I laid in the bed thinking, feeling frustrated, upset, ignorant, stupid. Gale disappeared, ignored my calls, lied to me, f***ing lied to me because of a guy that's bearly alive and counting his last breaths. The absolute ridiculousness of this situation was more than laughable. Not only that, I was the monster that made it all happen. I shook my head and massaged my temples and the back of my neck. My blood pressure was rising again. I got up and took the glass of water that I had laid on the table against the bed. This entire situation was getting to me.
I ran my hand through my hair again. I didn't have a clue how we were going to recover from this one. I was hating her, hating her because of her stupidity and selfishness. The fact that I gave her space for school only made it all the worst. She'd still find some other excuse to see him if push came to shoove. I didn't have a damn thing to do with her actions and she knew it. It was the entire reason when we got in she took refugee in the kitchen with the letter. I didn't care, I hope it racked her conscience.
Her figure made its way through our door and into the bed beside me before she turned hugging my body. I gazed down at her, feeling nothing but anger. I grabbed the pillow behind my head, removed her hand from my waist and started for the door.
"Where are you going? You barely said a word to be since we got in Andrew please don't leave me"
I paused at the door. I didn't bother to look at her just kept my eyes on the other room.
"I can't sleep with you gale, I don't want to hurt you in my sleep or otherwise because I'm past pissed off. I don't want to be around you right now" I walked off heading to the other room without listening for a response and locked the door. I locked it because I knew more than likely she'd still try to talk to me and I didn't need that right now.
The further we were from each other the better. She didn't need to see how angry I was and I truly didn't want to hurt her. This was the same room I had laid Ziploc in to sleep, how ironic that I'd have to use it myself.
I walked away from the truck I was working on and tossed the cloth I had recently dried my hand with. I couldn't function, I couldn't think straight, I couldn't work. All I could think about was what Gale did and it was eating me alive. She probably might not have cheated, not physically but it was still a stab in the back. She left me for another man, a dead man and no matter how I tried I just couldn't wrap my head around, couldn't understand it and didn't want to accept it.
I headed to the lake needing sometime to myself. I wanted us to work out, but right now, I didn't see any way out of this tunnel. The closer I got to the lake, the more I tried to decide what I was going to do. Going out on the water would probably be the best idea and maybe I'd try fishing, I wasn't the hell good at that but maybe it'd be a good distraction from my thoughts for a while. When I walked up to the boat house, I stopped, surprised to find the one person I hadn't thought of all week. Kenzy. She sat distracted with papers her ears plugged mumbling to herself. I walked over removing a earplug.
"Oh, hey andrew, I didn't see you"
"Yeah, I noticed"
She looked up at me then away, before returning her eyes to my looming figure.
"Okay, so ah, what are you doing here?"
" I'm going fishing"
"Oh, I didn't know you could fish"
"I can't"
She eyebrows shot up in surprise before her eyes darkned. " and your going finshing? How does that work?"
"I'm going to learn"
"Oh, have fun then" she said returning her eyes to her work ignoring me.
I walked off heading into the house to get a canoe and dragged it off to the edge of the lake before dropping the fish line inside. It was only when I had pushed the boat off a few meters into the water that I realized I hadn't brought any bait. If I walked back to town I wouldn't come back, just wouldn't make any damn sense. When I glanced back at kenzy, I realized she had a brown bag, more than likely she'd still have food left, she wasn't a big eater.
"I'm ready now" I called to her.
She looked up. "Okay, have fun"
"Ziploc" she looked up from her papers at me. "When I said I'm going fishing that meant you were coming along"
She looked at me as if I was crazy. "Uh, no thanks. I can't swim"
"I can"
"Great, at least you'll survive going over board"
I rolled my eyes walking away from the boat to the board walk. I grabbed her paper bag and scooped her into my arms walking back.
"Andrew, Andrew please put me down"
I placed her into the board and pushed it further into the water until it caught my knees before jumping in. She stared out at the water, almost hyperventilating, clinging to the sides as if she was afraid it'd topple over.
"I can't swim, I can't swim Andrew how am I gonna get back?" She said frantically.
"You said that about three times now. Calm down, I won't let you drown.... On purpose at least"
She gave me the most murderous look I'd ever seen and it made me chuckle a little.
"You're really selfish you know that?"
"Make yourself useful and pull your own weight" I said handing her the other oar.
"I didn't ask to be on this expedition of no return"
"Who said we weren't coming back?"
" Me! I can't believe I'm trusting my life with a guy who doesn't even know how to fish. By the way do you even have bait?"
That made me smile. I grabbed her paper bag and waved it before her eyes.
Her mouth fell. "You've got to be kidding me! Andrew that's my lunch"
"Now it's fish food "
Kenzy covered her face with her hands shaking her head. "You're a complete asshole"
We stopped rowing when we reached the middle of the lake. She went back to her writing falling silent while I tried to catch a fish. When I wasn't watching the water, I glanced at her watching her write and mumble, erase and write again. The wind screeched through the surrounding trees and every now and again a bird would flutter by. I hadn't been on the lake for a while, I forgot how tranquil it was. For a while, I was happy I wasn't out here alone, even if she wasn't much company at the moment. Reaching over I ran my hand through the freezing water. My pants had dried though from the heat of the sun, but it wasn't warm enough to have us sweating, maybe because it disappeared behind the clouds. I looked up feeling a pull on the line, regaining my posture and started to reel it in.
"Do you even know what your doing?"
" what's the worse that can happen? " I asked pulling back the stick, before she could answer, the fish fell into her lap onto her papers fluttering around.
"This!" She screamed. " this is the worse that can happen!"
I started to laugh seeing her trying to evade the fluttering animal gasping for breath, her papers scattered over the hull of the boat. Laying the line down, I picked him up, slitting along the neck killing it. She sat back shaking her head. It was a good size trout for someone who hadn't fished in ages. My father use to take my brothers and I out every summer but I hated it. I hated having to wait for them to bite and I always caught only small fishes. I didn't have the patience to be a great Fisher man.
"Well I think Peter's just gonna love his present from you"
I looked up. Peter? I'd hear her say that name while she was sleeping.
"Peter?"
She nodded.
"Your boyfriend?"
"What! No. He's my publisher " she snickered. "Boyfriend, more like mother hen. But I can't ever say that to his face though. He swears he's everything macho"
"Right and the present?"
"The scent of trout" she held her papers up to the non existent sun. "I'll never get the fragrance out now. You better let me have some when you finally cook it"
"I'm not taking you home with me"
"Who says anything about home. There's plenty places out here to cook, you should have been a boy scout of some sort so you should be able to make a fire"
I stared at her for a while slightly surprised. I hadn't realized it before, but I didn't feel the same way heading over the way I felt now. In fact I was much calmer. I made the fire after heading back and placed the trout to roast. We still had about two slices of corn bread left for both of us. Kendall sat staring out at the sunset her back to the fire as we waited for dinner. She was oddly quiet today. As if reading my mind she started to talk.
"I've been meaning to apologize for getting you into trouble with your girlfriend the other day" she started. "I would have told you sooner but I wasn't sure when would be the right time since brian said people hardly saw you around when she was here"
"There's no need to apologize" at least not you.
"No" she said turning to look at me. The glare of the sun hitting her skin turned it into golden brown and her body lighted up with a halo. "If I hadn't fallen asleep, you wouldn't have to put me up for the night. So it's my fault"
"Kendall, I already told you, there's no need to apologize. I'm the one that should've for her behavior"
She chuckled. "It's fine. I don't think I'd take very nicely to seeing a woman in my boyfriend's shirt slightly naked either"
"Whatever the reason, I think hearing the other person side saves the embarrassment don't you think"
She scratched her head laughing. "You have a point"
We ate together while I sat far off in thought. Maybe I was being slightly stringent with gale, but I need the time and space to deal with it on my own, in my own time and way. I wouldn't stop loving her, but the betrayal I felt wasn't just going to go away, she'd have to understand that. The road to hell was paved with a lot of good intentions and not because we want it to be right makes it right.
"Tell me about them" I said turning to kenzy.
"Tell you about who" she asked looking up at me confused.
"Your ex. The family you had. How did you meet?"
" Oh" she said looking down then started to laugh. "I guess if I'm getting over it I should be able to talk right?"
Not really.
"We met while I was grocery shopping one afternoon. I had just returned home and I was preparing for my dad's birthday. I was trying to figure out which cheese to choose for the cheesecake, only to realize they had the damn thing almost premade already" she said laughing. "When I turned around there was this cute little baby girl, jesse, she was five at the time. She held on to my trolley refusing to leave me alone, never answering my question about where her parents were"
"And you didn't think of trying to find her parent's?"
" No, I figured we'd meet them eventually, I mean they had to be looking for her. Anyway. After going through three isles we caught up with a poor guy that was scared to death and out of breath searching for her. I don't think I've ever seen anyone so relieved to see someone in my life. The way he held her, it was like she came back alive. He explained that he only turned away to grab the ice scream when she disappeared " she said continuing the story. "Even then she still refused to leave me. It was weird because I later found out apart from her dad, jesse wasn't really very fond of adults. Children were fine but not adults. Except me"
"What happened after that?"
" I kept coming back, I would always visit Jesse whenever I was in town. One afternoon when the rain caught us in the park and she started to get sick days after that's when I learnt she had pneumonia and that one of her lungs weren't functioning at full capacity. I kept her until she got better and that's how things started with us. For three years. Everything seemed perfect"
"Until a few weeks ago when she died right?"
She nodded. "Yeah, until she died" Kendall fiddled with her fingers falling silent staring into the dark ground. Night had fallen around us, cloaking our quiet environs with silky darkness except for where our small fire crackled. We had walked into the hill that laid upside the lake house to view the stars. I bet she'd enjoy seeing them like Gale had the first time she came here. But right now her mind was elsewhere. Grey owls crawled from their nests soaring in the full moon signalling a start of a new time of the day. "I never really stayed in one place for very long, something I always did once I was old enough to be on my own. My book, my first book was just going to be published then. You make a lot of sacrifices when you want things to work, you know. I had a chance at something good with someone I was beginning to care for, no idiot is going to pass that up. Yet despite all I did, it wasn't good enough in the end"
"It wasn't you ziploc"
"Huh?"
"It's wasn't you. There are different types of men in this world, you just ended up with a complete asshole, that's all"
"Don't stay that. I loved him"
"But did he love you?"
"Yes, I think so"
I took a deep breath. How should I explain this? "Who did you meet first, jesse right?"
She nodded. " Right. So? "
"You said she gravitated towards you. Not necessarily him. He just accepted you because he found someone who his daughter was finally comfortable around so he worked with"
"Not true. We slept together likewise"
"Great, so he got something that made things a little more tolerable for him"
"Andrew"
"That's the truth kenzy, he didn't really love you. He did what he thought was best for his daughter. Tolerating you was just part of it"
Kendall got up walking some distance away covering her mouth in her hands. I heard faint sobbing and I could tell she had started to cry. I was honest, that was the real agenda behind their relationship. If it wasn't he wouldn't have left as soon as their daughter died. Kendall wasn't horrible, from what I experienced, she seemed more emotional than anything which meant she was seriously attached to the child. She hurt as equally as he did despite only being in their lives for three years. But his selfishness didn't allow him to see that and that hurt her the most. She ended up with worst than scum, the world wasn't always fair. I thought about what Gale did equally. There were people, good people who'd kill for what she had, but she didn't realize it either. A paradox for the ages. She came back, wiping the slate clean, composing herself.
"What'd you plan on doing this time around?"
"I've never really stayed in one place for very long, maybe it's for the best you know"
"In other words your bolting as soon as you get back then" I said
She laughed nervously.
"Well, when you put it like that it sounds really awful" she said smiling
"It kinda is awful ziploc, your running away from something that's always going to be there. Temporary abandonment isn't the same as not dealing with it"
She turned to face me, the amusement from a while back dying from her eyes.
"Am not gonna pretend like everything's fine Andrew when it's not and I don't know when it's ever going to be okay again. I lost a child, I lost the life I knew. I moved back just to be with them, now everything's gone. Everything, all I'm left with is my mother" She looked down. "I don't know what I'm going back to"
She said it with so much hurt and pain it was impossible for me to look away. The fire crackled but it was her heart that was falling in pieces before me. She loved them, gave them everything she was and it was tossed aside. He tossed it aside, the child was dead. A similar story to mine and gale's. Her betrayal felt the worse knowing she wanted to be with her dying ex. He was dying. She might not have admitted to it, but choosing to lie to me made the decision for her. I was still yet, just like kenzy to understand what really had taken place over not just the few weeks that had passed but the last few months. All that time when we spoke together on the phone, all the planning we did to spend our lives together was going up in smoke before me. I needed a bottle of whiskey to get me through the night, a few sturdy walls for punching and a vacated place for just me alone. I was grateful I hadn't thought of that, being in that state of mind was something I fought with for years. An irritating temper that I've tried to control and this, this had thrown the trap right off.
"Mothers aren't all that bad" I replied.
"You wanna exchange then? I could definitely go for some positivity at this stage in my life"
I chuckled. "Its not like your easy to handle"
She looked at me side ways. "You're one to talk" she took a deep breath. "Were complete opposites sometimes I wonder if we're related"
"And what's the conclusion?"
" I reassemble my mother alot, I just maybe act more along the lines of my dad than my mother, really"
She rubbed her hands together seeking warmth, the temperature had fallen significantly especially since we were so high up. I hadn't taken that into consideration taking the trek. I moved over slowly wrapping an arm around her shoulder allowing her to lean into my body to share my own heat.
"I'm really sorry andrew" she whispered.
"About what?"
"What's going on with your relationship "
I rested my head against her closing my eyes cherishing the silence of the moment and the fact that she was here with me. She figured it out, even though I tried to hide it.
"Its not your fault ziploc" I replied pulling her further into my arms. "Get some sleep"