met in an art store in Westwood and started talking and their friendship blossomed from there. Rianna was shy like my sister, and she barely looked me in the eyes in the beginning. My sister whispered something to the effect that I had a girlfriend, and she’d been relaxed with me since then.

  I had no idea what that meant but whatever.

  Kara’s family’s big Thanksgiving party was today and I’d texted her to just have fun and that I’d talk to her later. If it was the same type of party that my mother threw then I pitied my girlfriend. When Bridge and I were forced to attend the parties that my mother threw, we both couldn’t wait until the day was over. Everyone basically wore their fanciest dresses to gossip and drink. They pasted on their fake smiles and wished the people they hated the best of everything to their faces, but once their backs were turned, they took back the good graces.

  I turned the TV on to watch sports in the living room of my hotel room, waiting for Kara to send me more pictures of her in her dress.

  She’d mentioned that it was her family’s tradition to wear the dress that her Mom had made for her. When I’d asked if her brother had to wear a dress too, she’d laughed and I was glad to lighten the mood for her.

  I scrolled through my phone, while listening to the sportscasters argue about college football, and my jaw tightened when the TV flashed a picture of Scott.

  Scott, my frat brother and ex-boyfriend of the woman I loved.

  The man whom I thought was a lot better human than what he had been showing me these days.

  While my Tau brothers voted to keep me as VP, changed the rules about exes to what I’d proposed, and limited my punishment to not being able to attend a total of three games that I was required to attend, Scott had treated me with enough ice to turn the Pacific Ocean to a frozen tundra.

  I thought that we’d move on, that he wouldn’t be such a little pissant about Kara and I being together, but he’d done the complete opposite.

  I’d say hi and he would walk away as if he didn’t see me.

  I’d be in the kitchen and he’d leave as soon as he saw me there.

  Kara had asked how it had been and I just shrugged and said everything was okay. All that mattered was that she was with me, and I wasn’t going to be a little bitch tattle telling about her ex-boyfriend being an immature asshole.

  I didn’t expect Scott and I to be the BFF’s that we weren’t. I, however, expected common decency and civility to acknowledge each other with respect.

  But again, I couldn’t please everyone and I wasn’t going to start now.

  I knew that Scott still had feelings for Kara. And maybe he was rediscovering them again, especially now that she was with me. There was nothing that made someone miss the person that they used to date than when they saw them with a new person.

  I wouldn’t know that firsthand from experience, but that’s what I’d heard from my friends.

  But I was secure in Kara’s feelings for me, and no matter how many times he texted her, she wouldn’t be going back to him.

  She loved me.

  So even if he was there in Texas with her, attending the party that her mother threw, there was no way that Kara was going to be swayed by his continued pursuit.

  A pursuit that I would put an end to once and for all when we got back from break.

  I’d given Scott enough time to sulk about my girlfriend, but it was time to break it to him that he should really stop texting her with pleas to take him back.

  Because there was no chance that she was going back to him.

  Not a chance in hell.

  I’d drifted off to sleep.

  The good part about being on vacation was that I could sleep in whenever I wanted to.

  The bad part was that in a few days, I wouldn’t have the same luxury.

  Practice, classes, games, assignments, practice, team meetings. Life was busy. It was even busier when you were trying to maintain a great GPA and proving to the rest of the nation that your team was the best. My senior year wasn’t much different from the last three years of my life, except that I had l
ess than six months away from graduation and moving on from the sheltered life of being a student.

  Kara’s life was mapped out. She wanted to work in Silicon Valley.

  Me? I had a few ideas I’d shared with her.

  I’d apply for a job somewhere on the West Coast, where I could apply my degree as a process engineer or analyst. I loved the design and processing parts of engineering. I was willing to take the risks and rise above the status quo to determine how we could make the process better. I was highly interested in the food industry and how to limit the wastes from the agricultural and delivery sides of the equation.

  The job would also depend on whether or not I actually get to be a part of an international rugby team. I hadn’t thought much about it. Majority of my life, I’d been groomed by my father to be on top of the NHL’s scoreboards, and from the time I could make a decision on my own, I found my feet on the grass, in the solid footing of rugby, a sport that made my feet bleed when I was a newbie and yet it welcomed me with the warm, open arms, making me believe that I could learn it and master it.

  I wasn’t a master of the sport.

  Not yet.

  But I was willing to work for it.

  I wanted to be in the leagues of Beauden Barrett and Dan Carter, and nothing would make me happier than to know that Kara was right alongside with me when I reached my dreams.

  Speaking of Kara, she hadn’t responded to my texts since I sent the last one a couple of hours ago, letting her know that I was just chilling inside while my sister and her friend went out.

  Usually she responded right away even if it was an okay or a thumbs up emoji.

  Odd.

  I texted her again, “Hey babe, still waiting for more of your prom pics.”

  I teased her because she’d said that the dresses that her mom’s designer created made her feel like she was running for homecoming queen. She’d sent me a few photos and she looked great in them, but I wanted more. I always wanted more of her.

  I set my phone down and looked outside the window.

  Snow now blanketed the ground, making everything appear like a winter wonderland. Kara would be awed at the sight. She’d said that she loved everything related to snow, and I got excited thinking about how hot it would be fuck her against the cold glass door once darkness enveloped us.

  I usually reserved a smaller hotel room for myself, but since Kara was joining me, I’d asked for a bigger room with the bigger bathtub which was an almost impossible feat to accomplish especially during the peak season, but Bridge had helped me out. Apparently, she’d become friends with the hotel manager who had gotten to know her during the many times we’d stayed here. Bridge liked to stay in the second floor where she had a view of the Snowmass Mountain and as for me, I stayed at the room that didn’t have additional charges.

  We might have inherited millions, but I wasn’t an idiot who splurged on unnecessary shit.

  The sound of Coldplay’s Yellow ringtone alerted me that Kara had just responded. She liked all sorts of music, but I’d tickled her to death to get her to confess that she loved Chris Martin’s music. It was all good. I wanted to get Intel on what I could give her for her birthday. Hopefully, the band would have the tour dates out before April.

  I was expecting more images of her in her dress or better yet, no clothes on. Kara didn’t do naked selfies, but she loved to tease me with photos of her in the skimpiest underwear and I made sure my phone was locked and secure enough so that if it was ever lost, the images would be erased in a second. I’d be sad to erase my girlfriend’s sexy pics, but the thought of some asshole jacking off to her sexy pictures far outweighed my sadness.

  Plus, I wouldn’t need her pictures if I had her in the flesh with me.

  Call me Barbie, but I was now officially counting the hours until she would be right here with me.

  I lifted my phone and punched in my code to see her response, feeling myself getting excited. It was a generic Pavlovian reaction that Kara invoked inside me.

  Expecting another sexy image from her or her typical smart ass comment, a smile started to form on my face.

  But it completely wiped out as fast as it appeared when I saw the message on the screen.

  I had to check twice to make sure that it originated from Kara’s number because I thought someone was pranking me.

  My friends did all sorts of shit, but none of them would do this.

  Not a prank this cruel.

  It took a minute for my brain to make sense of what my heart was beating out with a heavy denial.

  “I’m sorry. I realized that I still love Scott. I want to be with him. I can’t make it to Aspen.”

  I read it twice.

  And thrice just to make sure it was really true.

  Then when my neurons connected the dots, I blinked and texted, What?

  I didn’t even wait for her response; I called her right away, willing her to answer her phone.

  Her voicemail picked up, and I left a message, “Babe, call me. Are you kidding me right now? Because if you are, you’re gonna get a thorough spanking for this joke. Call me.”

  I texted her again, “Babe, call me. Right now.”

  My phone blinked back with a message.

  Message cannot be delivered.

  I didn’t care if she was in the middle of a toast at her parents’ party.

  I could give a shit if she was hobnobbing with the governor of Texas, which she’d said was a regular guest, I needed to get in touch with her. Now.

  I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I was done waiting for her response.

  So I did the only thing I could think of and dialed his number. Forget texting. This shit needed to be sorted out right now.

  He answered on the second ring.

  I heard the noise in the background, but all that mattered was the ringing in my ears and the stifling cadence of my heart.

  He sounded like he was two drinks away from being hammered and at another time, I’d give him crap about it.

  But now was not the time.

  “What’s up?” He knew I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t anything important.

  I answered with an even, hard voice, tampering my need to scream at the phone. “Rikko. Where’s your sister?”He was quiet for a second, I could see him looking around, then he said, “Not sure. Hold up.”

  I waited for him to get back to me.

  I checked my phone for the tenth time since I’d gotten the message from her, hoping that it wasn’t real.

  I heard him ask a guy named Perry then Mikey then a girl named Katie, all of whom said the same thing, they said ask Scott because she was with him.

  Dread started to fill my insides.

  Was it true?

  Did she realize that she loved Scott?

  Again?

  They had all the history in the world but, I was only with her a few days ago, and when we’d made love, her eyes didn’t lie when she’d said that she loved me.

  Last night, before we’d said our goodbyes on the phone, she’d looked excited to fly here so she could be with me.

  Some things didn’t add up.

  And if there was one thing that I hated, it was when things didn’t add up, when the equations didn’t balance. When nothing made sense.

  “Hey man, sorry. I can’t find her,” Rikko said. “Dad’s waving at me. Shit, I gotta talk to Chase, that annoying leech.”

  Whoever Chase was, he wasn’t Rikko’s favorite person.

  “I’ll tell Kara you called. Maybe she’s just mingling around.” Rikko didn’t sound like he knew that his sister just sent me a devastating text.

  “Okay.” I replied, sounding as calm as I could, “Tell her to call me and that I’m looking forward to seeing her tomorrow.”

  Her flight wasn’t coming in until eight at night.

  It was late, but she had a brunch commitment with her mom’s social club that she couldn’t get away from.

  Rikko hung the phone up, and I couldn�
��t do anything else but wait for Kara’s response.

  I dialed her number again and left a message after the third ring, “Babe, call me. Please.”

  Kara

  When I broke up with Scott I was sad about it, but I knew that I’d given our relationship my all and that there was nothing else I could do.

  I also held the hope that one day we would be on our way to being friends again.

  Now I knew better.

  Hope wasn’t a lasting feeling.

  It only lasted as long as the trust in the expectation was there.

  Scott held my hand as we walked to my class and I felt the cold shiver run through me.

  It was a coldness that wasn’t going to thaw anytime soon.

  “I’ll pick you up from your group study as soon as practice ends.” His cheerful voice opened up the scab that had grown inside my heart.

  I managed to smile as I answered, “Sure.”

  He kissed my forehead as he whispered, “I’m so happy we’re back together.”

  I nodded at his gentle green eyes and another pain slashed through my chest. Once, long ago, I’d have returned his words with so much love attached to it, with so much caring encumbered with it.

  Now all I could think about was the relentless agony that coursed through my veins, knowing that the man I loved was on the other side of the door that my classmate Anthony held open for me.

  “You coming in, Kara?” Anthony asked, eyeing me and Scott. Quantum was starting in five minutes so I nodded and waved bye to Scott.

  It had been two weeks since I’d sent the text to Bishop.

  It was cowardly, but I couldn’t do it face to face then.

  I’d cancelled my flight to Aspen and the minute I got to my dorm, Bishop was knocking on my door.

  I didn’t block his number.

  I wasn’t a martyr like that.

  I read all of his texts, asking me to call him, text him, and heard his voicemails, listening his voice change from bewilderment to anger.