Chapter Thirty-Four Kenny
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
KENNY
I hadn’t eaten since Han left last night. The only things in the fridge were a tub of ice cream and the last slice of pizza from the party, which I couldn’t bring myself to eat. The last slice was for Han. The last slice was always supposed to be for Han.
You can’t fix this!
Han’s words echoed in my mind long after he’d left with his things. No matter what I did or said from here on out, it couldn’t make up for the fact that I’d completely betrayed the most important person to me in the whole world. Even if it was Jackie who’d done the blackmailing, I couldn’t help but feel responsible. I was the one who set up the whole fake marriage idea and got Han’s hopes up in the first place.
But there had to be something I could do, right? I found myself wandering into Han’s room, looking for something that maybe I’d forgotten to pack so I could bring it to him later, even though it wasn’t like I could fit much more than clothes and his laptop and chargers into a suitcase. My eyes went straight for Han’s desk, where his laptop usually was. Of course, that was one of the first things I’d packed for him, but it felt so weird not being able to leave him a little sticky note right now. This wasn’t something my shitty drawings of red pandas could fix.
Still, I went to the hall closet looking for a sticky note anyway. Maybe I would feel better if I just pretended like everything was normal. Han would never see this note, but I still felt like I needed to write one. But I opened the closet to find I’d already used the last one.
Han must have had some in his desk, though, right? I went back to Han’s room and opened the top drawer on his desk.
A sort of half whimper, half laugh escaped my mouth. There were sticky notes in here, all right. But they weren’t fresh ones. I’d always thought Han had just thrown away my stickies after he’d found them, but this drawer was practically overflowing.
He’d kept them. All of them.
But I couldn’t bear to look. I shut the desk drawer faster than I’d opened it. Whatever light feeling I got from seeing that Han had kept my notes came crashing down with the realization that I’d never be able to give him another one again.
I made my way back to the living room like a zombie. How could this possibly be my life? I knew I should have been working, but I couldn’t bring myself to go in. Instead, I sat bundled up in a blanket burrito on the living room couch, hugging a tub of chocolate ice cream in one arm and Thornelius in the other. I had Luna cuddled in my lap while I watched Coco and cried my eyes out. It felt so off watching this movie without Han, but Han’s favorite movie was the only thing that could bring me even an ounce of comfort right now. My phone buzzed, and I scrambled for it, almost dropping the ice cream to the ground in my frantic search.
My heart sank when I saw it wasn’t Han’s name displayed across the screen. I knew the chances of him calling were low, but I wanted to talk to him so badly.
Jackie again.
I had to resist the urge to throw my phone across the room. I hated her so much. She had always been terrible, even if it took me way too long to realize it, but she’d gone too far this time. And worst of all, I hated that I couldn’t ignore her now, because if I pissed her off, I could risk her making good on her threat against Han, even though we’d already broken up.
“What do you want?” I asked, unable to mask the disgust in my voice.
“You should come over. I miss you…”
I had to take a deep breath before saying anything so I wouldn’t blow up on her. “Jackie, I just broke things off with Han. I need time. I’m not exactly thrilled to hang out with you after what you did.”
There was a long silence over the phone before she finally responded. “Do you hate me now?” Her voice was all choked up, and it just made me angrier.
I wanted so badly to shout YES! Of course I hated her. What else would she expect? But I was afraid if I said that, she would retaliate.
“I need time. Please just leave me alone for a while.”
Instead of responding, she hung up on me. Thank God. I pressed play on the movie and shoved another giant spoonful of ice cream into my mouth.
Before I got too far into it, my phone rang again.
“Go to hell, Jackie!” I shouted before answering the phone, but when I went to pick it up, I realized it was my mom calling. I took a deep breath before answering. I really needed to get my shit together for my mom.
“Hey, Mom.” I tried to sound as okay as I possibly could.
“How are you?” she said.
“Um… good?” I answered hesitantly, not sure if I wanted to tell her about the breakup just yet. Besides, my parents usually had a reason for calling.
“Listen, if you ever need anything…”
Then there was a brief shuffling sound, and my dad’s voice came through. “Mary told us about Han staying with the family. What’s that about?”
Great. They already knew. So much for keeping it together. Just the mention of Han made my lip quiver.
“Tch!” More shuffling, then my mom again. “Did Han do something? Did he hurt you?”
“No!” I said defensively. I hated that even the mere thought of Han hurting me crossed her mind. Especially since no one ever really asked that about Jackie. Well, except for… “Han’s perfect.” My voice cracked. “This was all me.”
“We’re coming over.”
“You don’t have to—” But the call was already disconnected.
It wasn’t long before my parents came knocking on my door. A sad smile was all I could manage to give them. If I was being honest, I felt embarrassed for daring to take their pity. There was no reason they should have been here, comforting me , when Han was the one who was wronged.
My mom looked around at the disheveled apartment, visibly biting her tongue as she slipped off her shoes by the door. Her eyes caught the sink full of dirty dishes, which Han obviously didn’t do before leaving after the shit I pulled. I knew I needed to do the dishes, but I just couldn’t start. Couldn’t do anything.
“Have you eaten yet today?” my mom asked.
“Does ice cream count?” I said, knowing what the answer would be.
“I’ll make you something.” My dad walked over to the kitchen and opened the fridge, then frowned. “Where’s the food?”
My mom’s eyes widened. “You don’t have any groceries?”
“He doesn’t have any groceries.”
“What have you been eating?” She turned to me, not bothering to mask the look of concern on her face.
“Old pizza, from the looks of it,” my dad said as he closed the refrigerator.
“From the party?” Her eyes got even bigger with concern. You’d think the pizza was weeks old by the look on her face, even though it’d only been a couple of days. “You can’t live off leftover pizza.”
“I know…” I hung my head, even more embarrassed now. I didn’t ask for a lecture on the state of my fridge.
My mom seemed to soften up when I stopped meeting her gaze. “I’ll be back, okay?” she said, then turned around and started putting her shoes back on.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To get you some groceries.” Before I could protest, she was out the door.
Wow, my parents really weren’t about to let me wallow, were they? I couldn’t lie and say I didn’t appreciate it, though. I had to admit I really didn’t want to be alone in the apartment. Before they showed up, all I could think about was Han. How all I wanted to do was talk to him. To hug him. Kiss him. Take everything back. But I couldn’t.
I plopped myself down on the couch, and my dad joined me.
“If it hurts to talk about it, we don’t have to. We can just sit together.”
I realized then how desperately I did want to talk about it. Tears started streaming down my face without my permission.
“I called off the wedding.” The words brought a guttural sob out of me. I’d called off the wedding.
My dad started rubbing my back as the tears kept coming, waiting for me to say more. I wanted to tell him everything. About it being my fault Han got fired. My fault Han hurt his ankle. How Jackie had blackmailed me into calling off the wedding. But I was afraid if I told him, he’d try to get involved and Jackie might retaliate. I couldn’t imagine my parents finding all this out and not getting involved. Maybe they’d blame me, too.
“It’s all my fault” was all I managed to say.
We were silent for a while before my dad spoke up again. “Do you still want to get married?”
“Yes!” I sobbed. I could be honest about at least that. “But he’s never gonna forgive me.”
“Have you apologized?” he asked. “And I don’t mean in the heat of the moment. Once you both calmed down, did you apologize sincerely?”
I wiped my nose. I hadn’t spoken to Han since he came back for his things. I swallowed the lump in my throat as realization hit. “No, I didn’t.”
“Talk to him, then. Maybe he’ll surprise you.”
But what my dad didn’t know was that an apology wouldn’t mean a thing if we couldn’t get married. Sure, if I apologized to Han, he would say it was fine. That it wasn’t my fault. But forgiveness? I doubted it. It’d be more like denial. Denial that anything was wrong between us, but we’d be distant. We’d drift further and further apart until I eventually accepted my loss.
That fear was enough to keep me up at night.
The next morning, I ignored my Sunday cleaning alarm. Sunday, December first. The month Han and I were supposed to get married. There was no point in cleaning today. I felt like it would somehow be a betrayal. Han and I had established Sunday speed cleaning when we’d just moved in together. I would rather have a dirty apartment than have to clean alone for the first time since then. So, I stayed in bed, wallowing like the pathetic piece of shit I was.
As much as I wanted to, I knew I shouldn’t call in to work two days in a row. I lay in my bed, hugging Luna as my alarm rang and rang. I hugged her harder instead of turning it off, and she licked my cheek, as if to reassure me that it would all be okay. Finally, I shut off the alarm and kissed Luna on her forehead. I still couldn’t believe Han let her stay here with me, even if it was temporary. I didn’t know what I would do without that dog. I felt like I’d lost everything, but at least I still had Luna and my parents.
I had half a mind to order pizza, just to make myself feel better. It was Sunday, after all. But I didn’t deserve pizza. I didn’t deserve any of the groceries my mom had gotten me, either. Instead, I went to work on an empty stomach.
I went through the motions at the restaurant but didn’t bring my usual happy-go-lucky server charm. I knew my tips would suffer for it, but I couldn’t bring myself to be cheery right now. I would never share a flirty workday with Han again. I might never share a workday with Han, period. It took all the self-control I had in me to keep from bursting out in tears in front of a customer.
“How’s Han doing?” Julia asked when we were both grabbing plates from the kitchen. She sounded all concerned. “I heard he got fired. That’s terrible.”
I clenched my jaw. Han was probably doing worse than I was. What was I supposed to say? That I’d called off the wedding? That Han was homeless now? That I had no idea how he was doing, because he would never want to talk to me again?
“He’s okay” was all I could bring myself to say.
Julia gave a solemn nod, like she knew there was more to it, but she didn’t pry. Throughout the whole shift, people kept asking about Han. Everyone was worried about him.
As soon as my break came along, I knocked on Daniel’s office door. I had to at least try to convince him to give Han his job back.
“Come in!” Daniel’s muffled voice rang out from the other side of the door. I went inside the office, closing the door behind me before I sat down in the chair in front of Daniel’s desk. “What’s up, Kenny?”
“I wanted to talk to you about Han.”
“What’s done is done. I can’t really do anything about it now.”
“Just hear me out here. It was my fault he was late. I got pulled over while I was dropping him off.”
“He should have prepared for that and left earlier,” Daniel said without looking up from the papers in front of him. “Besides, I think we solved our little stealing problem. I’ve suspected it was Han for a while now. So, no need to double-count for missing money. I’ve got that covered now.”
My face grew hot. “Are you serious? You can’t just fire people on a hunch that you think they might be stealing! Han wouldn’t do that! He needed his job too much. He was the best cook you’ve had since I’ve been here. He’s shown you nothing but hard work. He didn’t deserve to be fired and you know it.”
“You’re overstepping, Kenny. Unless you want to follow in your boyfriend’s footsteps, I’d suggest you let it go.”
Wow. Would Daniel really fire me for asking for Han’s job back? Was that something I was willing to gamble on? An idea formed in my brain.
“That’s discrimination.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “How is that discrimination?”
“You fire two queer people of color back to back, and you don’t think that looks bad?”
Daniel finally met my eyes. I made sure to hold the gaze. It felt like a challenge, though I felt pretty confident I would win. Daniel wouldn’t want to fire me after another server had just quit. He needed all the servers he had. Finally, Daniel shook his head. “Go home, Kenny. I’ll think about calling Han. That’s not a guarantee.”
So much for him suspecting Han had been stealing money. I knew that had just been an excuse. “Thank you so much, Daniel. I really appreciate it! I’ll work overtime, whatever you need.”
“Yes, I was just about to suggest that. Now go. I have work to do,” he said, shooing me away, as if he didn’t want the conversation to last even as long as it already had.
I was happy to work as many hours as Daniel needed if it meant Han could get his job back. I had to do something to help him. I knew I’d never be able to fully make up for what I’d done—what Jackie had done—but I could at least ease some of Han’s problems right now. Getting him his job back was a start.