Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
Zara
Owen disconnects the call with Kyle, and I one step away from having a stroke. This was the last thing I was expecting.
“How did he have your number?”
My brother shrugs. “No idea, but not like I have it hidden or anything. Besides,” he grins at me. “I already had his number saved in my phone, so not like he could surprise me.”
“How did you get his number?”
“I took it from your phone,” Owen says nonchalantly.
“But why?”
“Just in case.” He throws some crackers in his mouth. “If you got kidnapped or killed, I wanted to make sure that I could give the police Kyle’s information. He would obviously be the number one suspect.”
I drop my head in my hands while resting my elbows on my knees. I feel disconnected and confused. Kyle has been trying to reach me, but when I didn’t cooperate, I didn’t expect him to reach out to my brother.
“Your boyfriend is calling,” Owen yelled from the living room a mere minutes ago.
I was in the kitchen boiling some spaghetti noodles for our dinner. At hearing what he’s said, I almost dropped the fork I’d been using to stir the noodles in the pot. I put it on the counter and ran out to where Owen had made himself comfortable on my couch.
“What did you just say?” A hand was pressed to my chest as I tried to calm down.
My brother, in his true form, took his time answering. He threw a handful of goldfish crackers in his mouth, then chewed slowly.
“Owen, this is not funny,” I snapped at him. “Did you say that Kyle was calling?”
He turned the phone over for me to see Kyle’s name flashing across his screen. Panicking, I waved my hands around, prompting him to answer before the call could go to voicemail. With a flourish, he accepted the call and put it on speaker.
“Why do you think he’s insisting on talking to me?” I ask Owen.
His eyes widen in surprise. “Did we not listen to the same phone call?”
“Yeah…” I know what he’s saying, but I am afraid to hope. “But…”
“Hold on,” Owen stops me. He munches on yet more crackers before taking a sip out of his beer.
“What am I holding on for?” I ask when nothing happens other than him happily eating and drinking.
“I just wanted to finish chewing. I can’t hear well when I chew.”
Leaning forward, I grab a couple of goldfish and throw them at his head. They hit their target and roll down on his chest. He picks them up and pops them in his mouth before smiling at me proudly.
“Please proceed,” he says.
I roll my eyes and rest back against the chair.
As I take him in, I get flashbacks of all the dirty things Kyle did to me on that very couch.
I miss him so much, and not for just the things he did to my body.
I miss him , the way he always laughs at nothing in particular, how he sees the positive in everything.
He’s been so supportive of everything that I shared with him…
Except for the part where he took my virginity, then bragged about it.
“You know…” Owen watches me thoughtfully. “He sounded really sincere when he explained why he’d told his asshole friend about…” He moves his finger up and down the length of my body. “That.”
I bring my head up, looking at my brother with all the hope that I have in me. “You think?”
“Desperate even,” Owen adds. “I really want to hate his guts because nobody hurts my little sister like that and gets away with it.”
“I want to hate him, too.” I bob my head up and down, wanting to have a good cry while at the same time, ready to forgive him.
“I won’t be pushing you into one direction or the other,” Owen speaks softly. “And it’s not like the two of you were about to get married or some shit. If you want to get to know him better, this is your chance.”
Hope blooms in my chest, and I suddenly feel lighter.
“But I can tell you one thing,” Owen warns. “If he makes you cry one more time, big or small issue, I will kick his ass so bad, they won’t recognize him when they do his autopsy. Two strikes, and he’s out.”
My eyes fill with tears as I listen to my brother. He’s always supported me even though he never really understood how deep my issues were rooted.
“I thought it was three strikes and you’re out.” I sniffle when I speak.
He frowns at me. “What?”
“You said, two strikes and he’s out,” I quote him. “Isn’t it three strikes in baseball?”
“Yeah,” Owen agrees. “So?”
I don’t know if he’s playing dumb on purpose to aggravate me, but it sure is annoying.
“So should Kyle have three strikes before he’s out?”
Owen stretches his legs until he reaches my coffee table. He rests one foot over the other, with his shoes resting on the edge of the table.
“First of all…” He crosses his arms over his massive chest. “Who was talking about baseball? Second,” he continues when I open my mouth so speak. “If you think I’d let some fucker hurt my sister twice and wait for a third time before I killed him, then you don’t know me very well.”
I let the tears flow freely down my face, unable to stop the onslaught of emotions. Jumping from my seat, I go to sit next to him, tucking myself into his side.
“You are the best big brother any sister could hope for, Owen.” I sniffle some more. “I’m so happy that you are my best big brother.”
He drops his head over mine and holds me while I let it all out.
“I’ve always felt so out of place in the world,” I tell him. “I hate social gatherings, and I’m not a fan of meeting new people. But I did all that with Kyle, and I didn’t even think twice about it. Maybe I was na?ve…”
“Zara, just because he was your first in that way, he needs to be your forever now,” Owen informs me laconically. “If you’re still so into him, date him for a while, learn a few more tricks…”
“Owen!” I gasp in shock.
“Then go and look for true love,” he continues as if I never said a word.
We remain silent for the next few minutes. The smell of the spaghetti sauce whiffs through from the kitchen, and Owen’s stomach promptly growls.
“Before we eat, I have a question.”
He tries to sit patiently even though I can tell he only has food on his mind at this point.
“What’s the question, Zara? Before I pass out from hunger.”
I sit up and clear my throat a few times.
“You told Kyle that you’d help him talk to me.”
“Yeah,” he confirms. “I had the phone on speaker, and you were sitting right here. So no surprises there.”
“I know, but I’m just wondering how that will happen. Should I call him and say that you told me to? Should you tell him to call me instead? What’s the best course of action?”
“Course of action,” he snorts. “We are all adults here. So the course of action is this.”
He takes a moment to mull things over. I can see the wheels turning in his head as he hatches something in there.
“I got it!” He flicks his fingers. “Weekend of the Fourth is coming up next week. I will tell him to meet you there.”
I think his idea over. It’s a good idea for me to see him again somewhere in public. If the conversation doesn’t go well, I can just get in my car and drive away.
“Is there anywhere there that me and Kyle can talk?” I ask my brother.
He huffs at me. “You mean privately?”
“Well, yeah, I…”
He bursts into laughter. “Where would the fun in that be?”
“I have no idea what you mean by that, Owen. And I confess that I am a little worried seeing that look on your face.”
“All I’m saying that his friends humiliated my sister in public,” he points out the embarrassing obvious. “So it’s only fair for my friends to humiliate him in public.”
“Owen.” I laugh at the absolute joy on his face when he says that. “That’s just petty. And no one would end up winning from it.”
He ponders it for a bit. “I suppose you’re right. However!”
“Why is there a however ?” I groan.
“I need to get something out of this,” he declares. “That fucker promised me that he’d get me into one of his focus groups for his games. He lied.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not in any focus group, Zara. Where’s my focus group?”
I shake my head at him, in awe of how much like a twelve-year-old he can sound sometimes.
“Maybe they haven’t had anything new that required feedback, Owen.”
From the look on his face, I’d say the thought never crossed his mind.
“Either way, I want in.”
The rest of the evening goes by fast. Once I feed him, my brother is not as wound up about Kyle’s focus groups. He doesn’t even mention it again. When he leaves, he promises to call back with a more concrete plan of when and where I should meet with Kyle.
I see him out the door, then go back to my living room. I sit back in the recliner and think. The last couple of weeks have been brutal, but at least I didn’t call into work again despite the fact that I was obsessing over the events from the wedding where I was Kyle’s guest.
I wonder what everyone said about me after I left. I was a crying mess, and I didn’t even say my goodbyes. I am still horrified by the conversation I had with Alex. If by some miracle things work out between me and Kyle, I doubt that I’ll ever be able to be in the same room as him.
My cell phone ringing from the kitchen distracts me from all this intense thinking about Kyle’s alleged best friend.
I stand up and rush to grab it but hesitate when I don’t recognize the number on the screen.
I watch it ring until it goes to voicemail.
Thinking it was a telemarketer, I am about to walk away, when the phone rings again. Same number.
“Hello?” My voice sounds hesitant when I answer this time.
There’s nobody on the line, and I am about to hang up.
“Is this Zara?” A male’s voice sounds off.
I hesitate for a second. “Yes, it is.”
“Zara, this is Alex Connors. I am Kyle’s friend,” he introduces himself.
The second I realize who he is, I feel instant anger. He has some nerve calling me.
“How did you get my number?” I ask in a brisk tone.
He chuckles in amusement, and I hate him a little more than before.
“You’re really not that hard to find,” he explains. “Once I entered your first and last name on the internet…”
He continues speaking, but I am spaced out. I remember when Kyle told me a similar thing that first time he called me. I was scared but then excitement took over, especially when I realized that Kyle was at my front door.
“What do you want?” I snap at Alex. I don’t care to make small talk with him, and I will die if he is at the door right now.
“A straight shooter,” he comments. “I like that.”
“Hmm, do you, though?” I call him out. “Since you like it so much, I will send you an invoice for the minute of entertainment I provided you with.”
He starts laughing. “Okay, that’s fair. I deserve all that and more. And next time we see each other, if you want to finish the job and actually break my nose, I will be available.”
“It didn’t break before?” Disappointment tastes bitter in my mouth. I saw him bleeding after I punched him. Why did nothing break?
“No,” Alex tells me. “But it hurt for quite a while, longer than I’d have expected.”
My fingers squeeze around the phone. “If that’s all you wanted to tell me, Alex, please know that your pain brings me joy. So, thanks for sharing.”
He is surprised into silence, but not for long.
“I would like to apologize to you, Zara.”
And now it is my turn to be stunned into silence. I didn’t expect for him to apologize. I don’t know what to make of it.
“There is absolutely no excuse for the way I behaved toward you,” he continues. “There was a certain sense of entitlement on my end, I suppose. I was convinced that there was no way you’d have any reason to be with my friend other than for money. I also thought…”
“That I was too plain to catch his attention?”
Alex lets out a long breath of air. “That was a mistake for me to say that. I will never be able to apologize to you enough for everything. The comment about being plain as well as making it sound like having been a virgin when you met Kyle was a bad thing.”
I feel tears gathering in my eyes at the reminder of all the horrible things he said to me.
“I really hate you.” I sniffle into the phone, not even caring that he knows I’m crying. “Kyle is a good person. And he doesn’t deserve to have a friend like you.”
“He told me the same in no certain terms.” Alex sounds thoughtful when he says that. “You are both right. I have no excuse, and I will do anything to make amends.”
My ears perk up at that. “Anything, huh?”
“Within reason,” he makes sure to add.
I start pacing my apartment, doing a few laps around the living room before going back to the kitchen and back.
“If things between me and Kyle work out, I will not participate in any social events that you will be present at. I want nothing to do with you.”
“Some of these events are for work,” he tries to explain.
“I don’t care. I will never be put that in that situation ever again.”
“Dully noted, he sighs.
“Kyle told me he creates his video games for your company,” I say, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Yeah…”
I take a deep breath and go for it. “I want a spot for my brother in all of the focus groups,” I say. “For all the games. Ever.”
“Your brother?”
“And all of his friends,” I add for good measure. “They need to be in this thing, too. That way Owen doesn’t play alone.”
Alex clears his throat. “I’m assuming Owen is over twenty-one?”
“Is that a requirement to be accepted in these groups?”
“For the rated R ones, yes.”
I frown at that. “You sell rated R video games?” I’ve never heard of such a thing.
“There are different levels,” he starts explaining. “We have…”
I slash a hand through the air even though he can’t see me. “I don’t care. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
“Okay.” His tone is now quiet and subdued. “I’m sorry again. And I need you to know that Kyle doesn’t know about this. I…”
“Stop it,” I snap at him. “I need to go now.” I take a deep breath in. “I… Thank you for calling.”
I hang up before he has a chance to say anything else. I drop in my recliner, rocking back and forth while thinking about the strange things that happened today. I take a moment to decide whether I want to give Kyle another chance while knowing full well that I do.
I want us to try again, and I want a better ending for us. Actually, I don’t want an ending at all. I just want to be with Kyle.
Why is love so complicated?