Chapter Nineteen Kai
Levi hasn’t been to the office in over a week.
I know this because I check every day like some sort of pathetic puppy that has been rejected by its mother. I don’t even know why I keep looking out for him, or why I keep checking my phone hoping he’ll ask me if I want to grab lunch. Or that Cole will message me about the book he’s reading.
I was right—they don’t feel anything for me.
I wish I wasn’t though. For the first time in a while, I wish I was dead fucking wrong.
Marie wasn’t too surprised when I told her the truth. She had only nodded and shrugged a shoulder. “That makes sense,” she said. “It was kinda obvious there was something more between you and Levi. You looked at him like he hung up the moon.”
Sometimes I want to entertain the idea that maybe he did like me, even if just a little. Surely, he had to like me to some extent to want to have sex with me—both of them must have. In those quiet moments, watching movies, or when they’d smile at me, I could believe it. But Adam’s words ring in my mind and I halt that train of delusion. Either way, it doesn’t matter, they let me leave.
“Kai, are you all right?” My mother asks from across the table in the dining room that stretches into the lounge.
We’re having our weekly dinner, and I haven’t touched my plate. My fork hangs in the air.
“Huh? Yeah. Sorry, I'm just a bit distracted.”
Her brow furrows. “Is work okay?
I nod quickly. Dropping my fork. “Yeah. Everything is great. I’ve just been really busy. This project is picking up.”
It’s not a lie exactly. Work has been stressful.
You’ve been really happy these last few weeks. I thought you might have met someone.”
Of course, I was that obvious about it. “I did,” I swallow. “But it didn’t work out.”
She sighs quietly “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Do you want to tell me more about it?”
I don’t know how she would feel about my arrangement with two men but more than anything, I want her to tell me everything is going to be okay—that the hole in my heart won’t be there forever. That I’m not stupid for wanting to belong to them.
“Um,” I start. “We agreed on keeping things casual but then I developed feelings, and I only realised it when it was too late.” I suck in a breath, blinking away tears I haven’t cried since the night I ended things, but I feel them coming back and it’s all so overwhelming. “I knew it was never going to work out. They didn’t feel the same, so I ended things.”
My mother reaches her hand out and clutches mine across the table. Her hands are soft, and calmness washes over me at once. It’s the same way she held me when I was little–before the twins, before Kenny.
“If they didn’t make you feel loved or like you belong, then it isn’t worth it. You’re the most amazing person, Kai. The best son and brother anyone could ask for. You deserve to be loved completely and loudly. And you’ll find that one day.”
Tears dance in her eyes, and I smile. “You deserve that too, Mum.”
She laughs quietly. “I have that already from you, Zoe and Zara. I don’t need anything else.”
Between my father who walked out and Kenny, my mother wasn’t very lucky in love either, but she’s always carried herself so well. I’ve barely seen her cry.
“Thanks, Mum.”
She moves her hand back and sits back in her chair, her face suddenly very serious. “I asked you to come to dinner for a reason, actually.” She pulls down the sleeves of her cardigan. “It’s about Kenny.”
My stomach falls.
“He was released a few days ago.”
The back of my head feels hot. My scalp prickles and fear runs through me in a cold jolt. “W-what?”
She nods once. “They called me because I was still listed as his next of kin. I know you two didn’t get along much so I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Didn’t get along.
Right.
“But he isn’t here. He went to his mother’s up north.”
Those threatening messages I received months ago suddenly flood back into my mind. I had almost completely forgotten about them. A part of me almost believed they weren’t real, that it wasn’t him, but he knew he was getting released all along and he warned me he would come for me.
“But he still had a few more years on his sentence,” I say.
She nods. “He was released on good behaviour, and he helped the police on another case.”
I take in a sharp breath. She doesn’t know the truth. I never told her the truth about him. I never told her about his dangerous friends, his sharp hits and the trips to A&E, or about the things he would say to me.
She’s always believed I just didn’t like him because he isn’t my father, but a part of me was always afraid she would choose him over me, that she might send me away like he said she would if I complained. I know now that I was wrong, that she would have never done that, but I was young and terrified.
“Kai, are you okay?” Mum asks, frowning.
My chest is moving up and down rapidly and I can’t really put my thoughts together. Everything is a mess in my head.
“Mum, I need to tell you something.”
I never told her that I planted a bag of drugs in his car. I never told her I asked my friends to call the police. I never told her anything. Even when she didn’t speak for a few days after he was gone, I kept my mouth shut. Because even if Kenny lost his job and grew mean, I knew she still loved him.
“What is it?” she asks.
I take a quiet breath. Looking at her now though, I can’t tell her the full truth. Telling her would break her. So, I go for a half-truth. I tell her that he hit me once or twice and that he said a few nasty words when he was drunk. I don’t tell her about his friends and the way they looked at the twins. I don’t tell her about the harsh beatings or the hospital. I don’t tell her what I planned with Si.
She watches me, listening, her lips trembling. When I’m done, we sit in silence for a long time. Tears spill from her eyes, but she only reaches out to hold my hand.
Five minutes or half an hour might pass before she stands and walks over to me, bending her small frame to hold me tightly. She kisses the top of my head, and I feel her tears fall on me. “I’m so sorry, Kai. I’m sorry I never realised. I’m sorry.”
I have never blamed her. I hid everything so well. I’ve never wanted her to know.
“It’s okay. You couldn’t have known. I’m fine, I promise.”
She pulls away and holds my face, “Once is more than enough, Kai. As your mother, I should have protected you.”
I shake my head. “It’s okay, Mum. Really, I’m okay. It all worked out in the end.”
She shakes her head quickly, sniffing and I almost hate myself for making her sad. “No, sweetheart. It’s not okay. You don’t have to keep pretending for me anymore. You can cry and scream if you want to. You can be angry at me. I don’t care. But you have to know none of the things he said to you are true. I would have never sent you away.”
I nod, giving her a watery smile, both guilt and relief flooding through me. “I know that now.”
As much as I hate the look in her eyes right now, I know this is something she can eventually move on from. If she knew the sick things he did, she’d never smile again. I can’t have that, so this has to be enough.
I spend the night at my mother’s and when Monday comes again, despite missing both Levi and Cole, I feel a lot lighter than before, like the weight that has been on my chest for the last nine years is gone. It doesn’t undo what Kenny did but it’s something at least.
Throughout the week, I try not to think about Kenny and the fact that he’s been released from prison. I focus on work, and the gym with Jenna. I tell myself that if he wanted something, he would have reached out again by now.
When Friday comes, Jenna, Marie and I go to a game night hosted by one of the trainers at Jenna and I’s gym. We sit around the living room drinking and laughing over Jenga and silly card games.
I miss Levi and Cole desperately, but they don’t belong to me, and they never will. It was a little bit of fun, a plot point in my story but it’s over. More than a week has passed and for the first time, I find myself laughing along.
But when I get back home and lie in bed looking up at my ceiling, that heaviness in my chest returns. I swallow it down because letting them go was the right decision. Even if they did like me to some extent, Adam was right, I don’t fit in their world, and they don’t fit in mine. If they knew about Kenny, about what I did, they probably wouldn’t understand it. Their world is ski trips and summer charity galas. Mine isn’t.
It’s time to move on.