He moved in right beside her ear. “You remember that New Year’s Eve, when you came to see me even though you were at the hottest party of the school?”
She nodded.
He stroked her ear. “And you fed me that chocolate cake? I looked at you, and you looked so beautiful in the moonlight.”
Katie blushed.
Brandon continued, “That was when I knew I had to be with you.”
Katie struggled to remain calm and in control, but her defenses were crumbling inside.
Brandon was now face to face with Katie. He moved in and their noses touched.
For a moment, they froze, just staring into each other’s eyes.
Then, Brandon moved in for the kill. He kissed her, nibbling on her bottom lip while caressing the sides of her face with his gentle fingers.
Overwhelmed by the sensory stimuli, Katie felt herself succumbing. She kissed him back but her mind was screaming that this was wrong.
Steven’s head popped into her mind and she shoved Brandon away.
Brandon’s face was flushed. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this,” she cried. “I can’t do this.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
“It’s been too long. I need to move on from that part of my life.” She knew that she did not sound convincing in the least.
Katie debated whether to tell him about her engagement, but before she could make a decision, he struck like the Blitzkrieg.
Brandon grabbed her around the waist again and yanked her in toward him.
Katie wanted to resist, but she was too weak. In Brandon’s arms, she felt like a passionate woman that had tons of life to live. She had not felt this way in years.
He continued to stroke and caress and kiss her entire body, and Katie collapsed like a building under pressure.
Later, they fell asleep in each other’s arms as they lay on the taut fabric of the trampoline.
*
When the sky was painted with streaks of apricot orange and eggplant purple, Katie roused from her sleep. She was all snug and warm, wrapped in Brandon’s jacket. The air was still cold, but it was a fresh kind of cold. Katie had never felt more refreshed. She looked beside her and saw Brandon asleep beside her, his chest rising up and down.
He looked so serene with his eyes closed. She wanted to reach out and stroke his face.She shifted in her position, and Brandon opened his eyes.
“Is it morning yet?” he asked, his eyes half-closed.
“Yeah. See the sunrise?” she asked, pointing to the sky.
He peered in the distance. “Yeah. I remember this really well.”
She remembered waking up with him to the sunrise. It was the happiest moment of her life. They were young, things were simple and pure, and the best was yet to come.
Brandon turned to her. “Do you believe in fate? Do you think that we were destined to meet again on the plane?”
She looked at him in the early morning sunlight. He looked so hopeful. How could she lie to a man like him? Katie felt her stomach roil. She knew that she could not lie to Brandon any longer.
Brandon looked at her, and then moved his head in, puckering up.
Katie shielded her mouth with one hand and backed away. “Wait, don’t!”
“What is it?”
Katie looked him in the face. His face was patient but worried.
She sat up, and looked him in the eyes.
It was completely silent now. It was though all nature had stopped what it was doing and was now eavesdropping in their conversation.
“I’m engaged now.”
The words snuck out of her before she had made a conscious decision. The ugly words disturbed the quiet of the dawn.
He sat up.
She watched as his facial expression went from shock, to disbelief, then to anger.
She felt like a jerk.
For the longest time, neither said anything. Only the robins were talking.
When he finally spoke, his voice was even.
He peered into the distance. “Who’s the guy?”
“Does it matter?”
“Who’s the guy?” he repeated through his teeth.
Katie relented. “His name is Steven. He’s an accountant that I met in New York.” She hesitated, then mumbled, “He saved me there.”
“That is my job. Saving you was always supposed to be my job.”
Katie could tell that he was struggling to conceal his bitterness, but the venom oozed out in his voice. She started playing with her hair, twisting one strand around her finger. “But I’m not the only one you saved.”
Brandon turned back to face her. His face was blank. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw you with that girl the day after we broke up. It was the last day of school.”
Brandon looked disarmed and sheepish. “That was nobody. Just some girl I hired to make you jealous.”
“Well, it worked. Why would you want to hurt me like that?”
“Because you hurt me,” he spat out.
They stared at each other in the brightening clearing, frustrated that they were at an impasse.
Brandon exhaled loudly. “Why didn’t you tell me about Steven? I asked you on the plane.”
“We had such a good thing going. I didn’t want it to end. I want things to go back to the way they used to be.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” He shook his head.
Katie felt like a little girl who had disappointed her teacher.
He pointed to her. “If you want things to go back to the way they used to be, it means you still love me. I know you do.”
He looked at her. She was getting teary-eyed.
Brandon held out both arms. “So why are you still with that guy?”
“It’s not that easy. I love him.”
Brandon looked hurt. “Did you love me?”
“You know I did,” she said flatly. “Did you love me?”
“What kind of stupid question is that?”
Katie was hit by a strong feeling of déjà vu. She remembered asking him the exact question on the hill at Taylor Park years ago and she remembered him giving this exact answer.
“Then why didn’t you come after me?” Katie picked up a fragile leaf and started playing with it. “That day in the hallway. And all those years.”
Brandon looked at Katie with blazing eyes. “You left me. Why do I have to be the one chasing after you?”
Katie felt her ears burning. “Why didn’t you let me chase my dreams? Don’t you think that’s selfish?”
“You want to talk selfish? How about abandoning me while you ran off to New York? You were all I had. I was all alone after you left.”
Katie looked at him. He looked down, but not before Katie saw his bloodshot eyes.
His confession disarmed her. Katie felt a pang of guilt, but then shoved it aside.
“That is not fair.” She felt anger rising in her chest. “You knew I had to go do my thing. I always wanted to be a fashion designer, since I was a little girl. And you knew that I always wanted to leave this city. You knew that I was going to go one day. I told you right from the start.” Katie crumbled the leaf in her hands.
He looked up at her. “I know,” he said flatly. “And I stupidly fell for you anyway.”
“Yeah, you did,” she said bluntly.
They passed the next little while staring at each other in silence, listening to the sounds of the early autumn morning. A crow cawed. Then, a distant train horn blared. The wind rustled the frail leaves on the trampoline.
Brandon examined her finger. “Where’s your engagement ring?” He pointed to her hand.
“I know that you have the one I gave you. Where’s the one from Steven?”
Katie reached into her pocket, but felt only plastic. “I left it at home.”
“And why would you do that? Why not bring it to show me? Then I would know it’s over. Don’t lead me on like that.”
He loo
ked her in the eyes. She looked like she wanted to cry.
Brandon softened his voice. “I know you still love me. This doesn’t happen to me a lot. I have never found a girl I love this much since you.” He took her hands, cradling them in his own.
“And I know you still feel the same, or else you wouldn’t be here with me.”
He stroked her cheek with one finger. “Why don’t we try this again? We had something real. Do you know how rare real love is? It would be so stupid to throw it away.”
Katie absorbed everything that he said. She wanted desperately to be with him, but things were different now. She was an engaged woman. And she was not a cheater like her father. And she still had doubts whether he really loved her, or whether he had wanted her to stay just for himself.
Before she could react, he latched onto her, enveloping her with his arms. He gripped her so tight that she thought she would suffocate.
Brandon kissed the side of her face, and then worked his way across to the nose, and all the way to the other cheek. “I lost you once. I’m not going to lose you again this time. I’m not going to lose you again.”
They trembled as if they were at an earthquake fault line. He put both hands on her cheeks and kissed her lips like he was a man that just got out of prison.
Overwhelmed by the intensity of his kiss, Katie kissed him back passionately, gnawing on his lips as though she had not eaten for years.
He began to undress her, tearing her shirt open, and then tugging on the straps of her bra.
Katie wanted nothing more than to let him, but the guilt was all consuming, clawing at her insides.
She backed away and reached for her shirt. “I can’t, Brandon. I can’t,” she said, shaking her head and putting her ripped shirt back on.
Brandon looked like he had just gotten out of the swimming pool. His hair and face were dripping wet.
“Why not?”
When she did not answer, she pointed to the light-streaked sky. “When there was turbulence on that plane, the first thought I had was what if we died without being together? We can’t let that happen.”
He leaned in and whispered in her ears, “I was always supposed to be the one to take care of you.”
At that point, Katie began to cry. She scrambled up and hopped off the trampoline, and then turned around to face him. He was a silhouette in the weak sunlight.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cracking.
Brandon sneered. “Yeah, that’s right. Just leave me again. Just leave when things get tough. Running away will solve everything.”
Katie wiped her eyes. She felt her ears and cheeks burn up again.
“That is not fair,” she said, her voice cracking. “I was OK before you came back into my life again. I was fine! And I’m getting married.”
She pulled Brandon’s ring out of her pocket and chucked it at him. The ring hit him in the chest, and landed on the trampoline.
Brandon’s eyes widened. He looked surprised at first, but then recollected himself. He calmly picked the ring up and put it back in his pockets.
Katie turned away. A strong icy gale blasted her hair in all directions.
She was about to dash off when Brandon shouted, “Just tell me you don’t love me anymore. Tell me you don’t love me and I will never bother you again.”
Katie turned around. “I don’t love you anymore,” she said softly. Then, she added, “I don’t even know if you really ever loved me. If you had, you wouldn’t have hurt me with another girl one day after we broke up.”
Brandon opened his mouth in protest. The only sounds that came out were incomprehensible babbling.
Katie waited for a response. It was deathly silent.
Moments passed.
He just stared at her, all tongue-tied.
Then, he extended one arm, and Katie turned around.
“Don’t you want your fairy tale ending?” Brandon shouted. “You can have it with me.”
Katie wanted to spin around and leap into Brandon’s arms, but there was too much to deal with. She felt like her brain was going to explode. She knew she had to get out of there. The guilt was eating her alive, gnawing on every part of her body.
She turned around, but did not leap into his arms. Instead, she said, “You’re all talk and no action.” She could feel the acrimony leak out in her voice, but there was nothing she could do about it.
She spun around and sprinted into the branches of the small path, stepping back into the real world and leaving the sweet fantasy world with Brandon behind.
*
Chapter 11
Katie sprinted home, her lungs nearly collapsing on her. Her encounter with Brandon left her in a state of emotional paralysis. She did not know how to feel.
Her legs moved, but she could not feel them under her. Somehow, she finally got home.
In the thin rays of dawn, she bolted up to her mother’s house and opened the door. She barely had time to catch her breath or wipe the sweat cascading down her face. She noticed that she had company.
Someone was in the kitchen. At first, she thought it was her mother, but the person was too young to be her mother.
Katie moved closer and saw a slender girl her age with curly black hair and a wide smile.
When Katie realized who it was, relief flooded her.
“Stasha!” Katie exclaimed. “How’d you get here?”
Stasha got up and hugged her. “Your mom let me in and then she went to work. I was worried about you and I had some vacation time from the hospital, so I thought I would fly over.”
Katie eagerly received her hug, glad to be in the arms of a close friend. Someone who made sense to her. Someone who was there for her. Someone who would not hurt her.
Her friend wrinkled her nose and moved back. “Have you taken up running in the early morning without deodorant?”
Katie shook her head, her hair all over the place. Then, she laughed. She laughed so loudly that Stasha looked worried. It felt good though, like rain after a drought.
Katie led Stasha to the table and they sat down.
Katie felt a bead of sweat drip down her forehead to her cheek. She wiped it away, and let out a long sigh.
Stasha examined her with worried brown eyes. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
Katie nodded. “I just saw Brandon. I slept with him in our special place. Taylor Park.”
Her eyes growing big, Stasha put a hand to her cheek. “Oh my God.” Then, she pointed an accusatory finger at Katie. “I knew you still had feelings for him.”
Katie shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Then why did you meet him and then sleep with him?”
Katie did not know how to respond.
Stasha put a warm hand on Katie’s hand. “It’s OK that you want your first love back.
Most people dream of this, but it doesn’t happen for them. I want my first love, but I can’t have him. He’s married. You actually have a chance.”
Katie shook her head again. “It’s not that easy. I care about Steven. She added as an afterthought, “I love Steven.”
Stasha furrowed her eyebrows, and then scrutinized her. “You see, I don’t think you do.”
Katie was indignant. She furrowed her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
Stasha tried to do some damage control. “I don’t mean to tell you how you feel, but friends tell each other the truth. There’s something about the way you talk about Brandon versus the way you talk about Steven that makes me think you definitely love Brandon more.”
Katie just stared dumbfounded at her friend. “What do you mean?”
“Just in your face. There’s this faraway look in your eyes when you talk about Brandon.
I hear it in your voice too. When you talk about Steven, there’s nothing there. No excitement.”
Kate just stared at the flower vase on the table.
Stasha leaned forward. “Do you really Steven? Why?”
“It’s a long story.” Even though Ka
tie had just awakened, she felt like going back to sleep.
Stasha leaned forward. “It’s so obvious that you’re still in love with Brandon. I just don’t understand why you won’t leave Steven.”
Katie sighed. “Alright, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”
*
1989
The winter after graduation, Katie found herself at the receptionist desk on the sixth floor of Prattico’s Building in New York City. She was staring at her computer, trying to organize her supervisor’s schedule.
“Kaylie,” a gruff male voice said.
Katie looked up and saw Mr. Defoe, her supervisor. He was in a black suit and tie.
Sporting a bald head, thick black-rimmed glasses and a stocky physique, he looked like a grumpy Mr. Potato Head.
“Yes, Mr. Defoe?” Her supervisor had been calling her Kaylie for the past three months, but Katie was too scared to correct him.
“Have you finished my itinerary to Milan?” He pushed his glasses up.
“Yes, you’re taking the 10:05 flight from JFK on Monday.”
He nodded. “Very well, carry on.”
He turned around and Katie saw his wide behind.
Mr. Defoe was about to walk out of the room when Katie called out.
“Mr. Defoe?”
He swiveled around and glared at her, as though he had more important things to do than chat with a lowly subordinate. “What?”
Katie felt his throat clamp up. She coughed, and then mumbled, “I was wondering when I get to do some actually design stuff. I’ve been doing nothing but intern duties for the past three months.”
Mr. Defoe lumbered up to her and stopped right in front of her receptionist desk. He stared down at her as though he were a giant.
“Let me tell you something, Kaylie.” He glowered at her, his eyes bulging out. “Any young person your age would be thrilled to be working as an intern for the world’s most promising up-and-coming designer. Mr. Prattico is a very busy man and doesn’t have time to chat or have coffee with you.” He stepped back and crossed his arms. “And nowhere in your contract does it say that you will actually be doing design work.”
He went into his office and came out shortly with a piece of paper in his hands. He took a look at it, and then waddled right up to her desk again. “Your contract clearly states that you will spend a year as an intern at Prattico’s, doing intern duties.” He slammed the document on her desk. He then scrutinized her as though she were an idiot. “Do you even know what being an intern entails?”
Meet Me at Taylor Park Page 10