“What are you talking about, Keira? Of course it was enough.”
She turns, tears in her eyes and she leans out of his touch when he reaches to wipe them away. “Then why did you give me up? If I was so important to you, meant so much to you, why did you push me away? And why the hell did you not once fight for me?”
His voices goes soft, eyes shifting from the floor to Keira’s face. “I didn’t know how. Not then.”
“Well I did.” A quick, annoyed wipe against her cheek and Keira lifts her chin, aching to sound proud, brave. “I fought Kona. I spent the past sixteen years fighting and trying to make sure I didn’t become a cliché. And I didn’t. I am more than that. All that fighting I did worked. It worked too well. I gave you too much. I gave Ransom what was left. I don’t have anything more to give.”
Kona pulls his top lip between his teeth and a hard line forms between his eyebrows as though he hates hearing about her struggling on her own. “I would have been there. You have to know, if you’d told me, I would have dropped my entire life to be at your side, to fight for you, to protect you… both of you.”
She stares at him, shocked that he seems to actually believe that. “No. You wouldn’t have. Your mother would have never let you. I was the haole whore she hated. The stupid slut that had her son forgetting about all her plans. And you listened. You were the good little boy obeying her.” Kona touches her arm, takes a step, looking as though he needs to feel her, to hold her, but Keira is too worked up, too annoyed with herself, with him, to take his comfort. She pulls out of his grip. “You still are. Even today, she’s still got her clutches into you. You still wouldn’t fight for me.”
“I walked away from her, Keira. It’s been months…”
“She’ll come back and you’ll let her. I can’t be around that. I… I can’t let Ransom around that woman. She wins every time, Kona. She always did. She’s your mother and who are we?”
This time Kona doesn’t let her pull away from him. This time, he moves forward, taking her shoulders, fingers firm as though he couldn’t let her go; as though he’d never let her go.
“You’re my family. Keira, you and Ransom, you’re my everything. No one else matters to me. I know I don’t deserve you. I know I threw everything we were away.” He steps closer, hands on her face, thumb rubbing against her cheek. “You won’t ever know how it killed me. But I was scared. My brother died because of me and I was so angry at myself, I hated myself for what happened to Luka. I was afraid that I was falling, that I was digging my own grave and I wouldn’t drag you down with me.” There is a strange look on Kona’s face, eyes closing, head shaking and he looks pained, conflicted as though he wars with his thoughts, weighs and measures the logic of saying whatever is in his head. Finally, he loosens his grip, steps back to pace before he leans on the dresser, hands over his face. “I… I found you once. About twelve years ago.”
“What?” It seems impossible to Keira. Twelve years? It didn’t make sense. How could he have found her and not known about Ransom? “You couldn’t… what?”
“I’d looked for years.” He moves his hands from his face, but Kona still rubs the back of his neck, glancing at Keira as though his confession pains him. “I took a year off after… everything and when I got back to CPU, I was different. I was miserable. Nothing was good for me. And I just existed.” Kona’s shoulders sag, his eyes finally staring right at Keira’s face. “I tried for two years to convince your mother and Leann just to tell me where you were. To give me a hint. They weren’t having any of it. You’d gone off the grid and no one knew where you were. If they did, they weren’t telling me.” Keira moves toward him, but stops short when he shakes his head. “I need to get this out. Please.”
“Okay.” She waits for him to continue and hates that his mouth is drawn down, muscles around his eyes tensed.
When Keira sits on the bed, Kona pulls his fingers together staring at them, unwilling, maybe unable, to look at Keira when he speaks. “So I just lived, played ball, went to class, I lived like a monk, Keira. I didn’t drink or sleep with anyone, I didn’t do anything but work my ass off because I was so lonely, so miserable without you, without Luka.”
She’d never once considered what life had been like for Kona without them. She believed he hated her. She believed he blamed her for Luka’s death. But she never believed that he was alone. He was Kona Hale and despite the scandal of his arrest and the loss of his brother, Keira always thought that he’d pick himself up, that he’d go back to his life the way it was before her.