by Kim Cormack
They pulled up in his horrible little beater on the street outside of the coffee shop. He hopped out of the car and walked around to open her door. This was weird. She had only been joking. She followed Kevin into the little diner. They never used to come in here. It was located conveniently across the street from the high school, and the second they pushed through the swinging doors, the humming whispers began.
Kayn was the girl whose family had been murdered and she was the only survivor. Kayn had been expecting some sort of hostility from her sister’s friends. They sat at their regular table but they stood up one by one to hug her. They were being careful to not to say how much they missed Chloe, but Kayn could feel it. Kayn and Kevin stood in the line up slightly shocked at the outpouring of empathy toward her loss and her long recovery.
Kayn found her eyes drawn towards the corner of the room. There was an extremely beautiful girl sitting there. The word beautiful did not do her justice. This girl was absolutely breathtaking. She had seen her before. Kayn had been under the impression that she was only a fantasy, a figment of Kevin’s wild and naughty imagination. She was real. Kayn swallowed back her intimidation. The stunning girl remained in her seat. She barely acknowledged their presence.
“Who is that girl sitting over there,” Kayn leaned in to whisper in Kevin’s ear.
Kevin knew who she was talking about without even turning to look. He whispered back to Kayn, “Her name’s Lily.”
Lily sat texting on her phone; she glanced up at Kayn, this time with a smile that simmered with condemnation. She was miraculously beautiful. Her midnight black hair glistened in the sunlight streaming through the coffee shop window. Her cat-like eyes stared through Kayn with a look that suggested some sort of disapproval. Her eyes were such a light green they were almost a pastel color, which actually was a little creepy looking. They must be those colored contacts. “She is kind of the new queen bee around here and for some reason she likes me a lot,” Kevin preened. He gave Kayn a look that clearly said, See; girls think I’m hot now. He draped his arm over Kayn’s shoulder as if to state, I like you best, without actually saying the words. Kevin kissed her on the hair in a very familiar she’s my pal kind of move. Kayn’s feeling of floating through new romantic territory with Kevin had been temporarily snuffed out by being publically shoved back into the friend zone. This Lily girl had a really strange vibe. She felt important and a little bit dangerous. Kayn felt territorial and she fought the urge to grab Kevin’s hand to see what his reaction would be to publicly holding her hand. She decided that it was probably not the greatest idea, and today would be full of enough drama without adding more to her pile. Kayn, as uneducated as she was in the romance department, was not an idiot. She needed to stop moving ten steps ahead of herself. They had kissed a few times. It might have only been a big deal to her.
Kevin passed Kayn her coffee and then held the diner door open for her. He was always going to be her friend. She had to let go of the ridiculous worry that was bouncing around between her ears. This was why dating your best friend wasn’t a good idea. It was like starting on date one hundred. What were the rules here? How was she supposed to act? Hell, Kayn had never even been out on a real date.
Kevin half hugged her as they crossed the street and said,” Good luck on test number one.” He kissed her hair again.
She said, “You too.” What in the hell was with this hair kissing thing?
Kayn attempted to slip down the main hallway unnoticed, but was stopped repeatedly for random hugs and condolences from people with whom she had never before shared a single conversation in her life.
Sitting through each of her tests that day she realized how easy everything would now be for her. Every decision, every test answer Kayn could hear—a room full of thought and as long as she kept pace she could check her answers with the majority to make sure that she aced every question. Some people would call it cheating, but her own thoughts had become so jumbled with everyone else’s it was like she had no choice but to listen. She needed to learn how to tune out certain voices and hoped that that would be one of the things that she would learn in time.
With her test finished, she sat watching Kevin struggling with an answer. Could she talk to him and tell him through her thoughts without him being freaked out, or would he just not hear her as she attempted to communicate with him? What question was he on? Kayn wondered. Kayn tried to hear just his thoughts over the jumble of thoughts in the room. Kevin was a pretty quiet thinker. No other person in the room had a quiet thought process. Kevin, she thought his name and smiled as she touched her head in the spot he had kissed her earlier that morning. She could hear him now over the rest of the confusion. Kevin was reading the same question over and over again He was getting frustrated with his lack of an answer. The answer is C. Kevin listen to me; the answer is C, she thought.
He turned and looked at her. Had Kayn just told him an answer? She is sitting too far away. Someone must have said that aloud, he thought, hey, but it looks right. I’ll go with that, and then he was suddenly unstuck and doing fine.
Kayn noticed that Lily had passed him a note. She slipped it onto his paper. Kevin looked up and smiled at her and stuck the note in his pocket. Kayn was finished with her test. She was listening to Kevin’s thoughts. He was flattered and curious. He wanted to know what was on that note. Had something been going on between these two, and for how long? Kayn wondered. She had basically come back from the dead. She had been as lost as the rest of her family. Maybe she had interrupted a growing relationship between them. If that was the case, she understood the anger simmering beneath the surface of Lily’s fake smile.
Kevin had turned into a seriously hot guy in her absence. She wished for his face full of acne and scrawny body to come back. Then she took a moment and thought, that is not fair, and took her wish back. Better safe than sorry. Who knew the extent of her constantly appearing gifts?
After everything that Kevin had done for her, how could she ever wish him anything but happiness even if that meant that he found it with someone else? Kayn resigned herself to grow up about these feelings she was having, reciting in her head, it was only a kiss. Just a few mind blowing kisses, that’s all it was. He is your friend. Kayn stood up and walked out of the classroom without even glancing in Kevin’s direction. She could still hear his thoughts. He thought it was strange that she left without looking at him. Had she seen Lily pass him the note? Was she jealous? Kayn bumped into a boy she had known since elementary school. Jesse was his name. She couldn’t remember what his last name was. She stammered her apologies, as she darted past him and out of Kevin’s thought range.
~
Kevin stood up and walked over and placed his test on the teacher’s desk. Smiling as he walked out of the room, expecting to see Kayn waiting in the hall, it was Lily standing there, looking insanely beautiful today.
“So did you read it?” she asked smiling, closing the space between them, making the intimate nature of their encounter in the hallway visible to anyone who happened by.
“Not yet,” Kevin answered. He smiled because he found it surprisingly easy to talk to this girl in particular.
“Look at the note now, Kevin. I’ll get it for you.” Lily smiled, slipped her hand extra deeply into Kevin’s jean pocket causing him to squirm a little.
“I can get it,” he choked, in a pitch a few octaves above his normal one.
“I got it,” she said as she unfolded it and handed it to him, smiling seductively.
“It’s a poem?” he replied as he looked at the paper.
Kevin began to read Lily’s note. The words were in another language. He for some reason knew how to pronounce the foreign text. He even knew the words were Greek, yet did not know what the words meant. Lily smiled at him as he attempted to read the words. They seemed dark and ominous, not sexy in the least.
“What does this mean?” he questioned Lily. “Is this a joke? Are you filming me saying something messed up in another languag
e for YouTube?” I probably said I love a good donkey show.”
Lily said, “You see dead people. Those words will help you create personal boundaries. Try to remember them. They might come in handy someday.”
Kevin said, “How do you know I see dead people?”
She turned and walked away and glanced back at him, “Can you see the future yet?”
Kevin replied, “No, I can’t … Who are you?”
Lily took a lighter out of her pocket and said, “A Friend.” She walked down the hallway flicking the lighter. She lit the note on fire inside the hallway and tossed it into a garbage can as she passed by.
He followed her hips with his eyes as they swayed down the hall and said, “What in the hell is going on?”
The fire alarm went off causing the students to giggle, squeal, and scramble around. He watched her seemingly evaporate into thin air from halfway down the hall. Kevin ran down the hallway to where she had been standing. He looked in each direction; she was gone. Kevin gave his head a shake because evaporating into thin air was of course impossible. He stood there for a second as other students scrambled to exit the school for what most of them probably assumed was a fire drill. Kevin was the only one left standing in the hallway. The principal turned the corner and signaled Kevin with one finger.
He hissed, “Did you see what happened here?”
“Not a thing,” Kevin replied. The principal raced by without any further questions. Kevin laughed; everyone knew Kevin Smith would never even contemplate jay walking.
~
Everything was magnified, from the voices in the hall to the buzzing of the fluorescent lighting in the bathroom. Kayn suspected her emotions were also amped up. She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Why was she over thinking everything? She felt a little bit unhinged today like she was going to do, or say something that was going to wreck everything. She was being paranoid. Kevin Smith was not an awkward, dorky, little guy anymore and she was not his only option. He was undeniably hot now. Why wouldn’t girls flirt with him? She really had to get over it. She couldn’t turn into a psycho every single time someone began to flirt with him. She would be taking up residence in the psych ward within a few weeks. She was confused over the status of their relationship
Kayn had rushed all the way to the bathroom after the test in a panic. She had to pull herself together. She left the bathroom and started on her way back to the classroom to meet up with her best friend. She came around the corner and witnessed him being publicly fondled by the hot girl from the coffee shop. There was something about that girl. Her beauty felt dangerous. She had to compose herself. He is your friend. You are only upset because you kissed him, and you jumped way ahead of yourself. That girl is just insanely intimidating. She watched as Lily lit the note, Kevin had read, on fire setting off the fire alarm. She then walked away from him and disappeared into thin air.
Kayn blinked and looked again. No, she had actually vanished. The fire alarm went off, and they were forced to exit the building. She walked with the herd of students to the meeting place. She could see Kevin standing in a group of people. He smiled at her and waved her over to him. Kayn decided to pretend that she hadn’t seen him. A large part of her wanted to stroll over there and beat him senseless with the binder she was holding. They were signaled by one of the teachers that it was safe to go back inside.
She walked down the hallway towards her next test. Everyone was already sitting down. She stood there for a second, and frowned at where Lily was sitting—she had taken Kayn’s seat in front of Kevin. Kevin kept looking at her and smiling. He was worried about her. She smiled back at him to assure him that she was okay. She didn’t want him to fail his test. What was she going to say? Hey, I think the hot girl that hits on you all the time. She might be some kind of immortal being that has come to take me away?
Lily kept turning around to give her smug little smiles during the test, so she grabbed her books and moved to an empty desk closer to the front of the classroom. She needed to pass the test—not only pass it, but ace it. She needed to at least attempt to graduate from high school before the shit hit the fan. She finished her test and was gathering up her books when she was smoked in the back of the head with a heavy textbook. She was stunned for a second.
She stammered, “What in the hell?" She spun around.
The puzzled boy sitting behind her started to apologize, “Oh God, I am so sorry—I don’t know what happened. It must have slipped out of my hands as I was standing up or something.”
Lily grinned at her and winked. She knew Lily had somehow arranged to have a book chucked at her head. That completely psychotic Bitch … She was done with this skank. Kayn had put up with the flirting and the dirty looks. She had put up with more than enough of this bitches attitude. She stared at Lily’s coffee in her fury and it exploded all over her, and her test.
While Lily was laughing amidst the classroom’s confusion over how her coffee cup had exploded, Kayn grabbed her books and fled from the room. Her heart was beating so fast she could barely catch her breath. She had just publically exploded some mean girl’s coffee. A part of her was elated she had won one for the nerd girls, but another part knew it was wrong. It was dangerous. Kayn just wanted to get the hell out of there.
She ran down the hallway and burst through the front doors of the school. In front of her was the group of jocks that she usually scurried by. She started thinking, do not see me. I’m not really here. She started to run by the group of hot guys but Jesse stopped her.
“Wait,” he said sweetly, gently cupping his hand around her arm to keep her from escaping. “Talk to me for a second.” His eyes suggested that he really was intent on speaking to her so she stopped and willed herself to be a tiny bit normal.
Kayn met his eyes with a sudden feeling of confidence. She said, “Long time no see.” Her whole life, all the way back to elementary school, Jessie had been her crush. He was the only other boy besides Kevin that she had ever kissed. He had his head shaved bald most of the time, but was so good looking it totally worked for him. In five years he hadn’t spoken a word to her once. He put his arm around her in an attempt to move their conversation somewhere more private.
“I’m so sorry about your family, really sorry,” Jesse apologized with raw emotion in his eyes. “I thought about you a lot but never had the guts to go and see you when you woke up in the hospital. We hadn’t spoken to each other in years.”
Kayn replied, “We are speaking to each other right now.”
“Yes, we are. I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you. I was pulling for you the whole time you were in the hospital,” Jesse said. He stroked his thumb on her arm that he gently grasped with one hand so she couldn’t leave the conversation. He questioned, “What’s the deal with you and Smith? Are you together now?”
Kayn said, “Honestly, it’s been a pretty confusing day.” Kayn’s heart raced. She stood there, frankly a little perplexed, thinking that she had stumbled into a parallel universe today. It had to be some alternate reality, because boys did not know that she existed in her version of reality.
“Well if you ever find that you are not confused anymore. We should go for coffee, and catch up,” Jesse said. He freed her arm from his stimulating grasp. She watched in astonishment as he took out his cell phone.
“Chloe, gave me your number last year; see … look,” he showed her name complete with an XO beside it.
“I wanted to ask you out a long time ago,” he declared.
In Kayn’s mind, this changed everything. He genuinely liked her. Wow, someone liked her even before all of this had begun.
“I will text you and give you my number,” Jesse said with a flirty smile.
“For sure,” She replied with a confused smile. He texted her before she even walked away. She wasn’t invisible anymore She looked back at him and said, “I have it.”
Kayn noticed Kevin watching the conversation from the doorway. He slipped by the crowd and mad
e his way to the car. Kayn left Jesse standing at the doorway holding up his cell phone.
He yelled after her, “I’ll be waiting.”
She was beaming as she arrived at Kevin’s car. Kayn rapped on the window as he comically banged his head on the steering wheel, saying, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Kevin peered up at her.
“If you’re finished beating yourself up, can you still give me a ride home?” Kayn teased through his partially opened window.
“So how was school?” Kevin questioned. He looked down at the steering wheel obviously afraid of her answer.
“It was good, I guess. Things have changed a lot since I left,” Kayn answered.
Chapter 13
Forgiven and Forgotten
They rode home with a detached uncomfortable silence. They made it all the way home without uttering a word to each other. She wished Kevin hadn’t gotten his license. If they had been walking home, they would be lying in the grass talking things out.
“What are your plans for the next few hours?” Kevin shot out in an attempt to clear the air that hung thick and strained between them.
“I was thinking about going for a run. Want to come?” Kayn asked, with hope that a few minutes of talking would fix the uncomfortable mess otherwise known as her first day back at school.
“That actually sounds great,” Kevin’s eyes met Kayn’s. A hopeful spark seemed to ignite between the pair as they exited the car.
“You can borrow shorts from Matty. He’s not home. There are some in the folded clothes on his bed.”
“Okay, be right back,” Kevin ran up the stairs with a skip in his step and a giant smile on his face.
Kayn ran into the kitchen and grabbed water for them both and drank a quick glass of orange juice. She darted into the laundry room and stripped down. She needed to change into shorts and tank top. They were still in the dryer. Kayn was down to her thong underwear and nothing else when Kevin opened the laundry room door.
