77. Kendall
Kendall
We’re sitting in the parking lot outside my apartment in Kai’s car.
Usually, this is where I would ask if he wants to stay over, but I can tell by the tension in his shoulders, the rigid set of his jaw, and the excruciating silence that we’ll probably be sleeping alone tonight.
The humidity in the air is heavy and suffocating.
There’s only the console between him and I but it might as well be a thousand miles.
“I think I’m going to stay at my place tonight,” he declares, eyes trained on the steering wheel. “I need a little time, a little space to think.” He taps the wheel a few times with his thumb.
“Okay, I understand. Whatever you need.” I bite my bottom lip, worry pulsing in my chest. “What if you can’t forgive me?” It’s so incredibly selfish, such a desperate question and still, I need to hear his answer.
“I will,” he states definitively.
“But what if you can’t?” I press harder.
“And honestly, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.
” I had just blown up his family, caused irreparable damage in a matter of minutes.
I would understand if he hated me for that and couldn’t move past it.
It would crush me I’m sure, losing him a second time is not something I think I’d recover from.
But there is a steep price to pay for my secrets, my lies.
I just hope it doesn’t cost us our future.
“Kendall, I will because there is no other option than us being together and staying together. There’s no explanation for it other than I love you and we will find a way to make this work."
“Even if it’s hard and painful and ugly?”
“Yes, even if it’s all those things. I thought you understood by now that I am never letting you go again. You are stuck with me.” He smiles, although it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
I’m not super hopeful but it will have to suffice for now. He deserves the time and space to process all this bullshit that I’ve kept wrapped up tightly for years.
***
When I don’t hear from him the following day or the day after that, the worry turns into full-fledged anxiety.
Those two days go by at a glacial pace. I check my phone obsessively hoping he’s texted or called but there’s nothing.
I’m completely checked out, knowing I won’t be able to rest until I talk to him.
I start drafting at least ten text messages to him, but I never gain the courage to actually send them.
Hi how are you?
I miss you
Can we talk whenever you’re ready?
I’m so sorry.
I can’t be the one to reach out to him. I’m the one who messed things up, possibly beyond repair. He needed space and time even though it felt torturous to me. Every minute that ticked by felt like another nail in the coffin of our relationship.
Akio asking me to come play with him breaks through my turbulent thoughts.
“Mama, come play cars with me,” he repeats and I realize I don’t know how many times he’s already asked me this.
“Okay baby, which color should I be?” I ask as I sit down next to him on his bedroom floor.
“You be green and I’ll be blue,” he declares.
“Okay,” I say and offer him a half-hearted smile. That was about all I could muster up at this point. I could try to pretend for him at least. To be here, to be present, to be invested. Even though my mind lingered on Kai and every single mistake I had made in the last three years.
“Vroom vroom!” he shouts before crashing his blue monster truck into a yellow dump truck.
“Vroom vroom!” I echo.
After two more days of radio silence, panic starts to fester in my stomach. It works its way through my body, disrupting my nervous system until it becomes a boulder sitting on my chest, incessant insects crawling under my skin.
Something is wrong. Something is off.
He might be mad or upset but he would still talk to me. I know that much. He wouldn’t just disappear.