Twenty-Six
I TELL MY STEPMOM I’M SPENDING THE HOLIDAYS WITH MY boyfriend.
Ironically, she calls me the day after I abruptly stop having a boyfriend.
She doesn’t ask how I am. Doesn’t exchange a single pleasantry.
She just informs me that she’s made the last-minute decision to visit her parents, that Seba has his own plans, and instead of enquiring about mine, she muses, ‘But I suppose you’ll be with your Heath, yes? ’
I hum confirmation before I even really think about it – before the hopeful note to the question has time to sink in. And less than a minute later, when I hang up after faking promises to catch up in the new year, relief and loneliness compete for dominance.
The latter lingers. It follows me around, clinging no matter how fervently I try to shuck it off. No matter how often I try to drown it.
I start swimming in the sea again. A lot.
Every day for the first fortnight of winter break.
I swim laps in the choppy waves, challenging every ounce of my ability as I fight the current, numbing the shoulder pain that ibuprofen no longer keeps at bay, freezing for as long as my body can stand – longer.
On Christmas Day, I well and truly take the piss out of my limits, and I’m practically blue by the time I shoulder my way into my apartment.
My quiet, lonely apartment.
Despite how desperately my goose-bumped skin begs for a hot shower, I linger in the living room for a moment, scanning the bland surroundings. I didn’t decorate. Didn’t get a tree. What’s the point? It’s not like I have any presents to stash beneath it. Not like I have anything to celebrate.
Not like you have anything at all, a nasty little voice in the back of my head taunts.
I become so consumed by that depressing thought, I don’t notice a knocking sound until it becomes a loud, abrasive banging. And it takes me a moment longer to realize it’s someone at my door.
Swiping at my eyes, I don’t bother to check the peephole before opening the door – I figure it’s my neighbor, ready to ream me out for dragging half the beach onto the walkway again.
It is most definitely not my neighbor who breezes inside my apartment like he has every right to be here, and barks, ‘Do you have a death wish?’
My blank stare meets an oddly enraged one. ‘No.’
Kai huffs humorlessly. Jostling the tote bag straps bundled in one hand, he holds out the takeout cup clutched in the other. ‘Drink this before you disintegrate.’
Too tired and confused to argue, I do as he says, and rich hot chocolate burns my tongue, warming me from the inside out. ‘Thanks.’
Kai blinks at me slowly. The anger harshening his features fades, and we become a matching, disoriented pair.
‘Idiot.’ He tuts, but it lacks any real venom, as does the reprimanding headshake he sends my way as he saunters further into my apartment. ‘Hypothermic idiot. Couldn’t wear a wetsuit out there?’
‘I don’t have one.’ Honestly, I’m not sure I would wear it even if I did. Kinda defeats the purpose of a cold-plunge if you’re insulated against it.
‘You know the currents this time of year are ridiculous, right?’
I know. Barely an hour ago, I got caught in one and almost wrenched my damn shoulder out of its socket fighting my way out. Living up to my new nickname, but I couldn’t help myself. Couldn’t just let myself drift until the rip spat me out.
Not in my nature.
As if hearing my thoughts, my abused rotator cuff demands attention with a nauseating throb.
Stifling a wince, I keep one eye on Kai as he drops onto my sofa and head for the kitchen.
Draining the rest of my drink, I set the empty cup on the counter and rummage around in the drawers for an almost empty bottle of painkillers.
One-handed, I pop the lid and shake out a couple of pills, tossing them back and swallowing them dry.
‘You hurt?’
‘I’m fine.’ Shuffling into the living room, I drop to sit on the edge of the coffee table with a huff, right beside where my unexpected guest has propped his socked feet. ‘What are you doing here, Kai?’
‘I don’t do Christmas,’ he answers, as if that’s any kind of answer, as if that’s remotely what I’m asking. ‘Saw you flailing around like a dead fish and figured maybe you don’t either.’
‘My family went out of town.’ My fingers curl around the edge of the coffee table, white-knuckling the wood. ‘I didn’t.’
Slouched lazily against the cushions, Kai eyes me thoughtfully.
Before he can let any of those thoughts fly, I snark, ‘You’re telling me there’s no one else around for you to bother right now?’
‘I’m sure there is. No one else I wanna, though.’
‘And I suppose what I want counts for shit.’
‘Heath was right. You are smart.’
My breath hitches – my chest hurts. ‘I don’t wanna talk about him.’
So easily it damn nears pisses me off, Kai backs off. ‘Sorry.’ He nudges my knee with his own. ‘How ya doing, Lola?’
I grunt. ‘Fantastic.’
He grunts right back. ‘You look sad.’
‘Not in my programming.’
‘Dani.’
I stand abruptly, not liking how he says my name, how much it reminds me of him. ‘I need to shower.’
I need to kick him out yet I don’t. His presence makes me cringe, but the idea of him leaving makes me want to cry.
I’m equal parts panicked and relieved when he seemingly makes the decision for me, slapping his palms against his thighs as he pushes to stand.
Except he doesn’t steer himself toward the front door – he takes his bag to the kitchen and starts unloading carton after carton of takeout, announcing he’ll heat up our dinner while I wash away my frostbite.
I start for the shower. I really am cold. But I’m more of something else. I’m so damn curious, and I need to know, ‘Why are you doing this?’
He looks at me like it’s obvious. ‘I miss you.’
The knowledge that no one has ever missed me before lodges in the back of my throat like a rock. ‘Oh.’
‘I’m your friend,’ he continues, and the words warm me from the inside out. ‘And I was worried about you.’
‘I’m okay. Really.’
‘Yeah,’ he drawls dryly, shaking his head just a little. ‘So is he.’
I inhale sharply.
‘That was sarcasm, in case you missed it. He’s a fucking mess, Dani.’
‘Kai,’ I half-sigh, half-sob, want to scream. ‘No, he isn’t. It was fake. All of it. I wanted to piss Ben off and he needed tutoring to pass a class, so we faked it.’
His complete lack of surprise peaks my interest – a too-knowing expression chases it away. ‘Didn’t look very fake.’
‘Well.’ My shoulder screams with the effort of shrugging. ‘It was.’
‘Does lying to yourself make you feel better?’
‘Drop it, Kai.’
‘Did it feel fake, Dani?’
A resounding no echoes inside my head before I even really think about it. Barely at the start, and certainly not at the end. It might’ve been the realest thing I’ve ever experienced, and isn’t that a gut punch and a fucking half?
Frustrated, I grunt quietly and push off the counter with a forced, heavy shrug. ‘Doesn’t matter either way. It’s over.’
Kai makes a face like he doesn’t agree, like he knows something I don’t.
I leave the room before he can share – before I can ask him to.
In the long, weird gap between Christmas and New Year, Kai spends more time in my apartment than literally anyone else ever has.
I spend more time in my apartment than I ever have. I am held hostage and force-fed three meals a day and forced to watch nearly three entire seasons of a Danish series about poisonous rain because Kai claims it’s a travesty that I haven’t already seen it.
‘God, you must be bored,’ I remark irritably, more than once, almost every day, almost every hour, on the hour.
And on the last day of the year, when he struts into my home wearing a fucking party hat and blowing one of those godforsaken noisemakers, I almost scream.
I almost cry. I do beg: ‘Please tell me your friends are back in town soon.’
And he crooks his head to one side, the fucking pompom on the tip of his hat flopping jauntily. ‘Who said they were ever out of town?’
I don’t understand his frequent visits. I have no idea what spurs him on. I don’t particularly enjoy the constant invasion of my space, but I don’t fight it either.
So when my doorbell rings a couple of hours past that celebratory midnight mark, I assume it’s him.
‘You’re lucky I was still awake,’ I grumble, as I wrench the door open, scrubbing at eyes gone blurry from the hours and hours of reality TV I’ve been using to block out my apartment building’s raucous activity.
‘Happy New Year, baby,’ a deep, male voice slurs.
A voice that does not belong to Kai.
‘I’m sorry,’ the voice that is Kai mutters, and I can’t tear my eyes away from a pair of unfocused blue-green ones long enough to check if he really means it. ‘But he wouldn’t shut the fuck up.’
About what? I don’t ask. I don’t have the capacity for questions. There is nothing in my brain but Heath.
Drunk Heath. Very drunk Heath. Like, nearly comatose Heath. Like probably does not even register it’s me in front of him levels of drunk.
Except he must. Because he says my name. Quiet and content and reverent, and my chest constricts so tightly, it’s a wonder that my ribs don’t cave in.
He looks . . . not good. Not quite like shit, as his best friend claimed, but not good. And it has nothing to do with his rumpled clothing or slack, drunk features, or the fact he’s leaning so heavily on Kai, he’s practically horizontal.
He just doesn’t look like him. He isn’t smiling.
Presumably because this is the last place he’d rather be.
Presumably because of me.
I don’t remember inviting them in or letting them in or even moving at all. I just know that I blink and the duo is lumbering into my apartment, one of them dropping the other’s dead weight on the sofa, one of them peering at me worriedly while the other . . . gazes.
He fucking gazes.
Like I’m not standing here, silent and fidgeting, hair a mess and popcorn grease staining my fingertips, pale and skinny and sad, in sweats and a hoodie and—
Fuck.
His sweats. His hoodie.