The Wrong Side of Kai

by Estelle Maskame

  “Do you even care if my answer is yes?”

  Dad blinks at me, taken aback. He sets his glasses down on the table and walks over. Why now, the one time I don’t want him to notice me, he finally does? “Of course I care.”

  I’ve lost my grip this past week; everything is slipping out of control. My morality feels like it’s in the gutter, my reputation precedes me, and now I’ve found out Kai thinks of me the same way everyone else does. I imagine Mom again, looking down on me now as I stand on our staircase with tears in my eyes. I don’t deserve sympathy – I’ve brought this all upon myself, because I’m a shitty, shitty person. Right now, it feels like I truly have nothing to lose.

  I’ve got stuff that I need to say to Dad. Why should I care anymore about protecting his feelings? Why should it take physical tears for him to realize that I need him?

  I turn back from the stairs and take a few steps toward Dad, looking up at him. “Really? You care? Because you sure as hell don’t act like it.”

  Dad blinks, stunned, as if my words are shocking information, like he genuinely believes he’s a doting father rather than just some stranger who happens to live in the same house.

  Surely, I think, he knows how absent he’s been in our lives?

  “Vanessa . . .” Dad says, but he immediately runs out of words.

  “What, Dad?” I press, my words laced with exasperation. How can he not see it? “Where were you that time I got so drunk I threw up on the porch? Why don’t you stop me from sneaking out after midnight? And how many calls from school have you received this week that you’ve ignored? Because I’ve skipped so many classes and yet you haven’t said a single word about it. You know why? Because you don’t CARE!”

  I hear the TV pause, then slow footsteps. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kennedy approaching, watching from a few feet away. She’s still holding Theo against her chest, anxiously rubbing his ears. I don’t want her to see me yelling at Dad, but I’ve already gotten myself too heated now. It’s too late to stop the words spilling from my mouth, all these questions that I’ve never been brave enough to ask, all these truths I’ve never had the courage to say out loud.

  Dad slowly shakes his head, his lips silently moving as he struggles to muster up an answer. “I care . . . I love you. I love both of you. How could I not?” He glances at Kennedy, then back at me. He gulps hard, but his expression still looks frozen, his eyes wide with shock. “You know I’ve just had a lot on my mind. I thought you were happy.”

  “Happy!” I repeat with a cold, sharp laugh. Happy? Is he blind too? I pretend Chyna’s parents are my own, I’m constantly worried about Kennedy, I refuse to let any guy get close to me. How can I possibly be happy? I’m in survival mode. “That’s a fucking joke, Dad. It really is.”

  “Don’t use that language with me,” Dad stammers.

  I don’t think I’ve ever sworn in front of him before, but what does it matter now? Maybe if I’d sworn at him when I was fifteen, he would have cared then. I almost laugh. If only I’d known it was that easy to get his attention.

  I cross my arms, my glare challenging. I don’t recognize the man standing in front of me. “So now you wanna scold me for cussing?”

  “What’s . . . what’s going on here, Vanessa? Why are you acting like this?”

  “Because I’m tired, Dad, that’s why!” I snap at him, my voice growing louder. I take another step closer, getting all up in his face. My eyes still sting with tears. “I’m tired of tiptoeing around you. It’s been two years. We miss Mom too, me and Kennedy, but you can’t just stop living. You still have two daughters who need you to look out for them, but you’re just too selfish to care about us anymore.”

  I may as well have slapped Dad across the cheek, because my words seem to inflict a physical pain upon him. He clutches at his chest, staggering a few steps back. He searches for words that never arrive. The tension in this house right now is about to overwhelm us all, and Dad shifts his focus to my sister.

  “Kennedy . . . you know I care about you, don’t you?” he asks softly, his voice almost pleading. He so desperately wants her to say yes.

  Kennedy looks down at the floor and buries her face into Theo’s fur. “Not really,” she mumbles, unable to meet his eye.

  Dad looks back at me, aghast. He rubs at his temple and I can see him break out into a nervous sweat. His voice is weak, shaky. My dad is a broken man. “I thought I was . . . I thought cutting you guys some slack was the best thing to do. I thought I was helping.”

  “Some slack?” I nearly laugh again. He is so, so oblivious that it hurts. How can abandoning your daughters after they’ve just lost their mom possibly be helping? “There’s a difference between being a laidback parent and a non-existent one. You know that, right?”

  “What do you expect me to do?” Dad asks.

  “Stop letting me do whatever the hell I want, for starters. I’m only seventeen! I need my dad, okay? I need you. I need you to text and ask when I’ll be home, and I need you to yell at me when I walk through that front door smelling of beer, and I need you to ground me when I backtalk you. I need you to act like a damn father, and to actually care about my well-being, because sometimes I wonder if you’d even care if I drove that ugly rust-bucket of yours off a bridge.”

  Dad’s features flood with horror. “Vanessa, please don’t say that.”

  “Well, would you?”

  “Vanessa!” He lets out a frustrated groan as he runs his hands through his graying hair.

  “Have you even noticed that I’ve had the worst possible week?” I question, arms still folded. I’m not backing down, and I continue to glower at him, piling on the pressure. I have waited forever for this moment. “No, you haven’t. But let me tell you about it.” I stare straight into his eyes and I tell him the truth: “I hooked up with a guy who filmed us and then sent the video to everyone in school. Yeah, Dad, that’s right. There’s a video out there of me stripping, and I don’t even have a parent to turn to.”

  Dad’s jaw literally drops. He stares at me, completely blown away. So many different emotions flicker across his eyes, too fast to pinpoint a single one. The color drains from his face at such speed I think he might faint in front of me.

  “We didn’t just lose Mom,” I say quietly now, my voice almost a whisper. “We lost you too.”

  I leave him there at the bottom of the stairs, staring after his disgrace of a daughter as I run to my room. Fresh tears spring to my eyes. My heart feels too dense, too heavy, the weight of it crushing my chest. I slam my bedroom door and strip off my jacket, then throw myself onto my bed. My room is in darkness, but I prefer it that way. I burrow under my comforter and press my face into my pillows, then scream against the soft fabric. The scream is muffled, almost silent. I feel utterly helpless.

  “Vanessa?” Dad’s voice pleads at my bedroom door as he quietly knocks once, wary and apprehensive. And so he should be.

  “GO AWAY!” I scream.

  His footsteps fade down the hall and a few moments of silence pass where all I can focus on is my ragged breathing. Then I hear the click of my door opening and a sliver of light from the hall shines into my room. I grit my teeth, prepared to yell at Dad for having the nerve to barge into my room, to care now. But it’s not him.

  “Vanessa?” Kennedy gently says, but I’m crying too hard to reply.

  My entire body is trembling and I’m squeezing my pillows with my fists. I hear the door close again, then sense movement in my room. My mattress shifts as Kennedy sits down on the edge of my bed. She doesn’t say anything for a while, but then she finally asks, “Why did you explode like that?”

  “Everything sucks. Couldn’t get much worse,” I mumble.

  “Even that hot guy sucks?”

  I lift my head from my tear-soaked pillows to look at her. “Especially that hot guy.”

  Kennedy frowns. She’s left Theo downstairs, and now she’s looking down at me with concern. It’s like our roles have been reversed
. Suddenly, my little sister is the one looking after me. “What happened?”

  “He turned out to be just like everyone else,” I whisper, then bury my face back into my pillows and pull my comforter up over my head. I want to disappear off the face of the earth right now. I don’t ever want to go back to school. I don’t want to ever face Dad again. I never want to see Harrison, or Noah, or Anthony again.

  And I definitely never want to see Kai Washington again.

  Kennedy climbs under my comforter with me and cuddles up close. She wraps her arms around me, squeezing me tight, and she doesn’t have to tell me that she loves me because her actions say it for her. She stays quiet, never saying anything more, and holds me until I cry myself to sleep.

  20

  Every Saturday, I have breakfast with the Tates. It’s become a weekly tradition over the years, ever since they first began inviting me after Mom passed away. It reminds me of what a loving, close family feels like. Rachel makes giant, fluffy pancakes from scratch, and always has too many toppings to choose from, and Tyrone always makes his own fresh orange juice. We all sit together around the table, stuffing our faces between the laughter. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

  “And turned out, that girl he was dating? She’s his distant cousin,” Isaiah says, finishing his story about his buddy from college who’s unknowingly been in a relationship with a family member, and we all share a chuckle around the table.

  It was hard to drag myself out of bed to come here this morning. But if anything were to make me feel better, it would be breakfast with Chyna. I left my house and drove over here before Dad was even awake. I can’t bring myself to face him after everything I said last night.

  “Vanessa, what’re your funny stories from this week?” Rachel asks, offering out the plate of fresh pancakes to me. I hold up my hand to decline – I’m already on my second – and give her a tight smile. Not only do we follow tradition of having pancakes every week, we also follow the tradition of sharing anything humorous that may have happened in our lives recently.

  “Nothing new,” I lie, exchanging a quick glance with Chyna. I fork up another mouthful of pancake, banana, and Nutella, hoping if I chew for long enough she won’t press me. The truth is, so much has happened this week – but it’s all totally inappropriate to share over the dining table. How do I find the humor in a sexual video of me being released to the world? Or the humor in me running around town seeking revenge on Harrison? Or the humor in fighting with my father? And how do I even begin to find the humor in catching feelings for the very first time for a guy who doesn’t deserve them?

  Rachel lets out a sigh of dismay. “But you always have something to tell us!”

  “I have something,” Chyna cuts in from beside me, and I shoot her a sideways glance, silently thanking her before I continue to chomp down on my food. We all listen to her as she talks. “Okay, so the other day, I got paired with Malik Dorsey in Chemistry. Mom, do you remember him? He used to live across the street when we were kids and we’d play together in our yard and I was kind of in love with him. He finally confessed to stealing a bracelet of mine and he gave it back to me the next day, so maybe we will end up getting married after all.”

  Did that really happen this week or is she making it up just to save me from having to share a story of my own? If it did happen, she hasn’t mentioned it to me. Or maybe she did and I was too self-absorbed to remember. I think of my and Chyna’s conversations over the past week, and I realize most of them have all been about me. My life. My plans for revenge on Harrison, my thoughts on Kai . . . Have I even asked Chyna anything about her life? Did I even ask her how her college application went? No, I think, I didn’t. If I needed another reason to hate myself this morning, this is it.

  “Oh, I’ve got a good one!” Tyrone exclaims, and he dives into telling his dramatic story of an awkward misunderstanding he had yesterday with a coworker, but I tune out and miss all of the details.

  When we’re finally all excused from the table ten minutes later, Chyna is quick to hook her arm around mine and pull me away. Another of the great things about Chyna’s parents? They don’t ever need us to help clean up. Chyna and I head upstairs to her room, and I collapse onto her bed and stare at the ceiling.

  “Are we still going to Maddie’s party tonight?” I ask. I’d pushed the thought of that party to the back of my mind over the past couple days, but now the time has come to decide whether or not to show up.

  “I don’t know,” Chyna says. She mutes her TV and sits down on the bed next to me. “Do you want to? I do. Malik could be there.”

  “Would it make me look weak if I didn’t turn up?” I sit up and look back at her, chewing my lower lip. Noah doesn’t ever miss a party, and that means his sheep will be there too – like Harrison and Anthony and the rest of his asshole friends. And if the party is anything like last weekend’s, then half the senior class will be there . . . All of the people who have laughed at my expense this week, all of the people who have posted cruel things about me online. But isolating me is what they want. It’s how they win. “Like, would everyone think I was too scared?”

  Chyna thinks for a moment. “If you want to go to the party, I’ll come with you. If you want to miss it, I’ll skip it too. We could catch a movie instead or something. Just you and me.”

  I don’t deserve to call Chyna Tate my best friend. She’s everything I want to be – quietly intelligent, caring and loving, with a strong moral compass. She has the crappy end of the bargain. Her best friend is selfish and self-centered, and reckless and corrupt. I don’t appreciate her enough.

  “Hey,” I say. “How did your college application go?”

  Chyna’s expression turns puzzled. It’s a drastic change in subject, that’s for sure. I don’t miss the way her eyes light up, though, like she has been waiting all week for me to ask that exact question, and it makes my chest ache. “Mrs. Moore said my application is great and there’s nothing more I could do to improve it, so I finally sent it off. She thinks I’m in with a real shot. I have a good feeling, but maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up . . . Ahh, I don’t know.” She covers her face with her hands and releases a muffled groan.

  “You have nothing to worry about,” I reassure her, scooting closer and crossing my legs. I pull her hands away from her face and the smile I give her is sincere and genuine. “You’re the most amazing person I know. Any college would be lucky to have you. Hey, you can even add to your application that you’re skilled at phone hacking now too!”

  Chyna rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  We laugh a little, but I’m quick to turn serious again. Anxiously, I play with my hands in my lap, twiddling my thumbs. Admitting to my flaws is tougher than I thought. “I’m sorry for being a shitty friend the past few days.”

  “You’ve had a weird week, Vans,” Chyna says, still defending me even now. “Seriously, don’t sweat it.”

  I look up from my lap. “That’s not an excuse. I’m sorry, and I hope you’re ready for the party tonight.”

  “So, we’re going?” Chyna says, eyes shining with excitement. She loves parties. I know she’s prepared to miss out on tonight for my sake, but I don’t want her to have to make any more sacrifices for me. I want to go to this party with her so that she can sing too loudly to the music, bust a couple of her awful dance moves, and potentially hang out with this childhood crush of hers. It’s the least I owe her.

  “Yup! We’re going.”

  I need to go to this party for myself too. I can’t let Harrison think he’s filled me with so much fear that I can’t be seen in public.

  It’s time to come full circle. At Maddie’s party a week ago, Harrison and I hooked up for the very last time, and seven days of hell have ensued. The video he filmed that night changed everything. This all needs to end now – no more messing with Harrison. I refuse to be terrorized by him any longer. He’s hurt me and I’ve hurt him. There’s nothing more to be done, and I know that if I don’t t
urn up tonight, then he’ll think he has won. The truth is, neither of us have won anything. We’ve both lost something. Mostly our dignity.

  Chyna jumps up from the bed and twirls over to her closet. She begins rummaging through her clothes, pulling out different pairs of jeans and an array of cropped blouses. “I’m so unprepared. Do you wanna go to the mall? I need something to wear with these jeans,” she says, holding up a pair of ripped, black jeans. Of course I say yes.

  *

  We park in the lot of Polaris Mall on the edge of Westerville. We’ve driven here in Chyna’s car, because even she doesn’t want to be seen rolling around in the Green McRusty, and we stroll toward the mall’s entrance together.

  Most of the snow from a few days ago has completely melted and disappeared by now. Only lumps of hardened ice remain in the gutters, but the sky above is full of thick, gray clouds that cast a shadow over the entire region of Columbus. It’s forecasted to snow again later.

  “Is Kai going to the party?” Chyna asks as we head into our first store. It’s a casual, harmless question. I haven’t yet told her what happened between Kai and me last night, mostly because I’m embarrassed by it, but also because I don’t want to burden her with even more of my personal drama.

  “No idea,” I say, staring straight ahead as we walk. Chyna must immediately notice the forced nonchalance in my voice, because she shoots me a look that I ignore. Honestly, I hope Kai isn’t going to the party tonight, and I can’t imagine that he would be. His only friend at Westerville North is me. And maybe Maddie, at a push. It would be seriously bold of him to turn up alone, especially knowing that Harrison and Noah are likely to be there.

  Chyna stops to search through a rack of discounted tops. “Did something happen?” she asks softly, her attention focused on the clothes in front of her. I know she’s listening closely though. All I’ve done this past week is gush about how gorgeous and hilarious Kai is, and now I don’t want to talk about him at all. She already knows something has so obviously happened, but she’s gently coercing me to open up about it.