Chapter 45
45
KAIRA
T he back deck of my parents’ house had always been my sanctuary. Even with the backyard still dormant, it was beautiful. The sky was a little gray, but I didn’t mind. I appreciated the stillness, something I hadn’t realized I’d been missing until now. The chaos I left behind in LA with Roman and Carla had left me drained, disillusioned. Sitting here, wrapped in my old woolen blanket, I felt the threads of myself knitting back together.
There really was no place like home.
I had been here a couple of weeks, and while my wounds were scabbing over, I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my life. My book had been left untouched on the laptop. I had no desire to write a love story. I was not feeling particularly loving.
Plus, the sight of the laptop reminded me of Roman. Every time I looked at the sleek machine, I thought back to the night he gave it to me. That led me to thoughts of him kissing me and us being in his bed. His birthday. So many good memories had been packed into a relatively short amount of time. When I was caught up in the moment, it felt like nothing could have gotten in our way. We were so happy.
And then it was just ripped away.
“Good morning.”
I looked behind me and saw my mom standing in the doorway with her robe pulled tight around her.
“Good morning,” I said.
“You’re up early,” she said.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Do you want some breakfast?”
“I’m not really hungry.”
“I’ll make waffles,” she said. “I bet you’ll be hungry once you see them.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She drifted back inside, closing the door behind her.
I went back to my thoughts. Today, I felt like I was carrying the weight of my mistakes on my shoulders, and even the comforts of home couldn’t shake it. I could hear my mother in the kitchen and the thought of thick, fluffy waffles and crisp bacon was tempting, but I was so rolled up in my own misery, I couldn’t muster any excitement for the meal.
A few minutes later, the door opened and the scent of bacon wafted out.
“Good morning,” Dad said. “Mind if I enjoy the fresh air with you?”
“Of course not.”
My father sat across from me, sipping his coffee in silence. He didn’t pry, not at first, but I could feel his eyes on me, studying the way I fidgeted with the hem of my sleeve, the way I stared out at the woods behind the house without really seeing them. My dad was one of those quiet, silent types. He didn’t say a lot, but when he did, it was important.
Finally, he broke the silence. “You want to tell me what’s really going on, kiddo?”
I shrugged, playing dumb. “What do you mean?”
He gave me that look, the one that said he wasn’t buying it. “You’ve been here for three weeks, and you’re still walking around like the world is ending. That isn’t like you. You’ve always been resilient. This is different. This is much bigger. Talk to me.”
I sighed and pulled the blanket around me. “It’s complicated.”
“Good thing I like complicated stories,” he said, his tone light but his expression serious. “Start at the beginning.”
So I did. I told him about Roman. At first, I couldn’t stop myself from focusing on all the things about him that used to trigger me—the arrogance, the walls he kept up, the way he could be so cold and calculating. My father listened without interrupting, nodding here and there but letting me get it all out.
Then, without really meaning to, I started talking about the other side of Roman. The man who surprised me. The man who let me guide him through unfamiliar territory, who asked questions and listened when I answered. The man who opened his life to me, even when it scared him. The man who had achieved incredible things despite the pain he carried, the grief that seemed to hang over him like a storm cloud.
I told him about the library and how he had given me a laptop. I talked about the many, many hours we spent talking about nothing and everything. The patience he had when I talked about my book and bounced ideas off of him. Roman was not a fan of fiction or happy ever afters, but he always listened and somehow always had some really good insight.
“I thought…” I hesitated, trying to find the right words. “I thought, for a moment, that maybe I could save him.”
My father set his coffee mug down on the small table between us and leaned back in his chair. “Kaira, you know that’s not your job, right?”
I nodded, but my chest ached. “I know. It’s just… I wanted it to be. I wanted to be the person who could pull him out of it. I loved watching him transform before my very eyes. Like a legit butterfly coming out of his cocoon. He blossomed. His friends saw it. His staff saw it. They always told me how good I was for him.”
He reached across the table and took my hand in his. “Listen to me. Roman needs to save himself. That’s not on you to carry. You cannot save anyone unless it’s in a physical sense. You can give him CPR, stop the bleeding, or pull him back from getting hit by a bus. The stuff that’s in here is not yours to fix.” He dropped my hand and patted his chest and then his head. “That’s not for you to fix. No one can fix that. I don’t care if you’re the best damn psychiatrist in the world. That comes from within. If he doesn’t want to be the man you think he can be, that’s on him. Not you.”
The words hit me hard, but I knew they were true. Still, it didn’t make it any easier to let go of the hope that things could have been different.
“I wish it wasn’t like that,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“That’s because your heart is so big,” he said. “You care so much, and that’s one of the things I love most about you. But sometimes, you care so much about others that you forget to care about yourself.”
I went quiet, staring down at our hands. He’d always been able to see right through me.
“For once,” he continued, “I think it’s time you stop pouring into everyone else’s cups and pour into your own. You deserve that, Kaira.”
His words hung in the air, and for a moment, I didn’t know what to say. Finally, I wiped away the tears that had started to gather in my eyes and looked up at him. “Thank you, Dad.”
He smiled, that warm, familiar smile that always made me feel safe. “You’ve got so much to give, kiddo. But you can’t give your best to anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself first.”
“I’ll try,” I said, and I meant it.
“Good,” he said, leaning back in his chair again. “And remember, just because something didn’t work out the way you wanted doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it. This man—this Roman—he gave you an adventure. If that’s all it is, so be it. But don’t regret it. It’s better to feel this, to go through this, than to feel nothing at all.”
I nodded, wiping away another tear. “I’ve been guarding my heart for so long, Dad. I don’t know how to let go of that.”
“You already did,” he said simply. “Something about him made you let him in. And if you can do that once, you can do it again—with your passions, your dreams, whatever comes next. You’ve got more room in there than you think.”
“I don’t know about that. I feel so empty. Hollow. I don’t have anything left to give.”
“You will.”
I sighed. “Maybe. I guess right now the problem is I don’t want to. I’m not interested in giving anything to anyone ever again.”
He laughed softly. “You will. And don’t worry too much about the butterflies. Metamorphosis is always a bit messy, but it’s also beautiful.”
I felt a smile tug at the corners of my lips—his optimism, stubborn as ever, had a way of making me see the silver lining. “It’s just hard to see the beauty in the mess sometimes,” I admitted.
“That’s because you’re right in the middle of it,” he replied, shrugging slightly. “When you’re knee deep in mud, it’s tough to admire the landscape. Give it time, Kaira. Step back a bit, catch your breath. You’ll see it eventually, the whole beautiful panorama, not just the mud.”
I nodded slowly, absorbing his words.
“Life isn’t always about holding on tight to what you have or what you want. Sometimes it’s about learning how to let go and trust that’s what’s meant for you.”
“If you love something set it free,” I said, remembering a poster I had on my wall a long time ago.
He grinned. “Exactly. And if it comes back, it’s yours—if it doesn’t, it never was. But either way, you’ll be okay. I know you. You might feel weak right now, but you’re one tough cookie. Always have been.”
“But what if I’m afraid?” I asked after a pause, looking into his eyes for some sort of reassurance.
“You should be. That’s what makes it real. That fear means you’re about to grow, about to change. It’s the edge of your old comfort zone, stretching into something new.”
I loved his combination of wisdom and encouragement.
I took a deep breath, letting his words sink deeper. “But change is so scary.”
“It is,” he agreed. “But it’s also inevitable. And often, it brings with it things we never could have imagined when we were stuck in our old ways. Think about all the times in your life when a door closed. Didn’t a window open somewhere else?”
I thought about it, the past instances flashing through my mind like scenes from a movie. He was right, of course.
“What do I do about Carla?” I asked.
He shrugged. “That one is a lot easier. She got her feelings hurt. I think it might have been a little bit of an overreaction but I don’t know much about how you women navigate friendships. I’ll go months without talking to one of my buddies and it’s like a day has passed. You apologized. You’ve promised to be a better friend. If she chooses to end the friendship, that’s on her. You can’t control it, but I know you’re a good friend. You had a hiccup. You were caught up in a unique situation. I bet you dollars to donuts it will happen to her one of these days. Then you can bust her chops right back.”
“I hope so,” I said. “Not in a mean way. I want her to experience that little bit of happiness I had. I just hope hers lasts longer than mine did. I’ll probably get hurt feelings, but this little exercise has taught me a lot. I will give her grace.”
He smiled. “Good girl.”
For the first time in weeks, I felt a flicker of hope—not for Roman and me, but for myself. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to stop waiting for the path to open up in front of me and start making my own way.
Just then, the door behind us opened, and my mother poked her head out. “Breakfast is ready, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb,” she called, grinning.
“I’m Tweedle Dee,” my father and I said in unison, just like we had since I was a little girl. For the first time in what felt like forever, I laughed—a real, genuine laugh.