Miles From Kara

by Melissa West

  I studied his expression again, waiting to find some hint that Ethan had told him all my darkest secrets, but nothing came. I relaxed back against the sofa, still uneasy, but I was sure that if he knew, really knew, he wouldn’t be able to hold back his judgment.

  “I once dated Preston. It was high school and a long time ago. But we kept it from Olivia. She was devastated when she found out. Nearly ruined our friendship forever.”

  “Why did you keep it from her?”

  I glanced back over at him, again searching for that telltale look that he knew. Again, nothing. “It was a long time ago. She was a little broken then, and we didn’t want to give her a reason to run away from him. She and Preston are so perfect together. I don’t think she would have allowed herself to like him if she knew we were once together.”

  “So, you’re saying you’d do it again. Keep it from her.”

  I focused on him. “Don’t you think a lie is worth it if the truth would hurt someone?”

  “No. I don’t think a lie is ever okay.”

  “Oh really? So, let’s say a little girl comes up to you on Christmas Eve and asks you if Santa Claus is real. She’s all big, hopeful eyes and pleading hands. All please tell me he’s real. You’re telling me you’d break the poor kid’s heart? You’d out Santa?”

  Colt burst out laughing. “All right then. You got me. I’d lie my bloody ass off.”

  I smiled and suddenly the mood felt lighter, the space between us easier to stay in. I eyed his arms. “Tell me more about your tattoos. It looks like they’re telling a story. And why do you have that one”—I reached across the sofa and touched the red leaf on his left forearm that was duplicated on his right biceps—“twice?”

  “My mum was born in Canada. The maple leaf is their national emblem, so it’s for her. This one”—he pointed to the one on his forearm—“is red for her life. The other is black for her death.”

  My eyes drifted up to his, but I didn’t say that I was sorry. Not for this. I knew the tattoos were his way of coping with her death. They were special to him. The only way he could deal with losing her. My insides longed to pull him to me, to show him that he wasn’t alone. Not now.

  But I couldn’t. I could still feel the warmth on my fingertip from touching the leaf. Everything in me ached to reach out and touch him again. If I felt his body against mine, his hair on my neck, his breath on my face, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself from taking it further.

  I cleared my throat and focused back on his arms. “And what about that one?” I asked, pointing at the line of scripture just below the maple leaf on his right biceps.

  “Proverbs 28:18. My mother was a missionary. She was good—pure in every way. That verse is about integrity.”

  I thought of the irony of what he was saying. “But Christianity teaches forgiveness.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Yet, you’re unable to forgive your dad?”

  His jaw ticked. “I try to be a good person, Kara. For my mum, for my family back home. But there’s only so much I can do. Some things are in the other person’s hands. My dad has never once said he’s sorry for what he did. He’s never talked to me about it at all. Instead, he acts as though everything is normal, when nothing about our relationship is normal. He is not a good person.”

  I glanced down at my hands. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  Colt started to say something, then shook his beer. “I’m out. Want another?”

  Three? I’d nursed the second one, so I wasn’t feeling it just yet, and I’d already said and done more than I would have if I were fully sober. I should stop. I should let my buzz wear off and go sleep in Ethan’s room. But instead, I kicked off my sandals and pulled my legs crisscross on the sofa. “All right, I’ll have another,” I said, mimicking his accent.

  He grinned. “Very funny. You know you have an accent, too.”

  “Yeah, but mine’s not nearly as sexy.” As soon as the words slipped from my mouth, my eyes went wide and I covered my mouth, my face burning. “I . . .” There was nothing I could say to take it back.

  His grin switched to a smirk and he cocked his hip against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms so his biceps bulged against the tightness of his T-shirt. “You think I sound sexy, huh? What else do you think of me?” He started toward me, a slow strut that made my insides ignite. His dirty blond hair fell over his eyes as he studied me. His jaw was covered in fine stubble, and I found myself wishing I could run my fingers across it. I flushed.

  “Nothing.”

  “All right. How about I tell you what I think of you?” I started to argue, but he continued before I could get a word out. “I think you’re smart, though you doubt yourself. I think you’re kind, though you’re hard on yourself. I think you’re funny and your laugh draws attention no matter where you are.” He was standing before me now, staring down, his presence a force I couldn’t ignore. “And I think you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen in my life. So beautiful, in fact, I have a hard time being around you . . . without staring.”

  At some point my mouth fell open, and I worked to close it. I stood, unable to stop myself from pushing his hair from his eyes. “Colt . . .”

  Just then we heard the sound of keys in the lock, and then the front door opening sent us startling away from one another. Ethan came into the room, looking frustrated and angry. His gaze landed on me, then on Colt.

  “Kara? What are you doing here?”

  I shook my head, fighting for clarity that wouldn’t come. My mind and body were completely intoxicated by Colt. “Hey. I had a bad day and just needed to get away. I texted you.” I nodded toward the phone in his hand.

  He shook the phone. “It’s a piece of shit. Hasn’t been working right for weeks. I got a flat on the way up to mountain weekend and couldn’t even get a call out. I’d stupidly taken out my spare to make room for my equipment. I had to walk five miles to a gas station to use their phone. I tried to call you, man, where were you?” he said to Colt.

  Colt looked as though he’d forgotten how to speak. “Oh . . . I . . . My phone’s charging in my room. It must’ve been on vibrate. Sorry, dude.”

  Ethan released a long breath, then came over to me and wrapped his arms around me. “Sorry you had a bad day, babe. Want to tell me about it while I take a quick shower?”

  “Um, yeah, sure.”

  He started for his room, and I glanced quickly at Colt to see him shaking his head. He disappeared into his room, closing the door behind him, and I stood in the common room, staring at each of the doors. Behind one was a past I couldn’t let go. And the other was a future that would never be mine.

  Chapter Eight

  “I’m going to fail my final,” Sarah said from beside me. We were laid out on beach towels on the open lawn in the back of Charleston Haven, staring up at the forever-blue sky, the sun so bright it was impossible to look at. The pool had been overflowing with people and loud, so Sarah, Olivia, Alyssa, and I decided to take our books and sit out in the sun for a little while.

  I switched onto my stomach and flipped the page in my biochem notes. “You aren’t going to fail. We’re too smart to fail things!”

  She grinned at me. “How are you always so positive, Kar? I wish I was as optimistic as you about everything.”

  Olivia snorted, and I yanked up some grass and tossed it at her. “Hey!”

  “I didn’t say a word,” she said with a grin.

  “I just don’t think foreign languages are for me,” Sarah continued. “My brain doesn’t absorb them. I’ve tried Spanish and Latin, now French. Nothing sticks!”

  I gave her a sympathetic look. Sarah was studying to be a high school math teacher, which required several foreign language credits. She wanted to coach soccer and teach, and she was perfect for both, but her curriculum nemesis was foreign language. Just like chemistry was mi
ne.

  “I can tutor you, if you’d like,” Alyssa said from the other side of Sarah. “I lived in France when I was little. I’m pretty fluent.”

  We all jerked up and stared at her.

  “What?!” Sarah said. “Why am I just hearing this now?”

  Alyssa shrugged. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were struggling so badly.”

  I eyed Alyssa. Her expression had changed, as though she didn’t want to talk about herself anymore. I realized then that I knew very little about her. “Do you ever go back there? Do you have family there?”

  She looked uneasy. “I do, but I’ve only been back a few times. My mom just insisted I learn French so I could speak to my grandparents whenever they called.” She flipped her notes and I noticed that she was intentionally avoiding our gazes.

  I took the hint and glanced over at Olivia. “How are your finals looking?”

  “Pretty good. British Lit is going to kill me, but the rest seem okay. You?”

  I grinned. “Ah, you know. The regular crapload, but whatever. I’ll survive. Are you staying this summer?”

  “Definitely. Preston, too. Are you staying?”

  “I haven’t decided. I want to, but my mom’s on me to come home. What about you guys?” I turned to Sarah and Alyssa.

  “I’m tutoring a few kids this summer at Sylvan’s, so yeah, I’m here. You?” Sarah eyed Alyssa.

  “Well, now that I turned down the summer internship . . .” Alyssa said, her voice wavering a bit.

  “What?” we all asked together.

  “My mom wants me to spend a year in France with my grandparents. Get to know them better. So, she asked me to study there instead. I just don’t know.”

  Just then a football flew over and landed smack between us. Taylor rushed over to grab it, fighting to keep from laughing. “Sorry about that,” he said, still grinning. “How are you ladies?” he asked, but his stare lingered on Sarah.

  Olivia and I exchanged a knowing grin. “We’re good. Gearing up for finals. You?”

  “Yeah. I’m thinking of doing a co-op next semester, so I’m planning for that. Applying. The regular shit.”

  Sarah’s head snapped up. “You’re taking a semester off?”

  “No. Just a co-op. A work thing.”

  Their gazes held, and I had to turn away to keep from giggling. When did that happen? I mouthed to Olivia, who shook her head for me to stop. I laughed out loud on accident, and Taylor and Sarah both turned to me.

  “Sorry!” I said. “I was just telling Olivia that I was getting . . . hot. Right, hot. I’m going in for some water. See ya’ll in a minute.” I grinned at each of them, unable to stop myself, and took off for my apartment before I burst out laughing, wrecking Sarah’s careful facade. I closed the door to my apartment, still light from the moment, and then suddenly I realized that even Sarah was moving forward with her romantic life. I had no idea what was happening between her and Taylor, but at least something was happening. But me? I was standing still, stuck in a relationship with a guy I no longer loved.

  As soon as the thought hit me, I stopped mid step, replaying the thought. A guy I no longer loved. I tried to talk myself out of the thought, reminding myself of all we’d been through, yet still, I couldn’t make the words I love Ethan fit in my mind or heart any longer.

  I grabbed a water from our fridge and lay back on my bed, pressing the bottle to my forehead. I no longer loved Ethan.

  Tears pricked at my eyes and then rolled down the sides of my face, soaking into my quilt. My heart and muscles ached, like I’d been running forever from something and could finally stop. Could finally breathe. I cried harder, both out of relief and sadness.

  My phone buzzed from where it lay beside me and I picked it up, expecting a text from Olivia asking to bring her out a water, but instead it read:

  Colt: I saw this hummingbird outside today. It was just there by some flowers, fluttering around, minding its own business. Focused on its task. It was so beautiful and then it was gone. It made me think of you . . .

  My chest heaved as I read the words again and again. Every fiber in my body screamed to ignore the text. I was a mess. I wasn’t ready for whatever complication this would surely bring, yet . . .

  Me: I want to see you.

  I instantly wanted to delete the text, ask for a redo, but I’d never typed out anything so honest in my life. I did want to see him, despite everything. Expectation. Righteousness. I wanted to see Colt. I wanted to feel his warmth, laugh at his weird jokes, get lost in his commanding stare.

  Colt: How badly?

  Me: Too much for any good to come of it.

  I sat my phone on my stomach and drew a breath, just as a knock sounded from my door. I glanced at the text and then the door. Surely not . . .

  I reached for a tissue from my nightstand and called out, “Come in.”

  The door cracked open and my heart froze, waiting, but then Olivia slipped into my room.

  “Oh, no. Are you crying? What happened, Kar?”

  I dabbed away the mascara under my eyes and sucked in a rattled breath. I loved Olivia. She was my best friend. I could tell her this. Trust her with this.

  I closed my eyes and then peered over at her as she sat on my bed. “I realized that I don’t love Ethan anymore.”

  She didn’t say anything, didn’t react at all.

  “Did you hear me?”

  Olivia scratched her head. “Yeah, sorry, I just . . . I guess I already knew that.”

  “You did?”

  She shrugged. “You never talk about him anymore. You never worry over where he is or who he’s talking to. It’s like whatever was in you that responded to Ethan just went away. I don’t know when it happened, but it did.”

  Tears began to pool in my eyes again. All this time I thought I was hiding my deepest feelings, when really I had them on display for anyone to see. I covered my face with my hands and cried harder.

  “Do you think he knows?”

  Again Olivia went silent.

  I peered over at her. “What?”

  She drew a breath and then stared out into my room, eyeing a piece of art I’d chosen from the Market. It was a candle that sat on my nightstand, shaped like a woman’s hand that was reaching up for something she could never quite grasp.

  “Olivia, look at me. What is it?”

  She released a breath. “I think you might need to consider the possibility . . . that maybe . . . he feels the same way.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  Of course. Of course he felt the same way. All the trips without telling me. The weeks he’d go without seeing me, days without calling. There was a time when we told each other everything, and now, I felt as though I barely knew him. I hadn’t even told him that I was working at the center, or about Maggie, the teen girl there. He knew little to nothing about my life here. When had that happened?

  I slumped back onto my bed. “Olivia, can I . . .” I swallowed hard, my voice becoming thick with emotion.

  “Definitely,” she said, standing and starting for the door without my having to finish my thought. That was the thing about Olivia. She knew sadness. She’d lived and breathed it after losing all her friends to the fire. She didn’t have to be asked to leave. She knew.

  I waited until the door clicked closed and then let all my emotions bubble to the surface. Anger. Resentment. Sadness. Guilt. All of it. I took my time working through each, ignoring the voice in my head telling me to stop crying, to stop being a child. I realized that voice wasn’t mine. It was my mother’s, and I was nineteen years old. I didn’t need to listen to my mother any longer.

  When I felt I’d cried my last tear, I picked up my phone and dialed Ethan’s number, unsure of what I’d say once I heard his voice, but knowing I couldn’t wait another second. The knowing without doing anything ab
out it had been killing me.

  “Kar, hey, babe, what’s up?” he asked.

  I drew a long breath. “Are you still considering that summer study abroad?”

  I heard the sound of him adjusting on the other end. “Yeah, why?”

  “I think you should take it.”

  “But you said—”

  “I know, but I was wrong. I was trying to . . . I don’t know, hold on to something. To us. But there isn’t an us any longer, is there?” I swallowed to keep my emotions from creeping back up.

  He sighed heavily on the other end, and I knew Olivia was right. “I don’t know what to say. I think maybe we’ve been growing apart for a long time. I just . . . I don’t know what my life will look like without you in it.”

  Fresh tears collected in my eyes. “I know. But I think it’s time. We’ve worn out whatever expiration date we had and now it just feels . . . off. Like we’re trying to make ourselves the way we used to be, but that couple no longer exists.”

  “So . . . you think we should break up?” Ethan asked. “Is that really what you want?”

  I hesitated. “I think it’s what you want, too.” When he didn’t say anything, I knew I was right.

  “I don’t want to break up. But I think we need to.”

  My bottom lip began to shake. “I think so, too.”

  “Kar . . .”

  I shook my head, though he couldn’t see me. “It’s okay. It’s for the best. We’ve been trying to make this work, but maybe it was never meant to. Look, I just want you to know that you have meant the world to me. I don’t know how I . . . well, just, thank you.”

  “I will always love you, Kara. Always.”

  I sniffled. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay? Take care of yourself abroad. It’s a good opportunity for you.”

  “Yeah. You, too.”

  I waited, listening to his breath one more time, before saying a quick bye and hanging up.

  I slipped under my covers and cried into my pillow. Who knew realizing you didn’t love someone could break your heart in half?