Graphite

by Anne Leigh

  Huh?

  Do I know her?

  “I am.” I smiled and turned my body around so I could talk to her. “I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve met before, but you look so familiar.”

  Just then, the scents of bergamot and pineapple and his aftershave filled my senses and before he even stood by her, I knew that it was her.

  His sister.

  Bridgette.

  Bridgette extended her hand, “I’m Bishop’s sister.”

  “Kara,” I replied, stopping myself short of saying, Bishop’s girlfriend. Because I wasn’t. Not anymore.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Scott had returned and his voice held an edge.

  Bishop took the empty chair by his sister and I gave him a tight smile. How awkward was this.

  I guessed the organizing committee didn’t care if exes were seated next to each other. I mean, there was no way they’d know.

  But now, I wished I had a tall drink of something that burned my throat to get through this event.

  Bishop.

  God.

  I chanced looking at him and he looked incredible in his dark blue suit with an ocean blue tie that complemented his sister’s dress.

  They both were in Armani.

  And they owned it.

  I’d recognize the impeccable attention to detail anywhere and the fact that Bishop preferred clean lines and subtle colors made me a hundred percent sure that the Italian designer was one of the siblings’ go-to designer.

  Bishop didn’t care much for fashion. He basically wore whatever made him comfortable, but on the off-chance that he needed to clean up and look presentable, he looked outstanding.

  Scott sat and his right arm landed on my shoulder and I saw Bishop’s jaw tighten just a fraction before he said, “Hey. Bridgette, meet Kara.”

  With a significant pause, he added, “And my frat brother, Scott.”

  He could’ve gone the other route, just ignored me and Scott, but he was being polite. Maybe for his sister’s sake but I’d take it.

  At this point, I’d take whatever morsel I could get from him.

  “Nice to meet you, Bridgette,” I said, giving Bishop’s sister a genuine smile. “My brother, Rikko, is also going to be here, but he’s running late. Actually, I’m not even sure if he’s gonna make it because of traffic but I’m sure he’ll try.”

  I didn’t know why I said it. I guess I just wanted to make it less awkward for everyone.

  Scott said, “Good to meet you, Bridgette.” Even when there was bad blood between him and Bishop, he wasn’t going down the rude route.

  Bridgette’s smile was dazzling. Her facial features were a photographer’s dream. With long lashes and twin dimples, it was easy to believe that she was a beauty icon’s daughter.

  “So, what do we do at these things?” Bridgette moved her hand up in the air, “They serve food right?”

  I laughed and said, “I think we just sit here and wait for them to announce the winners. Yeah, I believe they serve food.”

  “Good.” She nodded her head and soft tendrils of her dark hair floated by her ears. While Bishop exuded masculinity and strength, Bridgette was quite the opposite; she looked fragile, like a fairy, and dainty.

  Bishop spoke up, “I’m gonna grab a drink. You want anything, sis?”

  Bridge shook her head, “No, I’m good.”

  Bishop’s deep brown eyes landed on me and he said, “How about you ba –”

  He fake coughed and said, “Kara? You want anything?”

  My name on his lips sounded so right, and my heart pitter pattered a mile a minute.

  Scott’s voice was hard, “I already asked her.”

  Bishop stood up, his demeanor tense, “Right.”

  Bridgette rolled her eyes and said, “Look. I get that you’re all exes and stuff, but I’m just here to enjoy the night, okay? So whatever drama you got going on, can you like set it aside so I could do just that?”

  Scott didn’t say anything, and Bishop just nodded his dark head.

  Then Bridgette looked down to her phone and started typing.

  My eyes scanned the area, admiring the beautiful decorations of the Pauley Pavilion and from time to time, Scott would whisper something and even though I didn’t really hear it, I just nodded.

  I couldn’t hear him because all of my senses were on high alert for the man who stood a few feet away, talking to a bunch of guys.

  God, I missed him.

  We hadn’t talked for so long and I missed our chatter. We could talk about everything under the sun and he made it interesting.

  I missed the way he held my hands when I was cold and the way he smiled when I said something funny.

  I missed the way he challenged my mind and provided alternative solutions to problems in class.

  I missed the way he fixed my prototype, where he’d suggested that I add intuitive touch screen and make it radiometric to provide temperature measurements aside from images.

  I didn’t know where my prototype was going to go, but it would make for a great experiment and Bishop had helped me find the loopholes after one of our lovemaking sessions.

  Speaking of sex, I knew that Scott was itching to go there, but I was stalling.

  His father might have had the power to make me stay with him, but he wasn’t the boss of me and my sex life.

  And quite honestly, I didn’t know if I was going to go there ever again with him.

  It was sad but it was the truth.

  I looked to my right and I thought that Scott was still on his phone, but I was wrong.

  His gaze wasn’t fixated on the screen in front of him, rather his green eyes were unblinking and unmoving and as I traced the path of his stare, it landed on the figure sitting next to me.

  The petite girl who was oblivious of everyone around her.

  She was giggling at something on her phone and she looked so happy.

  And Scott was completely captivated by her.

  The party was in full swing, but I didn’t feel like celebrating.

  Bishop had won the coveted Sportsman of the Year award.

  He’d given an eloquent speech about fighting for your dreams and never giving up.

  And throughout his speech, he’d looked straight at me.

  Scott’s posture was rigid the whole time Bishop was speaking, but he couldn’t do anything about it.

  And as for me, I was completely exhausted of the emotional volley between these two men.

  I was also completely done.

  My tears were still drying when someone walked out of the stall adjacent from where I’d come from. I put my head down to watch my hands soak in water and soap.

  “My brother…he’s a good man.” Her voice was so steady. It was hard to believe that she’d stuttered and stammered in front of strangers before.

  I met her eyes in the oval-shaped mirror in front of us, the glaring light in the bathroom highlighting the bags under my eyes. Even my makeup did a crappy job of covering up the hurt in my heart.

  “He can have any girl he wants.” She wasn’t being arrogant about it; she was just telling me facts. “Girls used to pretend to be my friends so they could get to him.”

  A shadow of a smile appeared in her delicate features.

  “But he didn’t pay attention to them. He was focused on hockey, school, and when he got to college, rugby. I can’t really say that he hasn’t had his share of women…and I don’t want to know.”

  I swallowed air and waited for her to continue as I grabbed a monogrammed cloth napkin from the basket between the sinks.

  “I knew about you before Aspen. He’d talk about you so much and I was so looking forward to meeting you because I knew that you were the girl that made him smile.”

  My eyes burned at what she was saying.

  “He’s gone through so much. I’m sure he’s told you about it. Maybe some of it. He always puts everyone else before him. Me. Our mom. Our dad, when he was alive. His coaches. His team. His fr
iends.”

  I nodded and she paused, washing her hands as we heard another toilet flush in one of the stalls.

  “If you can’t fight for him, tell him that you’re done with him. Don’t give him hope anymore. Don’t look at him the way you’ve been looking at him the whole night. As if he still has a chance. Leave him be so that he can really move on and find another person to be happy with.”

  My face became soaked at the thought of Bishop with another woman in his arms.

  She pulled a napkin to dry her hands and with a hard gaze, she said, “He doesn’t deserve crumbs of happiness. He’s had those his whole life. He deserves all of it and if you can’t give him that then cut the rope and let him go. It will be cathartic for the both of you.”

  I heard footsteps closing in on Bridgette and I, so I quickly wiped my eyes and without saying a word, I closed my arms around her.

  She was surprised, but hugged me back.

  She was right.

  Purging was needed and the catharsis would be beneficial.

  To all of us.

  Hanna often said that driving was soothing.

  It cleared her thoughts in a way other chores couldn’t.

  For me, driving was stressful.

  More so now that I was living in SoCal.

  We’d left the sports gala at eleven past ten at night.

  I knew the exact time because Bishop and Bridgette left twenty minutes before us. Bridgette said bye to me while her brother stood to the side.

  Scott was somewhere in the vicinity, talking to his football acquaintances when they left.

  Rikko had come in late and before he left with a pretty gymnast he’d been messaging with on a college dating app, he’d hugged me and told Scott to drive safe.

  I wasn’t familiar with the freeways since I didn’t do much driving, but I saw the sign for the I-5 S and knew that we were on our way back to SDU.

  Aside from the pop music playing in the car, silence abounded.

  Scott had turned the radio to pop music because it was what I liked. He preferred rock n’ roll so I knew he was catering to my needs.

  He was doing everything a good boyfriend would, but the tricky thing about the heart, you can’t make it listen to common sense. It had a mind of its own.

  “I love him.” We were passing a big semi-truck and Scott had maneuvered his Audi as easily as he could. His hands barely moved the steering wheel as the car moved to the left.

  His jaw didn’t move but his eyes blinked in slow motion.

  I saw the way his hands gripped the steering wheel as if he wanted to break it.

  “I thought I could do this with you but I can’t,” I admitted, pouring out my heart in every word. “I can’t keep hurting you and him.”

  He remained stoic and I thought he was going to keep silent but then he asked, “Why did you even suggest that we get back together?”

  “Because it was what you wanted,” I said, my eyes on the road, even at this hour, the freeway still had a lot of cars. The roads really didn’t sleep. “And it was what your father wanted.”

  I heard the confusion in his voice, “What does my dad have to with us?”

  It was time to tell him everything. My cup was too full and it was spilling over, creating a lot of mess in its wake. “He’d pull Hanna out of her academic scholarship and rescind his recommendation for my transfer at SDU if I didn’t get back with you.”

  “What the fuck?” Scott’s outrage was deafening. “How the fuck can he do that?”

  He maintained control of the car and I took a deep breath. “Remember when Hanna filed for sexual assault against Lashon?”

  The undercurrent of tension was now at its peak, he was beyond angry, his voice could cut through steel, “Yeah, what about it? Dad fixed everything, didn’t he?”

  “He did but he also pulled me aside and said that one day, he’d ask me for an exchange. For the favor he’d granted me.” Hanna had accused Texas U’s famous running back, and she’d gotten a lot of flak for it. Everyone was blaming her for Texas U’s under performance in the NCAA and he was going to be set free. Without Scott’s Dad’s permission, he wouldn’t have been put in jail and he wouldn’t have been blackballed in the NFL draft.

  Even if Hanna had video and text evidence against him, Lashon came from a prominent family and it took a long time for the police to handcuff him. And when they finally did, he posted bail right away. Hanna was so distressed that I’d started a campaign against him.

  A campaign against any other student was considered defamation of character. Even if said “character” was vile. Under college rules, what I did amounted to expulsion.

  President Strauss had a closed meeting with Dean Loeb, Texas U’s dean, and my parents. There would be no repercussions against me if I transferred schools. SDU would not accept me under regular circumstances, but it wasn’t every day that the President of Texas U called his frat brother, also the President of SDU, for a favor. Hence, I transferred in the middle of getting my degree, without any smear on my record.

  Lashon was set free. He did community service, which was total crap, but the NFL wouldn’t touch him anymore. His parents apologized to Hanna and her family but it wasn’t enough. They were so embarrassed that they shipped their son up north. Last time I heard, he was applying for a spot in the Canadian Football League.

  “My dad blackmailed you to get back with me?” Scott’s voice wasn’t going to normal decibels anytime soon and I was okay with that. “What the hell, Kara? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  My shoulders shook because I thought I had no options. I didn’t want Hanna’s future to be messed up. I didn’t want to leave SDU. And I thought that by getting back with Scott would make everything better.

  “He didn’t want you stressed out. He didn’t want you having seizures again. Since you had one last year, he said he’d been on the edge about you playing football, having a full load of classes, and when he’d heard that we broke up, he wanted to ensure that your stress levels wouldn’t be too much for you to handle. I understood what he was saying and I thought I could do it.” I confessed, “It would have been so easy to just get back with you and forget about Bishop and I thought I could just do it…”

  He slammed his right fist on the side of the car, it was his throwing arm.

  Oh God, I should have told him the truth about everything. Scott, like my brother, had been kept out of it. They thought that everything was fine and dandy. The only people who knew the truth were the ones inside that closed door meeting.

  His chest rose up and down and he pulled on his tie, as if it was choking him.

  “I’m sorry…” I couldn’t muster any more strength to say anything else so I slumped down on my seat. Willing the miles that we’d traveled to ease the torment I’d put on him. On us.

  I didn’t know how long the silence passed between us.

  It must have been ten minutes, thirty, I just couldn’t tell you.

  Scott was the first one to break it and when he did, his voice slayed me, “Cordello treats you good?”

  I nodded, “He does.”

  “I’m sorry about my dad.” The apology caught me reeling. “I may have known something was off when you asked to get back together, I should have pieced it together but like usual, I was only thinking about how good things would be once you came back to me that I didn’t even want to question it.”

  This was the man I once gave my heart to.

  He was generous and selfless.

  Somewhere in this chaotic relationship we’d weaved, he’d been lost.

  “You’re my first love, Kara. We were so good together.” His voice broke, “And I’ve wanted so much to hold on to you, but I can’t keep you anymore.”

  If I thought my tears would dry up, I thought wrong because for the second time tonight, I was weeping and this time, I didn’t catch the wetness with a napkin. I let it drip down my Michelle Mason dress. My mascara would stain the off-white silky confection but I didn’t care.


  He stopped the car and this time, I recognized where he parked.

  It was in front of his frat house.

  “Cordello. He’s the better man.” He removed his seatbelt and reached across the center divider, his big body framing me with his arms. I barely had time to remove my own seatbelt when I was engulfed in his hug.

  “You’ll always be my first love too, Scott,” I said, murmuring in his embrace. “One day, you’ll find the woman who’ll be your last.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  He pulled on the door lock, opening it to let me out.

  “The code is 5673. I don’t think anyone is here. Maybe a couple of the guys are around, but they should be in their rooms. They don’t like to hang out at night in the living room. You can either wait in the living room or wait in my room until he gets here.” The light in his car reflected the anguish in his green eyes.

  That was Scott, surrendering.

  Letting me go.

  I held on to the small Balenciaga purse and said, “I’ll wait in the living room.”

  He shook his head in the affirmative. “I’m gonna go for a drive. I’ll see you around.”

  “Okay.” I gestured with my hand and closed the passenger door.

  He waited for me to punch in the digital code to get inside the frat house and as I closed the door, I felt the tiredness overcome me from the top of my head to the bottom of my Blahnik-covered soles.

  This was catharsis.

  Bishop

  Bridge wanted me to stay the night at her apartment.

  I would have, but I was still trying to come down from the high of winning an award and being around the two women who meant the most to me.

  It wasn’t under the circumstances that I wished for them to meet but I’d take it.

  I’d take just about anything Kara right now.

  I replayed the events in my head as I drove through the mild traffic on the freeway.

  Kara looking gorgeous in a dress that fitted her body like a glove.

  Kara watching me with her those blues that undid me every time.

  Kara trying not to flinch at Scott’s arm around her.

  She tried to hide her expression, but I knew her. I was intimate with her, for Chrissake.