Chapter 13
E ight p.m. sharp, Kyla rolled up at Sam’s house, feeling brand new. She’d had a long sleep until late afternoon, rolling out of bed at four thirty. After fixing herself some tangy tomato prawn pasta, she took a long bubble bath before slowly getting herself ready for her night out with Sam.
Sam all but ran out of the front door the second she heard tyres on gravel. Her new red midi dress clung to her body like a second skin. Paired with a pair of stiletto heeled black suede ankle boots and a black diamante clutch bag, she looked, and felt, like a million dollars.
As she sat down in the passenger seat of Kyla’s Audi, Kyla raised an eyebrow at the rather daring keyhole neckline of her friend’s dress. Stretching from the bottom of her neck to the bottom of her cleavage and yawning over the side of both boobs, it was more than a little tease.
“That’s a little more revealing than normal for you,” Kyla said.
Sam glanced down and patted the yawning oval shaped hole baring her chest. “I know but the rest of the dress is perfect. Maybe it’s time I switched up my fashion a little. What do you think?”
Kyla tore down the driveway, the sadistic part of her wishing for the stones to hit Dylan’s impeccable car. “I think you look hot as always. You could wear a bin bag and somehow make it look hot.”
Sam giggled and took in Kyla’s choice of dress for the evening—a forest green wrap dress with a slit up one thigh, currently revealing her left leg as she worked the clutch on her car. With a deep sweetheart neckline, it didn’t leave much to the imagination for her chest either.
“Someone looks dressed to kill tonight,” Sam said, winking at her friend. “Anyone would think you were on the pull.”
Kyla laughed. “When you see those two, no amount of rich old men will take your interest, trust me.”
Sam tipped her head back and laughed. “There is no man on this earth hot enough to pull me away from rich old men. Trust me.”
Kyla grinned. “With how those two look, I’m tempted to say they’re not of this earth. Just wait and see.”
“Well, I came dressed for the part,” Sam said smoothing her dress down. “So we’ll see if they’re Sam Mohun worthy.”
“Oh they are,” Kyla replied, clicking her tongue. “We just need to agree who takes who.”
“What if they both want me?”
Kyla laughed. “Then you get both. I can find my own entertainment for the night.”
Sam bit her lip. Now would be the perfect time to tell her friend she knew about her and her brother, but seeing Kyla as her normal self, not a word mentioned of her horrific day, Sam knew this was not the time to pick her battle.
“Ky,” Sam said, keeping her voice quiet and calm. “Can I ask you a question?”
Kyla frowned and looked at her friend out of the corner of her eye. “Why are you being all serious? I hate it when you get like this.”
“Just humour me. Please.”
Kyla pressed her lips together and sighed. “Ok. Go for it.”
“Do you ever think about the future? You know, old age, and wonder what it holds?”
Kyla held her breath as a shot of adrenaline burst free from her heart. “Why are you asking me that?”
Sam swore at herself mentally. She should have just kept her mouth shut. Trying her best to be casual, Sam replied, “I was just thinking about things, you know? We’re thirty and—”
“I can do maths, Sam,” Kyla said, her tone sharp. “And I’m perfectly aware of how old I am.”
“Well, I was just thinking it would be nice to actually settle into a stable relationship, none of this chasing around on a Saturday night, looking for the next euphoric hit. Do you know what I mean?”
Kyla fixed her eyes on the road ahead, her heart pounding, her veins tingling, and her mind racing. Pressing her foot down further on the accelerator, she hurled them around the country road corners, her tyres squealing as they scrabbled for grip on the damp roads.
“I just wondered,” Sam said, trying to fill the awkward silence. “If you’d had any thoughts about your life going forwards?”
Without warning, Kyla stomped on the brake pedal. Both of them jerked forwards, their seatbelts snatching back at them as the car skidded sideways across the road, its headlights pointing out over flat, empty waterlogged fields.
Glaring at her friend, Kyla stared Sam straight in the eye, and asked, “Where is this coming from?”
Sam sucked in a deep breath, trying to quickly figure out the best answer here. Ignoring the rising fear in her body, Sam mustered up her most innocent voice and replied, “I’ve just been thinking about things. I scrolled through Facebook earlier and saw some posts from our old school friends, Jenny, Nicole, Becky, remember them?”
Kyla scanned her eyes across Sam’s face, trying to guess her next move. “Yes, of course I do.”
“They’re all married now. Jenny has three kids, Nicole has just gotten married in Dubai, and Becky has two kids with a doctor.” Sam shrugged her shoulders. “It just made me wonder about life in general and why neither of us have that. It made me reevaluate things shall we say.”
Kyla eyed Sam for several seconds, then deciding this was nothing more than Sam having her head in the clouds again, she pushed the car forwards again, straightening it up as she eased it back up to the speed limit.
“So what are you saying?” Kyla asked.
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “Just that it might be nice to have someone permanent as opposed to temporary. Sure, the money is good and all, but money doesn’t keep me warm on a cold winter night or give me a proper soul deep laugh. It doesn't make me feel loved or appreciated, you know?”
Kyla snorted. “You know my opinion on this, Sam. Given the alternative, I’d rather stay as I am.”
“But forever? Do you really think you’ll be still going out on a Saturday night in another ten years, twenty years? Come on, Ky, you’re worth more than that.”
But not worth enough to be with your brother , Kyla thought to herself, then shook the thought away. “I don’t know, Sam. It’s a big thing. You know it is. I don’t feel like I’m quite there yet.”
Sam wrung her hands together as she said, “I mean this with all due respect, Ky, but it’s been ten years...there’s got to come a point where it gets left behind. You’re living in the past, you’re never in the present, and you’re missing out on the future.”
Kyla fell silent as she soaked in the meaning of her friend’s words. As they drove closer to town, hedges and field edges turned into pavements and streetlights, then house after house, lining the streets. The unspoken words between the two hung in the air, an ever-growing palpable ball of tension that could explode at any moment.
Thinking back over the day’s events, Kyla couldn’t help but realise that she’d lost a day of her life to being stuck in her head and living in her past. It was only a day, but it wasn’t the first. If there was one thing Kyla knew for sure, it was that time can never be gotten back. How much longer would she allow her demons to steal her life from her?
“Am I that bad?” Kyla asked, turning into a car park near the town bridge.
Sam let out a breath quietly, relieved her friend hadn’t erupted like a volcano. “I’m not saying you’re bad, Ky. God knows that what you’ve lived through is hell itself, but I want to see you happy. I want to see you living, not just surviving. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
Guilt gnawed at Kyla. She knew exactly what Sam was referring to. “You mean being grateful for more than just managing to not top myself every day?”
Sam held her breath, then after a few seconds, she nodded.
Kyla parked the car and switched the engine off, her hands still on the steering wheel as she stared blankly straight ahead at the brick wall in front of her.
A good two minutes passed, in complete silence. Sam watched her friend’s eyes glaze over as she zoned out, becoming lost in that dark abyss in her head again.
“Ky,” Sam said, touching her forearm. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I only want the best for you.”
Kyla snapped back to the present and turned to look at Sam, plastering a smile on her face. “I know. I just...I don’t know how to stop it, Sam. I don’t know how to not let it affect every part of my life. It feels like I’m not me anymore, I’m just...I...I’m not me, it’s me. Kyla Marshall isn’t a person anymore. The thing that happened to her is her. Does that make any sense?”
Sam squeezed her arm and gave her friend a sympathetic smile. “I get it, Ky, I do. I want to help you. Will you let me help you?”
“How are you going to do that?”
Sam took a deep breath and then said, “I know about you and Dylan.” Kyla’s eyes widened, filling with shock and apologies. As she opened her mouth, Sam held her hand up to silence her. “Let’s not get into the details of it tonight. My point of this conversation was to tell you that you’re not alone. I want to see you happy, and so does Dylan. I want you to know that you can trust us both and lean on us both as much as you need, but I think it’s time, Ky, to start moving on.”
Kyla’s head whirled with her friend’s admission. Foolish didn’t even come close to how she felt. She had done the one thing she prayed every day would never happen to her again—betray the trust of the person she loved most. And yet, here she was, still offering to help Kyla, be her continued crutch for her miserable existence, to drag her up out of her wallowing self-pity.
“Sam...I...I’m so sorry...we never meant it to happen, it just kinda did...”
“Save it for another day. For now, it’s out in the open, you know we’re both here for you, and now you can start thinking about your life in the present and the future. Yes?”
Kyla nodded. She reached over and grabbed Sam’s hand. “You are the best friend anyone could ever have. I literally wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. I can never thank you enough for that. If that means I have to leave your hot brother alone, I will. Cross my heart, hope to die, I swear if you tell me to never touch him again, I won’t.” A cheeky grin passed over her lips as she then said, “But I can’t promise to not think about our times together.”
Sam laughed. “So are you two a thing? Are you official?”
Kyla shook her head. “No. I don’t think he’s got the nerve to ask me that again after I let loose on him earlier.”
“I saw.”
“What do you mean you saw?”
“Your handprint on his cheek.”
Heat flushed Kyla’s face. “Yeah...I might have said a few things as well. He’s a good guy, Sam, and the sex, wow.”
“Stop it,” Sam said, unclipping her seatbelt. “I’m not having this conversation with you when the man is my brother. It’s just...ewww. To me, he’s a eunich, ok?”
Kyla laughed. “Believe me, he is far from a eunich.”
“KY!”
Still chuckling, Kyla said, “Look, all I want to say is, I can’t give him a one-word answer, click my fingers, and jump into something intense, something so committed. You know me, I’ll end up feeling like a caged animal, and I’ll do anything to sabotage my way out. He doesn’t deserve that.”
Sam nodded. “I can’t disagree with that at all. What I will say is I’m so glad that you’ve been honest about it. Most women wouldn’t think twice because they’d just see the end prize of him.” Sam opened her door and then said, “Besides, you’re still single which means we still get to party, right?”
Kyla undid her own seatbelt, grabbed her bag from the passenger footwell, and opened her own door. “Too damn right.”