by Maya Hughes
Ford piped up. “No freaking way. But I could kill a burger right now.”
“Threes it is,” Preston said, rounding everyone up like a good captain.
The guys headed into the locker room and changed. A quick trip across the parking lot and we piled into a booth at Threes and grabbed an extra table or two. It was deserted since most people had gone home for the break. Loved having the place to ourselves.
I glanced at my phone every so often as the temptation to call Kara crept up. Holding strong, I didn’t tap on her name taunting me from the contacts list. It was too soon, bordering on stalker levels how much I wanted to call her. I put my phone away. Relax.
There was time.
8
Kara
The early morning sun blinded me as I rushed out of the hotel. A white puff of air hung in front of my face. It was decidedly less sexy than it had been the night before.
At least the streets were quiet outside the hotel and there was no one around to see me running in place to keep from freezing my ass off. I slapped my hand against my forehead and winced. He could have been a crazy psycho. I didn’t do the walk of shame ever, but I was sure as hell doing it now.
The doorman hailed a taxi.
My text alert pinged on my phone.
Jason: Stevenson is going to be giving you some extra work this semester.
Me: Okay, so why are you telling me and not Prof. Stevenson
Jason: I thought I’d be a friend and let you know.
I don’t think he knew the definition of the word friend.
Me: Thank you for the information.
Jason: You could be a little grateful.
I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they might permanently face the back of my head. I wasn’t even going to reply to that. Never going on a date with him had been the best decision I’d ever made in my life.
By the time the taxi pulled up in front of my house and I tiptoed inside, I’d talked myself out of a mental health evaluation and chalked the evening up to everything that had happened the day before.
Stress was a hell of a thing. Between my exam and that letter from Angie, it was no wonder I was out of sorts. The automatic coffee maker was running and the smell stopped me in my tracks. Straining to hear any movement, I darted into the kitchen and poured myself a huge mug of coffee. I sloshed some onto my hand and cursed under my breath, shaking the scalding coffee off my skin. No time for any milk or sugar. I sipped on it as I crept up the stairs.
Crossing the threshold to my room, I leaned against the door and groaned at the heavenly smell of coffee. Maybe the caffeine would make its way into my veins through inhalation. The second my bedroom door closed, my parents opened. Mom would be headed downstairs for our Saturday morning family breakfast. It was tradition.
“Kara.” There was a gentle knock at my door.
“Yeah.” I tried to make my voice alert.
“I need to run to the store first to get more eggs for breakfast; we forgot last night. Did you need anything?” Her sweet voice had me cursing myself.
“No, I’m okay.”
“I’m going to make cinnamon rolls, so breakfast will be in a couple hours. If you’re hungry, there are some biscuits down there.”
“Okay, thanks for letting me know.”
Her footsteps retreated from the door. The tension in my body eased up a bit. At least I could pass out for an hour or so. A nap was what I needed. Once the front door closed, I hopped in the shower and threw on my Christmas pajamas. Where Mom found so many matching sets was beyond me, but the soft flannel was what I needed. Reindeer flannels and a big mug of coffee.
I set an alarm on my phone and curled up into a ball, wrapped around my pillow. Letting my eyes close, I groaned into my pillow as images of the night before bombarded me. Heath’s eyes locked onto mine. His hands on my body, and his mouth everywhere. I squeezed my thighs together, but it didn’t stop the ache there. His arms wrapped around me was the last lucid memory before I sank deeper into the softness of my bed.
My alarm blared way too soon after I’d shut my eyes. Groggily I reached out, trying to find my phone so I could snap it in half. Maybe a nap hadn’t been a good idea. I somehow felt worse than I’d felt before sleeping.
My mouth tasted like I’d cleaned the bar floor with my tongue, and the ache between my legs was still there. This was what happened when I went to a hotel room with hot and sexy strangers I’d met at the bar. The smell of cinnamon and sugar wafted under my door, and my stomach grumbled. Black coffee on an empty stomach had been a mistake.
Why had I told him I was a writer? Why hadn’t I said, “Hi, I’m Kara a biochem graduate student on her way to the most boring PhD in the world? Have you ever heard someone’s soul being sucked out while they study ten hours a day? No, well you’re welcome to listen when I go back into the library in a week.”
My fingers itched to grab my composition book and harness these feelings into words, but I couldn’t do that. Not after how many times I’d woken up to Angie’s frantic, early morning, still-drunk-from-the-night-before binge writing sessions.
Absolutely no writing today.
But the words wouldn’t stop flowing through my brain, like they were torturing me for not letting them out onto paper.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and checked the messages. A couple texts from Sam and Anne along with pics of their evening.
There was also one e-mail in my inbox. Things had been slow with the semester break, so I opened it and nearly dropped the phone to the floor when I saw the message. And then it all came rushing back to me. My mom. The e-mail. It was like I’d been trying to hide this from myself.
I’d sent her an e-mail the night before.
Hi Angie,
I hope you really have changed and I’d like to meet you.
Kara
That was it, and her reply had been almost immediate.
Kara!
I was so incredibly happy to hear from you. I’ve missed you so much. I am available whenever you’d like to meet and wherever you’d like to meet. Name the time and date and I’ll be there. I love you so much, and I can’t wait to see you again.
My throat closed as the boot of life pressed down so hard on my chest that filling my lungs was a struggle. I couldn’t even blame it on the drinks. I’d wanted to meet her last night. With Heath, I felt braver than I had before, emboldened to go for it and hash it out. His attitude had rubbed off on me, and I’d sent the message.
But in the light of day, I saw it for the monumentally stupid idea it was. I had a great thing going here. I had a wonderful family, and I wasn’t going to tell them they weren’t enough by agreeing to see her. It wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t ready to open that door to my past when I didn’t even know if I could hold things together in the here and now.
What if I invited her back into my life and she dragged me down again like she did before? What if Carla and Mike thought that they weren’t enough or I wanted the connection with my birth mom because I’d missed out on something with them? I opened the e-mail again and hit “Reply”.
“Kara, are you up?” Mom knocked on my door and opened it.
I tucked my phone under my leg. “Hey, Mom.”
Her broad, warm smile made my decision even easier. I wasn’t going to mess this up and take a chance on someone who’d burned me more than once and whose presence was likely to throw a grenade into my life again.
“I’m about to take the cinnamon rolls out of the oven. You coming down?”
“Definitely.”
My phone pinged on the bed as I got to the door.
“Was that your phone?” Mom stopped. “Do you want to get it?”
“No, I’m sure it’s nothing. I would much rather have some delicious cinnamon rolls than worry about my phone. Can I put on my own icing?” I followed her down the stairs.
“Only after Lauren and your dad have had theirs. The last time you poured first, there was barely any left.”
<
br /> I shrugged my shoulder. “What can I say? It’s all your fault for making that cream cheese icing so delicious.”
“I can always show you how to make it.”
“I don’t think that would be safe. I’d be about five hundred pounds by summer.”
She laughed, and we walked into the kitchen. Dad and Lauren were already filling their plates. There were cinnamon rolls, fresh berries, French toast, eggs and bacon. The breakfast of champions. My queasy stomach grumbled, ready for some real food to settle things down.
I pecked Dad on the cheek.
“You were out late last night.” He smiled at me and took a sip of his coffee.
I filled my plate and pushed aside the small pangs of guilt about staying out all night and not letting them know beforehand.
“I was. We were out late, and I figured it would better to stay at Sam’s instead of coming in late and waking everyone up.” I managed to keep my cringe to a minimum. We didn’t keep secrets, but it seemed like that was all I had lately. It seemed the family ethos of honesty hadn’t been completely instilled in me yet.
And that was what I was afraid of. One day of contact with Angie, and I was already more reckless and irresponsible than I’d been in years.
Everything they’d done for me could be wiped away, and all I’d be left with was who I was before.
“I know you’re an adult now, but make sure you tell us next time, sweetheart. We don’t want to worry about you.” Mom took a sip of her coffee.
“I know. I’m sorry.” The guilt crater got a little deeper.
“We know you’re responsible, but it’s always something in the back of a parent’s mind.” Dad bit into his cinnamon roll, and Lauren stared at me wide-eyed. This was the closest I’d ever come to a talking-to in the house.
“Since Kara’s allowed to have unauthorized sleepovers, does this mean I can have a sleepover at Tracey’s this weekend?” Lauren piped up with hope shining in her eyes.
Without looking up from their plates, Mom and Dad responded with a resounding, “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because Tracey’s mom got her a tattoo for her sixteenth birthday and asked if you wanted to get one too.” Mom’s voice ratcheted up an octave.
“I wasn’t going to get one.” Lauren poked at her eggs and slumped down in her seat.
“Maybe not, but I don’t want to take any chances. Who knows? Maybe you’ll come back home with an eyebrow ring or a belly button piercing.”
Lauren grumbled for the rest of breakfast until Mom offered to take her to the mall. She perked up immediately, stuck her plate in the dishwasher and raced upstairs.
“Do you want to come too, Kara?” Mom picked up Dad’s plate and stuck it in the sink to rinse while he covered the food.
“I’ll hang at home. Get jump start on work for next semester.” I smiled and hurried out before there were any more questions.
With the morning I’d had, being stuck among the Christmas crush at the mall after driving around for hours looking for a spot wasn’t my idea of fun. And there was the cloud over my head, sitting in the center of my bed up in my room. I couldn’t meet Angie. The full breakfast I’d had threatened to rocket straight out of my mouth as I envisioned myself walking up to her in a café or somewhere else neutral, and having her slurred words and stumbling movements send me into a tailspin.
My hands were so clammy I kept wiping them on the bedspread to keep my phone from sliding under my fingers. Every time I read it, I’d erase a line and then erase the whole thing, starting over. Squeezing the bridge of my nose, I went with the first thing that poured out of my head as word vomit. It took me ten drafts to get:
Angie,
I’m sorry. I’m not ready. Meeting with you would not be good for me or my family right now. Maybe in the future.
Kara
My mouth went dry like I’d been snacking on sawdust all afternoon. Closing my eyes, I hit send and turned my phone off. I didn’t want to hear the notification that she’d replied. I should have set up a filter so her message would skip my inbox. It was too late now. I couldn’t go back in.
Maybe I should swear off technology and go back to the old-school paper-and-pen method. Yeah, that sounded like the best way to avoid dealing with this. Staring up at the constellations on the ceiling, I folded my hands over my stomach. Sleep beckoned me.
The constellations Dad had drawn up there for me during tenth grade astronomy sprawled across the entire ceiling. It had taken us nearly a week to get it done. We both left the project at the end of the day covered in paint and laughing uncontrollably. When he tucked me under his arm and wrapped his hand around my shoulder as we looked up at our hard work dotted across my ceiling, I counted that as one of the happiest times in my life.
“I think this will help with your class.” He smiled down at me with flecks of paint all over his skin and closely cropped hair.
“I think it will, Dad.” I’d said it past the golf ball-sized lump in my throat. It was the first time I’d called him that. His eyes crinkled at the sides, and he squeezed my shoulder, resting his head against mine. “How about we get some ice cream?”
He hadn’t had to ask me twice. We went out to get ice cream and went over the constellations. The smile was permanently on my face. A few people stared a bit at us, a mismatched pair, but neither of us cared. Father and daughter out for some tasty ice cream after a long project had been completed.
From that day on, he was Dad. I’d never even had a dad up until that point. Whoever the sperm donor was, he’d left my mom before I was even born. Mike was the only dad I ever needed. When I’d opened my grades with Mom, Dad, and Lauren standing beside me at the computer, my heart had pounded and my hands had been so sweaty I didn’t think I’d be able to move the mouse.
As the page loaded, I’d wiped my sweaty palms on my pants. Eyes wide, I’d barely caught a glimpse of the screen before they cheered behind me, tugging me up into a group embrace. Closing my eyes, I’d sunk into their arms, basking in the glow and energy of their happiness that I’d done it. After all the late nights and struggles, I’d gotten an A- in that course that marking period.
They’d worked so hard to get me to this point. I’d wanted this fellowship to show them how far I’d come. Mom had gotten a prestigious history fellowship when she’d started her PhD program. I wanted them to be proud of me. No matter what I did, I always got that gnawing pit in my stomach that I needed to keep impressing, keep proving and showing them that I was really their daughter. So one day they wouldn’t wake up and realize they’d made a mistake taking me in. Some days that overwhelming, chest-crushing anxiety made it hard to breathe, like one day they’d find out I really didn’t belong.
I couldn’t risk undermining my real family for my unstable birth mother.
My nap earlier hadn’t cut it. The effects from the night before had mostly worn off, but I couldn’t help wishing I was back in Heath’s bed. His bright summer day smell in the middle of winter made me think of days at the pool and bonfires on the beach. I was glad I hadn’t gotten his number. If I had, I’d be calling him up, ready to feel everything he’d made me feel the night before and wash away this tiredness in the crashing waves of his body and the riptide of his eyes.
I was ready to dive into the deep end with him. My phone vibrated under my pillow, and I tugged it out. Unknown number. There was a sharp spark of dread that it might be Angie. I hesitantly tapped ‘accept’ and lifted the phone to my ear.
9
Heath
I’d only lasted about twelve hours from when I’d last seen her, but it had been worth it. The thoughts of waiting four more days to see her again sucked, but with Christmas over, there hadn’t been a time we could find that worked.
She’d said yes and agreed to see me again. I’d been smiling all through opening presents with my mom and our trips to the shelters serving food. I worked hard to figure out how to make mine and Kara’s next night together even more memorab
le.
My hands were practically numb after peeling and mincing nearly fifty bulbs of garlic. I stood in the kitchen chopping onions like I was serving a small battalion in the military. The double ovens were put to good use, crammed full of trays of holiday favorites.
My dreams had been filled with visions of Kara. Every shower was an exercise in how long I could hold out before I wrapped a soapy hand around my cock, closed my eyes, and recalled everything about that night in vivid detail. Her skin, her touch, her moans. I snapped myself out of it. Getting a boner in front of my mom was not on my to-do list today.
Kara: I still can’t believe Duckie ended up alone. Totally messed up! Same with Brian. He definitely should have ended up with Molly Ringwald.
Me: There were only two girls in detention! Who else was he supposed to end up with? The janitor? And John Hughes made her end up with Blane after test audiences hated the original ending
Kara: People suck sometimes.
Me: No argument there
Kara: So you’re seriously holding out on me about our date?
Me: Not much to tell
She’d been trying to weasel details out of me since I’d asked her out again.
Kara: …
Me: Seriously. Low key, fun, at my place. That’s all you need to know.
Kara: Alrighty. Ok, my mom is calling me to finish helping her wrap up 5000 cookies she didn’t give away before Christmas. Talk later?
Me: Of course
My eyes watered against the stinging burn that only got worse with each chop. I ran my sleeve across my face, trying to mop it all up. It only made the sting worse. Squeezing my eyes shut, I contemplated getting some goggles from the garage.
“Please don’t drip your bodily fluids into the onions.” Mom laughed, kicking the fridge closed and carrying a massive bowl filled with dough.
“You know what happens when I cut onions. Why do you make me do it every year?” I finished the last of the forty onions and dumped them into the huge pot on the stove.
