by Rutter, M J
I heaved in a deep and brave breath, “Good to see you up and about,” I said with dripping water from my hair.
“You left,” he frowned. Wow, he looked so good.
“I needed to get away. I was only gone for a little while.” I shrugged.
“You were gone for two days,” he corrected.
“I wasn’t aware that you had taken notice,” I grumbled.
“Don’t go into ‘Teacher mode’,” he snapped.
“As opposed to ‘Asshole mode’,” I quipped.
It took him aback slightly, he smiled before replying. “I have a degree in it.”
I also smiled, “Ditto,” I then began to walk away.
“I missed you,” he told me as I walked towards my house.
“You mean it was awfully quiet without my yapping mutt,” I snickered.
“I didn’t want to insult Misty again,” he sighed, I turned to face him. “I missed you,” he said again.
“So you said,” I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest.
“I’m also very sorry for the way I acted and treated you,” he added as he walked towards me. My heart began to pound in my chest, “Where did you go?”
“Just to a camp site a few miles up the costal road,” I replied not taking my eyes off him.
“Did you have fun?”
“Hardly,” I scoffed. “We had an epic thunder storm and it rained for most of the time I was there,” I explained.
“The clouds were weeping because you had gone,” he said sincerely.
“I doubt that very much,” I smiled nervously. He was standing in front of me now. I could see every line on his face, every freckle, his long, dark eyelashes, his eyebrows as they furrowed together and his blue eyes, smoldering in the warm sun.
“The clouds wept because you had gone, the early bird stopped singing his song, the day did end as it did start, with the pain of knowing you had taken my heart.” I gazed deeply into his eyes. The words danced on my soul, “I wrote that for English in high school and only got a ‘C’, but I earned that ‘C’, it was the highest grade I had ever truly earned and I am very proud of that.”
“I would have at least given you a ‘C’ plus,” I muttered feeling his breath flutter across my chest and arms.
He smiled warmly, “Let me take you to lunch today, it won’t be a date, just two people sharing a meal.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kaden,” I sighed. “We obviously have too much going on to ever be more than this and I certainly don’t want to be frenemies.”
“Excuse me?”
“Friends that are more enemies than friends,” I elaborated.
He grinned and I melted. “I am trying real hard not to like you, Miss. Reynolds, real hard, but there is something about you that I can’t shake, so please allow me to discover your flaws and at least have one reason to not like you as much as I do.”
“And yet, disliking you comes so easy to me,” I smiled again, he just stared. “Okay, I’ll let you see my flaws, by the end of lunch you will be running for the hills.”
“I am looking forward to it.” He half smiled. “You don’t have to, but I would love it if you could dress pretty.”
“Pretty?”
“Well, wear something a little more than a bikini, it will be extremely hard to dislike you if you are looking so hot.” He stated and walked up the beach towards the cove.
He thought I looked hot and that made me smile, he also said that he liked me, though he wanted to dislike me, he still liked me at that moment and again, I smiled. I watched as he walked away, he looked so much better than before, as if he had a spring in his walk, not so sluggish or down trodden. Something had changed him and I guessed it was something at the hospital.
After showering and dressing in a light blue cotton dress covered with small white daisies, I pinned up my hair and dabbed on a little make-up. Not something I wore a lot of, so I tried to make myself look natural and used a clear lip-gloss on my lips.
At five minutes after twelve Kaden knocked on the door, Misty barely noticed, it was as if she had gotten used to him. I switched on the stereo and headed for the door. Wearing a white cotton shirt open at the neck and Khaki colored cargo jeans, Kaden smiled,
“You look… beautiful,” he gushed.
“Now, now,” I joked, “you’ll have me believing that you really like me.”
He smiled recklessly and waited for me to pass him, then hurrying to my side he led me to his car. Opening the door he stepped back as I climbed in, his silence unnerved me, as I clicked in my seatbelt while he climbed in beside me.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I was going to take you to Frankie’s, but figured that maybe you might be in the mood for lobster.”
“We’re going to Lobster Shack?” I asked excitedly. I must have sounded like a high school girl.
“I found it yesterday, I took a drive, even though the doc said I should rest, I wondered if you had headed down that way.” He replied.
“You went looking for me?”
“You could have been in an accident or anything,” he explained. “Sorry, I know I sound like a stalker, but I upset you and I was concerned for your welfare.”
“It would take a lot more than a rejection from you to upset me,” I lied. He glanced sideways, “I was more upset that you thought I deserved what Keith tried to do to me.”
“I never thought that, I was angry, but not at you, at myself. I should have just gone to dinner with you and right up until you opened the door, I was going. But you looked so beautiful and I had a lot of reasons for calling it off. Only when that asshole attacked you, I saw red and it pissed me off that had I not been such a dick, it could have been avoided.”
“So, you didn’t think that because I acted like a slut, I deserved his advances?” I questioned.
“Not in a million years, and for your information, Skylar, you couldn’t be a slut if you tried. I know sluts and you are nothing like them,” he affirmed and it made me smile slightly.
We didn’t talk again until we arrived at Lobster Shack. As it was only Tuesday, it wasn’t that busy and we managed to park quite close to the door. Once again he opened my door for me and l climbed out into the afternoon sun. Its golden rays caressed my shoulders and we walked inside.
We were shown to a table and to prove that in my mind we weren’t on a date, I sat beside him instead of opposite him. It amused him somewhat and I suppose it showed him that I wasn’t looking for anything more from him. Even though I was, even though his aftershave made my mouth water and I felt like I was quivering inside. Kaden had made it perfectly clear that there would be nothing between us and I had to stop getting my hopes up.
We shared a lobster, I could eat one to myself, but he probably would have thought I was greedy enough by the way I picked that thing clean of meat. Then sucked the juice out of the lemon and smiled. He watched me now and then, not constantly, but I caught him staring a few times and he looked bemused.
“It’s nice to take a girl out and watch her eat,” he remarked after wiping his napkin over his mouth.
“Isn’t that the idea, when you go for a meal, to actually eat something?”
“I took a girl out once and she ate ice cubes, nothing else. What would make a girl want to eat nothing but ice?” he sighed.
“Wow, that is so sad.” I said and wiped my mouth with a napkin. “I like food, I don’t eat enough some days, but I do enjoy it when I do and I drink lots of water.”
“So, tell me something bad about yourself,” he smirked lifting his drink to his lips.
“Um, I can’t sing, not one note, I don’t even join in with my students, seriously, I suck.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“You haven’t heard me sing,” I smiled.
“Still, not enough to put me off,” he shrugged.
“Okay, um… I lick the cream out of Oreo’s at work and then I put them back into the packet. I keep a s
tash in the teacher’s room cabinet. I caught Keith taking one once, his face when he bit into it was priceless.” I grinned proudly.
He shook his head smiling, “That’s not bad or disgusting, it’s actually ingenious.”
“I don’t know then, I suppose I am just a good girl,” I replied and set my napkin on the table beside my plate. “Hold on a sec, I am possessive, I hate liars and I suffer with the world’s worst PMS in the history of women, seriously, even I avoid me when I get like that.”
“Still not convinced,” he sighed lifting his drink again.
“I cheated on my boyfriend in college with two of his friends,” I admitted. “Tanner Loxley and Lewis Jones, Tanner was insanely hot and Lewis not so, sorta cute I guess, anyway, I was dating their roomie Cain and he was, well for want of a better word, boring. He left town to go home for something, I think it was his grandmother’s funeral. Tanner took me out on the Thursday night and we went back to his room. Lewis, we went out on Friday and well, he was sort of a dork and I guess I wanted to know if the rumours were true.”
“What rumours?” he frowned, I could see he was enjoying this.
“That their huge brains are the same as their huge, um, well, yes actually, I discovered it is true and that he was actually the best guy I had ever slept with up until I met Jay.”
“What did Cain do when he found out?” he asked keenly.
“He never did, not from me anyway. I broke up with him the day we graduated and the last I heard, he was teaching in Italy or something.”
“You naughty girl,” he grinned. I felt my cheeks warm. “That is not telling me to leave you alone, it’s making me want to know more.”
“Sorry, I am trying very hard to gross you out.” I shrugged.
“Do you have any bad habits, other than the Oreo thing?”
“I crack my fingers when I am thinking, I can’t help it, I never shave my legs during the winter, I eat ice cream out of the tub, drink milk straight from the carton and I am terrible at cleaning out leftovers from my fridge, sometimes I actually grow things in there, it gets so bad.”
“Um, ouch, furry can be nice, I can relate, always tastes better right from the carton, but not cleaning your fridge, that’s just disgusting and extremely lazy.”
“See, now we are getting somewhere,” I chuckled and sipped my Sprite. “What about you, Mr. Perfect, what flaws do you have?”
“I hate doing laundry, have even worn my boxers inside out so I can where them for a few days. If I can’t pair socks, I throw them in the trash. I love butter, I have been known to eat it right out of the tub and I will try anything once, so deep-fried scorpions in Thailand, crocodile steaks in Australia and raw oysters in Paris.”
“And you have travelled,” I remarked.
“A little, I did a gap year.” He replied.
“So, what do you do now?”
“Nothing, I made my money, I don’t have to work anymore,” he answered arrogantly. “I too am lazy, so lazy that I used to eat off paper plates just so that I didn’t have to do the dishes.”
I chuckled lightly, “My dishwasher broke once and Jay had to um…” Jay, no jokes about Jay. “Sorry.”
He stared for a while, his sparkling eyes sunk back in their sockets, “And there it is, emotional wreck over dearly departed fiancé.”
“I think I need to go,” I said, was he seriously mocking me because Jay died?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“If that’s how you feel then you don’t really know me at all.” I retorted and stood. “Thank you for lunch. I’ll get a cab home.” I lifted my purse and headed out of the diner.
I hadn’t noticed that the sky had clouded over or that it had started to rain. I hurried across the highway to the cab office where I was told I would have at least an hour’s wait. It wasn’t far, so I stepped out of my shoes and lifted them from the ground, then began to walk up the highway. A huge thunder clap roared above, I guessed it was Jay’s way of calling me an idiot.
Eight
Kaden
Did she just walk out on our lunch-not-a-date? Am I that much of a dick that I can’t even get her to stay and finish a meal with me? I couldn’t believe it, if I didn’t have to settle the check I would have ran out there after her and knowing that it was pouring with rain outside, I felt even worse. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut over Jay? What the hell was wrong with me?
We were getting along so well, she laughed, her face lit up and it warmed my soul. So why was I acting like this? I liked her, everything about her, even her wacky habits, I had to find her.
As soon as the waitress returned with my credit card, I hurried out to find her. She was nowhere to be seen though. I saw the taxi cab building across the street, I ran over to them to ask but they said she couldn’t wait and left. So, great, the only girl I had truly felt something for in my life was walking up the highway in the pouring rain and it was all my fault. Asshat!
I hopped into my car and started the engine. Speeding back towards Silver Bay I caught a glimpse of her walking hunched over in the rain and she was barefoot with her shoes dangling from her fingers. I pulled my car off the road just ahead of her and got out into the rain.
“Skylar,” I frowned. “At least let me take you home.”
“I’m fine,” she snapped. Her hair was flat against the side of her face and rain dripped off her nose. I gazed down at her feet, her toes looked red with cold.
“Please, get in the car,” I begged.
“I don’t think we should take this any further,” she said, “you are too hot headed and arrogant and where the hell do you get off accusing me of being an emotional wreck over Jay? Maybe I am, maybe because I was such a bitch to him, that when he died I was angry at him and had threatened not to marry him. Do you think that is something I can just forget? My fiancé died thinking I didn’t love him enough to marry him regardless, what sort of a bitch does that?”
“You are not a bitch,” I frowned. “I am a total dick and an asshat, but you, you are so damn perfect, it irritates the hell out of me. I am sorry that you had that fight with Jay, that he died and left you. But being like this every time you mention him, it’s not going to change the fact that he is gone.”
“Thank you for reminding me,” she barked.
“See, I am doing it again,” I roared. “You know what, fine, screw it. I am done trying to be nice to you, trying to make up for the fact that I will never be good enough for you. I can’t do this, I don’t have the time or energy anymore.” I turned to leave.
“I never asked you to,” she cried. “You and your glorious eyes, I never made you yell at me or my dog.”
I turned back to her. She was shivering, but not from cold, I could see she was afraid. I almost told her, as tears streaked with mascara rolled down her soaked cheeks, I almost said I am dying, I have MS and there is no cure, its killing me and I can’t fall in love with you because it will hurt you, I will hurt you. Almost.
She began walking again and at that moment fear flooded my body, covering me like a tidal wave, I couldn’t let her go, I couldn’t and I didn’t want to. I reached out to her and took her quivering hand, I pulled her close to me and as she fell into my arms. I lifted her face with my finger under her chin, pressed my rain soaked lips to hers and I kissed her. Dying my ass, not now, not today!
I felt her warm in my arms, her quivering subsided and as our mouths danced in the rain, I felt I had actually found a reason to my life. In my head though, I knew it couldn’t last, she didn’t deserve the pain I would bring to her life. Still, I couldn’t stop kissing her.
Eventually we parted lips, she pressed her forehead to mine and gazed into my eyes as I cradled her head in my hands. Her eyes were still pooled with tears and it actually hurt me to think I had caused those tears. I used my thumbs to wipe the tears that had dripped from her eyes, from her cheeks.
“Let me take you home,” I said, she nodded her head and allowed me to tow her to my car.
She climbed in and sniffed. Before I started the engine I turned to her, “I have something to tell you, you probably won’t like it and after if you want nothing to do with me, I’ll understand.”
“Are you married?” she asked.
“No, I was engaged though.”
“Was it recent?”
“Yes,” I admitted, “but we drifted apart a long time ago, so, we’ll talk back at my place, okay?” I checked. She nodded and I started the engine.
As we drove back to my house I ran it over and over in my head, but the truth is, there is no easy way to tell someone you care very much for that you are going to die, that your body, however normal it looks now, is going to change and your mobility will be considerably reduced. How do you say those words ‘I have Multiple Sclerosis and it is going to kill me, if I live long enough to let it?’
I had every intention of telling her everything, who I really was, where I had come from and what was wrong with me. I had it all ready to say, but when we got back to my house she climbed out and I could see how scared she was. How could I do this? Why did I want to destroy this chance?
Silently, she followed me into my house, still clutching her shoes in her hands. I led her to the living room and told her to sit down while I made hot drinks to warm us both up. The thunder roared outside and lightning streaked the ocean as I carried two hot, smoky coffees into the living room and set them on the coffee table. I sat beside her on the couch as she heaved a shaky breath.
“So, um, what is it you have to tell me?” she asked.
“My uh, my ex and I only broke up a week or so ago.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t what I needed to tell her.
“That soon huh? And you thought you could accuse me of being hung up over my ex,” she retorted angrily.
“I know and I feel an ass for it,” I admitted.
She nodded, she agreed that I was in fact, an ass. “But that’s not all of it, is it?”
