by C. Desir
“Have you talked to him about the locker-room stuff?”
“Yeah. Sort of. He acts like it all happened for a reason. I’m not sure. . . .”
I nudged his knee. “Maybe that’s why he’s doing the Tinder stuff. Maybe he’s finding something he lost.”
He bit his bottom lip and nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Are you going to tell me why it took this long to reach out to me? What happened after prom?”
He let out a long breath. “Well, so you know my mom. She’s . . . complicated. She’s not always pushy like she was when you met her on Solstice. My dad left a long time ago, and I think sometimes I’m a stand-in for him. And when I got home from prom to change, she’d pulled out all of his letters and she was kind of a wreck. And I wanted to meet you—Jesus, so much—but she and I fought. Because I admitted I’d told my dad to leave.”
I blinked. “Wait, what?”
“My dad was a douche bag. Cheated on my mom. Treated her like shit. So the last time he left, I told him not to come back.”
I put my head on his shoulder and felt a slight tremble. “And this all came out after prom?”
“Yeah. And Mom broke down. She does that a lot, but this was different. It felt almost dangerous. And she wasn’t able to shake it completely until I went to school.”
“And you couldn’t tell me about your fight? Instead you leave it to me to come and find you?”
“I didn’t know what to say. How to explain it all without it seeming like I was the same pathetic loser with a messed-up life that I was freshman year.”
“This is a lot. And I don’t want to push, but I think you need to talk to me more about it. Maybe not now, but sometime. Because I need to know how to act when this comes up with you and how to get you not to always panic around me. And how to help you stop worrying about being a pathetic loser.”
“You kept asking me about my list. If I’d done anything. And I did stuff, but then I added more. And it was spinning my wheels, never moving forward or getting better or being worth anything.”
“So instead of talking, explaining any of this to me, you went with a can’t make it text and thought that was good?”
“No, I didn’t think it was good. But anything else and you would have come over to my house.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I would’ve.”
“And I couldn’t have you there. Not with everything between Mom and me. It’s not your boat to be in, you know?”
“Yeah. Maybe. I guess. But still . . .” If we were friends, the way I thought we were, I should’ve been there. Maybe Kyle was right, and it had been his mess, not mine. The thing was, he should’ve told me, but I had known Kyle’s limitations from the beginning and wanted him for a friend anyway. Not just anyway. If I was being honest, I liked him in part because of his limitations. The selfish part of me liked having the upper hand, but we weren’t that way anymore. Kyle and I had definitely equaled out.
“I’m sorry, Hailey.” Then he squeezed my shoulder and it was like the last of my anger melted into something else. Something good and warm and that I only felt with Kyle. It was like that day on the porch after his first dinner with the moms.
“Is your mom really better?”
He offered me a half smile. “Well, she’s off Xanax and on Lexapro, which is way better long-term. So yeah. I guess she’s better. She told me last weekend she might go see a therapist. She probably won’t, but ‘might’ is a lot closer than where she was.”
“We should sic Pavel on her.”
Kyle laughed. He was still my Kyle, but better. More grown-up, less painfully awkward. I was staying away from jackholes, and he was living his own life in the dorm. I’d been right from the beginning. We were good for each other.
◊ ◊ ◊
“I know you wanted to come up on your own, but it’s dark. Can I walk you back to the train? Ride it home with you?” he asked.
“Don’t ride it home with me. You’d have to pay for it, and then turn around and come back.” That was ridiculous. It was dark, but the moms were ready to give me a ride if I needed one.
Kyle shrugged as he held the door open, notebook in hand. I slid my arm through his as we stepped into the cold air.
“I know a place we can get pizza. We’ll eat it on the way, and I’ll have quiet thinking time on the way back. Maybe do some writing.”
“But—”
“Nope. My mind’s made up. We ride together.”
I squeezed his arm tighter. “I like this side of you, Kyle. The guy who isn’t afraid to say what he wants.”
He shook his head and stared at the ground, a sure sign that he was still the Kyle I’d known, but with a little more confidence each time. In a few years, he might start to see how amazing he was, and then he’d be unstoppable.
Chapter Thirty-Five: Kyle
You like hanging out in my dorm room,” I said to Hailey. I was on my bed studying while she sat cross-legged on the floor next to me.
“Yeah. It’s sort of calming in this weird way. And gets me ready for next year.”
“Have you decided where you’re gonna go yet?” I’d had to hold my tongue so many times in the past few months. Keep myself from talking her into coming to Northwestern or at least staying close.
“No. I’m still waiting to hear from Berkeley.”
Berkeley. In California. On the other side of the country. Forever away. Even with us emailing so much more, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t Hailey’s smile once a week, which wasn’t enough for me but was better than nothing. It wasn’t Hailey’s different glasses and raspy voice and crazy fears.
I took a deep breath and tried to focus on my linear equations.
Hailey gnawed on her lip and tapped her hands on her thighs. “A few guys have asked me out.”
I tensed, holding my breath, waiting for her to continue.
“I said no.” Her eyes were on me. Way too still.
I nearly dropped my pen with relief.
“How come you never told me you were interested in me?” she blurted out.
The air whooshed out of the room. I placed my book to the side and looked at her.
“Can we have this conversation now?” she asked in a low voice, tentative and damn sexy. “Finally? Are we okay to talk about this?”
I nodded and slipped down to the floor so I could sit next to her, feel her warmth next to mine. I stretched my legs out in front of me, one green shoe crossed over the other.
“Which time are we talking about?”
She laughed. “That many?”
I nodded and she leaned her head against my shoulder. I inhaled. “I guess it always seemed like bad timing. That’s dumb, isn’t it? But there was Chaz. And then Mariah. And then Annalise. I sort of felt like we’d never happen. Plus . . .”
“Yes?”
“Our fear lists. They kind of seemed important, you know? Like things we had to get through first, before we could deal with everything else.”
“I was ready at prom.”
I nodded. “I know. But I guess I wasn’t ready. Everything got really complicated. Not just with Mariah. But with my mom. I didn’t want to bring you into that. Felt like you deserved more.”
She grabbed my hand and pressed it between her two. “I deserved the chance to say no.”
“You did.”
“And now, Kyle? What’s stopping you now?”
I shut my eyes and released a deep breath. “Everything. Nothing. I don’t know. It’s like too much has happened. And I don’t want to risk it. I don’t want to risk you. Do you know that one of the things on my list is ‘Be a good friend to Hailey?’ Because I never felt like I was a good friend to anyone. And finally, now, I feel like I’m getting it right and I don’t want to screw that up. I’m ready to cross it off my list. Going beyond friendship is a very big risk. And maybe you’ll go away to school. Then I’ll have lost everything.”
“I think that’s kind of bullshit.”
I smiled. “Yeah. You
would. But I sort of want you for life. And when you get into all this relationship stuff in high school, you don’t keep people for life.” There was so much I wasn’t saying. So much I wanted to say, but my logic refused to be pushed aside. “I mean, how many people do you know who’ve stayed together when they started dating in high school? Too much changes. Look at you over the past two years. Look at me.”
“I hate that you’re being logical.”
I released a bitter laugh. I hated it too. But I wanted so much more for us. I wanted everything, and I wasn’t going to squander it on a quick hookup before she left. My imagination had shut down completely on that score.
“I’m interested in you, Hailey. But right now, I can’t go there. Do you understand?”
She squeezed my hands and nodded. But I saw little tears on the edges of her lashes.
“Don’t cry, Hailey. I won’t be able to deal if you cry.”
She sniffed. “I don’t want to be the better man, Kyle. The responsible party. I’m the instant access generation. Everything I want, when I want it.”
My heart beat too fast. “I know. But not this. Not now.”
“But I’m determined now. I’ve learned so much. Like . . .” She took another sniff, trying to keep in her tears. For me. I knew she held them back to spare me and I loved her even more for it. “Like I’m not a lesbian for sure. I mean, I even tried it. She taught me some mad kissing skills. . . .”
My gaze locked on her lips. I wanted to kiss her. Was dying to kiss her. And not in the sleazy way anymore. I was so far beyond that. But I couldn’t do it. Maybe still in my own way, or maybe for once, I was doing the right thing.
I took off her glasses with shaky fingers. Knowing that she trusted me when she couldn’t see, hoping that would be enough. Enough for what, I wasn’t sure. Maybe to tide me over until I could have Hailey the way I wanted—even though I was still half-convinced it wouldn’t happen until I’d finished the list.
“Why do you like my eyes so much?” She rubbed her eyes, then sandwiched my hand again.
“Because not everyone gets to see them the way I do.” I’d gotten that much out at least.
She nodded, her eyes darting around my face, and I wondered if my face was a more distorted blob than it had been two years ago, when she’d rested her fingers there to see me.
“Kyle.” She leaned in, touching her nose to my cheek, and I could feel my body starting to shake. Small tremors that hit me deep and then moved into the hand she held.
“Hmm.” I couldn’t look at her. Instead I focused on the way she held my hand between hers, on the part of Hailey I knew I could have without destroying us both. The only way I knew we could be together, and still like each other in five years. Ten years.
Her lips touched my jaw, and I nearly took her face in my hands and kissed her, hard, but I was smarter than that. Knew better.
“If you don’t kiss me now, you’re going to be another asshole I have to avoid.” Typical Hailey.
“No. If I do kiss you, I will be another asshole. And I can’t be that guy, Hailey. Not for you.” The thought of us falling apart. Of not having her. I couldn’t take it. Not ever again.
“Okay, Kyle, but I don’t have a label for you anymore. You’re More-Than-a-Friend Kyle, and Not-an-Asshole Kyle, and I . . .” She let out a breath, and I hated that I could hear the sadness in her voice, but she didn’t know what she was asking.
“Maybe just Kyle.”
She chuckled, but it was nervous, forced. “Spring break’s in another week. Tess is coming with me to check a big one off the list.”
I nodded. Because for some reason, the list still had a hold of her too. “Good. Let me know how it goes.”
“Of course. You might not want me, want me. But you’re stuck with me anyway. Because we’ve got these lists.”
“The lists.” Was that it? Was our connection to the lists what made her hang on? Seemed almost stupid now.
I hated myself for being scared, and I hated myself for wanting her the way I did. I’m interested in you, Hailey. I’d finally said the words, but couldn’t do it. Not to her. Not to us.
Chapter Thirty-Six: Hailey
So the weirdest thing happened to me after my big convo with Kyle. I came home, pulled out Rox’s old acoustic guitar, and played. Maybe it was because of my independent study, or maybe it was me evolving, but the longer my fingers went up and down the neck of the guitar, the more I realized that as much as I loved playing kick-ass rock music, when I finally let myself really play the acoustic guitar, I found home.
I sat on our front porch all day that Sunday with the old, beat-up thing, and I couldn’t get enough. It hit my soul in a place I’d been forcing that electric guitar into for years. I’d been slamming the music into me, instead of letting it in to take over. Tess was going to be pissed. First rockabilly and now this.
That whole next week, my week before spring break, it’s all I did. I wrote Kyle and told him. I expected him to sound surprised, but he didn’t. He said he was proud of me. Him. Proud of me. And that it took guts to really let something in like that. When I finished reading his email, I cried a little, grateful he got me. That he knew it was a big deal.
That was the last straw—that letter from Kyle. I finally started caring a little less if I was playing something I’d have called “music for the moms” a couple of years ago. My voice slowed and flowed better. I wrote more than ten songs that week, and made another demo for Berkeley, even though it was probably too late for them to swap it out with my first one. I also, finally, looked into colleges close by. The moms were thrilled, and I didn’t feel like I was doing it for Kyle. I felt like I was doing it for me. Before last weekend, if I would have stuck around here, it would have been out of fear of being away, but at that moment, I knew staying closer to home wouldn’t be about being afraid, it would be about me both getting and doing what I wanted.
And as much as it scared the shit out of me to have a musical breakthrough in such a bizarre way, my world had shifted again and felt firmly underneath my feet for the first time ever.
I was Hailey. Hater of assholes. Player of chick music. Going blind, but slowly. A girl in love with her best friend. And I was okay with all of it. Mostly okay with it.
◊ ◊ ◊
Tess laughed as she held the steering wheel with one hand and her Super Big Gulp with the other.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was about to ask if you could drive for a bit because my ass hurts.”
“Yeah. Not such a good idea. Plus, you hate when anyone else drives.”
We drove in silence for a few, our last weekend of spring break and a list of adventures behind us and still in front of us.
“Does it suck? I mean, knowing that driving is something you’ll never do?”
Tess and I didn’t talk like that. Not really. We joked about me not seeing stop signs, or my missing the more subtle way a guy’s nice ass moved by us because I couldn’t fully appreciate the deliciousness, but not about real stuff.
“I’m scared of the little things. Living in black all the time. Like I’ve had all this practice using smells and sounds and touch, but not seeing feels like solitary confinement. All the blind people said you get used to it. I even talked to one guy who got his sight back for a while after a surgery, and said it felt so awkward.”
“Oh.”
“I think if you’re with people you trust, it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Can’t live with the moms forever.”
“And I don’t want to.” I laughed. Kyle’s face flashed as I closed my eyes. “Damn him.”
“Who?”
And then, even though I knew Tess didn’t totally get my relationship with Kyle, I was finally starting to. “Kyle.”
She sucked up the final bits of her soda. “I’m officially half-caffeine, half-human. Tell me about Kyle. Everything.”
She knew about him, but we both knew she’d gotten the surface stuff, not the real stuf
f.
I laid our story out for her. I told Tess about Kyle’s mom and the thing with Pavel freshman year, and prom. And how he’d held me while I’d cried over going blind, instead of freaking out, and how we’d missed being with each other over and over. I told her about the Mariah thing and the glasses and how he saw me kissing Annalise, and why we didn’t get together a year ago after prom and about how he did the list with me and how we talked, and then I told her about two weekends ago. How Kyle finally said he was interested, but still wouldn’t.
“This is all total bullshit.” Tess slammed her hand on the wheel.
“What are you talking about?”
“You! You’re being totally chickenshit over this.”
“He said no.”
“And that’s your roadblock? Really? What the fuck? I mean, you’re completely butt-crazy in love with this guy and you’re not fighting for it? You’re totally mental.”
“I’m not mental.” I crossed my arms.
“Hailey, seriously. This is something you actually want, not just another bullshit item on your list. This is something real, that’s got nothing to do with your eyes and everything to do with your heart. I can’t believe you’re wimping out here. You’re in love with this guy. And from everything you’ve said, he’s in love with you too. Why wouldn’t you go all in for that?” She stared at me for a moment before returning her gaze to the road.
I hugged myself tighter. “He. Said. No.”
“Nuh-uh. He said not now. And that’s his fear. Isn’t the whole reason you talked him into doing the list with you in the first place because you could tell he needed it?”
“Shit.” I slumped in the seat. “Why is it different? Why can I jump around onstage and sing my guts out, and hold a spider, and sink to the bottom of the pool, but then let Kyle tell me the timing’s still off? That’s pathetic. I’m pathetic.”
“Pathetic.”
All of my history with Kyle swam in my head. All my thoughts about my life, guys, music, and my sight pinged around my brain in a whirling messy mass of color and shape. I blinked once, twice, let my eyes stay closed for a full minute. And then it was as if those thoughts pulled themselves together in this perfect mosaic. All the fears on my list became nothing because my world was no longer swirling, and there was somewhere for all the pieces of me to go. My hands shook as I pulled out my iPad, enlarged the screen to nearly 350 percent, and started a note.
