Her professors weren’t worried about the absences. It seemed the entire campus had been hit hard by the flu and after a few quick emails on the slow university server, Keira was caught up and preparing for finals. She should have been happy. She should have been glad that the semester was winding down and Christmas break loomed. But her mother had called the day before and at the end of that conversation, Keira mentally scrambled for an excuse not to return to Mandeville when classes ended. Leann was spending the holiday with Michael’s family in Georgia and Keira didn’t think bunking at Kona’s place would go over well with Professor Alana.
“So, you’re dating that boy?” her mother had said when Keira picked up the phone. No “hello” or “how are you feeling?” The woman started in with an interrogation because she was angry, because she knew Keira was rebelling again.
After a dramatic, mostly forced cough, Keira answered her. “Yes, I am.” She listened to her mother’s slow, angry exhales, then Keira tried for sympathy. “He took care of me, Mother. Leann took off because she didn’t want to get sick again, but Kona stayed. He’s a good person and I care about him.” Her mother didn’t listen. To her, Kiera knew, there was only the dark skin, the features that were too wide, hair that was too black, too thick. She hung up on her mother when the woman beginning talking about mistakes and the conversation they’d have when the semester ended.
It was that conversation that weighed on Keira’s mind as she sat on her bed trying to study for her geometry exam. She knew most of their discussions, most of the times her mother didn’t get her way left Keira being smacked around and eventually agreeing to cave to whatever the woman wanted. Not this time, she thought, tapping her pencil onto her Geometry book. That was her biggest worry. She’d promised Kona if her mother tried slapping her again, that she wouldn’t just take it. She’d fight back and Kiera knew she’d be forced into retaliating when she stood firm on not walking away from Kona. He was hers and she would keep him no matter how many times her mother screamed, no matter how hard she hit her.
Keira laid back, moving her gaze over the white ceiling, to the plain light fixture in the center of the room. It was a white bubble with a brass center and looked oddly like a nipple. “The tit light,” as Leann called it and Keira let her vision blur, thoughts cluttered with imaginings of her mother’s angry scowl, with the hot, wine-tinted breath she knew the older woman would have. Then she blinked, eyes shifting to the left when someone knocked on the door. A quick glance at her clock and Keira jumped up, surprised that she hadn’t noticed that Kona’s practice had been over for nearly half an hour.
She hadn’t seen him since last night and studying and worrying over an argument she knew was a few weeks away had distracted Keira so that she hadn’t had time to miss him. They’d spent nearly the whole week together, Kona snuggled with her on her small bed, him only leaving for practice and to pick up food.
Keira pulled the door open, ready to tackle him, but the dark bruise under one of his eyes had her pausing.
“Bebe, what happened?” Keira caught the cold brush of him passing her, how he shook his head as though that mark under his eye was nothing. He moved around her room with his hands in his pockets, thick hoodie bunched over his wrists and his large shoulders set rigid, severe.
“You take your medicine today?” Kona moved his chin toward her bedside table, to the collection of wadded up Kleenex and the half empty bottle of amoxicillin.
She wouldn’t allow him to divert her. “What happened?” When Kiera touched him, he stepped back, moving out of her reach.
Kona’s sigh came out hard and he rubbed his eyes with his head down. “Luka and I had words this morning. It’s nothing.”
“If it was nothing then you’d let me touch you.”
A quick flash of his eyes and Kona’s top lip twitched. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll let you touch me after you explain to me what you and my brother were talking about that day at camp.” Kona pulled himself up to his full height, crossing his arms and the twitch in his lip shifted to his cheek.
Keira had a good idea where this was coming from, but she wouldn’t start right away accusing his mother. If he wanted to dig a hole, she wouldn’t give him a shovel. “You saw us together, Kona. We were just talking. You had your eyes on us the whole damn time.”
“Not when I was talking to the scouts. I didn’t even see Luka leave and I damn sure didn’t see him touching you.”
Kona rarely paid attention to details. He didn’t usually remember what he ate at lunch or who he’d borrowed a pen from in his class, Keira knew that. He was about the big moments and details didn’t fit into big moments. So Keira knew he wouldn’t have remembered not seeing Luka. She knew he wouldn’t have paid attention to when his brother left or how long she and Luka sat next to each other as he practiced.