The Wrong Side of Kai

by Estelle Maskame

  “Vanessa,” Harrison suddenly says, gently grabbing my face with both hands and lifting my head. “Can I ask you something?”

  He shifts beneath me, stretching over to switch on a bedside light. It brightens up the room and I can see him again, his chest rising and falling beneath me, his breath heavy. His tee’s pulled up and I rest my hands on his bare chest and stare at him, bemused by the interruption.

  It feels like his tone isn’t that playful anymore, and the solemn way he’s looking at me isn’t his usual style either.

  “Right now?” I laugh, then press my lips back to his to shut him up. I try to kiss him deep enough to distract him, but it doesn’t work the way it usually does.

  He pushes me away again and sits up a little beneath me, propping himself up on his elbows. He looks so serious that I wonder if perhaps he isn’t drunk. “Listen,” he says, and he flicks his blond hair out of his eyes. “Next month me and some of the guys are going skiing up Mad River Mountain for a couple days. Some of their girlfriends are joining us, and I was thinking maybe you could come too.”

  It sounds cool; I like skiing. But even so, panic grips me like a vice. Is Harrison . . . asking me out? Is he serious? He’s asking me to go on a skiing trip with him and his friends, and that sounds pretty damn serious to me. It means only one thing . . . He wants to take things further. He wants more from me, for us to spend time together like a couple, but there’s no way I can give him that. My stomach suddenly feels like the final spin cycle of a washing machine – it’s now somersaulting around at full speed while I fight the urge to vomit.

  The answer has to be no.

  I can’t let anyone into my life. Not like that. I can’t take the risk.

  So, brick by brick, I construct a solid wall of defense between Harrison and me.

  “Woah,” I say, sitting bolt upright. My hand is still pressed flat to his chest, and I can feel his heart beating fast. The room has fallen silent, and it’s like the party around us has disappeared into a void. “You’re asking me out?”

  “I just think it would be fun—”

  “No dates, Harrison Boyd,” I say, wagging a finger at him with a coy smile to mask the panic that’s got me tight in its grip. We already established this back in the summer when I first kissed him in his truck. He’d picked me up after we’d spent the entire day flirting by text, and we didn’t hesitate to get straight to business. We made it clear at the time that we were only fooling around, and that there was nothing more to any of this. Purely fun. Nothing serious. “We’re just keeping it casual, remember?”

  Whether or not he knows it, I’ve just made the decision that this is the end of us. I have no choice but to bail if someone shows signs of wanting to take things further. I kind of like Harrison. He’s hot and he knows how to work his hands and he’s not as much of a self-absorbed jock as the rest of his teammates. But I don’t like him like that. I’ve realized that “real” relationships scare the absolute hell out of me. They always end and someone will always get hurt when they do, one way or another. I can’t shake the thought that you’ll always, inevitably, lose the person you’ve fallen for.

  I can’t help it. Uninvited, my dad weaves his way into my head, and I see an image of him now, a man with ashes where his heart once was and a hollow emptiness in his eyes. I never want to end up like him.

  Harrison groans, bringing my focus back to him. “You’re so hard to read sometimes.”

  “Is this hard to read?” I ask, and I lean in close to him again, distracting him, pushing him back down against the bed. I cup his face in my hands and my nails brush against his cheekbones as I press my lips to the soft skin of his neck. I kiss a path down to his collarbone, making sure I leave a hickey that’ll take forever to fade, something to remember me by because, after this, I won’t ever be kissing him again.

  “Vanessa,” Harrison murmurs, his voice a low rumble, and he exhales as his body relaxes beneath mine. One hand is on the small of my back, the other is pulling at my hair, tangling it around his fingers.

  We break apart only so I can pull off his damp shirt. I toss it to one side and sit back up again, this time smirking seductively down at him. My favorite part of all this? The teasing. The driving them crazy. The hunger that captures their eyes. The control I have over them. It feels like the only part of my life that I do have any control over.

  But right now, my performance is as much a distraction to myself as it is to Harrison. I focus all of my energy on pleasing him so that I can stop the whirlwind of panicked thoughts spiraling through my mind.

  I move against Harrison as he stares up at me, the denim of his jeans rubbing against the exposed skin of my thighs. I like to believe that I’m talented when it comes to maintaining eye contact – I never, ever break it. My gaze is locked on Harrison as I play faux-innocently with the ends of my hair, as I bite my lip, as I pretend I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.

  “You’re so hot, Vanessa,” Harrison is mumbling, “I can’t handle you.”

  He’s right, he can’t. But at least he’s finally enjoying this now, allowing adrenaline and desire to take over.

  Then, “Smile,” he says with a wink, and that’s when I notice he’s pulled out his phone and is holding it up suggestively. “How about you give me a show?”

  And I do.

  I smile straight into the camera, and give him a show that’ll be worth remembering tomorrow.

  2

  I wake to Chyna snoring in my ear and slobbering over my shoulder. I push her away, shoving her to the other side of her huge bed so that I can get some peace. I don’t know what time it is, but I know it’s definitely not early. My stomach is grumbling too much for that.

  I rub my eyes, my lashes thickly clumped together by the mascara I was too tired to remove last night when we got back here. I did remove my clothes, though, because when I slide out of the bed, the chill of the AC in Chyna’s room hits my bare skin. I stand still for a second, testing out whether I’m still drunk, hungover, or miraculously fine.

  My clothes are scattered on the floor, but when I scoop them up, they reek of last night. A sure sign that the party was good.

  “Chyna?” I say, but she doesn’t stir, only continues to breathe too heavily until suddenly she is snoring like a damn freight train again. On her bedside table there’re three odd, mismatched cans of beer that she swiped from the party as we left. She won’t have drunk them, but it’s a totally Chyna thing to do. She’s been swiping stationery from classrooms all through high school.

  I don’t need her to be awake, though. I have spent the night here at the Tates’ house so many times that I’m becoming a fixture. A part of the furniture, as permanent as the dining-room table or the TV. Sometimes it’s easier to stay here when I can’t bring myself to return to my own home. I quietly raid Chyna’s closet, grab one of her camp T-shirts from five summers ago and a pair of shorts, and get dressed. They fit me just fine – I’ve grown almost too comfortable here.

  My stomach won’t stop growling so I leave Chyna to sleep while I head downstairs to the kitchen. It’s almost noon, but I pour myself a bowl of cereal and sit up on the counter, legs crossed, slurping up the milk.

  The house is unusually silent today. I stare at the clock on the wall opposite, listening to each second tick by. It’s funny, how different silences can be. In my house, the silences are strained and full of unspoken grief and the absence of Mom, like the walls of my childhood home are about to implode on themselves. In Chyna’s house, the silence is a welcome relief – a safe haven. I relax, enjoying my few minutes on my own without that cloud hanging over my head, until I hear footsteps enter the kitchen.

  Isaiah starts when he sees me, surprised to find me perched up on his countertop eating a bowl of cereal at this time. He flashes me a smile over his shoulder – his teeth are misaligned in the most adorable way – as he pulls open the refrigerator. “Morning, Vans. No hangover?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” I focus inten
sely on a spot on the ceiling, tuning everything out so that I can decide exactly how I’m feeling. I’m still suspiciously okay for now.

  “Lucky. I miss being seventeen and having a liver made of steel. That’s why I don’t drink anymore,” Isaiah grumbles as he grabs a Gatorade and a bottle of water, then kicks the refrigerator shut behind him. There’s something effortlessly attractive about Isaiah – maybe because he towers over me, all six feet, four inches of him – but he’s also like my brother, so ew. I have adopted Chyna’s family as my own and, luckily, they don’t seem to mind. To me, the Tates are the perfect family – whole and complete.

  “Was I drunk?” I ask, but given that I can recall all of last night’s events, I already know the answer.

  “Not really, just mega annoying,” Isaiah answers, and his mouth transforms into a wide, sarcastic grin. “You kept leaning into the front of my car to change the music. No one turns off Tupac, so you should be glad I didn’t kick you out.” He steps forward and hands me the bottle of water, damp and as cold as ice against my skin as I take it from him. “Drink this.”

  Just then, Chyna slumps into the kitchen, her slippers scuffing the wooden flooring. She looks like she’s been hit by a truck at full speed on the freeway, yet she has miraculously survived to tell the tale. She can barely hold her head up. “I want to die,” she solemnly announces.

  Isaiah’s shoulders shake as he cackles with laughter, but he does the right thing and passes his Gatorade to Chyna. The stark height difference between the Tate siblings is insane – Chyna is just a fraction over five feet, and next to Isaiah, it’d be easy to assume she’s still in elementary school.

  “How come you seem fine?” Chyna questions, her eyes meeting mine. She gulps down the Gatorade as though her throat is on fire. “Surely you drank way more than I did.”

  I shrug, trying not to laugh at her misfortune. “I guess Harrison sobered me up.” Which is true, in a way. We had a good time, but nothing sobers me up faster than being hit with the panic that a guy wants a real relationship. My heart beats faster even now at the thought of it.

  “Aaaand, that’s my cue to leave,” Isaiah says. He grabs another Gatorade from the refrigerator and a massive bag of chips from the cupboard, then swivels around and promptly exits the kitchen. It’s clear he’s terrified of getting dragged into the conversation that’s about to happen, which he should be – it’s girl talk.

  A few moments of silence pass while Chyna eyeballs me. She wants the gossip, as always, and despite not feeling great, she manages to perk up. “So what happened with Harrison last night then? Spill!”

  “We hooked up, but . . .”

  “Oh no. Why is there a but?”

  “I need to end things with him tonight,” I tell her. No point tiptoeing around the reality of the situation. It was always going to end at some point. That’s the entire definition of a fling – it’s temporary, casual. There’s no way I can keep seeing someone who wants things to progress. The very idea suffocates me.

  Chyna nearly chokes. “What? Already?”

  “He invited me on a ski trip,” I tell her. “That’s pretty serious, right? Like, girlfriend-serious.”

  I run my fingers through the ends of my hair, static making them stick to my skin like weird little magnets. I try real hard to keep my gaze focused on Chyna, but it’s difficult when I know she doesn’t get it. I always think that Chyna is lucky in life; she’s never even so much as experienced the death of a family pet – in fact, her family tree is made up entirely of living family members, both close and distant, and the only funeral she’s ever attended was the one where I was sat in the front row. She doesn’t know how awful it is to lose people. My guess is that she takes all of her relationships with the people she loves for granted, but that’s not her fault. How could she do otherwise?

  “And what’s so bad about going on a trip with him?” Her big brown eyes bore into mine, and there it is, that simple innocence and inability to relate to my thoughts on the matter. I don’t know how many times I have to tell her that I will absolutely not get into a relationship with anyone ever, but I can never find the words to convince her. “Harrison is at least one of the nicer guys on the team,” she says. “You like being around him, don’t you?”

  I nearly grab my empty bowl and hurl it at her, mostly because a guy being nice can’t ever be enough to change my mind, but I remain calm. Instead, I just laugh. All airy and fake. “Oh, come on. Can you seriously imagine me dating Harrison Boyd?”

  Chyna thinks. “Okay, nope. You don’t have that much in common.”

  “He was getting boring anyway.” I shrug, sliding down from the counter and pulling at the hem of Chyna’s camp T-shirt. “And the fun part is finding someone new,” I say, steering the conversation onto safer ground. “Do you suppose Drew Kaminski is single?”

  Chyna links her arm around mine and flashes me a sideways grin, her smile dazzling as it lights up her face, making her seem more like herself. “Isn’t there only one way to find out?” she says with a laugh, and that’s why I love Chyna. She doesn’t always agree with my antics, but she doesn’t ever judge me for them. We’re young. We have our whole lives ahead of us. We’re free to do as we please. We make our own decisions, and just because we’re friends doesn’t mean our choices have to be the same.

  “Hold on,” Chyna says, tugging me toward the refrigerator. She ransacks it, filling her arms with a variety of food, from cheese to cooked chicken. “I need to eat before I die of starvation.”

  *

  For the past two years, I have grown to hate walking through the front door of my own house. It doesn’t feel like a home anymore. It doesn’t have that sense of warmth and security it had when Mom was alive. She used to always have candles lit around the house every evening in the fall and winter, and every room would smell of spiced cinnamon. You could always hear her singing too – while she did yoga, while she cooked dinner, while she dabbled in sketching. Without her, our home has no ambience. It’s why I prefer to spend the night elsewhere whenever I can, absorbing the easy love of someone else’s family. It’s not just that, though. If I come back here I’m instantly locked in a battle with the awkward silences that are waiting in every corner of this house. And even if I don’t come back, there’s still a silence. I want Dad to wonder where I am for once. I want him to worry about me. To ask me where I’ve been and who with. Instead, he never seems to bat an eyelid.

  I wave goodbye to Chyna from my porch as she drives off after giving me a ride home. I’m still wearing her clothes while holding a grocery bag full of my own from last night. My hair is matted. I haven’t showered. I look like absolute trash, but it’s not like our neighbors haven’t seen me returning home like this on a Sunday morning before. Mrs. Khan, the old lady who lives on her own next door, scrunches up her face and resumes watering her plants when she catches my eye, so I don’t even give her a smile. Instead I grit my teeth and push open my front door. The house is silent and reeks of stale smoke. But that’s nothing new these days.

  I head for the kitchen and find Dad huddled over our old dining table, surrounded by travel guides and scraps of paper and a pack of cigarettes. He’s engrossed in something on his laptop, the glare of the screen reflecting off his glasses.

  “Vanessa,” he says without glancing up. He motions for me to join him, but I don’t budge an inch. “Come and check out these pictures. The Cliffs of Moher. Aren’t they amazing?” He leans in even closer to the screen.

  But I’ve seen it all before. He doesn’t really want my opinion on the Cliffs of Moher or any other of the Emerald Isle’s natural wonders. “I’m home, Dad,” I announce, loud and clear so there’s no doubt he’s heard me. But he doesn’t even blink, only keeps on clicking away on the laptop. He has yet to look at me. “I stayed out all night. I went to a party and I was drinking,” I continue to explain, but in between my words, I’m fighting back a sigh. I know he isn’t listening. It’s like speaking to a brick wall. “Like, way t
oo much,” I exaggerate to get a reaction. I could probably tell him I’d committed a felony and it wouldn’t even register. I give up on trying to get a reaction out of him and instead wander over to the dining table. “So why exactly are these cliffs so special?”

  Dad reaches for a pen and scribbles furiously into a notebook. I flinch at the sight of his fingernails; they’re overgrown and yellow with nicotine. It’s the same notebook he’s been compiling notes in for the past few months, crafting the perfect Irish road trip that he wants us to take next summer. “Oh, your mom would have loved this. The Doolin Cave is only a twenty-minute drive away, so we can do both of those in the same day. Look,” he says without answering my question, and turns the laptop toward me. On the screen there’re photos of sheer granite cliffs overlooking a clear blue sea as the sun shines down. I doubt it looks like that in real life. I mean, sunshine in Ireland? Seriously?

  “Sounds great, Dad,” I say, but the smile I force upon my face is so unbearably fake. One of these days . . . One of these days he has to lose it with me. One of these days he has to freak out when I don’t come home at night. One of these days he has to act like my father. And that’s when I’ll tell him I’m sorry, Dad, you’re right. It worries you when I sneak around behind your back and don’t come home. I won’t do it anymore. Except it doesn’t worry him at all, and that’s the problem. How am I supposed to grow up and take responsibility for myself if I don’t have a father to set some boundaries for me?

  “Okay, I’ll keep organizing it,” he tells me, turning the laptop back. He squints at the screen for a few more seconds, and just as I’m about to give up and retreat upstairs, he sits up straight and pushes his hair off his face. “You went to a party?”

  Oh, so he did hear me. “Yep. It was pretty wild,” I say. Inside, I’m practically begging him, Stop worrying about cliffs and caves and worry about me instead! I’m desperate for him to ground me. To react. To do something normal.