Chapter 4 #3
More than anyone, I knew what it was like to have a sibling that couldn’t be reasoned with.
I could only imagine how much worse Morgan might be if she was older than me.
In my family, it was expected that younger people give the utmost respect to their elders—regardless of the years between them.
Judging from the dynamic between Kain and Sanaa, I was to assume even the Montgomerys lived by a similar set of expectations.
“I get it,” I told him. I was grateful that it was just him and I again. “My sister’s the same. I couldn’t imagine having two.”
“Four, actually.”
“You have four sisters?” I asked, unbelieving. My look of understanding immediately turned into one of pity. “No brothers? None at all?”
“No brothers.” Kain rose to his feet and said, “If we wait out the hour, we’ll miss them. Sanaa’s got the wrong idea about you and me. So if you’d like to avoid bein’ introduced to every member of my family, I’d wait out the hour. Whatever works for you.”
I nodded. “We’ll wait out the hour.”
“There’s extra supplies under the sink in the bathroom. If you’d like to get washed up, you got what you need in there,” he informed, looking down at me pitifully from his standing position. “Do you need anything?”
Before I could even think to ask the man towering above me for one more thing in addition to everything else he’d done, I blurted out a refusal, simply asking where the bathroom was.
“Walk through the closet and the bathroom is at the end.” He motioned to the double-doored walk-in closet on the far side of the room. “If you can find anythin’ in my closet that fits, help yourself. I’m gonna step out for a bit.”
A little part of me protested the announcement, afraid of being left alone and sober, left to marinate in my own thoughts and memories. This panic must’ve been displayed on my face because his features softened and he reassuringly added, “I’ll be here when you’re finished.”
Kain’s closet was the size of an average person’s bedroom.
Rows of formal and casual shirts on one wall.
On another wall, suits, coats, and hoodies were separated into clear categories.
Rows of drawers and cabinets took up another wall and the final wall was where the door to the bathroom was positioned, shelves from floor to ceiling stocked with shoes on either side of the entrance.
It was like he had a personal men’s clothing section in his room. I took in the organization and knew this could only be the work of a diligent maid. No man under the age of thirty cared enough to organize clothes by color.
The shower was, in its own way, therapeutic, but at the same time, it was discouraging.
I scrubbed at my body with my fingernails, digging into my skin as if to scrape it off.
Each lather and rinse only worked to make the smell of soap thick in the air, but did nothing to help me feel cleaner.
A lot of time had passed — maybe an hour or two — when a chilling realization had finally cemented in my mind.
No amount of soap or scrubbing would make me feel clean. I couldn’t wash away the memory of Victor’s hands on my body, not the bruises he’d left on my neck with his teeth, not the newfound fear I felt in my gut inexplicably.
Under the stream of the showerhead, it wasn’t until my body shook with sobs that I noticed that not all of the moisture on my cheeks was from the water. My tears mixed in with the wet that rained down on me, hiding in its abundance as if to protect me from my own feelings.
Three hours.
That was how long I’d been in Kain’s shower.
My skin was pruned and squeaky with the excessiveness of my washing.
I held my crumpled up dress in my hands as I sported the smallest shirt I could find in Kain’s closet.
Some long faded shirt from what appeared to be a junior high school field trip from at least seven years ago.
Below that, I’d pulled the drawstring of a medium pair of male Adidas joggers as far as it would go to tighten them at my waist. I’d rolled up the fitted hems to my ankles to keep the excess fabric from dragging.
The sun was down when I’d stepped into the bedroom.
Kain was in slacks, a white dress shirt and tie, lounging around in his bed now that I was out of it.
Immediately, it dawned on me how long I’d kept him waiting.
It was probably safe to say that his family had long left for his sister’s birthday dinner without him and that he’d more or less missed most of the celebration, although he was dressed for it.
Guilt settled in my chest and I opened my mouth to apologize.
“I am so sorry.” I sounded like I might cry, and Kain’s eyes snapped away from his cell phone in surprise. He hadn’t heard me enter the room. “I didn’t mean to…”
“Hey,” he interrupted, rising from his reclined position.
“Don’t sweat… I should thank you. I hate Japanese food.
” I watched his eyes trace the outline of my body as he took in the fact that I was wearing his clothes.
A small smile turned up the corner of his mouth and he said, “But you can buy me dinner if you’re tryna make it up to me. ”
My brow furrowed and I tilted my head to the side questioningly. Kain nodded toward his desk and my eyes followed, settling on the purse that I’d stashed away in his kitchen cabinets last night. Surprisingly no one had stolen it.
Wordlessly, I rushed to it, pulling out my cellphone with breath held. To my relief, and vague disappointment, I only had three missed calls. All from my sister. Two last night and one earlier today around noon.
“My sister hasn’t told my parents I’m missing.” That was just like her. “And they haven’t seemed to notice that they haven’t seen me all day.”
“So I can keep you a while longer,” Kain reasoned.
For a moment, it was as if he’d heard what he’d said only after saying it, and I could’ve sworn I saw his neutral expression falter into a wide-eyed confusion before dissolving back into its previous form.
“Dinner.” He cleared his throat. “So how about dinner?”
“I should probably go home,” I murmured, surprising myself at how disappointed I sounded to say this.
I long felt like I’d overstayed my welcome, and even though Kain wasn’t rushing me out, in my mind it was only a matter of time before he was.
Better I stayed ahead of the curve and bow out now.
Still, it was clear that even as I said the words, I wasn’t really ready to go.
To placate some of my unexpected disappointment, I quickly added, “Your phone number. Can I have your phone number?”