Текст книги "The Weight of Rain"

Автор книги: Mariah Dietz

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

THE NEXT week goes by slowly. I’m no longer working to avoid only King. I’m working to avoid everyone and everything because the thought of saying goodbye is starting to threaten my certainty for going.

“Why are you ignoring everyone all of a sudden?” Kenzie’s arms are spread between both railings, her eyes wide, demanding a response. I’ve been so careful, yet I wasn’t even paying attention as I wandered up the stairs, trying to think positively about Italy for the first time all week.

“I’ve been avoiding you since September,” I reply honestly.

I note the way her eyes look away for a fleeting second before returning to me. “Not like this you haven’t.”

I shrug off her response and take another step forward to signal I’m done. She allows me to pass, following close behind as I unlock the door to our apartment. Kenzie drops her purse to the ground with a thud, closely followed by her coat.

“Is this because of the fashion show?”

Through narrowed eyes I watch her closely, trying to read what all she may know about the situation.

“I know what it’s like to not feel accepted by your family,” she continues. “I’ve always been the black sheep. King and Kash were older and always off doing stuff with their bikes, or off on some adventure that I wasn’t invited to. I never wanted to be home. I hated that place. It was huge and always empty, yet I was never allowed to leave. I felt like I had manacles around my ankles and wrists for eighteen years. Believe me, I get it.”

I’ve never shared my personal feelings about anything with Kenzie. Perhaps it’s the timing, or that I’m feeling vulnerable, but my head shakes with defeat. “The people that are supposed to love me the most, unconditionally…” My lungs feel weighted yet empty, and my throat too tight. I don’t know if it hurts so much because I’m finally admitting this to someone else or because I am finally acknowledging this truth myself. “They don’t love me. My dad needed another son. Someone to stay and carry on the family business with my brother. I can’t remember the last time he hugged me. Hell, I can’t remember the last time he told me he loves me. And my brother. God, my brother has hated me since I was born. Everything about me he hates. The way I look, the way I act, what I go to school for, the fact that I lived there, the fact that I’m now gone. And we can’t forget about my mom.” I take a deep breath as a strange energy creeps through my veins that has my fingers trembling, keeping tears at bay though they burn at the corners of my eyes. “You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me.”

“I don’t understand why you even care.”

“I told you I messed up. I know I messed up. Eighteen years living with Queen Bitch taught me a lot of nasty habits. Ones I still don’t even recognize until they’re pointed out to me. We are really different people, but I know how much my family is starting to love you, and if I can do something to make this right, I will. Anything.”

I press my lips together to stop them from quivering. “My mother left when I was two months old. She has never wanted me.” My voice wavers and my eyes gloss with tears. “If they can’t love me, who will?” My chin trembles violently and the gloss becomes smears as tears glide down my face.

“People who say that blood is thicker than friendship have never known what it’s like to have an asshole as a parent. It’s a bunch of bullshit. Too many families stick together out of pure obligation.” Kenzie’s throat moves as she swallows. Her lips and chin quiver as she opens them to speak again. “We don’t get to choose our families, but we do get to decide who we make our families. Sometimes they’re blood, and sometimes it’s something much deeper.”

“What if there’s something wrong with me?” My voice is strained and hoarse.

“There’s something wrong with all of us. It’s a matter of finding the people that can accept those faults and love them as much as your strengths. Too many people want to be Wendy. They want to find the Lost Boys and be their savior—the reason for them to change their ways. People don’t change, though, at least not permanently. Eventually, those bad habits will return because like it or not, we are all born with weaknesses.”

I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand and smile at her though my lips are tipped downward with the desire to cry. “I feel like we need to follow this up by singing Kumbaya or something.”

“You’re worse at having a deep conversation than my brothers,” Kenzie says, shaking her head as her face travels up in an attempt to hide her own tears.

“I was raised by men. It’s to be expected.”

“I’m sorry I lied to you, and I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you about King. I swear, it wasn’t because of you. It was because of Isabelle, and I know that doesn’t make it right or fair. I just hope you can sort of understand.”

I nod, brushing yet another stray tear from my cheek. “I get it. Sometimes we do crazy things for the people we love.”

“I won’t butt in anymore,” Kenzie says with a firm nod. “Your business with King is your business, but you really should go talk to him.”

“So was this an attempt to make your conscience feel better, or a favor to King, or…”

Kenzie shrugs, her shoulders rolling in a way that reminds me of King. “Maybe all of it, but, although we may never be close friends, I don’t want you to hate me, Lo. I really did like you at the beginning of the year, and as much as I hated you for sleeping with King, I hated you even more because I still liked you.”

There have been multiple times this year that I’ve loathed Kenzie as both a person and roommate, yet her saying this still makes me shed more tears. “I’m leaving in ten days.”

“Don’t waste them.”

I wrap my arms around Kenzie in an aggressive hug that she reciprocates with a stunned pat, and then I move to the door, grabbing my messenger bag on the way out.

KING IS in the shop when I arrive, his face contorted with frustration and focus. His moves aren’t as fluid or graceful as they always have been previously, and I know with certainty that it’s because he’s distracted. It doesn’t take away from the beauty of watching him, however. He is still fearless liquid motion as he moves in impossible ways.

“Dude, you need to take a break. You’re going to break your leg or your bike,” a guy insists when King fails to land the same move for the third time. King scowls at him, but I take it as my cue to move closer.

He notices me at the same time I catch sight of his shirt. It’s a black T-shirt with my logo printed in the center: a large bicycle wheel kicking up mud with spindles that are both iron and feathers. It pinches my heart.

“Can we talk?”

“That depends,” King says, holding his bike beside him, his shin bleeding from hitting the edge of the ramp. “Are we going to discuss how we’re going to make this work, or are you still feeling stubborn?”

“I’m pretty sure you called that my passion and you said it was one of my better attributes.”

“I never said it was one of your better attributes. I said I loved it. But it’s one of your worst attributes when you get so damn stubborn you can’t listen to reason.”

The guy who instructed King to take a break stares at me, clearly trying to interpret the situation and my intentions. “Want to go to Waterfront with me?”

“Now?”

I shrug, my eyes moving back to the man still staring at me. King follows my gaze and then leans his bike against the wall. “Let’s go.”

We ride in silence for the short distance to reach downtown, and I hate that it reminds me so much of two weeks ago after the fashion show.

As King parks, I notice his movements becoming slower. “What happened? Is it us? Your family? School? Italy?”

I take a deep breath, trying so hard to keep eye contact with him rather than look over his shoulder. “I’m so afraid we’re going to hurt each other, King.”

“Stop, Lo.” He turns in his seat to face me, his hand finally extending across the cab to touch my leg. “It’s three months. That’s it.”

“Three months of you competing in a world you love.”

“And I know you want to be there, and that’s enough for me.”

My eyes fall at the thought. Is that enough? Why have I never considered it like that?

King nods toward the window. “Let’s walk.”

Generally when I walk Waterfront, there are so many people, my mind whirls with images, colors, textures, and infinite other details, but today I see only him. Even the noisy band that I had previously seen people turn their heads toward with a myriad of emotions ranging from joy to annoyance has ceased to exist. This only happens with King. I am exhilarated. Nervous. Inspired by all that is King, because only he is able to make the world disappear.

I’m also terrified, realizing he’s carrying so much more than just my hand. What if he meets someone new? What if this doesn’t work? What will happen to my world?

“We have a little over a week left. I don’t want to waste it.” His eyes close as he shakes his head ever so slightly. “I want to spend every second with you until you’re so sick of me that getting on that plane to Florence is a relief.”

The burn of tears threatens my eyes, but I force a smile on my face and shake my head when I realize the tears are coming regardless of how hard I try to fight them. “That won’t take a full week.”

King’s lips pull up into a smile at my joke, but his eyes are unfocused, reflecting the same emotion I’ve been experiencing since opening my acceptance letter: loss. He wraps his arms around me slowly as though he’s hesitant maybe from rejection, or because also like me, he knows this is the beginning of a short train of good-byes. He pulls me flush against his body, and I feel his heart against my chest, conversing with my own. It’s a crazy and messy mixture of pleas and fears that my heart relays back as I hold on to King with everything inside of me.

The ring of a bicyclist is the only reason we eventually part. Otherwise, I think we would have tested how long we could both go without food or water. His jaw clenches and his eyes close, making my heart thunder and my eyes heat with tears. I understand what he’s feeling; I know it so well. It is as though we are made to be together and time keeps mocking us. It hurts. It hurts like hell.

“Let’s get some dinner,” King says, threading his fingers with mine.

“I need to tell Mercedes.”

“She’ll understand.”

I nod sadly. I should be relieved that he’s ensuring she’ll be okay, yet, whether it’s for fear that she won’t or fear that she will, my eyes cloud with tears once again.

WE WALK into the house holding bags of takeout. I requested Chinese when King asked, thinking about Allie and what she had told me about food and the comfort it brings. Summer and Kash are already in the kitchen, looking over new images she’s taken.

“Where’s monkey?” King asks.

“In her room.” Kash looks to me as he answers, already knowing I’m late for this meeting.

I smile reproachfully and head down the hall.

“Hey,” I say, leaning against the doorframe of her room.

Mercedes looks up, her long hair a curtain around the magazine she’s looking through. “King has a centerfold in here.”

My lips pull up in a smile and my feet lead me into the room with little thought.

I sit on the edge of her bed, and Mercedes sits up, tucking her feet under her so she’s nearly as tall as I am. “Are you going to tell me about your brother?”

I hadn’t intended to. Ever. “Do you want me to tell you about him?”

Mercedes stares at me for several seconds and then shrugs, but I see that she has questions before she asks, “Was he always so mean?”

My first response is to shrug in return, but I stop as my shoulders rise, and swallow. “Yeah, he has.”

“Does it bother you?”

I rub the length of my arm because I’m covered in chills from the thoughts she’s evoking. “At times.”

“How do you make it stop?”

“Stop what? Caring?”

Mercedes nods.

“I don’t know if I ever stopped caring. I just realized that his words were intended to make me feel as badly as he does, and I didn’t want to be miserable like him.”

“I’m sorry he’s such a jerk.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. The fact that they don’t believe in me does nothing but fuel me to be better, push harder.”

“You’re an amazing artist, Lo.”

“And you’re an amazing person,” I say, inching my fingers forward and covering the back of her hand.

“I have something to tell you,” I begin.

“You got in.” Her eyes leave mine, inflicting a sharp pain to my chest. “I already know. I knew as soon as you submitted that you’d get in. So did you, remember? I was there when you got your passport picture.”

“I kind of hoped they’d turn me down.”

Mercedes shakes her head, but she still doesn’t look at me. “Don’t say that, Lo.”

“I’m coming back in September, though. Allie and Charleigh are both staying in the city, and I’ll stay with them when I return until I figure things out.”

She nods, sniffling as her fingers tighten into a fist below my hand.

“I wish I could take you with me.”

Mercedes launches herself at me, knocking me off balance so I’m sprawled across her bed with her on top of me, her narrow arms locked around the back of my neck. I wrap mine around her back as we both cry.

“Lo?” Mercedes asks in a shaky voice after both of us have calmed to the point we can breathe evenly again.

“Yeah?”

She shifts, lying her head on my shoulder and reaching for my newly freed hand. “You remember telling me we have to appreciate what we have?”

“Yeah…”

“You forgot to say, we have to realize what we have in order to appreciate it. I’m glad I have you, Lo.”

My nose tingles and my eyes burn from the quick return of tears. “I’m glad to have you too, Mercedes.” As my words dance across the sounds of our breaths, she snuggles closer to me, her hair tickling my face. I want so badly to brush it away, but I don’t. I wouldn’t move right now for the world.

“I HATE that you came,” I say against King’s shoulder.

“I’m not wasting a second. I told you that.”

“But this makes it so real.” I imagine few are watching us as we cling to one another outside of the TSA security gates, thinking they know and understand what’s happening. But they don’t. They don’t know King, and I’m positive they have no idea how impossible saying goodbye to him is.

“No less real than it would have been if we had said goodbye last night.”

We had a small party at Sonar to celebrate last night. Charleigh attended with her boyfriend, Brandon, and I was glad I had the opportunity to speak to him for a few minutes sans drama to learn that his love for Charleigh was just as deep as hers for him, possibly deeper. I understood before that moment why she had chosen to drop out of the fashion show, but seeing them together made falling asleep last night nearly impossible.

Allie was there along with Mia and Estella, Summer, Parker, a few students from my class, and even Kenzie. I spent most of my time with King and Mercedes, knowing that I would miss them the absolute most. But I had asked all of them not to come to the airport. The idea made it seem so final.

Tears are already skating down my cheeks from the far corners of my eyes, my throat tight. “Why couldn’t I have gone last summer?”

“Stop, Lo.” King’s hand between my shoulder blades presses me tighter to his chest. “I want you to go with the expectation of loving it, not hating it. It’s going to be hard, but we can do this.”

I nod, the wool of his plaid shirt scratching my face. I can’t make a verbal response without choking on my tears.

“Everything is going to be okay. We’re going to be okay, alright? We’ve got this.”

I nod again absently, fighting the cry about to break lose.

“I love you, Lo.” His voice is softer, pressed against my ear, playing through my head like a catchy tune. My fingers ache from squeezing the fabric of his shirt so tightly.

“I love you more.”

He shakes his head. “Not possible.”

“What are you guys doing today?”

King rolls his shoulders dismissively. “Summer has something planned,” he says, but I understand that he has no intentions of allowing her to try to distract him.

“Estella invited you guys to the restaurant for happy hour.”

King doesn’t say anything, just grips me tighter.

“You remember the name of the company you’re getting a ride from?”

“Yeah, it’s in my bag.”

“And you have your power converters and the euros?”

I nod, my throat closing again. He’s preparing to say goodbye. “I want to hear all about your competition tomorrow.”

King nods, moving his lips to the side of my head and softly kissing me. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“I have to go,” I whisper as my tears become heavier, now running down both cheeks in multiple trails.

King nods, his throat moving as he swallows.

“I love you.”

“I love you,” he repeats back to me.

I look back at King several times as I go through the maze of nylon fences, each glance making my vision more obstructed with tears until I’m being beckoned forward through the metal detectors and can no longer see him. Then I lose it.

THE FLIGHT to Italy is long, punctuated by a change of planes in Newark, where I ignore my growling stomach and pull out my phone to call King.

“Hey, baby.” His voice is soothing, making me smile and tear up again as I wander in the direction of a food sign.

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“Only eighty-five days until I come home.”

King laughs quietly. “I thought you were going to study your Italian keywords on the plane.”

“You’re a way better distraction.”

“I’ll have Mercedes create a countdown.”

“I already miss you.”

“Only eighty-five days, babe. It’s going to go by so fast. You’re going to eat 13 Gobi and paint, making pictures more beautiful than people can imagine, and then you’re going to be home.”

I take a deep breath, fighting to believe his words. “I have to find a restroom and grab some food before my next flight. I’ll try to call you again before I leave. Otherwise, I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“I love you, Lo.”

“I love you more.”

I wander around yet another airport with tear-stained cheeks, ignoring the world as I pick through my lunch.

Me: 4 the first time ever, my plane’s early.

 

King: UR going 2 love Italy.

 

Me: Not as much as I love U.

 

King: Good.

Italy is more beautiful than any of the pictures have portrayed. The architecture, the colors, the people, even the cobblestones have me entranced. I want to sit down and draw everything I see. Being away from those that I care so deeply for makes being here bittersweet, but for the first time since learning about this adventure, I feel motivated and excited for what I will see and experience this summer.

I’m impressed with myself as I navigate my way into the hotel, never having issues with getting through immigration, finding my bags, or even the correct car company to get me to my hotel.

The man at the front desk is thin, his hair long and attention set on something behind the counter that I can’t see. When he hears me, he smiles warmly, revealing with thick lines around his lips and eyes that he’s older than I had assumed upon first glance.

“Bonjourno!” He greets me merrily, his arms lifting as high as his smile.

I can’t help but smile in return as I pull out the documents I received that have all of my confirmation numbers.

“Ah, you’re from America!” he says, his voice rolling over the syllables, making them sound like an art.

“I am.”

“My daughter wants to go to America. She’s in love with your country. You’ll have to learn me new words for me to tell her. Her English is much better than mine.”

“Sure,” I say, smiling at his eagerness.

“Come, I’ll show you your room. It’s good you are staying with us. We have a lift.” I’m relieved to hear this. King made a comment about how few elevators there are in Europe.

We walk through the hotel, tiled in a terracotta colored brick, the walls a soft red-clay color. There are paintings on several of the walls, all famous Italian monuments that I hope to discover while I’m here.

He leads me to a door and then gestures widely for me to enter with the sweep of his hand. The same terracotta bricks are inside, along with a gold-framed bed that’s covered with a comforter in shades of forest green and mustard yellow. There are two nightstands, each adorned with a matching gold lamp, a dresser, and an older TV. The room is cold, ugly, but endearing because of the host that is proudly showing me how the few things inside are operated.

I am left to unpack, but instead I pull out my computer and phone to get set up, and while they power on, I draw.