Whisper to Me(5)

He’d told me Rachel liked the jocks, and when I couldn’t stomach it any longer, I told him to shut the fuck up. Told him I only wanted to know if she seemed healthy and happy.

I figured I’d run into her again someday. Maybe by then I’d be over her.

Over her piercing emerald eyes, which were as translucent as the green bottle fisted in my hand. As multifaceted as the sea glass that washed up on the lakeshore. Or maybe I’d be over the feel of her fingers entwined in mine, and the image of her teeth tugging at her bottom lip, which happened whenever she was unsure of herself.

But on the night I returned from meeting with my former band, all it took was catching sight of her curled up on Dakota’s couch, and I was right back where I was three years ago. I knew she was there the moment I came in the front door. I could smell her scent, and I gripped my guitar case so tightly my fingers ached.

Because seeing her basically unhinged me.

As I removed my boots so as not to wake her and then padded toward the couch on the hardwood floor, the realization hit me that she had changed. She was prettier, shapelier, more womanly.

Her scent was the same as in high school. The one from her mother’s holistic or whatever-the-hell shop where she made her own soaps and lotions. Rachel had said it was called rice flower and it was like a whiff of fresh spring air with subtle floral undertones. I’d never smelled it anywhere before and anywhere since, and I had to restrain myself from picking her up off the cushion and folding her into my chest as soon as that scent filled my nose.

But she awoke as I neared her, and as she took me in through narrowed eyes, I wondered what she saw in me three years later. Her scrutiny sent my stomach into a free fall.

Because I had changed, too. In fact, I had changed the very night I’d heard the news of her accident. It was after band practice and I was out partying with my boys. I dropped everything to rush to the hospital, even though I was high as a kite.

I was there for her every damn day after that. Especially when Miles left. He’d never been worthy of her and she didn’t deserve his abandonment. Her parents, Dakota, and I kept a rotating shift at the rehab facility. She’d had minimal use of her fingers and her speech had been slurred, so we needed to keep up her morale, keep her fighting.

It was a one-person battle, and she recovered weary, yet unwavering.

When she began choosing colleges, I was still waffling on what the hell to do with my life. I was living at home, playing in bands, my parents getting increasingly more irritated with my supposed laziness. When I was almost implicated in a breaking and entering my band mate pulled off, I decided to get as far away from Rachel and my feelings about her as possible—before I screwed up even more right in front of her eyes.

Mom called in a favor with her cousin’s friend who ran a recording studio in Amsterdam, and I headed out there to work as his intern. I studied music theory at the university, too, but I was only truly happy during my nights at the studio, when I helped an album come together or sat in on a creative session, like when a jazz band put together a demo before an upcoming tour.

Otherwise, I was constantly reminded that something was absent from my life. Someone.

I asked myself why I hadn’t just told her what I was feeling, but I knew she’d been too raw. From the accident. From her recovery. From Miles dumping her.

Besides, I had my own life to figure out. My parents were great, but I’d always been kind of a fuckup. I didn’t know what I wanted to do other than play music, and I felt as if I should’ve been more ambitious, like my father.

Thankfully Dakota fulfilled that role for my parents. And even Shane was more like a son than I’d ever be. Every summer he returned home to work for my father at the casino.

“Kai.” On the first night I’d seen her, Rachel’s voice had been raspy, drowsy, sexy. She’d reached out her hand. “Your hair grew.”

“Yeah,” I’d said, kneeling beside the couch. “So did yours.”

Her fingers entwined with mine and she tugged me in for a hug. “I’ve missed you.”

I stifled a groan as she laid her head against my neck and slipped her arms around my shoulders. She was warm and soft and sleepy. I kissed her temple quickly and then pulled away before I fell back under her spell. “Go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

After that night, Dakota had helped Rachel and me get our belongings sorted out in our temporary spaces, and we hung out together often. We watched movies, opened bottles of wine and reminisced—always skating along the surface, never delving too deep into who we’d become.

And before tonight, I hadn’t touched her since.