“I was wondering if you still came home.”
“Hey, Kyle,” I smiled warmly. It was good to hear his voice. Not in the, oh my god, I love you! sense. It was more of a cozy sort of voice. The one I remembered when he’d come in and tuck us in as little girls. Kyle was nothing more than a father figure to me then. I felt the same way I did about my own father. I went to Kyle just like I would my dad. I would call him if the chain came off my bike and my dad wasn’t home. I asked him to get me a drink, or for a couple bucks when I forgot my lunch money. That was the voice I was hearing. The comforting, crawl in bed you two, voice. Oh how I’d love to be seven, crawling in bed with Gia again, princess nightgowns and our dolls, wearing matching pajamas.
“How are you, Mack?” That was the dangerous, Jesus, wrap me in your arms voice.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, looking back at my house. I knew things were strained between our parents, too. Nothing was ever really said or brought to attention. It was said, just not with words, with the tension in the atmosphere. Sort of like me and Gia. We silently blamed each other just like they did.
“Oh, just hanging out. You look good.”
“Thank you,” I said, flipping through the three envelops again. “You just stopping by for the mail?” I asked, trying to make conversation. When did that happen? I could always talk to Kyle.
“No, it’s been changed for a while. I had to fly in and sign some papers for your dad.”
“My dad?”
“Yeah, you better talk to him about that. How long you home for? I want to see you, just to talk. I want to know how you are, what you’ve done with your life.”
“I’m fine, Kyle. Things are starting to look up. We don’t need to do that.”
“Please, Kenzie? Just meet me for an hour.”
“Fine, I’ll tell my parents I’m going to visit some friends or something. Meet me down at the point at seven.”
That was another one of those nights, the ones that are permanently burned into your brain. It was cold, freezing ass cold. I don’t know why I even had them with me, maybe that’s what planted the seed. I slipped on the pink satin thongs, thinking about how much Kyle loved me in them. I snorted, shaking my head at the thought of Gia and me picking out expensive thongs together. If she only knew.
I wore tightly fitted jeans, a white, button up shirt with wide cuffs, and black, biker, knee boots. I loved the way this dog color belt looked around my tiny waist. It wasn’t that tiny because I worked at it. I can’t consciously take credit for my looks. I had a hard time eating most days, and I walked to work every day because it was quicker than driving. Anyone could have my body with my lifestyle.
“Okay, I’ll see you guys later. Don’t wait up,” I said, clasping my earring, calling to my parents.
“You look nice. I’m glad to see you doing something. You look happy,” my dad smiled. I smiled, too. It had been a while since we all did that. It felt good. Maybe had I stayed home that night, Skyped with AJ the way I’d planned, things would have stayed on the right path.
I tapped the steering wheel of my dad’s car nervously, waiting to see headlights. Whistling, I looked around, debating on getting the hell out of there. Holding my breath, I shut the car off when the reflection shined through the rearview mirror. I felt better climbing into his SUV than him getting into my dad’s car for whatever stupid reason.
“How’s Gia?” I asked, sliding in. I needed to keep the ball in my court. If I gave it to him for a second, I’d lose.
“She’s okay. What have you been doing?”
“Working, that’s about it.” That wasn’t a lie. I was happily busy. “Are you seeing Gia for Christmas?”
“Yeah, I’ll see her. I’m sorry, Kenz. I would change it if I could. You know that, don’t you?”
Kyle wasn’t going to discuss Gia. Every time I asked about her, he derailed it. I moved on, assuming it best to let it rest. It was better I didn’t know how happy Gia was in her perfect suburbia house, happy little family, and flawless husband. I was better off not knowing. It wasn’t going to change anything anyway. Let bygones be bygones.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, looking down at my hands, holding my cell phone.
“Spend the night with me.”
I laughed, feeling my heart drop.
“I’m serious, Mack. We’ll stay at the house.”
“I can’t go there.”
“Okay, we’ll get a room. Just one more time, Kenzie. Please. You have no idea how much I miss you, how much I think about you, and how much I wish things could be different. Stay with me, Mack,” he whispered, begging.
“Kyle, I’m with someone now. I’m happy for the first time in a long time. Please don’t ask me to do this.”
“I have to, Kenzie. I want you. I need you tonight,” he said, taking my hand. Damnit. Why did he have to go and touch me? I was doomed. Hell, who am I trying to fool. I was doomed the moment I looked up and saw him at his mailbox. The exact moment that I looked into his brown eyes and perfect lips.
I turned to look at my dad’s car and clicked the key fob. The lights beeped twice, matching the sound of the horn. Kyle started his car and I followed him through the gates of hell—again.
We really didn’t talk much. That wasn’t the emotional connection either of us wanted. As soon as we were in the room, I pushed him back on the bed, and straddled his waist. Tugging my shirt from my jeans, he flipped me over him and kissed me. The emotional charges sizzling between us were real. I was falling. That’s how it felt. I could picture my eyes being closed while I fell, never landing. I reached around him, unzipping my boots and toed them to the floor. Kyle slowly unbuttoned my shirt, sinking his teeth to my bare stomach while his hands explored my hips, my legs, my ribs, they were everywhere except my throbbing clitoris, thirsty for attention. Attention that only AJ should be giving me.
Popping the button, Kyle slid the zipper down, finding my aching clit. My hips thrust into his fingers, wanting the friction. Sliding me out of my jeans, I lifted my hips, helping him. He rolled me to my side, bit into my hip and rubbed my ass.
“I love you in these things,” he said, slowly pulling the string from my ass crack. Sliding it to the side, he exposed my already wet sex. I felt the air from the cool hotel room whisper between my legs. I could hear the sound of my wetness when he rubbed his fingers between my lips, messaging it into my slit.
“Fuck, Kyle,” I moaned. I felt his teeth, tugging on my nipple before I even noticed he’d slid my bra to the side. I couldn’t breathe. I was hyperventilating. Something was wrong with the breathable air in that room. I was going to complain. No. No. I was going to come. Jesus. I was going to come.
Kyle pulled the string, placing it back to its rightful place. I felt his lips circle my clit at the same time I felt the string being tightened on my ass. The muscle in my ass quivered, liking the sudden attention. Kyle sucked me off, slurping, licking, and tugging on my ridiculously overactive clitoris. My hands reached for anything to grasp. There was nothing. The headboard was fastened to the wall with no spindles.
I chose his hair. My hands grasped his hair and my legs wrapped tightly around his neck. This was it. This was the part that nobody could do, not even AJ. Kyle shoved two fingers deep inside me and pulled his mouth away. Jumping to his knees, he thrashed his hand in and out until my hips climbed, my body gave way, and I let go. Doing just what I remembered he liked, I pulled my lips apart with two fingers, sending three quick bouts half way down the bed. I didn’t moan. I was fucking screaming. That’s what Kyle could do. I was screaming in ecstasy.
Normally he would have come to my mouth with his cock. He didn’t do that. He slid out of his clothes and caressed my body with his. He felt amazing, he belonged there in so many wrong ways. Kyle made slow, passionate love to me, prolonging it for as long as he could. We kissed the entire time and grinded into one another, matching the tempo with our hips.
Kyle was also the only one who I could do this with, to
o. I curled my naked body close to his and we ate chips and dip, watching black and white romance movies. AJ hated them. I tried to have one of these nights with him. He turned it to basketball and I read.
Kyle and I watched the old movie, A Patch of Blue about a blind girl who fell in love with a black man. It was one of my favorite old movies.
“I haven’t watched one of these things in forever,” I explained, loving the feel of being in his arms again, just like it had been when I was younger and couldn’t sleep. I think Kyle listened for me to get up when I was staying with Gia. We would snuggle just like this in his own house, right under Melanie’s nose.
Kyle made love to me again once the movie was over and then again before we parted ways. Just like we had before I left for college, Kyle and I promised we would never see each other again after that night. That was the last time we were going to allow ourselves to be around one another. We couldn’t. It was another one of those things that was best left in the past. As long as we could get away with it, it would never be a past.
I never told AJ what I did, and I did what I could do to pretend it never happened, that Kyle didn’t exist. We were happy. I might have even mentioned AJ to my mother a time or two. She was ecstatic, even when I tried to tell her it wasn’t serious.
Morning sickness doesn’t always hit the first trimester. I was three months pregnant before I found out. I was in the office, trying to pay attention to a slide show one of the reporters was showing me. I felt the weakness travel from my toes to my stomach. Covering my mouth I darted to the bathroom where I deposited the first sign of little Cara growing inside me. AJ was so happy. He was on the phone telling his mother before we ever left the doctor’s office. This wasn’t in my plans. I didn’t want to be pregnant. I couldn’t be pregnant. Things weren’t right. Not yet. I needed more time. I went home and drank wine that day. A lot of wine. AJ had to do the coverage for the local hockey game. He reluctantly left me sick on the sofa. I was over the pregnancy sickness. This was a sickness I couldn’t stop, and maybe the wine counteracting with my meds. This sickness started years ago.
The weeks passed, turning into months, and I had a tiny person growing in my belly. I could feel her move. Pregnancy for me wasn’t like most women. I had to be carefully monitored and the low doses of medication to keep me stable and my baby safe wasn’t enough. I missed a lot of work during those months, something I never did. I didn’t miss because I was sick. I missed because I was crazy and over the moon hypersexual. I guess the hormones mixed with my condition intensified my cravings.
Poor AJ didn’t get a break. If he wasn’t inside my pants my fingers were. I couldn’t help it. It was an urge that I couldn’t control. I had more orgasms in those few months than I did my entire life I think. AJ was great. He tried to keep me satisfied, he just couldn’t keep up. His male parts didn’t recuperate as fast as I needed them to.
I still hadn’t told my mother. AJ was getting upset that I hadn’t told my parents, but he didn’t understand. I didn’t have parents like his. My parents would never be the grandparents every little baby deserved. This baby would hardly know them, just like me. I saw my grandparents once every couple years. I didn’t know them from Adam.
“I’m afraid to leave you,” AJ said after our routine baby doctor visit that had just turned into a nightmare.
“I’m okay. I’m just going to rest for a little bit. Go cover your basketball game. I’m fine. There’s nothing we can do tonight.”
“She’s going to be okay, McKenzie. I promise you. Our baby girl will be perfectly fine.”
I didn’t reply. I smiled up at him, willing the tears to stay put, at least until he was gone.
“Will you call your parents?”
“Yes,” I lied. I couldn’t. Not now.
I got drunk that night. A whole bottle of wine. I was planning on telling my mother, but it was too late, and little Cara was sick. I was scared. I was scared for so many reasons. What had I done now?
She needed more time, she wasn’t ready yet and I was going to be on bed rest for the next three months. A team of doctors would be there waiting to take her the moment she took her first breath. I had never in my life stayed in bed for that long. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of those teens that could sleep half the day away. That was Gia. That girl could break records for how many consecutive hours of sleep she could sleep. I needed to let my mom be here. She would never forgive me. I planned on it. I really did. I was going to call her the next day. She was going to be devastated that I was six months pregnant and hadn’t told her yet.
“You scare me when you call me,” AJ answered his phone on the first ring.
“AJ, something’s wrong,” I cried, doubled over. I couldn’t go to the hospital yet. I was drunk. They would know. I was going to quit right after this bottle. Could you be arrested for child endangerment while you were accommodating a child? This was all my fault. She was sick because of me, and now she was being forced into a world three months early.
I barely got to see her. She was born vaginally thirty minutes after we arrived at the hospital. She was so tiny, and, and, she was a tiny, Gia. There wasn’t a trace of AJ in her sweet little cheeks. She was an Edwards if I ever saw one. AJ was such a trooper. He never left my side, not until she was in my arms. He looked at me with a hurt look, and then down to my very white baby. He knew.
I didn’t even realize I’d been screaming. They took her away. I barely got to see her.
“Bring her back! She’s mine. She’s mine!”
I’m not sure what woke me, the shrill cry from my own voice or Mr. Nichols shaking me. What the hell was I doing under the bed? How did I get here? Why was I screaming?
“Get the fuck out. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
My stomach scraped along ages of grime and grunge while Mr. Nichols slid me out by my ankles. I was crying, clutching little Cara in my arms.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Nichols. I’m so sorry,” I cried over and over. “I’m sorry you lost your little Cara because of me. I’m sorry I did that to you.”
“Did what, McKenzie? Do you even know who the fuck you are anymore?”
Mr. Nichols tried to take Cara from my arms. I screamed the bloodiest, ear piercing, most penetrating scream I could muster. It scared the hell out of me. He wasn’t taking her. I’d lost her once. Nobody was taking her from me again.
“Jesus, okay, okay,” he said, backing up with opened hands. “This is so fucked up. This is not what we’re supposed to be doing. I didn’t bring your stupid ass here to watch you go whacko.”
“You can do what you want. You want to do stuff to me? You can,” I offered, spreading my legs to my open sex. “Look. Look at me, Mr. Nichols.” He didn’t look, he stood and turned away from me. I closed my legs right away. He wasn’t interested. It was at that moment I thought about why I did that. I always made guys look at me down there before sex. Every time. Why?
“Yeah, that’s what I planned. That’s exactly what I was going to do. I was going to ruin your life the way you ruined mine, keep you here for seven years, fuck you in unimaginable ways, and bring you down from your successful city job, your high rise apartment, and your cute little boyfriend. Colton.”
Mr. Nichols had been doing some homework. I stood, realizing I was holding the creepy doll again. I left her on the floor and then moved her to the bed. I shouldn’t take my frustrations out on her. None of this was her fault. “I’ll have the number two with coke.”
“What?!” Mr. Nichols asked with frowned eyebrows.
“Nothing, you were saying?” What the hell was that? Who the hell even said it? Jesus, Mack. Are you trying to get put back in the hospital? Stop. Just don’t think. Stop thinking. You’re making no sense. Just stop. I pep talked myself, trying really hard to hear what Mr. Nichols was saying.
“You both made it so fucking easy. Guess what, Mack? Nobody is fucking looking for you. Nobody cares about you or your fucked up friend.”
“What do y
ou mean? What’s wrong with Gia?” I asked, concerned.
He snorted and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know who’s in the worse shape, her or you.”
“Did you hurt her?” I asked defensively.
He shook his head with a sigh. “Nothing that she didn’t beg for. She’s into the pain shit, who would have guessed?” he asked himself more than me. “Why, Mack?”
“It got out of hand. We didn’t know all this was going to happen. We would have never taken it that far. There’s not a day gone by that I haven’t regretted that decision. It just spread too much, and when the news picked up the story, and the pickets and riots started, and Gia and I were all over every newspaper and news channel on television. We couldn’t say we lied. We didn’t know what to do.”
“You lied. You sent me to prison for seven years. My daughter is almost thirteen years old. She doesn’t know me. She calls another man daddy, Mack. Do you have any idea what that does to me? You and Gia planned this, you set me up, for what? Grades, your future with Gia? A state championship? Was it worth it, Mack?”
“No,” I said, dropping my head.
“Why?”
His voice held so much desperation. I wanted to make it better for him. I wanted him to have his years back, to erase time and get a replay. He deserved a replay.
“I don’t know, we were young, stupid, we didn’t know what to do after it took off like it did. I’d change it if I could. I promise I would.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a little late for that. Come on, let’s go to the creek.”
I looked back to Cara, wondering if she’d sleep long enough for me to shower. I shook it off, seeing the old doll, plastic arms and legs straight out. Mr. Nichols helped me stay stable. He made Cara not real. I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
Just like I’d always presumed, Mr. Nichols was what I needed to hold me together. Wait. What does that mean? Never mind. I walked around the dingy, spirit infested room in a daze most of the time. My time with Mr. Nichols was the only thing I looked forward to. I don’t know if I would say I was bored, I wasn’t, I don’t think. Cara was enough to keep anyone busy. I was just, lonely I guess. I loved Cara, I just couldn’t handle much more of the Barney song, or the Itzy Bitzy Spider. I was going to go insane soon. Wait. Scratch that last sentence.