Chapter 64
DIANA
“Happy birthday, Diana!”
Cheers erupt as champagne glasses clink together. I force a smile before I take a small sip. The bubbles leave a sour aftertaste that has my stomach roiling and churning. Despite the number of people sitting at the table, no one notices.
The restaurant lights are dimmed with only smoldering candlelight and hazy gold sconces flickering on the beige walls. They glow over butter and caviar dishes, and plates of pasta and salad that I have no appetite for.
“Did you all hear about the embezzlement case with Stanton Rhodes?” Hassan Desai asks.
Bàba dabs a napkin over his mouth with a disgruntled groan. “I heard about it just before dinner. Explains why downtown is more clogged than usual. He’s supposedly hiding out at the Fairmont and now reporters are swarming like flies down there.”
“You’d think Hollywood actors would make enough without having to stoop to crime,”
Māma snivels.
“It’s the damn economy,” Another man gripes, “The last time I checked, the interest rates…”
My fingers rub the sore ache pulsing behind my eyes. The conversation at the table clamors on with names being dropped and statistics being thrown around that I can feel a deadweight press down on me, draining my willingness to care about anything they’re saying.
All I can think about is what it would’ve been like if I was turning twenty-one with Kai at my side.
I know he’d have a little party for me at the apartment.
Luke would force the boys to wear birthday hats, and Rowan would be the one begrudgingly delivering the cake with Stella.
With his arm around my waist, Kai would pull me close just to say, “Blink twice if you want me to do you during any point of the night.”
Stella nudges my hand, jolting me out of my head. She frowns. Her brows knit together in concern. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “Just a little tired.”
“Hey, there it is!”
A flash of light suddenly erupts in the corner of my eye. A waitress delivers a mint chocolate cake lit with sparklers to a young couple sitting by the corner.
The sparklers twinkle and shimmer in front of them like a thousand bursting stars.
“Adam.” The girl sniffles and laughs into her hands. “Honey, this is too much.”
Adam smiles and kisses her cheek. “Happy anniversary, sweetie.”
They’re only in their mid-twenties, but I know these won’t be the last sparklers they light up. They’ll have them burning for every birthday, accomplishment, and milestone, because their life together will keep on moving through stillness and chaos.
I look away from them to glance around the room I’m sitting in. Cold rain beats down the windows, as the bleak conversation at the table drones on.
I feel like a ship that’s come to a grinding halt in the middle of the sea. The waves are rolling all around me, passing and hurtling by while I’m anchored in place, watching life trail on with no hopes of moving forward.
The candle on the table flickers brighter.
It carries memories so familiar and vivid, I shut my eyes from it.
But I can still see it all: bonfires burning on an autumn night, moonlight glinting through Kai’s green eyes as he smiles back at me, our hands twined together while we sneak away from the Wing and Flame; Kai’s laughter radiating across the walls of the steaming shower; his arms holding me together as I fall apart in the bookstore; the sunlight seeping through his car on those early morning drives to the hockey club; trying to study to the sound of Christmas music and the boys arguing about fifty-cent tinsel; running out of Levels with a tattered dress, and wild laughter bursting from my lips.
My heart pounds with a joy I haven’t felt in so long.
The sound of pouring rain blasts back in. It’s a dull, monotonous noise like the voices around me.
“I’m just saying, if you take a look at the financial reports the CRA published…”
My fingers slacken, the knife and fork clattering out of my grasp.
I can’t do this. I’m sick of fulfilling duties that make everyone else around me proud while I’m sinking inside.
I don’t want to be a part of the HMG anymore.
I want to pave my own path and make my own mark in the news world.
I want to feel just as alive as I did when I was with Kai.
I want more out of this life.
Out of every piece I’ve questioned about myself, this is the one fragment that truly belongs to me.
“Pssst.” My hand falls over Stella’s, catching her attention. “Can you do me a favor after dinner?”
“Oi! You little—” Stella blows her horn at a CBC van swerving in to cut in front of her. “Ha meung!”
Her windshield wipers sweep back and forth to ward off the heavy rain pelting the car.
A green Toyota honks at Stella when she tries to lane change.
She flips him off. “I hate you!”
My phone buzzes. Every media outlet in the city is chasing after the Stanton Rhodes story. It clogs up the roads with idiots desperate to get the scoop but they’re also blinded from seeing where I’m going and what I’m about to do.
Stella’s car eases towards the curb of Kai’s apartment. A sharp pain clenches around my heart, as memories of that night come rushing back in full force.
I nod. “This is it. You can park in—”
A car door slams shut.
I peek over Stella’s shoulder and see a tall figure approach the apartment doors with a DHU Griffins duffel slung over his shoulder, a single suitcase rolling behind him, and a hockey stick braced in his other hand.
Kai.
I eagerly pat Stella’s arm. “Stop here! Stop here!”
“Wha—here?”
The car stops. I unlock the door and push it open. Heavy rain beats down my hands and pools around my heels.
“Diana, be careful!” Stella shouts.
“It’s fine!”
I shut the car door. The rain soaks into my hair and drenches my silk red dress until I’m shivering.
“K-Kai!”
The heavy rain drowns out the sound of my voice. Kai keeps on walking. I huff, striding faster towards him with my arms trembling around me.
“Kai, w-wait!”
He whirls around. His eyes widen at me.
“Diana, what the—”
He drops his duffel bag and hockey stick and rushes towards me. Shrugging off his jacket, he wraps me into it, drawing us under the awning. The faint lamplight illuminates the rain dripping down his shocked face.
“What are you doing here?” he shouts over the storm. “You’re going to catch a cold!”
“I need to talk to you!”
“To me?” Kai’s chest softly rises and falls. Curiosity and awe transform his rain-slicked face as he takes me in, hands brushing over my cheek, my hair.
I lean into him, our noses brushing softly. “God, I missed you so much.”
His breath steadies. “Me too, princess.”
My fingers graze across his jaw. The warmth of his skin sinks into my cold fingers. Kai lets out a breath, his heartbeat slowing under my touch.
There’s so much racing through my head I don’t know what I want to say first.
“I want us to have cake with sparklers on it,” I blurt out.
Kai smiles through his confusion. His voice comes out as gently as the hand that smooths over my hair. “You’ve said a lot of crazy shit, Di, but I’m gonna need you to explain this one.”
I swallow hard, trying to grasp my thoughts in the middle of a raging storm.
“I thought having everything go back to normal was what I wanted. But it’s been days of pretending and faking that I realized…
I don’t want this life. I don’t want to take over the HMG.
I’m still trying to understand which pieces of myself belong to my father and which belong to me, but I know for a fact that there’s a piece of myself that wants a life with you in it. ”
Relief and surprise unfurls all over Kai’s face, and he glows with a light that makes him radiate like the sun itself.
“I want that, too, Di. Even if it’s impossible right now, I’ll always want it. I’ll always want you.” Kai hugs me tighter and cocks his head. “What do the cake and sparklers have to do with this, though?”
“Oh…” I blink. “Right.”
I tell him about the couple celebrating their anniversary and how much I want to be like them, even if I have to keep this relationship a secret for a while.
“That’s okay,” Kai assures. “I can wait.”
“I also don’t really know how to be in a relationship.” My brows cinch together. “I do need time to figure it out because I don’t want to do things the wrong way—”
“You know there’s going to be two people in this relationship, right?” Kai arches his brow. “You won’t be figuring it out all by yourself?”
“I know…” I blush. “I’m still getting used to that part.”
Kai’s lips quirk up in a soft, teasing smile before he kisses my forehead. I close my eyes, feeling so safe and secure in my bones.
Kai doesn’t let me go. “I know you’re risking so much to do this. But I don’t care what I lose. You’re worth the fight, Di. Every single one. No matter how many fires we have to put out, I’ll be with you,” he swears, “until we burn.”
Tears prick my eyes. I hold his face between my hands, baffled and in awe of how the stars aligned and the universes collided so that we could find each other in the same lifetime.
“Until we burn.”
Kai kisses my nose and chuckles. “Happy birthday, by the way.”
Our lips brush together—
Beep! Beep!
Stella rolls down her window and shouts, “Are we good? Can I go now?”
“Yes, you can!” I shout. “Thank you by the way!”
“Anything for love!” Stella rolls up her window. “See ya!”
Her headlights flash on before she speeds down the street.
Kai chuckles. He wraps his arm around my waist and nods at the door. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
“The boys aren’t with you?”
“They went to a party to celebrate DHU’s latest win.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
“I didn’t feel like it.” Kai shrugs with a roguish smirk. “But now I’m starting to think the universe sent down a better way for me to celebrate.”
I scoff and smack his chest. “Five seconds since we got together and you’re already having such perverted thoughts.”
“I was talking about getting into our PJs and watching movies,” Kai quips back. “I think you’re the pervert in question here, Di.”
“Oh, really?” I challenge.
“Mhm.”
“You’re telling me there’s no impure thoughts running rampant in that head of yours?”
“Of course not. I’m a gentleman.”