Stevie didn’t offer to carry her bags, which
Kyra took as a good sign. For weeks, everyone had been tiptoeing
around her as if she was a cracked porcelain doll. But now she must
look well enough for Stevie to deem her fit to carry her own
luggage. Luckily, it wasn’t much. She tossed the backpack over her
shoulder and looked up at her house.
The exterior was finally done. The mint
green paint thrilled her. It looked inviting and
cheerful—everything that Kyra needed right then. The shutters were
a deep purple, which complimented the green perfectly. All the
delicate scrolls and twisted wood were painted in white to set them
off against the house. It was beautiful.
“I feel like I’m walking into Willy Wonka’s
Chocolate Factory. I can’t believe I’m going to have to live next
to this for the rest of my life.”
Kyra wrapped her arm around Stevie. “Oh,
come on. It’s awesome, and you know it.”
“Whatever.”
Stevie helped her get settled, but Kyra
could tell she was lingering. When she offered to help dust, Kyra
knew she was worried about her. “Go on, Stevie.” Kyra laughed. “I’m
fine. Seriously. It’s okay.”
“Are you sure?” Stevie frowned. She looked
around. “Will anything in here trigger you?”
“If it does, I’ll call Dr. Clemens.”
“Okay…” Stevie bit her lip. “Well, remember,
no surfing until the bandages are off.”
Kyra looked down at her arms, but they were
covered by her hoodie. Some of the cuts were so deep that they were
still wrapped in bandages to cover the stitches holding the flesh
of her arm together. “I remember.”
“Good. Well, I’m coming over for dinner, and
we’re eating meat. You need your strength.”
“Fine,” Kyra said, smiling at her friend.
She pulled her in for a hug. After a quick moment, she tried to
step away, but Stevie clung to her.
“Never again,” she whispered. Kyra couldn’t
see her friend’s tears, but she heard them in her voice. “Don’t
ever do that again. You’re all I got, and you’re supposed to be the
good one, okay? Leave this shit for me to do.”
Kyra hugged Stevie back, squeezing her
tight, even though it made the wounds pull in her arms. “How about
neither of us do anything like this again?”
“Sounds good. But I’m still entitled to some
small form of meltdowns. Just nothing Chernobyl-scale like
this.”
Kyra laughed. “Okay, fine. I’ll agree to
those terms.”
“I love you,” Stevie whispered into the side
of Kyra’s hair.
“I love you too.”
Finally, she released Kyra. When she stepped
back, she looked cool and collected as always. She pulled her
sunglasses down onto her face. “See ya later, alligator.”
When Stevie left, Kyra was once again alone.
She walked through her house, opening windows to air out the stuffy
smell. She noticed Hale had put all her mother’s albums on the
bookshelf in the living room. Everything was pristine upstairs. Her
bed was neatly made, and the lamp was replaced. Kyra trailed a
finger down the side of her chin, where a few stitches held
together the cut made by the shattering glass.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket. Her
finger hovered over the text button. All she wanted to do was text
Hale, but she wasn’t sure. All she could think about was seeing him
in Cade’s arms that night in the hospital. Like she needed to heal
and restore herself, he probably needed time for the same after
what she’d done to him. Plus, she had a lot of therapy in front of
her, and she doubted Hale wanted a part of that.
A knock came from downstairs. Instantly, she
hoped it was Hale, but she knew better. With a sigh, she walked
back downstairs.
She opened the door and found Florence
standing on her porch. If her vision could’ve turned red with
anger, it would have. She tried to slam the door in her
grandmother’s face, but Florence put her hand on the door.
“Wait, please,” Florence said,
stammering.
“What do you want?” Kyra hissed. She was
trembling. Tears pricked in the back of her eyes, which only made
her angrier.
Florence cleared her throat. She looked as
nervous as Kyra was angry. When she finally met Kyra’s eyes, she
saw the normal hostility wasn’t there. “I heard about your…your
accident.” Kyra snorted at Florence’s words, but the woman hurried
on. “But I came over to say that I’m sorry about that day you came
over. You caught me off-guard, and I…I just…” Florence looked away,
taking a deep breath. “It’s just so hard.”
“If you’re looking for sympathy or something
from me, you’ve come to the wrong house,” Kyra said, refusing to
feel sorry for this woman. “Have you ever thought that maybe it’s
hard, because disowning your daughter and granddaughter was the
wrong thing to do? Maybe it weighs heavily on your conscious
because it was a bad fucking decision.”
Florence cringed at her language, but she
didn’t mention it. “I think you’re right,” she said so quietly that
Kyra had to lean forward to hear. The words surprised her.
“Then why did you do it?”
Florence’s light blue eyes swam with tears
when she looked up. Kyra realized that Florence was holding a small
wooden box in her hands. “I was so angry. You can only be that
angry with someone you love the most. You know exactly the right
way to cut someone down when you love them that much. So, I cut her
down,” Florence breathed, the words shaky. “I cut her down and
kicked her out.” Her voice cracked and the tears streamed down her
wrinkled face. “When she needed love the most, I only gave her
hate, just like you said. I still loved her, but I thought anger
was the best response. So I broke her. And I… I think… I think I
killed her.”
Kyra didn’t hate her grandmother so much
that she didn’t feel the slightest bit of empathy for her. She was
glad Florence had some remorse for her actions. But she still
didn’t invite her in. This was her mother’s house, and only love
for her was allowed inside. “She killed herself, Florence.”
She shook her head, and for an awful moment,
Kyra thought the older woman thought herself capable of murder.
Until she spoke again, and Kyra’s defenses crumbled. “She died of a
broken heart. I did that to her. I broke her.”
Kyra couldn’t hold back the tears anymore.
But they weren’t angry tears or tears of forgiveness. She stepped
out of the shield of her house and embraced Florence. The box she
held pressed into Kyra’s abdomen, but she didn’t care. Her
grandmother seemed to wither in her arms. She couldn’t wrap her
arms around Kyra because of the box, but she put her head on Kyra’s
shoulder and sobbed as Kyra sobbed.
“I was…” Florence’s words hitched and
cracked around her tears. “I was her mother. I was the only one who
could love her through it, and I broke her down instead. I was her
mother
.”
“Shhh,” Kyra said, rubbing Florence’s back.
“She knew you loved her.”
“You can’t know that,” she whispered.
“You were her mother. Of course she knew you
loved her. And she loved you.”
“I said awful, horrible things. Things a
mother should never say to her daughter. I told her she would die
young and alone.”
Kyra stiffened at the words. Florence was
right; those were words that should never be spoken to daughters.
Actually, Florence was right about a lot. As a mother, she was
supposed to love her daughter through the hard times. A mother’s
love was the only kind of love that should never falter. Kyra
didn’t understand Florence, and she knew she would be angry with
her for a long time, but she pitied her.
Kyra’s shirt was soaked with her
grandmother’s remorse. It was years too late, and the woman was
crying on the wrong daughter’s shoulder, but it was still remorse.
She kept consoling Florence until she could straighten and wipe
underneath her eyes where her careful makeup had run.
She sniffed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t come over
here to be a blubbering mess. I just wanted to give you some of her
things.” Florence held up the box, offering it out to Kyra.
It was a little cedar chest with tiny
flowers drawn onto the lid. She took it from Florence and clutched
it tight in her grip. “Are you sure?”
Florence nodded. “I don’t feel right keeping
them anymore.”
“Well…thank you.” The silence stretched out,
and Kyra shifted awkwardly. She didn’t know what else to say, and
no matter what, the woman wasn’t coming into her house.
But Florence seemed to need to say something
else. She visibly steeled herself before she met Kyra’s eyes again.
“I know this is probably the last thing you want to do, but would
you come to her grave with me on Sunday?”
Kyra clenched her jaw. Everything in her
screamed to say no, but Florence looked so raw, like she’d been
split open before Kyra. “Sure.”
Florence’s smile was shaky. “Thank you,
Kyra.”
“You’re welcome.”
She turned to leave, making her way
carefully down the steps. Kyra stood on her porch. On the road,
Garlan sat in the car. He turned it on as Florence approached and
lifted his hand in a silent greeting. Kyra waved back, offering her
grandfather a tiny smile. She knew he’d been a big part in
Florence’s reformation.
She paused halfway through Kyra’s front
garden and turned back around, shielding her eyes against the sun.
“You’re a lot like her, you know.” Kyra tensed at the words,
thinking Florence was going to add something hateful. “You have all
her best parts, and I can see you struggle with the same
depression. Don’t let it take you like it took her.” Florence was
crying again. She swiped at the tears as if she was frustrated with
them. “If you need any help or need anyone to talk to, I’m here.
I’m here,” Florence repeated mostly to herself before she turned
back to the car.
Kyra didn’t wait for her to leave. She went
inside and closed the door. With the box in her hands, she slid
down the door onto the floor, feeling as if she’d been wrung from
the inside out. With a deep breath, she opened the box.
There wasn’t much inside, which she was
thankful for. She had Dr. Clemens’s number pulled up and ready to
hit send in case something upset her. But the box was just a few
pieces of jewelry, a medal from a science fair, and a diary.
Kyra knew better than to try and read it
now. She closed the lid on the box and set it beside her. There was
plenty of time for that later. After a few minutes, Kyra stood and
went into her living room. She put the box next to the albums. It
looked good there, she thought. And it could stay there until she
was ready.
thirty-nine
T
hat evening, Kyra
heard another knock on the door, followed by Stevie tromping in.
“Hey, dork,” she called, her voice ringing off the walls of the
house.
“I’m in the kitchen!” Kyra shouted back,
smiling at the familiar comfort of her home and Stevie’s humor. She
finished planting the last little herb container. She’d purchased a
kit today along with some new plants. Stevie had tried to water her
flowers while she was gone, but, well, Stevie would be Stevie, in
all her forgetful glory.
“I hope you’re ready to swallow some meat,”
Stevie said in a sing-song voice as she came into the kitchen.
“‘Cause I brought pepperoni!”
“Very funny, Stevie,” Kyra said, rolling her
eyes. She looked over her shoulder as Stevie deposited the pizza on
the counter and hopped up next to it. Cade walked in the door
behind her.
“Hey, Kyra. I hope you do not mind…” Cade’s
voice had never sounded so shy and unsure around her. She still
didn’t know how he felt about her, but she thought it was a good
sign that he’d come over.
“No!” Kyra said, walking over to hug him.
“It’s totally fine.”
“You sure about that?”
Kyra froze, her eyes darting back to the
kitchen door. It was Hale who’d spoken.
Hale…
He stood in the doorway, hesitating and even
more uncertain than his brother had been. His hair was a bit
longer, and Kyra could tell he had some new tattoos that covered
the tops of his hands. He looked tanner, as if he’d been in the
water more lately. Somehow, it looked as though his muscles were
even bigger. But his beautiful eyes watched her and waited.
“Of course,” she said. She had to clear her
throat. “Thanks for coming.”
“Oh, shitballs. I left the…uh…the water over
at my house.” Stevie hopped off the counter. “Cade, come with me to
get it.”
“But I am sure Kyra has—”
“Her water is gross! I said come with me.”
Stevie grabbed his arm and propelled him out of the house.
Just like that, Kyra was alone with Hale.
Her eyes drifted back to him. “Hey,” she said again, almost
whispering.
“Hey.”
She took a deep breath. “Hale, I’m
sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” he asked, his
expression dark as he slowly walked into the kitchen.
“Because you had to find me like that. I
know how badly that must have hurt you,” Kyra said. She knew from
her therapy she shouldn’t apologize for hurting herself. She just
had to accept what she’d done and move on with forgiveness, but
that included righting the wrongs of those she’d hurt.
“I’m glad I did.” Hale stopped a foot away
from her.
“Me too. Thank you.”
He reached out and lightly touched her arm.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve helped.”
“You can’t fix me, Hale. I have to do that
myself.”
“I know, but…well…” He stopped himself,
clearly struggling, and took a deep breath. “Do you feel better
now?”
“Some days are hard, but I’m taking some
medicine now to help. And Dr. Clemens is really great. I’ll see her
twice a week for a while.”
“That’s good.” He nodded his approval. “You
need to get better.”
“I will,” she whispered. She closed the
distance between them and hesitantly put her hand on his chest.
“Hale, I…”