by Love, K. J.
“Lord, I pray for your guidance and help. I’m having a very hard time right now. I know that you can and will help me through this. Please forgive me for my sins, those that I have committed, consciously and unconsciously. Guide me in my actions from this day forward. I know I’m not worthy and I fall short every day. Thank you, Lord, for my many blessings.”
Opening my eyes, I feel some peace settle deep in my soul. Reaching out, I pick up the letter. Laying it on the bed beside me, I take another strawberry and slowly eat it. Before I know it, the bowl is empty. My stomach growls in protest. This small amount of food has awaken my stomach from its slumber and its demanding more food now. Placing the bowl on the table, I pick up the glass of water and drink some of it. The whole time, I've not been able to take my eyes off the letter. My stomach feels queasy and I’m not sure if that’s from the food or my nerves. With a shaky hand, I put the glass back down and pick the letter up. Turning it over, I open the seal. Taking the letter out, I slowly unfold it. Quickly, I suck air into my lungs as my eyes scan the letter. Seeing his handwriting makes me smile a little.
Dear Kayla,
I promised I wouldn’t call anymore; however, I have to be able to have some kind of contact with you. I think about you every day and I’m so worried about you. I wish you would talk to me about what’s going on. I’d be there for you if you would just let me.
I miss you like crazy. I see your beautiful eyes every time I close mine. If you’ve changed your mind about me coming to see you I understand, really I do. I don’t like it and I probably never will. I just ask one thing of you; please, call or write me and let me know that you’re okay. This not knowing is killing me.
If I can ever do anything to help you, all you have to do is ask. I’d like to at least be your friend, if you’ll let me. It’ll be hard, but I’ll take what I can get.
I’ve asked Tessa, but she won’t tell me anything. She says it’s not her place to tell. I need to know that you’re okay.
Here’s a song that will explain how I feel. I hope you’ll listen to it. I hope you’ll read this letter. If I don’t’ hear from you, I won’t write again. I’ll know I’ve lost you.
“Say You Will” by Foreigner
“I can't sleep, I keep dreaming, I'm losing you.
Feel so alone in the night, scared to open my eyes,
I'm in too deep; I'm in over my head this time,
Can't get you out of my mind, no matter how hard I try,
So won't you.”
“Say you will, say you won't.
Make up your mind tonight.
Say you do, say you won't.
Be my guiding light.”
“I get the feeling; I've never been here before.
'Cause no one I've known's, ever moved me the way
That you do.
And I know this is the real thing.
It's all I've been searching for.
I've put it all on the line now, I'm hoping you feel
That way too.”
Missing you like crazy.
Yours truly,
Blake McGinnis
I read the letter over and over. My heart breaks every time. He thinks this is all because I don’t want to be with him. Blake thinks I don’t care about him. Of course, that’s what he believes, I’ve been ignoring him for a week.
Oh no, what have I done?
This is what I was afraid of doing, but I knew I would. Now, because of me, I'm hurting everyone near me, including myself. Somehow, I need to fix this before it's too late. But, how?
Chapter 19Kayla
“Tessa! Tessa! I need you now!” I’m panicking. What am I going to do? I need to see him. I’ve got to talk to him and it doesn’t need to be on the phone. She comes running into my room. She is pale and out of breath.
“Are you okay? What in the world is wrong?”
I’m throwing clothes into my overnight bag. “I have to go. I have to see Blake. He thinks I don’t care about him. I have to go see him now.” She walks over and puts her hands on my shoulders and makes me stop.
“Calm down, Kayla. You don’t need to get yourself all worked up.”
She’s not listening. She doesn’t understand. “I have…” I get choked up and I collapse onto my bed. “I can’t lose him, Tessa. I’ve been so wrapped up in my misery, that I let him think I forgot about him. I shut him out. He has no idea what’s been going on. Please, take me to see him.” I look into her eyes and silently plead with her. She sits down beside me.
“You’ve been in bed for a week. You’ve lost a lot of weight in that time. You’re weak and you look really pale. I don’t know if getting in a car and taking a drive is the best thing for you. You’ve barely eaten anything. Why don’t we just call him? You can talk to him and maybe he will come and see you next weekend.”
I shake my head no, over and over. “I can’t do this over the phone. I need to see him. I need him to hold me Tessa. Please. This will help, not hurt, I promise.”
She’s thinking about it. She is biting at her nails; she does this when she is deep in thought.
“What if we get there and we can’t find him? We don’t know where he lives, so how are you going to even see him, if you don’t call him first?”
Okay, she has a point. I hadn’t thought of that. Wait, I have his address. It’s on the envelope. I grab the envelope and show it to her. “I have his address. If he isn’t at the game room, we’ll drive to his house.” She’s still thinking.
“This sounds crazy Kayla. I don’t know if Dad will even go for it. They have been really worried about you. I don’t think they are going to just let us take off.”
I’ll just have to tell them how important it is to me. Maybe if they see that I’m showing an interest in something they will be willing to let us go. “Please try. You told me to try to get over this, to get up and do something. This is it. This is what I need.”
“I’ll go talk to them. No promises though, it’s a long shot. Stay here.”
Continuing with throwing my things into my bag, I haven't thought this through at all. But right now I just really don't care. Even if I have to take myself there, I just have to see him. Maybe I should call him first. That would be the right thing to do. It’s the responsible thing to do. Tessa still hasn’t come back. I grab Blake’s number, and then I walk out of my room and down the stairs to the lower level of the house.
There’s a pool table in the great room, two bedrooms and a bathroom. There are a couple of phones down here too. I don’t want anyone to hear me so I go use the phone in one of the guest bedrooms. I pick up the phone and hold it. I don’t know what I’ll say to him if he picks up. I can’t think about it, I just have to do it. I slowly dial the number. It starts to ring.
“Hello.”
It’s a woman. He said he was still living at home, maybe it’s his mom or his sister. Does he even have siblings? We never discussed that.
“Hello. Is Blake there?” I hold my breath. My heart feels like its running a race and it’s close to the finish line and barely in the lead.
“No. He just left.”
Well great. Now, what? I might as well go for it. “Do you know where he went by chance?”
“He said something about meeting his friend Maxwell. I’m not sure honey. Can I take a message?”
I don’t want to leave my name. I still want to do this in person. I just wanted to try to get some idea of where he will be tonight. It’s Friday and I know he doesn’t go to the dance club until Saturday, so my guess would be that he will be at the game room.
“No. That’s okay. I’ll try to catch him later. Thank you, bye.”
“Okay. You’re welcome honey, bye.”
Hanging up, I feel worse than before I called. All I want is to see him. Running back up the stairs, I see Tessa in her room packing her bag. Hurrying into her room, I wrap her in a hug, squealing. She pulls back.
“You owe me big time for this. Lisa said they will let us go, on two condit
ions. One, you have to eat a decent meal before we can leave and two, you agree to go talk to a counselor when you get back.”
“Fine, done and done. I’m already packed so I’ll go eat something now.”
She rolls her eyes at me and I run in the kitchen where Lisa is already preparing me a large meal. Swallowing hard, I become very afraid that I may get sick.
“Lisa, I’ll eat, I promise. I just can’t eat a lot at one time. It’s been so long since I had a full meal, I’m afraid I will get sick if I try to eat too much.”
“Alright. Just eat what you can, however it needs to be more than a few bites.”
I smile at her and take in a shaky breath. I can do this. I’m going to go see Blake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blake
Damn, I forgot the key to Scott’s apartment. I still haven’t returned it to him. I’m not far from the house, might as well turn around and go get it. I turn the truck around and head back home. I’m going to meet Max at the game room, but I just don’t feel like hanging around there tonight. Maybe we can go bowling or something. The game room now reminds me of Kayla. I hope she got my letter. I keep thinking that once she got it, she would call me. No such luck though. I pull into the driveway and walk in the back door just as mom is saying…..
“Okay. You’re welcome honey, bye.”
“Who was that?” My chest is hurting at the thought of missing her call. That could have been her. Mom is just standing there. “Who was it?”
“Some girl, she asked if you were here. I told her no then she wanted to know if I knew where you were. I told her I thought you were meeting your friend Maxwell, but I didn’t know where.”
This can’t be happening. “What was her name Mom? I need a name.”
“Honey, I don’t know. I asked her, but she said she’d try back later.”
“Thanks.” That could have been her. Surely, if it was her, she would have left her name. Yeah, she would have left her name.
“I thought you were leaving.”
“I am. I just forgot Scott’s key.”
Walking to my room, I retrieve the key. House plans are spread out everywhere. It wasn't a joke about building that house. I'm starting my life and part of that is building a house. Of course, I had hoped I'd share it with Kayla. It doesn't look like that's going to happen now. After shifting things around, I find the key under some of the blueprints. Kissing my mom on her cheek, I head back out.
“Be careful, son.”
Waving, I walk out the door. “Always, Love you.”
It takes me about forty minutes to get to the game room. I walk in and see that Max is already shooting a game of pool with one of our buddies.
“Hey, Blake!” A few people shout at me when I walk in. Normally, I love the attention. It’s just that tonight I really want to blend in and be left alone. Max walks over to me.
“Hey man. I didn’t think I’d see you tonight. Where have you been lately?”
I haven’t seen Max since Kayla left. I haven’t been doing much of anything but waiting for the phone to ring. “I’ve had a lot going on.”
Refusing to bring her up, I know I just need to let it go. She's made it perfectly clear that she wants nothing to do with me, so I need to try and move on.
“Well, I’m glad you were able to make it tonight. We’ve got a tournament going on here. We just started, if you want to join in.”
I brought my pool stick in, just in case I got roped into playing. “Sure, why not!”
Opening my case, I put my pool stick together and chalk it up. Honestly, I really didn't want to stay here. But if he's already started playing, there's no way I'll talk him into leaving. He’s not going to give up a chance to win some money.
“Hey, handsome, I haven’t seen you here in a while.”
Great, just what I don’t need tonight. Jessica, my ex, the girl is all drama. I’ve been trying to avoid her since the breakup. We weren’t together long and it really never was a relationship.
“Hi. Jessica. I’ve been busy. Good to see ya. I’m starting a tournament over here. See you around.”
“Don’t be rude, Blake.”
She’s too close for comfort. She is leaning on me and rubbing my chest. Jessica is cute and until I got to know her, I was really into her, However, once her true personality came out, I realized she was money hungry and wasn’t embarrassed to say so.
“I’m not being rude, just honest.” I remove her hand and walk toward the guys.
“It’s that girl you were in here with a couple of weeks ago, isn’t it? I can’t believe you were with somebody so soon after we broke up.”
“She has nothing to do with this. She doesn’t even live here. Now if you will excuse me.” I leave her standing there and join the guys.
How dare she bring up Kayla. She had nothing to do with our breakup. That had been over, way before Kayla even came into the picture. I can tell, she is still staring at me. I really hope she doesn’t cause a scene. I’m just not in the mood to deal with a crazy girl fit tonight. She finally walks off.
“That was close man.” Max bumps my arm.
“Yeah, let’s just play. I don’t plan on being here all night.” He racks the balls and we get started. It’s a great way to take my mind off of things or I think it will be.
We’ve been playing for a long time and I’m about ready to leave. My eyes keep going to the pool table that I stood on to sing with Kayla. Unable to take this anymore, I think I'm just going to go home. It's been a few hours now since I got here, it’s just too raw right now. Walking over, I shake hands with some of the guys.
“I’m heading out. I’ll catch you guys later.”
Heading to the door, I head out to my truck. Climbing in, I start it and drive out of the parking lot to head home.
I’ve been driving for a while when it hits me… Damn it, I forgot to give the key to Max and ask him to drop it off to Scott. I’m going to have to go back and give him the key.
Chapter 20Kayla
This drive is taking forever. I’ve been going over and over in my head what I’m willing to share with him. I don’t want him to know how bad things were for me. He doesn’t need to be burdened with that. I just want him to wrap his arms around me. He unknowingly puts me back together when he holds me. Everything that is wrong in my world magically becomes right again.
“How are you feeling? I still don’t think this was a good idea.”
I don’t look at her as I respond. “I’ll be fine just as soon as I get to see him. This feels like it’s taking an eternity.”
“How do you feel physically? Lisa will kill me if something happens to you after I talked them into this.”
I feel weak and shaky. I’m kind of nauseated and nervous. What if he has already moved on? What if he is so mad that he doesn’t want to see me? I am not willing to share any of this information with Tessa. She’ll definitely think this was a bad idea.
“Not too bad. I’m a little nervous.”
“I bet. I’d be biting all of my nails off about right now. Not to even mention feeling like I was going to throw up. Hell, I’m nervous for you.”
She laughs a little. It’s good to hear her laugh. It’s good to hear anyone laugh. Wishing I could do that, I think back to my time with Blake and all the fun that we had. Feeling my face smile, it’s been so long, it feels kind of foreign to me. I place my fingers on my mouth. Yup, that’s a smile.
“Well, ready or not. We are here.” She says as she pulls the car into the parking lot. Immediately, I scan the lot with my eyes looking for his red truck. Not seeing it, my heart sinks. We’ve come all this way for nothing. “He’s not here. We came all this way and he’s not here.”
“Don’t give up so easily. We’ll go inside and ask around. If no one has seen him, then we will go to his house. Maybe Max is inside and we can talk to him.”
“I can’t go in there, Tessa.” My nervousness has intensified. I can’t breathe. Not now. Please not now.
“Kayla, don’t you do this to me. Stop! Take some deep breaths. Lisa and Dad are going to kill me. Damn it.”
Tessa gets out and comes over to the passenger side door and opens it. She takes my legs and spins them so they are now outside the car. I can see her and I know she is talking, but it’s like she is in that tunnel again. Why now?
Not now. Please. Don’t do this now. My chest hurts. I feel like I might pass out. I lean my head over onto the headrest and close my eyes. I try to swallow but it feels like my throat is closing.
“I’m going to have to call somebody. Do you have your medicine Kayla? Please, tell me you brought it with you.”
I don’t want that. It’s going to knock me out. Breathe, just breathe. You can overcome this. You just have to make yourself calm down. I hear the rumble of a truck. I shake my head no. It can’t be. I don’t want him to see this. Please get yourself together.
“Kayla! What the hell is going on?”
It’s Blake, of course, it’s Blake. Can my luck get any worse?
“Blake, I’ve got this under control. Just go inside, we’ll see you in a minute. She won’t want you out here right now. I promise we will come in, in a minute.”
“Like hell. What’s wrong with her? Kayla, baby, you have to talk to me.”
“Go away Blake, please. Give me a minute.” It’s hard to speak. I’m not only in the middle of a panic attack, but I’m utterly embarrassed that he is witness to it all.
“Not on your life. I’m not going anywhere. One of you better tell me what the hell is wrong. Now! Never mind. Get out of my way.”
He gently moves Tessa to the side. He is now bent down in front of me.
“Look at me.”
I shake my head no.
“Kayla, look at me.”
He reaches his hand up and touches the side of my face. His touch is so gentle and caring. Tears stream down my face. I lean into his touch as I take in a deep breath.
