Chapter 8
Chapter eight
The past doesn’t stop hurting.
The present won’t stop ticking.
The future can’t stop looming.
So, what’s the worst of the three?
The person who can’t let them be.
8:00 p.m.
I was armed with a damp cloth as I wiped every last trace of spaghetti and hot-dog pieces off the walls. The cold, slimy remnants stained the paint worse than spilled wine on a cotton shirt. I needed a fake ID, a thousand dollars in cash, and a fast car to escape my mother's wrath.
Kayla meticulously stacked the plates and cutlery as she cleared the dining table.
Awkward silences were her kryptonite, and currently, all three of us were held captive by the emptiness of words.
The only sound came from the clinking of glass and china, orchestrated by Lucas as he scrubbed the dishes clean.
Five years had passed since we graduated high school—only five years, yet it was painfully apparent that time had hardened us.
We had become strangers to each other, like three walking corpses: the same features, same hair, same eyes, but lifeless and cold.
How could three people, who had once known every intimate detail about each other, now feel so detached?
The absence of sound stung like acid, eroding my bones, but it was still better than speaking words I didn’t believe and better than hearing ones I didn’t want to.
However, what I wanted and what I got never seemed to align.
Kayla was the first to attempt to break the ice.
She carried a stack of forks, knives, and plates into the kitchen and placed them next to the rest of the piled dishes.
Lucas’s eyes widened at the mess of china, which continued to multiply before his eyes. “This is worse than when I worked at Grannie’s as a dishwasher sophomore year,” he grumbled as he grabbed a dirty dish from the middle of the pile and plunged it into the scalding water.
Kayla hopped onto the counter, her heels bouncing off the cabinet as she slid back into a seated position. “Hey, you can’t claim all the misery. We all worked at Grannie’s that year.”
Lucas continued to scrub dish after dish. “You get no sympathy from me. You spent the entire year flirting with every customer from age fifteen to thirty. Grannie had to warn the basketball team about you.”
A subtle smirk of mischief painted Kayla’s lips, “Then it’s a good thing I only had eyes for the football team.”
Ouch … I knew Kayla was trying to make conversation, and her way of breaking bread was usually accomplished by breaking boundaries.
But right now, her flirtatious anecdotes were the last thing Lucas needed.
He was the wide receiver for our team and had spent his entire high school life pining after Kayla, only for the love of his life to cheat on him with his best friend after they finally got together.
Lucas had faced the same situation I had, but he seemed to handle it better.
It was as if his mind functioned like a giant filing system, with a folder for every betrayal neatly tucked away—always present but never reopened.
Lucas dropped the plate he was scrubbing into the hot, soapy water and stared into the cloudy liquid as though it were a crystal ball.
“Don’t,” he whispered to the submerged plates. “Please just don’t do that.” His voice stopped as if his own words hurt him. “I used to love hearing my name dance off your lips.” His big eyes met Kayla’s shocked ones. “But now it just hurts too much.”
Kayla’s voice was so low I could barely hear her words. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—” Kayla moved her hand to his cheek, but he flinched like her skin burned.
“I don’t want you to be sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.
” His gaze softened. “But I can't allow myself to feel even a fraction of what I felt for you in the past.” He tucked a single braid behind her ear. “When you speak to me as if we are still sixteen, my heart forgets what my brain will always remember, and I don’t deserve that pain.”
If I weren’t harboring my own resentment for Kayla, I would have yelled, Kiss her, you big idiot at my brother. But I didn’t. I stayed silent and pretended I didn’t just hear their heartbreaking conversation.
Kayla opened her mouth to respond, but as she hesitated, the doorbell rang, its chime cutting through the heavy atmosphere like a bolt of lightning.
“Saved by the bell.” I put my damp cloth on the dining table.
I bolted to the front door, partly to escape the second-hand embarrassment but mostly because I was starving.
If there was any luck in this world, that doorbell would have been the announcement of freshly baked pizza, ready to whisk me away with its cheesy bliss.
I yanked open the door, hoping to be greeted with the sinful smell of grease and pepperoni, but instead, I was met by the beady green eyes of an unexpected visitor holding my dinner hostage.
A sly grin spread across my face as a strange mix of amusement and delight filled my cells. “Look, Kayla!” I yelled down the hall to the kitchen, “Your past has literally come knocking.”
“What?!” Kayla yelled back. She marched down the hallway to see what all the fuss was about.
I stepped aside, giving Kayla a perfect view of our guest. Her reaction was instant, eyes wide, shoulders snapping back, one hand darting to her hair, smoothing it down like it might save her.
She plastered on a smile that looked about as stable as a wet napkin.
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning.
“Annalise …” Kayla choked out in a light squeak as if her larynx was being squeezed by an invisible hand. Kayla approached the door, her still-wet hair lightly dripping down the back of Lucas’s baggy T-shirt, which hung tent-like on her wiry figure.
Annalise eyed her disheveled ex-girlfriend up and down. “Hey, Kayla, it’s nice to see you. Are you in town because of Saturday?”
Of course, she’s here for Saturday. What a ridiculous question, I thought as I lingered close behind Kayla, not wanting to miss any of the show before me.
Kayla replied, “Partially, yes, and also because I just moved back home …”
Annalise’s eyebrows furrowed, but there was a slight upturn at the corners of her lips. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Kayla cut her off, “It’s fine. I mean, you get it.” She gestured to Annalise’s pizza delivery uniform. “Adulting isn’t as glamorous as it was advertised to be, am I right?” Her voice wavered between defensive and self-deprecating.
Annalise shifted the extra-large pizza box in her hands to the side, resting it on her bony hip. “I own Mikey’s Pizzeria now. And the movie theater and the bowling alley next door.”
Kayla’s face turned a deep shade of burgundy, her embarrassment bringing a sting to even my eyes.
I contemplated allowing Kayla to continue standing, mortified and wordless, but my better instincts took over.
Damn, my conscience can’t let me have anything.
Cursing at myself for not allowing Kayla to die of self-loathing, I stepped forward to grab the pizza from Annalise.
“I would say it was nice to see you, but we both know that’s not true. ” I began to close the door.
Annalise huffed. “What, no tip?”
Through a four-inch gap in the door, I said, “Sure, here’s one: If you have to brag about your life to feel superior, then maybe it's not as great as you think.” Before I could hear the gasp from Annalisa’s mouth, I slammed the door and quickly locked it behind me.
Kayla wrapped her long arms around my shoulders like I was the last lifejacket on the Titanic. “Thanks, Alex.”
I felt my arm hug her back, a reflex I refused to believe was anything more than muscle memory. I broke from Kayla’s grasp. “Don’t get all sappy on me. It’s not like I gave you a kidney.”
Kayla’s face drooped.
“You’re welcome,” I said to break her wounded puppy expression. “But honestly, that was the most fun I’ve had all month. I hated Annalise in high school.” I shuddered.
“I second that,” Lucas said from down the hallway, leaning against the kitchen’s archway.
I brought the pizza into the living room, Lucas and Kayla following, and laid it on the coffee table. “You only hated her 'cause she dated Kayla before you did.”
Lucas gasped, two red circles forming over his tanned cheeks. “Everyone dated Kayla before I did!” he shot back.
Kayla slapped his massive shoulder, eliciting a booming laugh from Lucas that I hadn't heard in years. “What is this? Gang up on Kayla day?!” she said through a whimper.
I opened the pizza box and snatched a pepperoni-covered slice, shoveling its greasy end into my mouth. “Can we make that a national holiday?” I said with a marinara-covered smile.
A piercing yelp blasted from Lucas’s phone. He swiftly dug it out of his pocket, probably worried it was a text from work, but it was unfortunately not a job crisis. Lucas’s eyes shot at Kayla’s face. “Annalise posted to the alumnae’s Facebook page …” He gulped.
“What did she post?” I swear I could see Kayla’s heart racing through her shirt.
Heavy tension filled the space as we gathered around Lucas, who promptly pulled his phone close to his chest, obscuring the image from our eyes.
“Lucas, let me see,” Kayla barked.
“Don’t overreact. Annalise is just being her normal viper self. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter." Lucas's voice switched to his soldier boy tone. Damn, it must have been bad; he only sounded like that when he needed to talk Kayla down from a ledge.
“Lucas Adonis Drakos, show me that post right now!” Kayla pulled out the middle name … this meant war.
Lucas slowly unclenched his hands, his breath still paused in suspense. “Just please don’t throw my phone when you see it.”
Kayla ripped the phone from his grasp. “Oh my god!” Kayla's hand swiftly slapped her mouth as she sucked in a gasp of mortification.
I snatched the phone from her clammy hands to see the damage. “Oh my god …” I echoed Kayla’s breath. “When did she even take that photo?”