Chapter 11 Koda #2
I hit call before I can change my mind.
It rings three times. I’m about to hang up, cursing myself for my weakness, when she answers.
“Hello?” Her voice is soft and hesitant.
“Hey.” I clear my throat, suddenly at a loss for words. “It’s Koda.”
“I know.” There’s a small pause. “Is…is everything okay?”
No. Nothing is okay. Nothing has been okay since the moment I watched you walk away.
“Yeah, just checking in.” I sound like an idiot. “How’s school going?”
“Good.” She pauses again. “Passed my midterm. Thanks for asking.”
The conversation is so stilted, so formal, it makes my chest ache.
This isn’t us. This isn’t the girl who laughed in my shower, who touched me without fear, who looked at me like I was something worth wanting.
“That’s great.” I stare into my empty glass. “And work?”
“Busy.” I hear rustling, like she’s getting into her car. “I actually just got off. I worked the lunch crowd today.”
“Right.” I scrub a hand over my face. “Look, I shouldn’t have called. This was stupid. I’ll let you go.”
I’m about to hang up when I hear her voice, smaller now, almost a whisper.
“Don’t.”
The word hangs between us, fragile and full of promise.
“Don’t what?” My heart hammers against my ribs.
“Don’t hang up.” Her breath catches. “I miss you, Koda.”
Those four words crack something open inside me.
Relief floods through my veins like a drug. I close my eyes and grip the phone so tight my knuckles turn white.
“I miss you too, baby.” The words slip out before I can stop them. “So fucking much it’s driving me crazy.”
She makes a small sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
“I can’t stop thinking about you. About us. About everything.”
“Same here.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “I’ve been... Christ, I don’t even want to tell you what I’ve been doing. You’d get a restraining order.”
“Have you been driving by the school?” There’s amusement in her voice now. “Because I thought I saw your truck yesterday.”
I groan, embarrassed at being caught.
“Once or twice. Maybe three times.”
She actually laughs then, the sound warming me more than the whiskey ever could.
“I’ve been driving up the mountain. Not all the way to your cabin, but... close enough to feel like I might run into you.”
The confession makes my heart swell, knowing she’s been as miserable as I have.
For a moment, I let myself believe that maybe there’s a way forward for us, some path I haven’t seen yet.
“But we can’t do this.” Her voice turns serious again. “You know we can’t. My dad—”
“Would kill me.” I finish for her. “I know.”
“And then there’s the age difference. And everyone would talk, and it would be so complicated, and—”
“I know, sweetheart.” I cut her off gently. “I know all the reasons we shouldn’t.”
We sit in silence for a moment, the weight of reality settling back around us like a shroud.
“So we stick to the plan?” Her voice is small again. “We stay away from each other?”
The logical part of my brain, the part that knows right from wrong, that understands consequences and responsibility, says yes. That’s exactly what we do. We stay away from each other, and eventually, the wanting will fade. The missing will stop. Life will go back to normal.
But my heart, the traitorous bastard, has other ideas.
“Yeah,” I lie. “That’s the plan.”
“Okay.” She sounds resigned, defeated. “I should go. I’m meeting Sarah back at my apartment. She’s about to go out of town for a concert, and I want to see her off.”
“You’re not going with her?” I ask, surprised. Charlotte seems like the type who’d jump at any chance to get out and socialize.
“No, I gave this guy who works at my school my ticket.” Her voice is tired in a way that makes my chest tight. “I was going to go, but I just don’t feel like going out this weekend.”
She’s probably just as miserable as I am.
The thought should make me feel better, knowing I’m not suffering alone, but instead it makes everything worse. I hate the idea of her sitting in that apartment, sad and alone, thinking about what we can’t have.
“Well, take care of yourself, sweetheart,” I say gruffly. “And make sure you keep your doors locked.”
“I will,” she says softly.
The line goes quiet except for the sound of her breathing. I want to stay on the phone forever, listening to that soft rhythm, pretending we’re not about to hang up and go back to pretending the other doesn’t exist.
“Koda?”
“Yeah?”
“Take care of yourself, too.”
The tenderness in those words nearly breaks me.
“I will, baby. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
The line goes dead.
I set the phone down on the coffee table and stare at it for a long time. The cabin is silent except for the crackling of the fire and the steady tick of the old clock on the mantel.
What am I doing?
Charlotte’s right. We can’t do this. There are a thousand reasons we should stay apart. But for some reason, my traitorous brain keeps circling back to the fact that I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
I glance over at the clock on the wall. Just after 7 PM.
I think about the night stretching ahead like a prison sentence, empty hours I’ll fill with more whiskey and regrets.
I think again about the promise I made to her.
To myself. That we’d stay away from each other.
That I wouldn’t destroy my friendship with Jason just because I can’t control myself around his daughter.
And then I think about Charlotte.
About how her hair caught the sunlight filtering through my cabin windows, how her smile lit up something inside me I thought had died years ago. How perfectly she fit against me, like she was made to be there. The way she looked at me when I dropped her off, like she was memorizing my face.
“Fuck it,” I mutter, rising to my feet.
I grab my keys from the counter, not giving myself time to reconsider.
Then I grab my jacket off the hook and rush out the door.