35. Kavi
KAVI
From: Kavi specialk_jain@gmail.com>
To: Nathan nathans@gmail.com>
Date: September 18 1:22 AM
Subject: When you’re in a Slump . . .
There are times I wonder where life would have taken us if you were still alive.
Would you have been living out your bachelor days or would you have found someone to share every passing moment?
Would we still talk every day or would we have let the arms of time and distance separate us?
Would I have been calling you on a night where I couldn’t sleep because all I needed was my best friend to tell me it would get better?
Because no matter how much I want it to, it isn’t getting better. This ache in my bones, this void inside my chest. Is this what everyone talks about when they say everything is fixable but a broken heart?
Because there’s a black hole where my heart used to be. And now there’s only a vortex of grief, of perpetual night.
I keep living out the summer in my head, replaying it as if it were the only movie on every channel, and somehow hoping for a different ending, knowing full-well there’s only one.
The funny part about this whole situation is that I can’t even yell and scream at Hudson for lying to me. Because he never lied. He never misrepresented where he stood. That was all me, playing out a fairy tale in my head.
But he did rob me, Nathan.
He stole something I can’t quite put into words—an indescribable something I’ll never get back. Whether I have a right to mourn the loss of him or not, I do have a right to mourn that.
Another piece of me that’s gone forever.
xoxo
Special K
“You okay, Kavi? You’ve been gazing out those windows all morning.”
I blink out of my stupor, dropping my fingers from my cherry earrings I was fiddling with, and look toward the voice of Amanda Hitchens, my supervisor at the children’s hospital I now work for. “Just admiring the pristine blue skies. It’s as if the heavens are pretending they didn’t have an all-out melt-down last night with the torrential downpour we had.”
Amanda follows my gaze through the window. “Surprisingly, summer rain is pretty rare in Portland. Maybe it’s a sign of something unexpected on the horizon. Nature has a way of signaling shifts in the air, don’t you think?”
She shuffles inside, looking over the shoulders of some patients—kids who have the misfortune of being at the hospital for extended times—as they put together their ‘feelings collage’ using newspaper and magazine clippings, while I contemplate her words.
Shifts in the air . . .
That’s putting it mildly when I consider all the shifts over the past month. From living in a tiny studio nearby to learning a new city to finding my footing at a new job, there’s been a lot of shifts and changes.
Not to mention learning to live with a broken heart . . .
“Why don’t you go grab your favorite coffee from that café across the street, and I’ll watch the kids for a few minutes?” Amanda regards me with concerned eyes from behind her glasses, perhaps noting my frown. “You look like you could use the walk outside.”
Hesitating momentarily, I give her a grateful smile. Some days are better than others, but that’s not the case today. Today, I feel like I’m cracking from the inside, and it seems even my new boss can see that. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” she reassures me, waving me off. “Now, shoo. I’ll be here when you get back.”
Letting the kids know I’ll be back in a few, I swing my purse strap over my shoulder and step out of the hospital’s large entrance, welcoming the sun’s warmth on my skin. The hospital art room always tends to be chillier than I prefer.
My trusty orange shoes tap over the wet pavement as I navigate around puddles, making my way to the cafe I frequent. I’ve become a regular there over the past month, even striking up a friendship with the barista. We even went to the art fair together last weekend when she asked me to join her and a few friends.
Being alone isn’t anything new to me, but it was a nice change from the several lonelier weekends I’ve spent at home, talking to Mom and Neil when the silence feels all too deafening. Though, those lonely weekends have helped me get back into painting again. I’m almost done with the one I started a couple of weeks ago.
One I know I’ll have to discard or give away once I’m done because I won’t be able to look at it much longer. Not when, every time I do, it salts the wounds I’ve tried to close for weeks.
But I painted it to deal with my heartbreak head on. To close that short chapter of my life once I finished the piece. To remind myself with every brushstroke that waiting for someone who never really wanted me in the first place is futile.
Pining is a silent poison that seeps into the soul.
His terms were clear, and now so are mine. My terms to put myself and my heart first. God knows, it had already been battered and put through the wringer before Hudson came into my life, and now, in the aftermath of his presence, it’s barely functioning.
Doing the bare minimum of pumping blood into my veins without a hint of purpose or pride. With mechanical indifference and apathetic duty, a mere shell of what it once was.
“I couldn’t erase you if I tried.”
“I can’t shake you, Kav.”
My bitter laugh catches me off-guard when more of his sweet whispered words trek through my mind as they have so many times before. Words that were a salve for my wounded soul. Words I basked in like a parched desert flower under a gentle rain.
But words that now ring false and hollow, having ripped away the flower from its roots, only to fling it across the desert to lay exposed and defeated.
Taking a deep breath, I approach the coffee shop, stowing away my emotions behind a forced smile, before walking through the entrance.
Lena, my barista friend, waves to me after attending to the customer ahead of me. “Hey, chica! Want me to make you your usual?”
I step up to the counter, giving her a smile with a nod. “I think I’ll switch it up a little today and do an iced one this time.”
She reels back with mock surprise, her brows in the air. “Living on the edge, are we, Kav? I’ll have an iced crème br?lée latte coming to you in a flash.”
I try to brush off the pang that jabs my heart at the use of my nickname—a reminder of the only two people I’ve allowed to call me that, and the two who are now absent from my life.
Not that I couldn’t, but I haven’t discussed anything in terms of my previous relationships with Lena yet. And though I see her as someone I could confide in, the situation with Hudson is too raw for me to relive just yet.
I’ve exchanged a few texts with Madison and Belinda, mainly about my new life and job. We’ve all conveniently avoided Hudson’s name. And that’s probably for the best, considering the strange position I likely put them in when I left him. Perhaps one day we can all laugh about it, but that day isn’t today, nor will it be anytime in the near future.
Lena turns over her shoulder to address me while tamping the espresso. “So that hot daddy I was telling you about the other day swung by again just a few minutes ago.”
“Oh yeah?” I waggle my brows at her. It’s becoming clear that Lena takes stock of the eye candy entering the café, given the number of ‘hot daddies’ and ‘tight butts’ she’s mentioned to me in the short time I’ve known her, but I play along, joining her excitement. “What did he order this time?”
“The same thing,” she reports, pouring the freshly brewed espresso into a plastic cup. “A cherry turnover and coffee. But,” she pouts, puckering her lips, “turns out he’s taken. Well, actually, now that I think about it, I don’t know if he’s taken. I think he’s in mourning.”
Her hands freeze while her mouth drops open as if she’s just put something together. “Oh my God! I think he’s mourning his dead girlfriend!” Her eyes mist. “Poor thing. He must be heartbroken. Perhaps I could move my schedule around to give him company in case he wants a shoulder, or aboob, to cry on.”
I watch a multitude of emotions cross her face—shock, sadness, acceptance, excitement—while I try to keep up. A part of me wants to laugh at how she’s made this entire scenario up in her head and has already started making plans to turn it around in her favor, but what if she’s right? I wouldn’t want to laugh about someone’s dead girlfriend.
“What do you mean, he’s mourning his dead girlfriend?” I ask, confused. “You asked him?”
“Well, not exactly,” she admits, affixing a lid on my iced coffee. “I just asked him what the deal was with him ordering the same cherry turnover each time he’s come in, and he said they remind him of the time he went cherry picking with his girlfriend. It totally had a dead girlfriend ring to it.”
My heart stutters and another pang punches me in the gut as memories of Hudson and me picking cherries flood my mind.
Stolen kisses underneath cherry trees . . .
His soft groan as he pulled my hips flush with his, brushing his tongue against mine . . .
The heat of his body mixed with the scent of cherries—
“Kavi? Hello?”
I’m jostled from the past as Lena’s words and face come back into focus. “Yeah, uh, sorry,” I mumble, dropping my hand from my earring.
She quirks a brow. “Don’t you agree? He must have been speaking about his dead girlfriend, right? There was just something about the way he said it.”
“Yeah . . .” I agree hesitantly. “Maybe.”
She gleams. “Then it’s set. I’ll commence Operation Dead Girlfriend by asking him more about her next time, and we can mourn her together over a fresh cherry turnover. Then I’ll strategically offer myself up in case he wants mourning sex.”
She assesses my horrified face because, at this point, I can’t tell if she’s joking or not. I don’t know her well enough to.
“Don’t knock it til you try it, sister,” she chides. “It’s almost on par with makeup-sex, though not as deliciously savage as hate-sex.”
I can’t help but giggle at her refreshing honesty. “You do that. Tell me how it goes.”
Picking up my coffee after paying for it, I’m just heading toward the exit when Lena calls me again, “Oh! A bunch of people took stubs off your flyer.” She points to the bulletin board near the exit. “Hopefully you’ll have a better turnout this weekend.”
I stop at the wall with the bulletin board to find that five of the ten stubs have been ripped off my flyer.
Not bad, I think to myself. Hopefully, my second free art therapy class will have more than the two kids who showed up last weekend.
Walking back to work, feeling better than I did when I left, I think about Amanda’s words earlier.
Perhaps there is something unexpected looming on the horizon . . .
Perhaps the winds of change are headed to Portland . . .
The question is, will that unexpected something—that shift in the air—be enough to fill the gaping hole inside my chest?
“Thankyou to those of you who brought empty shoe boxes today,” I say, addressing the ten or so kids who came to the free art therapy class I’m leading tonight. I’m thankful to have secured a room at the hospital that allows me to pursue what I love, even outside of my regular job.
“I’m so glad you all enjoyed making the memory boxes during the class project. We chose to fill our boxes with pleasant memories today,” I continue with a smile, looking at the faces of students who seem impressed with their own creations. “And my hope is that whenever you find yourself faced with tough times, reading through these uplifting memories will help you remember those past connections and experiences with a renewed sense of happiness. I hope these memories serve as a source of positivity and strength in times you need them the most.”
I conclude the class, letting everyone know the assignment for next week, and gather the bag I’d brought filled with empty shoe boxes in case someone forgot theirs. Fortunately, almost everyone brought one with them, probably because I requested it on the flyer.
Heading to my car in the parking lot—a used Volkswagen I bought a couple of weeks ago after giving my old one to my brother—I catch sight of something laying on my hood. Hurrying over, I toss the bag of shoe boxes into my trunk before closing it and rounding to the front for the object.
It’s . . . a memory box.
Glancing around the empty parking lot, I can’t help but wonder if someone accidentally left it there. But then again, why would someone leave their memory box—-filled with their personal memories—-on my car?
Upon closer inspection, each side of the memory box is covered with pictures: cherry earrings, wildflowers, a snapshot of me on Hudson’s horse Whiskey, a batch of my cornbread cooling on his counter, my orange Doc Martens resting in his foyer, and even my old keys nestled inside a bowl.
A sudden breeze tousles my hair, matching the frantic rhythm of my heart as my eyes scan each image. My hand trembles, a surge of hysteria blooming inside me, as my brain races to catch up.
How did this get here?
When did he put it here?
When did he take these pictures?
With my heart thundering and a well of emotion gathering between my lids, I lift the top of the beautifully decorated box. My stomach catapults as I pluck the picture of the two of us lying on his bed.
I’d taken it on his phone, my teeth grazing his scruffy jaw, my smile evident, while he stares humorlessly into the camera. It was a picture we’d taken right after making love. A picture I’d giggled looking at because, if nothing else captured the essence of Hudson Case, it was that—a man who couldn’t be bothered to smile for a camera, for anyone, really, but would freely smile at me.
Beguiling, bewitching . . .
But mostly . . . betraying.
A drop of something wet falls onto one of the papers underneath, and when the breeze touches my face and my cheek tingles, I realize it’s my tear. Brushing the back of my hand over it, I pick up a handwritten note.
The night you walked out of your house in Christmas pajamas and bare feet.
A stone lodges inside my throat, a sob bubbling in my chest as I pick up more pieces of paper.
The time you scraped up your hands and knee, and I wanted to hold you hostage in my bathroom and kiss your lips.
The night you told me you were afraid of the dark.
When I heard you crying in your sleep.
The night you went into that dark shed, and I could hear your heart over the thunder that broke the sky.
When you made peppermint cookies for Kansas.
The time I painted orange over my head and heart on the life-size outline of myself. The time I painted you.
More tears drip down my cheek, staining the papers underneath, but I don’t dare move or turn around when footsteps tap the pavement behind me.
Footsteps that reverberate through me, setting every molecule alight, every heartbeat dancing, every butterfly soaring.
Footsteps that echo, even in the recesses of my dreams.
He’s here . . .
I read the next note.
The night I told you what I was afraid of.
My tears tumble over my lids as I raise my head, barely able to hold myself steady against the gentlest breeze and whispered words I’ll never forget—-a piece of himself he gave to me even that night.
“Finding someone worth changing for, only for her to realize I’m not worth the trouble.”