Thin Love(87)

She took four long steps, hurried, anxious, then stopped on her next half step. Kona stood with his back to her, his pants and pads on, but his chest bare, his jersey, shoulder pads and helmet were on the bench next to a black leather satchel with a row of silver topped, glass vials. The liquid in them was thin, tinged yellow.

Kona didn’t know she was watching him. He was too focused on the skin pinched between his fingers and the needle that sunk into his flesh.

Keira covered her mouth, fingers already shaking, and a swift weight of disappointment, of disgust and fear sank in her stomach. Steroids. That’s what this was about. That stupid, arrogant idiot she couldn’t stop kissing threatened everything offered to him with those damn vials. If he was caught, being off the team would the least of his worries. There would be no pro career. There would be no future for him in the game he loved so much. Worse still, he was killing himself to be the best. The disappointment she held was nothing compared to her anger and the growing dread of what he was doing to his body.

“You stupid, selfish idiot.”

Kona jerked around, dropping the syringe to the floor when he heard her, eyes rounded and terrified. “What the hell are you…” he stopped when Luka walked to Keira’s side and that small flash of fright completely morphed into rage as Kona’s top lipped curled. “You motherfucker.”

Luka set his helmet on the bench in front of his brother, bending down to pick up the needle. “She has a right to know.” When he straightened, grabbed the leather satchel, Kona moved, slammed Luka right against the lockers.

“The hell she does! I told you to watch the door. You stupid asshole! I cannot believe you’d let her see!” Kona grabbed Luka’s jersey and his twin let him. He took what Kona gave him like it was an absolution, a punishment for being too weak to hide his brother’s sin. “Why would you let her see?”

“Because he’s worried about you.”

Keira’s voice had Kona dropping his hands from Luka’s jersey. He stared at her for a few seconds that felt weighted, that thickened the slap of tension in the room. “Keira,” he said, voice so low that she heard the warning in it. “You don’t understand. You couldn’t understand this so please,” he closed his eyes, as though tamping down the fuel of anger and betrayal that made his breath rough, “don’t you fucking judge me.”

All these months and Kona still didn’t understand her. And Keira thought, as Luka picked up the satchel and stepped away from his brother, that there was still so much Kona would never understand about her.

“Luka, give me a minute, okay?” He didn’t acknowledge her, but Luka did grab his helmet and shoved the steroids in a locker just behind them—Keira assumed it was his own locker—before he left the room.

Kona watched her, gaze flicking to every movement she made; when she took a breath, when she crossed her arms and stepped back from him. Keira could smell the musky stench already drifting from his body. Sweat covered him, was on his forehead, sliding down his neck and chest and he hadn’t even made it to the field.

Why would he do this? He has talent, he has options. Why is he throwing everything away?

So many questions ran through her mind and Keira decided only one would suffice. It would at least be a beginning. “Why?”

Kona picked up his jersey, fiddled with the straps on his pads. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”

“Oh, I want the answers, Kona. You will give them to me.” She stood in front of him, not caring how her voice carried, or how the taunt of fury came out with each word. And then Keira kicked the pads off the bench. “I want to know why you’re so eager to throw your life away, to kill yourself.”

“That’s not going to happen. What I use is top of the line and I cycle carefully. I know what I’m doing.” When her frown only dipped deeper, Kona glanced at her, nostrils wide as he took in several deep breaths before he shook his head at her. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“Liver tumors, internal bleeding and a condition called peliosis hepatis, which will make your favorite pastime a little tricky considering most women wouldn’t be down for contracting Hep. God knows I wouldn’t.” There was something in the glare he gave her; it wasn’t pure anger, wasn’t completely cold and Keira recognized it. That was the same expression he wore anytime she tried convincing him she knew what size engine he’d put in his Camaro or how long she could hold her breath underwater. That was Kona doubting her.

“Senior year, Cameron Walsh, fastest runner in the school had a heart attack. He was seventeen, Kona. He’d been on juice since freshman year. He wanted to be an Olympian by the time he was twenty-five and instead ended up in the morgue. Coach made us visit former users who could barely get out of their chairs by themselves because their bones were too brittle to work anymore.”