19. Nalini
Chapter nineteen
Nalini
The Terminator
Hey
I know we haven’t talked since Thanksgiving, but can we meet up?
I’d been expecting this message since I’d packed Jack into my car, but it’d been two days since Thanksgiving, and my gut was telling me I was about to lose our friendship again.
Jack, thankfully, hadn’t been a nuisance or gotten me banned from The Inn-Between.
But I had no indicators of what was going on.
I didn’t know if Jack was getting help or if Cassidy was okay.
I’d written so many texts to Kameron, only to delete them instead of pressing send.
Everything felt like the wrong thing to say, and I knew we needed to talk in person.
I was being a coward. I was avoiding a long overdue conversation with Kam. And I knew that was the source of my dread.
Kam was going to have questions, questions I’d been avoiding for fifteen years.
Questions that would’ve been easier to answer fifteen years ago, when everything was simpler.
Everything was so much more complicated, between his marriage, grief, and my baggage.
I was sure Jack hadn’t actually picked up on the fact my crush had returned; he was just being spiteful.
But that didn’t make this conversation any easier.
I was all nerves, and after I texted him my address, I jumped to my kitchenette and started pulling out ingredients.
It’d been a long time since I’d stress baked, but I was jumpy, nervous, and desperate to do something with my hands.
It was hard to tell where this was going, and the idea of losing Kam again after I’d finally accepted how badly I missed him felt like a cruel twist of fate.
Even if it wasn’t likely. Probably. Maybe.
I knew a relationship likely wasn’t in the cards for us, and I knew I still wanted him in my life.
They were my feelings to manage, mine to work through, and I didn’t want to put them on him.
I instinctively started mixing almond flour and condensed milk before adding in the saffron and cardamom.
The barfi recipe was my grandmother’s. I’d stolen it and a few other family recipes when my Mom kicked me out, but this one I’d made so many times I had it memorized.
It was easy. It was fast. It was fragrant enough to calm me down.
And by the time I’d put the pan in my fridge to set, I was finally starting to feel like myself again.
Only to jump when I heard the knock at my door.
I looked down and realized I was covered in almond flour, and definitely didn’t look like the picture of being put together this conversation probably needed. I debated running and changing clothes, but it was cold outside, and I didn’t want to leave him waiting.
I wiped my hands on my pants, and leaving a floury, smudged handprint on my thighs, I tried to hide how frazzled I looked as I opened the door.
It was somewhat reassuring to see Kam looked as bad as I felt: dark circles lined his eyes, his hair seemed flat, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t slept since Thanksgiving.
“Hey,” I said, attempting to give a weak smile as I let him in.
“...Barfi?” Kam asked, taking a few seconds to place the smell, “Stressed about something?”
“A lot of things actually,” I said, attempting to be a good hostess and taking his coat…
only to realize I had nowhere to put it and left it on the chair next to Sylvie’s tank.
Kam did a double take as he looked into the little world I’d meticulously made for my snake, as Sylvie lay asleep, curled up on a branch under her heating lamp.
“This is the snake?” he asked, taking in her pearly white scales before shuddering. “And you’re really just cool with it being here?”
“Sylvie is harmless,” I shrugged, smiling at my scaley baby, “Unless you’re trying to sleep. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I hear a giant thud, and I have to remind myself that ball pythons are clumsy and it’s not a burglar in the apartment.”
“Wow, somehow you made having it even more terrifying,” Kam said, sitting down on the very edge of my couch, which I immediately noticed was the one place in my tiny living room he wouldn’t be able to see Sylvie.
“How’s Jack?” I asked, sitting down next to him on my couch, my legs folded like a pretzel beneath me.
“Not great,” Kam sighed. “ I think he finally had the wake-up call he’s needed for…
” he trailed off; it was clear Jack had been struggling for a long time.
I had no idea if this was a widely known problem, or if Kam had been holding onto this secret for years.
I probably should've unblocked everything about RaineFall once Kam and I started talking so I’d actually know these things — but there’d been a peace in finding out what we’d missed naturally instead of me being in the know of all the celebrity gossip.
“Yeah… It was hard seeing him like that,” I admitted.
“I’m not sorry for throwing water in his face, though.
I wish I hadn’t wasted perfectly good coffee on you and thrown it on him instead.
” Kam looked at me for a moment before bursting out laughing at my admission.
His giggles were contagious, breaking through the awkward tension that’d been building from the moment he walked through my door.
“I came to apologize,” Kam finally said after containing his laughter, “For everything Jack said.”
“Why are you apologizing for him?” I asked. “The only person responsible for what Jack said is Jack. He should be the one here taking responsibility, not you!”
“I know, and I think he knows that, too. He’s just…
checking into rehab right now,” he explained, “They’re taking his phone, it’s a whole thing.
Hopefully, once he’s done, he’ll actually apologize to you.
I know my apologizing isn’t what you need.
And Jack needs to take responsibility… I just…
someone had to say something, because the way he talked about you was unacceptable. ”
“And the way he talked about you and Julia was fine?” I pointed out, “I gave up on ever getting any kind of apology from Jack a long time ago. I hope he gave you one.”
“He did,” Kam admitted, and I was surprised at the pang of jealousy in my chest. Maybe I hadn’t quite given up on an apology after all.
“He tried to apologize to Cass too, but she wouldn’t let him.
In fact, she wants nothing to do with him right now.
I can’t exactly blame her; a lot of what he said went over her head, but… ”
“She understood enough,” I nodded, “I get it if you need to distance yourself from me for her sake. She’s your daughter and your priority.”
“What?” Kameron asked, shaking his head in confusion, “That wasn’t what I was going to say at all! Cassidy doesn’t blame you either, by the way. She’s a little confused, but she’s been worried about you. Both of us are. I never realized how much Jack hated you, both after you broke up and now.”
“Well… he’s got a good reason,” I sighed, curling myself into a ball, “A lot of what he said was true. At least when it came to him. I did have a massive crush on you in high school, and I did stupidly date him to try and make you jealous. He figured it out, and that’s why our breakup was so nasty.
I owe him as much of an apology as he owes me; we’re just both too stubborn to actually do it. ”
For the first time, it was all out in the open.
That while Jack might've taken it too far, while the song had ruined my life, I’d understood why he’d done it — even if I refused to talk about it.
Most who asked about it didn’t need to know, and those who did?
It was embarrassing to have messed up that spectacularly, even though teenage me hadn’t thought it through.
Kameron’s eyebrows furrowed together, and I was positive he was mentally reframing everything from when we were younger.
How I’d managed to be both completely obvious and secretive throughout high school.
Why Jack had been willing to sabotage me in the first place.
Not to mention my feelings were so contradictory when the song first came out.
Some days, I felt like I deserved it for playing with Jack’s feelings.
Other days, I was desperate for Kam to see how I was struggling and rescue me from the situation.
It was a perfect storm of teenage immaturity, heightened by the media latching on to the brothers with all their might.
“That’s why Jack immediately jumped to that conclusion,” Kameron finally put together, as if it answered a question he’d wanted to ask, “he assumed you still had feelings, and since Julia died…”
“Kam, you’re my best friend and…”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence as his lips suddenly were on mine.
Kissing Kam was like a breath of fresh air after having been underwater for far too long.
His lips were soft and gentle, and the butterflies that'd always been in my stomach exploded as my hands instinctively grasped his curls. For one brief moment of bliss, I let myself have everything I’d ever wanted.
And then, as much as I hated it, I pulled away.