48. Kendall
Kendall
Ipromised myself when I agreed to help my parents move that I wouldn’t even contemplate reaching out to Kai or walking over to his house unannounced.
Yet here I am, sitting in the driveway of what used to be my childhood home and I’m glued to the spot.
I’ve been in my car staring at the garage through my windshield for the past twenty minutes.
Stuck between the desire to flee this place that holds so many happy memories of Kai and I and the gut wrenching, soul crushing ache to talk to him.
Moments later, a car, his car, pulls into his parents’ driveway across the street.
My mind is made up. If this isn’t divine, cosmic intervention, I have no idea what it is.
I duck quickly so he can’t catch me stalking him and slink into my back seat.
When my head resurfaces, my heart drops into my stomach.
Kai exits his brand new BMW but he isn’t alone.
Shortly after, a gorgeous, slender woman emerges from the passenger side.
They walk into his parents’ house, his arm casually slung around her shoulder and my breath catches in my throat.
Fuckkkkk. He’s dating? He has a girlfriend, one that is so serious she’s meeting his parents?
I’ve deliberately stayed off of social media so that I wouldn’t have news of his post breakup life thrown in my face at every turn.
Every once in a while, a story or tabloid would pop up about him leaving a hotel or bar with a new woman.
But that is not what this is. What I’ve just witnessed seemed unfathomable up until now.
I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating inside my tiny shitbox of a car. This is not how I fucking die, I refuse. I shove open the rear door violently and gasp, taking a deep lungful of crisp fall air.
I have to get closer. I have to see for myself what this relationship is or isn’t.
I creep along the edge of my car, low to the ground, and move quickly to the large oak tree in our front yard.
I cross the street with haste and sprint to Kai’s sleek SUV, careful not to set off his alarm.
It’s just a few more feet and then I’m positioned in front of the hedges that line their wide dining room window.
God, am I really doing this? Am I really this desperate and heartbroken? I feel so stupid, so incredibly immature and yet I can’t prevent myself from looking, from needing to know.
I raise my head a millimeter and chance a look into the dining room.
They’re all in the kitchen, picking on appetizers and talking.
Kai’s dad opens a bottle of wine, offering it to Kai and his date, and I cringe internally.
I can’t hear Kai’s response but I see his jaw tick—he looks bothered, frustrated.
The way he typically is when he interacts with his dad.
If she notices, she doesn’t give anything away.
His date accepts the glass of wine with a smile, while she laughs at a remark Anela, Kai’s mom, makes.
Kai goes back to studying something intensely on his phone, completely ignoring the conversation happening around him.
Maybe he isn’t as into her as I thought?
But that notion dies a quick death when she lovingly wraps her petite arms around his waist and rests her head on his chest. He responds by giving her a kiss on the cheek and I have to stifle the urge to vomit.
Mine, my whole body wants to scream. Mine, my splintered soul sobs.
But he isn’t mine and he hasn’t been for a while.
My heart is eviscerated all over again. Like it’s been thrown into a den of vipers and dealt a series of fang toothed blows.
I sink into the grass and fold into myself.
Next to my feet lies a large, jagged rock.
It feels cool and heavy in my palm. I probably won’t even need one this big to break the window.
What the fuck, Kendall?
What is wrong with you?
I set the rock aside and allow the heaving sobs to consume my body. I broke up with him. I walked away. I set him free. I wanted him to be happy, to be able to live his life.
So then why can’t I accept this?
A half hour ago, I was ready to break down his door, beg him to hear me out, and ask for his forgiveness.
Over the course of the last several months, I’ve come to accept I made a terrible, likely unforgivable mistake.
But the position I’m in now is excruciating, impossible to navigate, and also, entirely my own fault.
I’m in a miserable bed of my own fucking making.
I can’t come running back to him when he finally seems happy for the first time in a year.
There’s a large part of me that wants to just be done with it once and for all, to finally and truly let him go.
But a small part of me—the part that’s trying to stop me from crawling into another black pit of despair—knows I should fight for him.
I barely made it out of the throes of postpartum depression with my life.
I can’t go back there, to that cold, bleak place filled with darkness, unable to take care of myself and Akio.
Where everything feels impossible and my life isn’t my own.
I’m finally starting to feel like myself again, like I’m back on solid ground.
With help from a healthy dose of SSRIs and an incredible therapist. I can’t let myself drown again.
I’m positive I won’t be able to claw myself out of that hole—where hope goes to die—a second time.
I need that tiny spark of hope now more than ever, even if it proves futile.
I place my hand on my chest directly over my heart.
It’s still beating and that’s enough. I’m still here, still alive.
I use that knowledge to ground myself and calm my breathing.
Maybe they’ll break up and I’ll have another chance to make things right. Maybe there’s still time.
But two months later, when he and Leighton eventually call it quits, it doesn’t really matter. Not anymore. And nothing changes then either. By then, all the courage I thought I had gained along the way vanishes. And my opportunity to tell him everything, to come clean, disappears with it.