Thin Love(114)
Keira rolled her eyes, adding her own laugh to Mark’s. “Dude, that’s good. Did you think I was waiting for you to ask me out again?”
“No, that’s not… Keira, my date, well, I’m going out with Robert Miller on Saturday night.”
Robert was a kid Keira remembered from summer camp. He was nice, big brown eyes and thick blonde hair and he said “please” and “thank you” to everyone, even at eight. Then Keira blinked, realizing what Mark was really saying.
“Oh.” Her breath fogged against her phone and Keira rubbed it dry with her coat sleeve. “Oh,” she said again, trying to gather her thoughts. “Well, Mark, that’s good. I mean, I’m surprised. I had no idea…”
“I know and I’m sorry I didn’t mention it before.”
Keira scooted against the wall when two girls she recognized from the team house walked down the stairs. She didn’t bother watching to see if they glared at her. “It’s no big deal and, let’s be honest, we were sort of doomed as a couple to begin with, right?”
“I guess we were.” In the background on the phone Keira heard the noise of the hospital and she wondered if Mark would reveal anything to her stepfather. She doubted Steven would be welcoming or understanding. Knowing him, he’d likely fire Mark on the spot. A door closed and the sounds of the hospital went silent. “Sorry. I had to sneak into the break room. Listen, I don’t know why I’m telling you about this. I guess hearing my mom on the phone with yours the other day had me worried about you, but I didn’t want you to think I was trying to work up the nerve to ask you on another date.”
“It’s fine, Mark, really.” She didn’t like that her mother was gossiping about her, but really Keira didn’t care that much what she and her friends thought. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to my room. Finals are coming up and I’m gonna spend the weekend locked in my room studying, but thank you for telling me. I guess it can’t be easy, not even in New Orleans.”
“No, but I’m sort of getting to a point where giving a shit isn’t really important to me anymore.”
Keira admired Mark. She loved that he was fine with who he was and part of her was jealous at how he was embracing this discovery about himself. But it wouldn’t be easy, not with his parents, not with anyone they’d both grown up with. “Have you told your mom?”
“No. Not yet. I’ll do that after the holidays. My internship will be over by then. If I told her now, she’d go blabbing to your mom and we both know what will happen then.”
“God yes.” Three more girls ran up the stairs and Keira stood, making room for them on the landing. “Listen, I’ve gotta go, but you let me know if you need anything. if you just need to vent, or anything. And Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really proud of you.”
She disconnected the phone and for more than once that week dreaded going into her room. Leann had rehearsal, was rarely there and Keira had been spending much of her time alone. No Kona, no Leann. It had been confining, suffocating. She had no guitar. She had no keyboards, nothing that would ease the ache in her chest.
Predictably, Kona had called. He’d stopped by a dozen times, but Keira never answered. She need space from him, again, but this time she wouldn’t run away to Mandeville. The threat her mother made the week before still loomed and Kiera was tired of running from her problems. It was something Kona always called her on. But that didn’t mean she was ready to talk to him. She could avoid him away from their English class, but he was impossible to disregard during Miller’s lectures. She left early, arrived late, and sat between Skylar Williams and her boyfriend Dylan Collins, much to the girl’s displeasure. Skylar glared at her for fifty minutes straight, but Keira had felt a different stare on the back of her neck, one that crackled in the air of the room. Kona kept his distance, stayed silent when Miller called on Keira in class, but she always felt him staring, always knew he hung onto everything she said.
Keira walked down the hall, eyes immediately going to her door and she only relaxed when she saw the pin board empty. It was the first time in a week that Kona hadn’t scribbled something on a Post It, begging for her to call him. Mingled with that relief was a little disappointment and Keira cursed herself, felt stupid for wanting him so much, for missing him despite everything, but she couldn’t help it. Things were gray, the air too heavy when he wasn’t around. He had broken her father’s guitar. He had severed her last tie to the man, the one she loved most, with a crack to the headstock. She should hate Kona for that. She should hate him for forcing her to place that broken guitar in the dumpster, for the empty space not playing music created in her heart.