Moved

Moved

After that, there was nothing left for me to do but stand there and stare at Kyle. And there were a horrifying several seconds when I was sure—absolutely certain—that he, too, was going to walk away from me. But then he grabbed my hand, muttered, “Let’s get out of here,” and dragged me out an exit through the back. I was glad he had the foresight not to go the same way Ian had. I wouldn’t have been able to object. I was really just a passive participant right then. I couldn’t have changed course if Kyle had been dragging me off the edge of a cliff.

I wanted to cry, but I knew I couldn’t do that in front of Kyle. It simply wasn’t fair. Not to him, not to me, not to anyone. And so I just let him drag me along, commanding and cool and calm. Kyle just gave that impression of being dependable and resilient and strong—he could take care of himself, and he could take care of me, and everything would be okay if I just followed him.
That was a lie, though. I had a frozen frame of Ian’s expression playing over and over and over in my mind’s eye.

An Unspoken Repetition:
“Did you really?”
“Yes.”

“Did you really?”
“Yes.”

“Did you really?”
“Yes.”

So, even though nothing would ever really be okay again, I let Kyle drag me back to the trailer and sit me on his bed. I must have looked a wreck, because he looked at me, ordered, “Stay; I’ll be right back,” kissed me once, swiftly, like he couldn’t help himself, and then left.

When he came back, he was toting along behind him Keeley, who looked irritated and concerned and was shooting a glare so deadly at Kyle that, had I been in any other state of mind, I would have laughed. And when she kicked him out, the look on his face might have made me laugh. But it didn’t.

And as soon as Keel closed the door on a dismayed Kyle, I began to cry. The tears were dripping down my face with reckless abandon by the time she reached me, when she put her arms around me in an uncomfortable, awkward hug, I began to cry harder.

I didn’t deserve these friends who tried their hardest to comfort be, even though they were not, as a rule, cuddly people. I didn’t deserve a boy who cared about me even though I wouldn’t have given up my relationship for him unless it was forced upon me. And I really didn’t deserve the boy who I hadn’t been willing to give up, who wanted to marry me rather than leave me when we finished high school, who loved me enough to bring me with him.

I had fucked everyone over, and yet I still had Keel here, trying to comfort me, even though I hadn’t been honest with her. God damn it, but I was slime. I was shit. I was scum. I did not deserve this.

When I was quite finished with the crying and had used up most of my self-loathing, and Keeley was rubbing my back kind of in the way my mother used to do, I whimpered, “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

She really was very good at the comforting thing, now that she was getting into it. Apparently practice did make perfect. “About what, Sloan?” she asked in this soft, quiet voice that went well with her regular soft, airy voice. Keeley would make a really good mom one day. Hopefully she would still be with Dave. He would make a good dad. Together they would have nice kids.

Apparently I wouldn’t be having kids, now, since I was—as far as I could tell—on the outs with my husband. Shit. I hadn’t even realized I ever wanted kids. But now that I probably wasn’t going to be able to have them, I wanted some pretty damn badly. This sucked.

“About there being nothing bad between me and Ian,” I hiccoughed. “About being just friends with Kyle.”

“Shh,” she soothed. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. She was just being nice. “No,” I insisted. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have.”

I just wiped my eyes against the back of my wrist. Keel gave my shoulder one last pat, and said, “Well, I’m going to go find Kyle, because he’s probably crapping his pants by now. You’re going to stay here for a little while, just until things calm down, okay? I’ll warn Hank and Craig and Dave that we’re going to have an extra roommate, okay?”

I nodded miserably. She left, and moments later, Kyle came through the door, face crumpled with concern. Unlike Keel, he didn’t feel the need to say anything. He just sat down next to me and held my hand. I laid my head on his shoulder and we just sat. There wasn’t anything else about this situation that I could change. I wished I was leaning on Ian.

When it all boiled down to it, I was not in love with Kyle. I just wasn’t. I thought he was attractive and sexy and cool. He was an amazing drummer. He made me feel wanted and needed and loved, but that didn’t mean I loved him in return. He was mysterious and beautiful
and enigmatic, but I wanted comfortable and certain and jovial and self-assured.

I wanted the boy who had helped me write my senior thesis and taught me how to bounce on a pogo stick and helped me hone my skills at chess. With the bright red hair and the flaming temper and the laughing family and the history. With Kyle, I had no history. And nothing was more intimidating between two people than a blank page.

But at least I had a page. At this point, a blank page was better than nothing. And my only other option was nothing.

I could see this through, I told myself stubbornly. I could make this work. I would fall in love with him eventually. I would get over Ian eventually.

After some time, when I had to start to worry that everyone else would be coming back soon, Kyle asked tentatively, “So, you’re going to stay here for a while, right?”

Barely—but only barely—I managed to bite back a bitter, “Well, I can’t exactly go home, can I?” and instead nodded. Clearly I was going to have to work a little bit at not being antagonistic about all of this.

“I’m glad.” Well, at least he was.

After that, we lapsed back into silence. It wasn’t exactly awkward silence, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable, either. Kyle eventually slumped back, leaning against the wall, but I remained rigid on the edge of the bed. Again, it wasn’t fair for me to let him see the degree of distress I was feeling, but I couldn’t quite help myself. I was solid. Even when Craig and Dave and Keeley came back—Hank was apparently spending time with his traitor of a girlfriend—and filled the room with cheerful chatter, I didn’t so much as flinch.

Everyone seemed to be making a concentrated attempt to keep the air upbeat. The thing that eventually got me, though, was angel twin Craig—who was significantly less quiet when his brother wasn’t around—who kept cracking, contrary to his appearance, extremely lewd jokes, designed to make me laugh. Kyle was typically the butt of these jokes, and so his frown grew increasingly pronounced until one of the jokes got the better of me—I couldn’t help but crack a smile. Kyle then looked impossibly relieved.

When we were all done laughing, I mumbled quietly, “I’m sorry, you guys.”

Craig dismissed my apology with a wave of his hand. “No worries, kid,” he allowed. “I mean, I think you’re a pretty cool kid. The only thing is that you taught Kyle a seriously bad

lesson—that if he’s annoying and persistent for long enough, he can get whatever he wants. Now we just have to find someone else to crush his childish, idealistic dreams.” He grinned an infectious smile at me.

I couldn’t help but smile back. I liked Craig. I was sort of sorry, now, that I’d never gotten to know either of the angel twins before this whole drama. At least then I would have had another certain friend in all of this mess.

After all, my friends probably weren’t too thrilled with me at the moment. Pete would finally be justified in his hatred, and Mark was probably pretty willing to stab me through the stomach with a rusty knife—he and Ian were close. Adnan would be angry that I had ruined his illusion of marriage as a perfect sanctity. Kay, though, was the uncertain element. She was my best friend, sure, but she certainly wouldn’t approve of adultery. And she might just be on Mark’s side for all of this—which was to say, Ian’s side.

So it was basically uncertain whether any of the people I had come here with would even be speaking to me after tonight. And that was an uncomfortable knowledge.

But these other friends, my new friends, were trying their best to keep my mind off of the soap opera drama that had unfolded in our lives just hours before. It seemed so wrong, to just be sitting around talking after all of that.

Which made me wonder—what did the murderers do after killing their victims? What did the thieves do after gathering their haul? Did they just go home, back to their lives, like nothing had happened? What else could they do? It wasn’t anything I’d ever thought about before but now I couldn’t get the question off my mind. The answer almost seemed surreal.

And it was with heavy thoughts such as these that I went to bed that night, a quarter of a mile from where I ought to have been, and under the arm of the wrong boy.