Kay:
The horrible truths of waking up hit you like the accident you were in. The blinding lights and distorted voices…all I had on my mind was one thought that made my heart ache terribly. The stickiness in my eyes bothered me as much as the dryness in my throat, the beeping of the machines gave me a headache…
It’s kind of ironic. You’re lucky to survive something and all you can do is complain about the horrible feelings you had at that moment. Should I ask that one question I’m really thinking…? Do I really want to hear the answer when I think I know…it already?
He wasn’t here.
He didn’t come did he?
He just left…didn’t he?
I’ll just assume it. I don’t want hope. I don’t believe I can still have a special fairy-tale ending. Who am I, to think I’m a princess? All that banana crap! I hate myself for the mess I got myself in. I hate myself to listening to that stupid voice in my head. Don’t I have a filter for this stuff? It was reckless and stupid!
The one thing I tried my hardest to do, to avoid losing…I ended up losing. I lost everything. No…not everything. Just that one person who was everything… Did he hate me that much to not even see me? Maybe if he spoke to me I would have woken up sooner. Even that was a miracle without him. Everything seemed bland. I looked at everything around me with distaste and bitterness.
“Here Kay, I got you some water.” My heart skipped a beat as the door opened and Vincent gingerly walked in with a steaming mug of water. I took it in my shaking hands, feeling the warmth seep into my skin on the cold day. It was almost like seeming him for the first time again…that black tousled hair and those forest green…
Wait…no. No I wasn’t going to finish that sentence.
“Earth to Kay?” A hand waved in front of my face and I looked up at Vince’s eyes…my heart skipped a beat. I quickly blinked a few times and looked down at my cup, taking a lon- IT’S HOT. IT’S HOT. OH MY GOOOOOD, IT’S SO HOT. I swallowed as quickly as I could before fanning my face, trying to tell Vince it was boiling hot. He looked like he was trying to supress his laughter as he took the cup out of my hands and began to drink the hot water like it was cold.
“What…on earth?” I asked him, Vince had the straightest face on and just shrugged his shoulders.
“I like it hot.” He bluntly said. The silence that followed in the room was almost comical. Really? I raised my eyebrow at him. Really? I grinned at him, he only smiled back and moments later our furious laughter filled the room. It was a laugh that felt like it had been trapped within myself for so long. It instantly made me feel better.
Soon, our huffs of laughter died into a comfortable silence in the room. I fidgeted with my fingers trying not to get mesmerised by Vince’s stare at me as I mustered the courage to talk.
“Why…are you here?” I asked, maybe that wasn’t the right choice of words. Maybe I should have asked if he hated me. If he was angry at me…what he was thinking…why did he stay here?
I mean…I didn’t know if he stayed here the whole time…but his messed up hair, dark circles under his eyes and crumpled shirt did indicate he must have been here for some time.
“Uh…” He said, he ran his hand through his hair and took a few steps over until he sat on the side of my bed. He glanced at me for a few moments before he let out a nervous chuckle. “Where…do I start?” He laughed; I only stared at him confused. For someone who I thought would hate me…that smile surely didn’t say that.
Maybe he was waiting for me to actually say something to his question but it mostly seemed rhetorical. I poked his arm after a good moment of silence. I was still waiting on an answer. Press play! I thought as I poked him again. He swayed lightly at my touch; he smiled and took a deep breath before turning to look at me. There it was again, those forest green eyes, suddenly. I was just trapped in them.
“You deserve to be happy.” He breathed as he stared at me. “You’ve been struggling and trying to stand on your own for so long…” It made me frown, why was it melting me? “You could…be happy…” He breathed, his fingers crept up to mine, slowly I let his fingers entwine with mine and suddenly I froze, realising where it was going. My heart didn’t race…it slowed. All I did…was focus on what Vince was saying to me. “You…deserve so much…more than you have Kay…I tried letting you go once…and I don’t want to see you get hurt again. I don’t want to let you get hurt. I’m not letting you go away from me again. I thought it would make you happy. I thought…you could be happy without me. But somehow, my heart…it’s telling me that I could maybe make you happy. Is that selfish?” His eyes seem to melt into my heart. I couldn’t look away. It was a surge of warmth that pulled me in towards him. “Tell me…” He breathed as our bodies seemed to inch closer together. “Is that selfish?” The pain is his voice was silenced as my lips gently pushed against his. As my body fell into his and our hands twined around each other’s body holding each other close. We stayed like that for what felt like a long time. “All…I want for you, is to be happy.” I felt safe and calm in his arms. It…it felt like a clean slate – but that almost seemed to feel like a knife dragging itself through my chest. Is it alright to have a clean slate if it meant forgetting about Jase? I couldn’t find an answer in my head.
When I was allowed to go home, both my mum and father came to greet me. A pang of confusion hit me as I stared at them together. They didn’t seem to hate each other; hand in hand they embraced me. A family hug. It felt strange but welcoming; I smiled as I hugged them both back as tightly. But the smile became a frown out of my own control and the tears and words “ I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Came to follow without my conscious desire to.
“Perhaps, we should have started – rather, tried this from the beginning.” Both of my parents had sat me down to talk. The strange tingles of confusion made me feel knots in my stomach. My father cleared his throat and glanced at my mum.
“We were afraid…of what would happen to you…if you knew.” My mum looked down ashamed as they continued.
“You have a mental disorder. It’s an inability to…filter what goes through your mind. It’s almost like you will give into the contradicting thoughts in your mind and it can find ways to take over the way you think.” The words sunk in…and they sunk and sunk.
I’m more real than you think.
“Kay?” My snapped back to reality. “We…decided to try taking you away from the environment…to see if you would be calmer with Jason. He thought he could fix it.” She breathed, avoiding the obvious point that he didn’t fix it. “But…we think it’s time you should make your own decisions about what you should do.” The information came flooding in. The perfect timing of Ben 'cheating' on me and having a supposed fiancee, the timing of mum finding a new job…and a house becoming available back here…my parents ‘splitting’ up…all of that-
What had Jase…done? What did he try to do to fix this?
I shook my head; I needed time to process this. All of this. Everything. It made my head spin. It made me question every little thing I had done. Did I want to do that? Was it an impulse? Who- no, what made me queen? Was that I? …Was that something else? Did I fall in love…is it just a filter? I felt so sick to my stomach…“Excuse me.” I mumbled standing up and retreating to my room. My parents only nodded my head; I assumed they came to the conclusion that I had enough information for one day. I opened my room door and closed it softly behind me, flopping onto my bed. If I had known about this from the beginning could I have avoided all of these mistakes? My mind raced and flashed back to so many memories…what could I have done differently?
You’ll always give into me, pretty little Kay.
All those choices at Varsity High…All that desire and that wanting to be perfection. I felt like two separate minds locked in one head. It was messing with me, I felt myself feel like I was being swallowed…
A soft knock on the door woke me, I breathed in air and opened my eyes to see the silhouette of my dad standing at the doorway, and he flicked on the light and came to sit at the edge of my bed.
“Too much information at once?” He asked. I only nodded my head hugging my pillow tightly like a child. “My dear ray of Sunshine.” His gentle hands pet my head like when I was small.
“I have made so many horrible mistakes…” I hiccupped, my dad’s hand never faltered. “How is it justified for me…to…to have a clean slate? If it means I leave others behind.” Every time I was sure of myself I just became less and less unsure. Every stitch I made seemed to make me fall apart! It was tearing itself open! Justifying its own faults…I was…I had been…and I still am.
“Oh my dear…everyone makes many mistakes. You are still young…this last mistake is really unforgiveable…but you are my daughter and I will always love you.” The words hit me. I tried to push the thoughts of the baby out of my head, but how could I? “What you choose to do now, you will do with your own free will because you know the truth now. You should be in control of your own life Kayla. Do not make excuses for yourself and shy away from hardship anymore. Do not run from it and shield behind people. These are your problems to deal with.” The words were stern but full of truth and somehow made me feel I had to confront what I had been avoiding. “It’s time for you to stop playing games.” The silence in the air that followed felt like the end of something. It was like those words had closed a chapter in my life. He stood up and stroked my hair once more before leaving me alone.
What should I do? I wondered. My mind was blank. I couldn’t think. I only reminisced and thought about the old times. For what would I give to change everything that I had done? It kind of felt like karma hitting me in the face; felt like I was an outsider…marginalised.
I must have gotten lost in my thoughts when there was a tap on my window, I walked over and open the curtains to see Vincent sitting on the edge of the window with a pizza box in his hands. I opened my window and he jumped in with ease.
“Special delivery for a special girl!” He chimed sitting on the floor placing the pizza box in front of him. “I got napkins,” He reached into his pockets pulling out some tissues, “some…tomato sauce,” he said throwing some packets of sauce onto the floor, “some candles,” he said pulling out a small tea candle, “lastly…uh. Oh well. I guess that’s all I brought.” He smiled patting his tracksuit pants pockets. I sat on the floor across him as he delightfully open the book of pizza and he rubbed his hands together before taking a slice.
“Did…you ever think there was something wrong with me?” I asked him, Vince stopped chewing for a moment before he wiped his mouth and shook his head.
“Well…, I’ve always known there was something different about you but it’s what made you so great.” He said, he handed me a slice and I looked down at it picking of the mushroom pieces. I was hesitant. Who know? Who didn’t? Who would look at me strangely? Who would leave?
“Who doesn’t like mushrooms?” He groaned at me, picking up my discarded pieces and piling them onto his almost finished piece. He bumped my shoulder and signalled for me to eat. I slowly ate a slice. “What’s the big deal?” He asked, the silence stunned me – The big deal? The big deal? My whole life was fuc- “Like, if the whole entire world was perfect we’d all be a bunch of barbie dolls and Ken’s. Who’d want that? What’s…what’s wrong with different? What’s wrong with quirks?” His eyes were serious and I instantly forgot about all the bad things. It made it seem so simple. “Everyone has a path to journey through in life. Everyone has hardships and pains. It doesn’t mean that everything we do needs to be perfect.” He sighed; he picked up a napkin and wiped his hands. The silence engulfed as we sat there – it left us to ponder our own thoughts and deal with our own hardships. “If you make a mistake Kay, that becomes part of your story. We all have one – a dirty, ugly story. No story is pretty – if it is you’re just lying to yourself. So what up if you screwed up countless times? You’re still you.”
He’s right. Completely right. A smile traced its way onto my lips and I smiled. It was a long needed pep talk. Suddenly, the needs to change, to start clean to want to become someone completely different shifted off my shoulders. My name's Kayla Harrison-Yolt and that is who I am – it will never change.
“There we go!” Vince laughed clapping his hands together. “That’s better. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile since you woke up!” I shoved his shoulder playfully and rolled my eyes. He settled with a content sigh and just stared at me.
“What?” I asked him after seconds of uncontrollable smiling and an unsaid staring contest.
“I mean it.” His eyes were filled with warmth and confidence. “I mean what I said. I want to make you happy.” I wasn’t sure if he was just reassuring me or asking for more.
“I am happy. See? I’m smiling!” I pointed out my dimples to him as I stared into his eyes. He only smirked shaking his head taking another slice of pizza.
There were a lot of things I needed to deal with…so many issues that I still needed to sort out. I needed to get my life on track and that was what I would do.