by Kyanna Skye
Kelly stood on the opposite side of the glass, her eyes wide, not with terror but surprise. He could barely believe that he had made the climb himself.
“Kelly,” he whispered, leaning against the glass.
“Are you out of your damn mind?!” she growled through the glass.
He began to respond, but stopped. The strangeness of his situation washed over him like a tidal wave. Maybe he was out of his mind. No woman ever had caused him to go to these lengths before. Less than a week ago he’d been content to just leave women in his bed without any explanation for his leaving and crushing any hopes that they’d had of attaching themselves to him. But here he was, very nearly stalking a girl that he’d only really known as his tutor, and years before. And climbing a fire escape to ascend to her apartment like a drunken Romeo seeking a resistant Juliet was definitely not in his repertoire of tricks.
The urgency of the situation forced him to reevaluate his decision to come here and his actions to this very point. “Do you want me to go?” he asked, turning as if to go right back down the iron steps he’d taken to get this high. His foot slipped on the hardened metal and he nearly fell down the steps, barely managing to catch himself as he went.
“Jesus, Chad!” Kelly said, opening the window and stepping out onto the balcony. She slipped her slender hands around his thicker arm and helped to haul him to his feet. She sniffed the air and he was positive she could detect the beer on him. “Christ, you are fucking drunk.”
“I… I…” he tried to speak, but the words would not form. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t listen to anything that he had to say. Better make it count then, he realized. “I’m sorry… I just had to see you.” He very nearly slouched over and were it not for her support he may well have gone over the side of the fire escape and fallen the full five stories to his death.
“Fuck, Chad,” she growled, her grip tightening. She sighed deeply. The sound was full of regret made in an instant decision. “I’m probably going to regret this, but you can’t leave like this.”
He looked at her, a glimmer of hope formed in his heart.
“Not down the fire escape, I mean,” she clarified. “You’re going to fall and fucking die if you go that way.” She gestured at her open window. “Come on.”
He smirked as he got to his feet, looking at her. “Are you asking me to stay?”
“No, I just want you to leave through the front door. You can…” her words trailed off and she looked him squarely in the eye. For a moment, silence hung between them. It brought back to mind that night so long ago. Sitting on the front steps… out in the open… that silence that had passed between them before he’d had the courage to lean in and kiss her. “Why did you come here?”
“I want you,” he said, the words leaving his mouth before he even realized the weight of them.
Shit.
Kelly only stared at him. Her reaction was not angry, accepting, puzzled, or delighted. She remained just as indifferent now as she had this afternoon. Instead she only held her ground, her gentle strength keeping him upright and the words he’d just spoken seemed to lend him strength. After only a short time, her eyes seemed to pool with tears. It was the same look he’d seen on her face yesterday when he’d dropped her off.
She was in pain.
“Come in, Chad,” she said gently. “I want to show you something.”
He’d heard such words before from other women. And usually it meant that he was about to see everything under their clothes. But that wasn’t the impression he got from Kelly. He sensed that she had something more profound to share with him… something more meaningful.
What?
Gently she guided him into her small apartment. The place wasn’t large and he suddenly felt more like an asshole for it. Being in the house that he’d built for his parents must have been overwhelmingly humbling to her. And to make it worse he realized that all this time Susie had thought that she was living some kind of a grand life in New York, likely inside some kind of a cushy apartment or something. But here she was, in an apartment that didn’t seem any grander than a college dorm with a little extra elbow room.
The apartment was dark, except for the single light that Kelly had turned on when he’d seen her from the ground level. She took him through a narrow hall to a door that was left part way open. She pushed the door softly aside and with only the bit of light shining in from the lamp in the next room, he peered inside.
There was a bed that greeted his sight. And sleeping upon the larger mattress was a small figure. He glimpsed a head of dark and curly hair, a small and rounded face that was almost angelic, and a small pudgy fist that was clenched around a smiling teddy bear.
It was a young girl, he realized. A toddler, she was, and she couldn’t have been more than four or five years old. And one that bore an incredible resemblance to Kelly. As he stood there taking in that sight, the reason Kelly had never left home… had never gone away to school… suddenly became clear.
He looked to Kelly and in an awed voice he whispered, “She’s yours?”
Kelly looked frightened, maybe even a little ashamed, but she nodded. “Ellie,” she said, softly introducing her child. The word was simple, but somehow it seemed elegant. It was fitting… perfect. “She’s the reason why… why I don’t want anyone…” Her voice cracked as though she were truly on the edge of her control now. “Please… just go away.”
He felt as if he’d grown iron spikes that had stuck to the floor, keeping him where he was. He looked back to the sleeping child in the next room and then back to Kelly. It was as if some invisible force were holding him to this spot. That little girl in the next room… she was not a newborn, he’d already determined that. She was four years old at least. Wait… four years old? His heart skipped a beat. No… no, it couldn’t be!
He leaned against the wall, barring Kelly from leaving or even moving. A thought crossed his mind that sailed down his spine and stirred his heart as if he’d been pumped with liquid lightning.
“Kelly,” he said, his voice becoming dry and suddenly it felt as if the alcohol in his body had just evaporated, his mind clearing to the point where it had never felt sharper in the whole of his life. “Is… is she mine?”
“No. She’s not.” She said it simply enough and matter-of-factly before stiffening her lip. “You weren’t the only guy I had in school, Chad. I had others. Now, please, just go home. Leave me here.”
Chad was uncertain if he wanted to feel relieved or if he was crushed. He looked back at the sleeping child and found that he couldn’t take his eyes away from her. He felt captivated by the sight of the young girl, sleeping so innocently. He was drawn to this place and it felt like no power on earth could force him away from it.
“I… I can’t leave,” he whispered. “I don’t want to leave.”
Kelly made no move to force him out. She only tensed her lips and kept her hands to herself. She shut her eyes like some kind of a terrible and painful thought was passing before the front of her mind. When she opened her eyes again she lightly shook her head as if she were already telling him that he could not stay.
“Chad… I need you to go. Please.”
He could hear the pleading in her voice, the pain that was filling her words stabbed at him like knives. He had no desire to cause her any pain and if his presence was enough to do that then he knew that he should leave. But his eyes were drawn back to the sleeping toddler… then back to her mother.
“Kelly… I… I would… I swear, I would… but…” he wobbled again on his feet. He saw a tear roll down her face. That was twice in the last two days that he had seen her cry and a part of him longed to reach out and sooth that pain. He wanted to hold her, to absorb that hurt any way that he could. But he felt powerless just standing here as he was. Kelly obviously didn’t want his help. She didn’t want anything to do with him.
“Fine,” she said, resolutely, but her tone was bordering on the edge of her patience. “You can sleep on the couc
h,” she said, her voice teary and nearly a sob. “But when I wake up in the morning, I want you to be gone.”
She quickly turned and slipped into the room with her daughter and closed the door. The telltale click of the lock told him that he was not welcome past that threshold. And for a long time, he simply stood there alone in the dark.
The silence and the darkness enveloped her on the outside, offering little or no sanctuary. The pain and anguish consumed her from the inside out.
Kelly’s face was wet with tears that had poured from her in silence.
As soon as she had closed and locked the door on Chad she had crossed her arms and slid down the wall to sit on the carpeted floor of her daughter’s room. It seemed a cowardly thing to do, but she couldn’t bear to stand there looking at him a second longer. And once she was secure in Ellie’s bedroom, hugging her knees up to her chest, the tears had flowed freely. She silently sobbed into her knees, trying her level best to keep her voice from rising too high. It was more for Chad’s sake than it was for Ellie’s. She had no desire to rouse her child from her rest, but more than that she was terrified that Chad would hear her crying.
He had that damn look!
She knew that look he’d worn. She’d never forgotten it. It was the expression of man that could tell that she was upset and in pain and that he might do whatever he needed to do in order to quell that pain.
She didn’t want him to know that she was in pain. She didn’t want him to know that she was hurting. She didn’t want him to know that it was killing her inside to be this close to him and not wanting to be with him. That was what hurt her more than anything; she knew the reason why she didn’t want to be with him… but to acknowledge it aloud seemed as suicidal as playing chicken with a train.
She felt inside out.
Tears rolled freely down her cheeks and she felt as helpless as a thirty ton whale washed ashore. She felt like she was dying… drying out slowly in a hot sun. No matter how she struggled, no matter how badly she wished to return to the cold depths of the ocean that was so very near, she was forever cut off from it by no more than a small strip of sand. And it was sand that was choking her.
She looked at Ellie, who slept soundly in her bed and holding onto her favorite teddy bear, completely unaware of the anguish that her mother was in. Gently the child stirred beneath her covers, turning over and releasing the gentlest of sighs, her breathing even and comfortable. Kelly envied her daughter for her peaceful sleep. Ellie was unaware of the mountain of regret that was currently piled upon her mother’s shoulders. Tomorrow, Ellie would wake and never be aware of everything that had happened this night.
She’ll never know how close she came to meeting her father, she realized. And that thought struck her as if she had been impaled on some kind of a medieval war pike. But the pain that it caused was just as severe and life-threatening.
Kelly felt a crushing feeling upon her whole body. It felt as if she couldn’t breathe and not just because of her own crying, but because of the weight of her situation. Her shoulders… her lungs… her neck… her arms… her legs… they all felt as limp and lifeless as a puppet with its strings cut.
God… why did I lie?
She had no idea, except to say that at the time it had seemed like the thing to do. She wanted things simple… she wanted them organized. That was the way it had been when she was growing up. Everything could be organized according to schedules, to timetables, to a good sense or order. Like music; a few notes, a couple of rests, everything in its appropriate measure, while on a page it looked like chaos, but to one who could interpret it, it would form a thing of incredible beauty.
But then Chad had come along. And all it had taken was one night for her to learn that organization was not possible where Chad Cinch was involved. And from that single night, her life had spiraled out of control until she had landed here.
Although here was not a bad place to be… she had Ellie. And that had seemed enough, the only music that she needed was the laughter of her daughter.
And then Chad had returned home and suddenly it felt as if she were swept up into the funnel of a raging tornado. More chaos seemed inevitable now that Chad was here… that he was in her life, however briefly.
All he has to do is stay for the wedding and then he’ll be gone, she told herself. Just a few more days, then he’ll go back to his damn football team… to his fame… to the other women that he finds.
To see him taking the long road out of town seemed a pleasant thought. But to have him close again, as close as he had been that night… that seemed equally pleasant.
No, she realized after only a moment’s deliberation. No… it seems better.
“She’s not yours,” she whispered to the darkness, hoping that somehow Chad, hell, the universe would hear the words and accept them.
She had screamed this thought in her mind over and over again so many times and yet it had not lost its sting. The words had burned in her mind as if they had been seared there with a red hot branding iron and to have spoken them aloud made it feel as if someone had poured a gallon of lemon juice over those wounds.
The whole situation was hanging over her head like a storm cloud and every crash of thunder sent new waves of pain to her mind. She couldn’t get over what she had said… what Chad had done… and what she was thinking now.
I had other guys in high school? It had sounded ridiculous when she had said it aloud. And now, locked alone with the privacy of her thoughts it sounded even more absurd. Everyone had known Kelly in high school, even if they weren’t directly friendly with her. She had been the musical prodigy that no one would look twice at… the strange and awkward girl that was constantly ignored wherever she went… the one that most people only vaguely recognized in passing if at all. To indicate that she had been popular enough in high school to the point where she’d had sex with more than one guy was like saying that she was more promiscuous than Chad himself.
Yeah… I had other guys in high school… he’s going to totally believe that.
She had no idea what was going on. Not in her life… not in her mind… nothing was as it had been just a few short days ago. Nothing about her life had been complicated or overly necessary to worry about. It had just been her, Ellie, and the usual day-to-day struggles when her biggest worry was Touchy Turk and how hard he would pinch her ass.
Now, everything seemed as inverted as though her world had literally been turned upside down. Chad. Susie. She had to spend time with them now because if she didn’t then the truth of her lies would come out. And somehow that frightened her more than being alone. She had never been one to worry about what others had thought of her… but if Susie were to learn the truth… that she and Chad had…
“Oh, god,” she whispered, bending her forehead back to her knees. She whimpered, trying to keep her sobs as silent as possible.
She had no idea why, but somehow it seemed important to her that someone still thought of her as a good person. Chad already knew the truth, even before she had tried to cover it with her lies, and he knew even more now. And whatever reason he had for coming here…
“I want you,” he had said. The words rebounded off the walls of her mind as if they had been shouted in a room with a high-vaulted ceiling. And she ached from hearing them.
She wanted to believe that they were true. That they were true on some level she didn’t doubt, but what she did doubt was that they were true the way she wanted them to be. What does he want? Does he want me? Or does he want my body? From everything that she had heard about him, namely his sexual escapades, it was easy enough to believe that he only wanted her body. He had come home to the place where he had been most promiscuous. Kelly knew that if she threw a coin in the air it would land at the feet of some girl that Chad had fucked when he was still here. Hell, even if she dropped that coin at her own feet it would still be true.
That thought stung at her as well. Yes, she had admitted to herself long ago, that she had felt someth
ing for Chad Cinch once upon a time. Where others worshipped him for his prowess as a football player, she had found something else in him to admire. She had found him attractive… charming… he’d said all of the right words… made her feel good… and she’d wanted him. She’d tutored him off and on for a time and she had found herself looking forward to that time they’d spent together whenever he needed to hit the books. And then, in the course of a single night, she had found herself wanting more.
She wasn’t an idiot. She had heard about Chad’s reputation from other girls… but she had been naïve and hadn’t believed it. She liked to think that he presented the persona of the run-of-the-mil bad boy and she had found that marginally attractive as well. But when they were alone together, he wasn’t that guy. He was… someone else. He was different… and that held more appeal. And she’d wanted it, even if only for a little while.
And she’d gotten it.
“Fuck,” she whispered to the darkness.
From somewhere through the door, the silence of the night slowly dissipated and a new sound reached her ears. She froze, her ears becoming as alert as a dog’s. She waited, hoping to receive some sign that Chad had sobered up enough to make his way to the door and shown himself out.
She looked at the clock on Ellie’s bedside table. It read 4:19 A.M. Damn… Realizing how long she’d been sitting here shocked her. It had been just after 1 A.M. that Chad had pulled his crazy stunt of climbing the fire escape to get to her window. And that she had been sitting here this whole time, wrapped up in her own thoughts, made her feel all the more uncomfortable.
The familiar sound of water running, the gentle patter of water on the plastic floor reached her ears.
He’s taking a shower?!
The realization hit her as if he had walked into this room and smacked her across the jaw. He’d done the opposite of leaving. He was staying… and he was making himself comfortable.
“Christ,” she whimpered.