27. Kael
KAEL
Later, after the TV’s gone dark and Ash has fallen asleep with one arm across my waist, my phone lights up on the nightstand.
We need to talk. My place. Friday night. Bring Asher.
The text knocks the breath from my lungs. It’s one thing for Alistair to keep his hooks in me, but I won’t let him drag Ash down with me.
Ash stirs when I ease out from under him, his fingers twitching at my hip like he’s afraid I’ll disappear. I’d give anything to crawl back into bed and let this be my whole life.
But that isn’t how stories like mine go.
For days, I try to handle it on my own.
My therapist says everyone repeats the cycle until they learn the lesson.
I thought I’d already learned mine when Gram first got me into therapy in elementary school and I finally started talking a few sessions in.
But then high school split me open again.
Then again at Art U. Every time I think there’s nothing left in me to break, something else gives way.
Maybe that’s the lesson, because the longer I lie to Ash about ending it with Alistair, the worse it gets.
At first I tell myself I’ll go back to Alistair’s the next day and handle it, except I still don’t know what to do about him knowing Ash works for Query.
Then I decide I have to tell Ash everything, but when I finally work up the nerve, we end up talking about my mom, and Jesus, I can only unload so much baggage on that man.
I got myself into this. I should be able to get myself back out.
I tell myself that for days, and all it does is make me feel more alone.
Eventually some dusty little tool from my mental health toolbox rattles loose.
I have to tell someone. Not Jamal. Jamal will want to storm Alistair’s place and throw a punch, and I don’t have the energy to explain guards, cameras, security, or the simple fact that you don’t just kick a billionaire’s ass and walk away.
I need someone who can think clearly, someone who understands Ash well enough to know what actually protects him.
Jenny. Of course.
I grab my phone to text her and catch myself turning the screen away from Ash, who’s half-dozing on the couch, like even Jenny has become something I need to hide from him.
Flaming pile of shit first. Then I’ll deal with the guilt of hiding a text.
Kael: Hey! Need to talk. Can we grab coffee? My treat.
Jenny. Yes please! Out of town though :( Virtual coffee? How’s tomorrow at one?
Tomorrow is Thursday. One day from my conflicting plans with both Alistair and Ash. Talking to Jenny will give us a little over twenty-four hours to hack together some sort of plan.
With shaky fingers and one deep breath, I text back, it’s a date.
She sends a ghost emoji, which is not scary enough to explain my growing dread.
The night is restless, and all the old thoughts come back.
My father left long before Mom did, drifting in and out of our lives just enough to make things worse.
He’d show up late. She’d tell me to stay in my room.
They’d argue or cry or fuck, and sometimes he left money, which she always said wasn’t enough.
The last time I saw him is the only memory of him that’s stayed sharp.
The night before Mom left, I sat at the top of the stairs listening while they argued below.
She told him she didn’t want him near me.
She said she never wanted to see him again, and he more or less said the same.
Then he walked out, got into the back seat of his car, and let the driver carry him off like ending us was just another errand.
That was it. Everything after has felt like some version of trying to put myself back together.
Therapy taught me to challenge my thoughts, so I asked for help.
It gave me ways not to disappear inside myself, so I threw that energy into art.
It told me hating my father didn’t make me evil, and forgiving my mom didn’t have to mean understanding everything she did.
If I got to that forgiveness by blaming myself first, I guess that still counted for something.
Maybe my cycle’s the same as Mom’s was: her leaving my father, me leaving Alistair.
The next morning, I head to the studio, and time bleeds onto the canvas until my phone buzzes with the reminder for my call.
“Hey, Jenny!” I say, too cheery. I know I’m pinning way too much hope on Ash’s best friend.
When her video connects, all I see is an empty hotel room with beige walls and one bland, inoffensive painting.
“Ooooh. Ooooh!” Jenny’s ghost moan echoes from off-screen.
“Ha ha,” I say. “Very funny.”
She rises into view from the floor, grinning. “Hey, Kael.”
She’s in a sleek lavender blazer with her courtroom makeup on that would have intimidated me if she weren’t still guffawing at her own stupid joke.
“You look way too good to be kneeling out of view on that carpet,” I say. “Thanks for hopping on.”
“You’re distracting me during recess. So I owe you. What’s up?”
Despite rehearsing this, it still feels like I’d need a whole lifetime to explain everything. My mom, my father, Alistair, Ash, Gram, me—it all piles up behind her simple question.
“I’m kind of fucking up,” I say, and that wipes the smile off her face. “You’re Ash’s best friend, and I need your help to help Ash.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t break it off with Alistair.” She nods, but lets me keep going. “I didn’t mean to lie to Ash. It just… snowballed.”
“Why?”
“Alistair knows he works for Query.” My voice goes tight.
“The guy is fucked, and yeah, I know it’s my fault for taking his money, but it’s all some game to him, luring people in.
I swear I went to that party ready to break it off, and just as I was about to, he drops it on me.
He knows about Ash, and it’s this dark, moody kind of knowing…
like leverage.” I swallow the rest of the ramble and land on the line I actually practiced.
“I need to figure out how to save Ash from Alistair, and bonus points if you can get me out too.”
Jenny’s still nodding, quiet, while she processes the ticking bomb I’ve lobbed in her lap.
“And you’re telling me?” she asks.
“Because he’s like this perfect money-making workout machine and I’m already a hot mess. It seems like… a lot.”
“Ash is my best friend, but he is not perfect.” When I shrug, Jenny elaborates. “He’s obsessive, selfish, and sometimes downright self-destructive. I love him, and he’s so much more than that, but come on, Kael, he is also that. He’s your boyfriend. You need to talk to him.”
“Yeah, I figured you’d say that, and I will. But Alistair texted me last night.” I get out my phone and read the message. “We need to talk. My place. Friday night. Bring Asher.”
Jenny’s response is to take a slow breath, reconfirming that I’ve come to the perfect person by how measured she is digesting everything.
“Friday, as in tomorrow night?” she asks.
“Yeah, that’s what he said.”
“And what did you say?”
“I tried telling Alistair no once, and he made it clear that’s not how he operates. So I said I’d be there, but I have no intention of bringing Ash or letting him get any more involved than he already is—or, uh, than Alistair’s already making him.”
She takes another deep breath. “Kael, I’m going to break the best friend circle of trust and tell you something, but none of this changes my advice. You need to talk with Ash. This sucks. I hate telling you this now, but…”
“Lay it on me. Please,” I say.
“Tomorrow, Ash planned a whole surprise gallery event—for you.”
My stomach drops. So date night’s just a cover.
My mind conjures the image of lights and wine, with people stopping in front of my work, and Ash across the room looking proud.
He’s built a whole night to say what neither of us has managed to say out loud yet, while I’m asking his best friend to lie to him.
For once, my imagination sputters out. Even Rocky stays quiet, as if there really is no version of this where I escape Alistair, keep Ash safe, show up at that gallery, and not lose him anyway.
“He cares about you,” Jenny adds into the silence. “What are you going to do?”
“I have no clue.”
“Talk to Ash,” she repeats. “Figure this out together.”
“Ash cannot get involved with Alistair.”
Jenny rolls her eyes. “Look, Kael. We haven’t known each other that long, so if this offends you, forgive me, okay?”
“I came to you for help.”
“You’ve said you don’t want to be like your father. That you want to avoid your mom’s mistakes.” I nod. “What would you say if Ash tried to control you? Told you you’re not allowed to do something?”
She doesn’t understand. This isn’t about me controlling Ash. It’s me protecting him. Alistair feeds on dreams, and Ash’s are too easy for him to crush.
“Thanks,” I say, because anything else will sound defensive. She’s doing the best she can with half the picture. “You have to promise you won’t tell Ash.”
Jenny looks torn, and the flaw in my plan stares back at me with her lips pressed thin while her loyalties battle over the promise I’m asking her to make.
“Jenny, please. Promise you’ll let me handle this. I heard what you said, but… promise me.”
Jamal would never make this promise. The best I can do is ask.
“I’m back in town tomorrow,” she says, voice strained. “Helping Ash with your surprise gallery.” Her mouth twitches, then she blurts, forcing the words past a blockage, “I promise.”
“Thank you. Thank you. I knew I could trust you.” Relief floods in, chased immediately by guilt at the impossible spot I’ve put her in.
Therapy taught me to spot the cycle, but it doesn’t stop just because you know you’re in it. It stops when you’re brave enough to break it.
I just hope I’m not too late.