Could Have

Chapter 5: August

August 8th 2007

I hadn't seen Kalen or heard from him in over a week.

I knew he had left for his Dad's the day after I saw him and he would be back at the end of August.

 I wondered if he regretted the last time we saw each other and wondered if he would make up for it when I saw him again.

I wrote on sticky notes the countdown to when Kalen said he would be back. I was so angry at him but even more than anger I felt this deep longing that seemed to engulf my heart. Sometimes it felt like my mind was obsessed with holding on to every detail of all the times we had spent together. I blamed my hormones and the loneliness that seemed to nestle itself into every empty space I had left in my body.

 I was taking longer to heal because I had pushed myself too much in the first little bit after my surgery.

I spent most of August reading and going to the beach with my family. My friends were off with their own relationships and getting into trouble.

 I didn't divulge to anyone what had happened between Kalen and I. I felt like the connection between us was too special to share any personal details with Beth or Alexis. They talked about their boyfriends with me though, they seemed love struck in their own world. I listened to them talk about parties, making out and drinking. 

I spent most of my nights journaling out my tornado of feelings because I didn't want to seem delusional and heartbroken.

Callie seemed to be having a similar low-key summer and we bonded over not going out as much as everyone else.

I became hyper vigilant every time my phone vibrated. Even more so I became tragically depressed every time my phone vibrated and it wasn't him. A month seemed like an eternity times a thousand.

August 20th 2007

I dreamed of Kalen last night and it felt so real:I saw him sitting on the beach by the ocean. I could even smell the salt from the sea and the mist from the waves. It was sunny outside and his hair and become even more sun-bleached. He was wearing swimming shorts and an open buttoned plaid shirt, it ruffled slightly in the breeze. He leaned down and picked up a rock. I thought his eyes were welling up with tears but I didn't see any tears fall. He pulled out a black sharpie from his back pocket and began to write on the rock. I could clearly see my name written: Kiera. His thumb tenderly brushed over his writing before he wound up and tossed it into the ocean. Kalen looked back over his shoulder as if he was looking right at me.

I woke up clinging to the imagery my brain had conjured up.

Throughout the day I would get a passing scent of salty water and wonder if it had been real.

I rolled over in my bed and checked on my secret sticky note calendar on the side of my night table. 

Two more sticky notes. Two more days. A colorful clump of sticky notes were piled in the top corner. I had created a sticky note for every day Kalen had been away. The only thing that kept me sane was reading the encouraging notes I had made for myself on each note. Now after a grueling month, only two remained.

I had gone over in my head everything I wanted to say to Kalen. Everything I wanted to do to him. I had so much anger bottled up from how we had left things and no one to talk to about it. I couldn't wait to work through it with Kalen and have his input.

I tried to sort out every possible response he could come up with. But it didn't matter because every time I thought about him my imagination would always end with us embracing and kissing... sometimes more.

I wish I could just sleep through the next two days to make them go by faster.

I had fueled my need to escape the feeling of uneasy summer time isolation by reading romance novels and no matter how lead characters were my brain somehow always made them Kalen and I.

"Two more days," I sighed and read the note on the days sticky note: you made it this far!
The message rang true but did not feel as encouraging as it did when I originally wrote it.

I got up and peeked out my window. Another glaringly hot day. Another day with what felt like nothing to do but wait.