Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
Kian
Falling asleep on my textbooks is a new low for me. So is crashing my friends’ date night.
Aiden and Summer were on their way out to dinner when they found me passed out on my Abnormal Psychology textbook, drool and all. It’s one of my easy classes, the kind I half listen to, so I hadn’t meant to fall asleep.
Summer startled me awake, and the second my stomach growled loud enough to echo through the house, she laughed and said, “You’re coming with us.”
The seafood restaurant was fancy, but that didn’t stop me from ordering half the menu. Summer got a kick out of it, and Aiden didn’t seem to mind—until Summer and I spent the whole night gossiping. Then the wine came and we got more than tipsy, with Aiden as our designated driver.
The moment we stumble into the house, he may be on his last straw. So he picks up Summer in his arms, saving her from injuring herself.
“Are you going to carry me too?” I ask Aiden as we head for the stairs.
The look he gives me tells me I should lock my bedroom door tonight.
Summer starts belting out a country song, and I can’t help joining in, louder than anyone should be at this hour.
“You gotta be quiet, Preston,” Aiden whispers.
“You always say that,” she mutters. When they reach the top step, she salutes me. “That was fun, Kian. Let’s do it again.” Before I can answer, Aiden takes her into his room and shuts the door behind them, leaving me laughing in the hallway.
The buzz of the wine slowly wears off as I shower and slip on a pair of boxers. The minute I fall back onto my mattress, I’m out like a light. But it’s only a few hours later that I feel my heart pounding and I jerk out of sleep, my skin slick with sweat.
I reach for my phone first. 2:19 a.m.
I realize where I am, and that the dream wasn’t real. I remember how long it’s been and the number that won’t ever be on my screen again. I run a clammy hand through my hair, feeling the blaze igniting my skin. Even my music playing a calming beat does nothing to soothe me back to sleep.
My gaze flicks to the temperature on the thermostat. Sixty-four degrees. I pull off the covers and lay back down, staring at the date on my lock screen.
My dad’s birthday. Or what would have been.
The thought feels overwhelming all at once. It hurts just as bad as the first year, but right now it’s just quieter, more spread even than it was once. Instead of the heavy punch to the chest, it’s a constant tapping, like a tree branch against a window, that nags me nightly.
He’s not here. He’s never coming back.
Before I can think, I’m grabbing my phone and shooting off a text to the person I’ve been thinking about all day. Scarlett.
She’s not awake. I’m sure of it. But the second I place my phone back on the dresser, it lights up with an incoming call. I spring out of bed and answer immediately.
“Are you okay?” Her smooth voice pours out of my speaker like a melody. Like honey dripping from a receiver. It soothes the ache, cools the burn engulfing my body.
My feet touch the floor as I sit on the edge of my bed and feel the breeze from the window hit my back. “I am now.”
She blows out an amused breath. “Any particular reason for the ‘You up?’ text to your tutor at two in the morning? I’m pretty confident you’re not studying right now.”
“Oh come on, that was not a ‘You up?’ text. I’ve never sent one of those.”
“Never? Missed opportunity, Ishida. You are the exact stereotype for one of those texts.”
I lean against my headboard with my phone against my ear. “Some of us are decent human beings.”
“Hey, I never said that makes you a bad person. What if I was waiting for a ‘You up?’ text?”
My heart beat quickens, and heat travels through me. Fuck, I’m sweating again.
“F-from me?” My voice comes out squeaky, almost prepubescent. Get it together, Kian.
She hums, the sound of it driving a chill up my spine. “Well, I can’t sleep, and the clips of Getaway Island weren’t helping.”
“Ah, so I was the convenient option. That’s fine, it doesn’t hurt my feelings or anything.”
She’s laughing again, and the sound of it is like a reward. “No, I think you’re the only option.”
There’s something about how she speaks to me that makes me feel important. It makes the light in my chest glow bright.
“Seriously, though, are you okay?” she yawns. “Or do you need a last-minute stats pep talk? Just remember: You are the t-test.”
I exhale a laugh, but the reminder of the late hour only pulls me back to my earlier thoughts, the ones that made me text her. I think it’s the result of hanging out with Aiden and Summer, seeing them together, the way they orbit each other.
The moment October comes, insomnia hits me like clockwork. I don’t know how my body catalogs time, but it’s like my circadian rhythm operates based on my heaviest memory.
“This month’s just hard,” I say, feeling like I unwrapped a wound too soon. “But Dr. Dunn’s going to be framing my test on his wall, don’t worry about that.”
“So cocky,” she mutters playfully. Then a silence stretches, and just as I’m going to fill it like always, Scarlett speaks. “Why is this a hard month?”
“My dad…” I second-guess the words. It’s weird bringing up your grief when all you wish you could do is shove it deep down. It’s the ultimate bummer, and I hate sitting through the practiced responses. The “sorry for your loss” and “I could never imagine” on repeat.
“Oh, shit. That fucking sucks,” she says.
I don’t hear Scarlett swear often, and now it almost makes me laugh.
Because it does. It fucking sucks.
When I tell people my dad’s dead, it makes something hollow appear in my chest. Because in a few minutes they’ll forget about it. He’s just someone’s dad to them. But he was everything to me.
How do I stop myself from reciting the never-ending essay of the kind of man he was? That he worked three jobs to get me to Dalton. That he sent me money every month so I could buy better gear when I’d grow out of it. He saw my dream, and he would do anything to make it come true.
“Sorry. Was that tone-deaf?” Scarlett’s panicked voice comes through again.
“No, no. I just wasn’t expecting it,” I say. “It does suck.” I squeeze my eyes shut, cringing at the fact that I’m keeping this girl up to listen to this depressing shit. “But we don’t have to talk about this. It’s not fun.”
“You don’t have to be fun all the time, Kian,” she says.
“I don’t have too much firsthand experience, but I like to think of grief like glitter.
Just when you think you got every piece and your hands are clean, you find some in your pockets, in the sole of your shoe, in that drawer where it seems impossible to even have gone.
And it won’t just go away if you ignore it. ”
Hearing her talk feels like putting together a puzzle, uncovering the picture of how she’s built me up in her eyes. I want every piece.
“It is kind of like that. Some days it’s like I’m forgetting—those days feel the worst in the end. I think tonight was one of those days. Then I start overthinking the what-ifs. What if we had caught his cancer earlier? What if they had moved here when I did? What if they had told me?”
Her voice comes back softer. “Can you actually imagine those what-ifs?”
“Nope. That shit comes crashing down when I remember the reality.”
“Right? Why is it so hard to just stick to the fake reality in our heads?” She sighs loudly. “Do you want to talk about it? About what happened?”
“Everything happened. My dad was battling lung cancer for over a year. But that’s what he wanted. Even on his deathbed, he just wanted me to focus on school. He died still wanting to give me that.”
“And that’s why you wanted tutoring so bad,” she says like she’s connecting the dots.
“I couldn’t leave Dalton knowing I’d lost the one thing he wanted. I was never seen as the reliable one, I was—I am just a kid to them. So with my friends I always try to help. I need to help because I’m not as weak as they think I am. I can handle more than they know.”
“You can, Kian. You’d be on my speed dial,” she says, lightening the mood, though I know she means it.
“What reality do you want?” I ask.
“Well, for starters, the one where Victor wants to see me.”
“I thought you got the call and it was scheduled?”
She laughs, and it’s self-deprecating. “Nope. They can’t arrange the visit if the inmate doesn’t agree.”
“He refused?”
“Flat out. Doesn’t matter that it took me so long to find him. Doesn’t matter that he should be the one wanting to see me.” She pauses. “Sorry, I don’t want to make this about me. It’s not a big deal.”
I read her letter. I know it was a big deal.
She wrote about knowing the man he was and wanting to find her dad in him again.
How she wished she could at least see him on Christmas, her favorite holiday since she was a kid.
She asked him for a relationship, even if only on paper, just something to keep the memories she has of him alive.
“Scar, I like hearing your voice.”
There’s a silence over the phone, just static that we both let simmer.
Then Scarlett hums, and it causes a shiver to run down my spine. “Yeah? Do you think I could have a career as a phone sex operator?”
I laugh, mostly to cover up how I nearly choke. “Not the worst plan.”
“Hmm, I guess you’re right. It could be fun hearing men beg for it.” The word beg purrs out of her, and I drop my head against the headboard and stare up at the ceiling.
Fuck. “Is that all it would take? Some guy whimpering?”
“I’m pretty sure I said beg, Kian.”
I swallow. “Right. Because they’re so different.”
“They are. Seems like you have more studying to do.”
“You gonna tutor me?” I blurt it out before I can stop myself. Shit, shit, shit.
Scarlett laughs. “That’ll be an extra cost to your tutoring bill.”
“You tutor me for free, Rosie.”
The line goes quiet and I think she hung up. I went too far, I definitely went too far. It’s my fault for calling her this late at night when my mind is barely functioning.
“You know, you should try falling asleep with me on the phone. Sierra used to do that when she was alone at competitions sometimes.”
I’m thankful for the switch in conversation. “And it worked?”
“Like a charm. Try it. I’ll still be here in the morning.”
“You sure?” It almost sounds like You promise?
“Yes.”
And then, for the first time in four years, I sleep peacefully.