Thin Love(134)
Leann and Keira’s aunt had offered her a home. They were still family. They loved Keira and she knew she and her baby would be safe with them. They would be loved. But Keira couldn’t move around the city, couldn’t touch trees that she and Kona had leaned against, walk down sidewalks they’d jogged down hurrying to beat the rain, or to tear off each other’s clothes while they rushed into her dorm.
She couldn’t risk her mother’s intrusion on the life she wanted to give her baby.
Keira had to leave and so she kissed Leann goodbye without telling her what she planned. She let Mark hold her, console her for the loss that had broken her down completely. She let him insist that she take his money, that she form a Grand Plan that didn’t involve their parents and the world they wanted them to emulate.
And then, just a few blocks from the bus stop on the CPU campus, Keira had made one last goodbye.
Keira thought that Kona should see. He should know what she meant; how destroying something so perfect, so beautiful, was the greatest sin anyone could commit. After all, he had done that to her.
His words were poison. His screams were a sharp point, piercing, tearing straight into what remained of her heart. This felt like a death. That great big solid thing in her heart had been shredded until only the fine wisps remained. It felt like she had been ripped apart, bits of her body and her spirit, torn to pieces and then quickly moved together again, but wrong, not as they had been, not as they should be.
Her reflection in the driver’s side window of the black Camaro looked odd, unfamiliar, and Keira moved her head, inclined to see her face clearer against the yellow street light blinking in and out above her. She looked at her lips, the curve of her neck, felt the cold, untouched plane of her chest and realized, with a shudder, that was where Kona’s mouth would always belong. That was where he would never be again.
And then, just then, the elusive hook came to her. She wanted to smile, to let the bunch of worry tightening her shoulders free. It was a song she’d been writing for months. It was what she’d toyed with anytime Kona made her angry; anytime she felt the bite of his accusations, his anger. Staring at herself in the reflection of his car, the words trickled into her mind, then grew and surged like a wave. She had it all. Kona had given her a child. And he had given her enough heartache that her song came to her.
How dare you
Trample with your words
Tatter who I am
Poison with your lips
Give it gram by gram.
How dare you
Steal what’s left of me
The parts already thin
Toxic to my heart
Broken through my skin
Pretty words hide the truth
Fracture all my hope
Poison in every sound, lies in what you spoke
How dare you?
She watched herself as though she drifted above everything, as though that was not her threading her keys between her fingers. That was not a calm, rational or even moderately sane Keira kneeling down next to Kona’s beloved Camaro.
She didn’t care that the letters were too big, white scratches against that midnight black paint. She didn’t care that she was destroying something precious, something that mattered, because Kona had too. He had crushed her heart under his heel and this act, this callous, juvenile act, would be a companion to her curse. He wouldn’t soon forget her words just as he wouldn’t be able to quickly be rid of the large letters marring his car.
Keira dug in deep, funneling her despair, the crushing bend of her heart into every line she made and when she was done, she didn’t look back. Just picked up her bag and stuffed her keys in her pocket and left her mark on Kona’s heart, on the pristine effort he’d made to make that car beautiful.
The bus station was five blocks away and despite the slow drizzle overhead, Keira set out on foot, leaving behind everything she knew, the one person she loved with the angry letters; the solitary reminder of how much he’d hurt her.
THIN LOVE scratched into that black paint and “never again” whispered to her shattered heart.
The Market hasn’t changed in the eight years that Kona has been away from the city. There are still the bunched assortment of vendors; smiling salespeople pawning their beads, their silver jewelry and food. It is cleaner now, somehow bursting with more exuberance than had been the vibe in Market before Katrina hit. But since that time, the city, the people, the entire attitude of New Orleanian pride has heightened and everything is shiny in its own way; smiles, stores, enthusiasm. Kona really loves this new New Orleans.
Despite the few glances of recognition he draws, Kona feels good with his mother on his arm, taking in the bustle of activity around them; her with a wide-brimmed hat covering her small face, and Kona smiles with the memory of his childhood here, the times he and Luka would run away from their mother to see if they could lift a loaf of French bread or a square of fudge from a distracted vendor. Kona shakes his head, lets a cool breath expand his lungs. That is the second time his brother’s memory has come back to haunt him. It is the city, the stinking recollection of the life he once knew that ushers in his twin’s ghost.