by Karina Halle
After my confession over Charlie’s death, we don’t discuss our relationship anymore. She’s said what she needed to say. She doesn’t think she can be with me, even though she loves me, and as much as I want to shake her, to explain that I’ll be there waiting anyway, I know there is no getting through to her. Right now, there is no us. Right now she thinks there never will be. Right now I’m just the arm around her shoulder, holding her tight. She’s walking through a sea of death and the current isn’t letting go of her anytime soon.
I see Bram, Nicola, Linden and Stephanie at the funeral. It’s the only bright spot as of late, even though none of us quite feel like celebrating our reunion. I talk with Bram a bit about his development and how well it’s doing, how Justine’s father has brought in more investments from society folk. He’s forever grateful to me but I can only tell him to maybe shoot some of those investments over my way. I could sure use them for the dogs.
Saying goodbye to them is hard, especially to Bram. Saying goodbye to Kayla’s mother, as the casket is lowered into the ground, is hard.
Saying goodbye to Kayla, probably for the last time, is the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do.
She takes me to the airport and I’m flooded with the memory of the last time we were here. I was just about to check in, nervous as hell that she wouldn’t show up, that I’d have an empty seat beside me on the plane back home.
And then I felt her behind me, like the sun rising on your back, and I turned around to see her gorgeous face, full of hope and nerves and wonder, pulling a ridiculously bright suitcase.
I fell in love with her at that moment.
And every moment afterward.
Now, now everything has changed, even my feelings for her.
Because that was just a taste of love. What I feel now is the whole spectrum.
“Lachlan,” Kayla says to me while we stand by the security checkpoint. She reaches for my hand, grabbing it tight, her eyes on the floor. “I can’t thank you enough, you know. For everything.”
“No need to thank me,” I tell her, squeezing her hand back. “I’ll always be there for you. I hope you know that now.”
She nods. Sniffs. “I know.” When she looks up at me, her eyes are gleaming with tears. “I want to be ready. I want to be with you again. I just don’t know how.”
I give her a half-smile. “Oh, love. You know where I will be. If you ever need me, want me, you know where I will be.”
“Would you even take me then?”
I shake my head, fighting back tears. “How can you even ask that?”
I pull her into my arms, holding her with as much strength as I can. “How can you even question it?” I whisper harshly. “I love you. My heart is yours.” I pull back, knowing the tears are running down my cheeks. I grab her face in my hands, rubbing my thumbs along her skin as she stares at me with the love I know is buried deep behind her grief.
I kiss her, soft, yielding, never-ending, a kiss that says so much. More beautiful than any kiss before. I whisper against her lips, “Please come back to me. When you can, when you’re ready, if you’re ready. Please come back.”
Then I step back, unable to stand there for one minute more. She’s seen my ruin once. She doesn’t have to see it again. I grab my carry-on, turn, and go.
I wonder if she’ll stay until I’m gone.
Or if she’s already left.
I’m too afraid to look, as if that will give me any indication of our future together.
I show my boarding pass to one of the guards, then quickly look over my shoulder before I disappear behind the wall.
She’s still standing there.
Palm up.
I raise my palm in response.
And smile.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Lachlan
Three months later
My phone rings as I’m walking down Queen Street, barely audible over the barrage of Christmas carols that practically scream from the stores. I fumble for it out of my leather jacket, trying to juggle that, carrying a bag of groceries, and handle Lionel, Emily and Jo as they pull eagerly at the leashes. Even with their muzzles, Lionel and Jo seem to charm the pants off of everyone they pass. Emily is still a snarling little mess, but you win some, you lose some.
“Hello?” I answer it, not really able to check who was calling. It’s hopefully one of two things: one of Britain’s biggest footy players wanting to donate to the organization, or it’s Kayla.
“Hey,” Kayla says, the sound of her voice sounding spring sweet over the air. “Catch you at a bad time?”
“Not at all, just being a superhero, that’s all,” I tell her. “How are you doing? We haven’t talked since…the dawn of man, I’m guessing.”
“It was four days ago,” she says dryly. “And you know on my salary I’m not exactly rolling in the long distance money.”
“I can always call you back,” I tell her as I’ve told her a million times. But she’s stubborn. No surprise there.
“I know, but I like the air of spontaneity,” she says. “So how are things?”
“Good,” I tell her. Over the last three months since I last saw Kayla, things have been a bit challenging, a tad tumultuous, but otherwise great. Good changes are happening, anyways, and with change always comes an adjustment period.
I’ve been sober for nearly four months now. Four long, difficult, challenging months, but I’m fighting the good fight, day in and day out. The only thing I’m taking is a low-grade, non-addictive medication for my anxiety. I see my doctor once a week and because of that I don’t have to use any anti-depressants. It’s hard though, digging deep through my past and pulling up a million memories that I would have rather stayed buried. But at the same time, it’s making me more self-aware. It’s letting me accept the blame where it needs to be and to pass it off when it doesn’t. It’s helping me come to terms with the cards I’ve been dealt and why exactly I act the way I do. It’s painful but it’s fascinating and it’s worth it just to be able to manage my depression and anger without medication. Addiction starts from somewhere and you can’t ever get better until you attack the cause.
I’ve also taken up boxing. I know it’s not exactly something that flows well with rugby and I know my body doesn’t want to be under any extra strain, but boxing is something I’m naturally good at and it’s another way for me to get my aggression out. And, according to my physiotherapist, I’m still in excellent shape, maybe more so now than I was in my late twenties thanks to the absence of alcohol and the extra exercise. It might be more of a brain/body thing too, where your body responds better when your head and heart are happier, but I’m not too sure about that.
Because my heart…well, it’s happy enough. It’s beating. But it not operating at full capacity, to put it mildly. Kayla and I have been talking at least once a week and texting, emailing and messaging way more than that. But the space between us is always there. It’s not that we even have a long distance relationship because we stopped referring to ourselves as us a long time ago. After everything that happened, her mother’s death was too much for us to survive. The last time I told her I loved her was over a month ago and I got no answer. A few weeks after that, she casually mentioned that she met a guy at a bar and was going on a date. I guess she was asking me permission or something.
Obviously I wanted to be sick at the thought. It took a long time before I had the courage to talk to her again. I’m guessing nothing ever happened with the guy because she never mentioned him again and I’ve never seen anything on her social media either. I’ve even talked to Bram a few times and asked him. He said she’s been single, just trying to move on. I don’t know if that’s moving on from her mother’s death, from me, or both.
But my love for her has never wavered. Never ebbed. I might not say it anymore but only because I don’t want to make her uncomfortable if she’s clearly moved on. And the last thing I want is to rush her when she’s been through so much.
So I keep it t
o myself. But I hope she knows. I hope she can hear it in my voice, the way I laugh at her silly jokes, because bloody hell, can she still make me laugh.
And I know it might be easier if I didn’t talk to her at all. But that’s not what I want. I would rather love her, unrequited, secretly from afar and still have her in my life, then never talk to her at all. That’s not life to me. Life is something that she’s in, in any way, shape or form.
Loving Kayla saved me in the end. I owe her everything.
“Just good?” Kayla asks, bringing the conversation around.
“Well, the dogs are good and boxing is going well,” I add. “My old rugby mate Rennie is back volunteering, so that’s fantastic. Other than that…nothing has really happened in four days.”
“I quit my job,” she says.
I’m stunned. “Really? I thought you loved it.”
Kayla quit her last job, the one at Bay Area Weekly, a week after her mother died. They were going to fire her anyway, she thinks, and it was time. That much I could see. She then applied to be a staff writer for a local magazine. To her surprise, they took her in and have been teaching her the ropes. It’s an online magazine about Northern California and I read every article she puts out. She really does have the talent, even though I know it will take time before it really pays off. The only downfall is that she had to take a massive paycut but Kayla rolled with the punches. She gave up her apartment and moved in with her brother Toshio.
“I did love it,” she says. “But it was time to move on. I got what I needed, the experience. Now I want a different kind of experience. I’ve been applying to every publication for the last two days here.”
“Any luck?”
“I have an interview tomorrow,” she says.
“Where? What’s it called? I’ll spy on them.”
“Twenty-Four Hours,” she says. “It’s like a daily free newspaper.”
“Sounds familiar,” I tell her.
“They’re in every major city. They hand them out at the train stations.”
I nod. “Ah yes, I’ve seen them. Good for you. Pay raise I hope?”
“We’ll see. I’m hoping it will be enough to continue sharing an apartment. Otherwise sometimes it’s about more than money.” She pauses. “Where are you?”
“Eh, I just took the dogs out for a bit, picked up some groceries. Coming up Frederick Street now. It’s bloody cold out.”
“I know,” she says and I can almost hear her shivering. “Any plans for tonight?”
“Not really. Stay in, maybe watch a stupid Christmas movie since it’s the damn season and all.”
“You’re positively Grinchy. Are you watching the movie alone?”
“Well, me and the pups, yeah.”
“No woman to join you?”
I swallow. “No,” I say softly.
“Are you sure?” she asks.
I frown. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember if I invited a woman over. You’re still the last, uh, well anyway. My memory is sharp now. It’s just me.”
She seems to think that over and I swear I can hear a sigh of relief. “What are you wearing?” she asks.
“What am I wearing?” I can’t help but smile at that. “Well that’s a question I haven’t heard in a bloody long time.”
“Let me guess,” she goes on. “Your old leather jacket. Dark grey jeans. Olive green sweater. Looks slightly Norwegian, like it would itch a lot. Camel Timberland boots. Oh, and fingerless black gloves.”
I look down at myself, as if I’d forgotten I dressed myself. “That’s exactly what I’m wearing,” I tell her, confused. “How did you…”
Then I look up and see my flat across the road.
I see Kayla standing outside of it.
The bag of groceries drops from my hands.
Somehow I clutch the phone and the leashes.
It can’t be her.
But Emily starts wagging her tail excitedly and Kayla raises her hand, giving me a small wave. She dressed in a bright purple peacoat, jeans, boots, a beanie pulled over head. She’s smiling and pulls her phone away from her ear.
I walk toward her in a daze.
“Your groceries!” she yells at me happily.
As if on autopilot I quickly turn around and scoop them up, then march on over to her. She’s not real until I can feel her.
But the closer I get, the more real she becomes until I’m standing on the curb, staring at her, utterly dumbfounded.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my words floating away like in a dream.
“I was wondering if maybe you needed a roommate,” she says, putting her hands in her pockets and looking away with a sly smile on her face.
“A roommate?” I frown.
“Yeah. My job interview. If I get it, well, I’ll need a place to live.”
I can only stare at her, blinking, thinking it’s a prank of some sort.
She bites her lip, brow furrowed. “If you’ll have me of course. I don’t blame you if I’m the last person you want to see.”
“Kayla,” I say softly, coming toward her. I stop a foot away, the dogs sniffing her legs. She smiles down at them, absently patting them while she looks back to me. “How are you here?” I ask her.
“I told you. I quit my job,” she says, giving me a hopeful look. “I was ready for me to move on. Move on from the life I was living the last three months. That wasn’t really a life at all. I just…I know I should have told you over the phone or something but I was so afraid, you know. I was so afraid that you’d not believe me or you’d tell me not to come. I was so afraid that it wouldn’t happen. So I quit my job and I bought a plane ticket and I’m just…hoping for the best. Because really, I needed to tell you in person.”
I can barely swallow, my mouth is so dry. “Tell me what?”
She stares at me with wide eyes, like I’ve somehow struck fear in her.
“Tell me what?” I repeat desperately.
She gives me a half-smile. “That I’m still in love with you.”
I cock my head. I couldn’t have heard her right.
She goes, on, licking her lips. “And I know I might have left it too late but…I couldn’t ignore it. I tried, you know. I did. I even went on a date with someone else. I thought that maybe it would help. It lasted a minute, then I got up and left. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even look at him. Lachlan, you have literally ruined all other men for me. None of them compared to you before. None of them will compare to you after. There’s just you and only you.”
My heart is beating like a frightened bird but I do what I can to keep as much control as possible. “I don’t understand,” I tell her. “You knew how I felt all this time. I kept telling you I loved you…until you stopped saying it back.” I blink hard, remembering the burn. “Why? Don’t you know how that felt, to not hear that from you?”
She looks away, nodding with a wounded expression. “I did. I don’t know. I was so fucked up Lachlan and I still am. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about my mother and how much I miss her, how much I would give to have her back, even for one single second, just enough to smile at her.” She stares up, her eyes watering. “I tried to move past the grief but I couldn’t. But it didn’t mean I stopped loving you. I just didn’t want to love you anymore. I didn’t want for you to have my heart, all the way over here. How ever would I get it back? It was already so fragile. It was easier to just…shut it all away. But I was wrong. Because it hurt me more to pretend I didn’t care. And in return, you did the same.”
“But it was just pretending,” I tell her, clearing my throat. “I never stopped loving you.”
She stares at me, pained. “Then why are we standing here like this?”
“Because,” I start to say.
But the words die on my lips. She’s on me in a flash. She grabs my face in her hands and pulls my head down toward hers, until my mouth is pressed against her mouth.
I drop the groceries again.
I
drop the leashes.
I don’t care. I’m sure the dog’s heads are in the bags, eating the food, and I don’t care.
I give myself to her, to feeling the warmth, the ferocity of her kiss. It brings me back to a beautiful world, one I never thought I’d live in again. I bury my hands in her hair, holding her head, feeling her as our mouths move sweetly against each other in a slow, intoxicating hunger. I can’t believe I’m kissing her again, touching her again, feeling her again.
I can’t believe she still loves me.
I have to pause, have to breathe, have to know.
I pull back, staring deep into those soulful brown eyes of hers.
“You love me?” I whisper.
“I love you,” she whispers back, running her hands down my arms. “My beautiful beast.”
I grin so wide, I think my face might stay that way forever. “You love me.”
She laughs, so happy. “Yes, yes, I love you. I don’t want to be anywhere but right here. This is the only place I’m supposed to be.”
I put my arms around her, holding her tight against me in a bear hug, her own arms slipping around my waist. I press my lips into the top of her head and pinch my eyes shut. A feel like a whole new dawn is rising in my chest.
Another new beginning.
Another road to go down.
“Let’s go inside,” I say to her after a moment, the December chill settling around us. “Get warm.”
Her eyes twinkle deviously at that. It’s been so long since I’ve seen that look. The reaction is pure chemistry inside my blood. I grab her hand, unlock the door and hustle her and the dogs inside.
I feel like there is no time left.
That all the time that has passed before has never happened.
The need to be inside her again, to be with her, from the inside out, is so addicting, so intoxicatingly urgent, that the moment we’re back in my flat – our flat – and the door is locked behind us, I’m hauling her to the bedroom.