Page 18 of Reviving Kendall

“He told us why you’re scared of riding in cars,” he says, “and trust me, I completely get it. I can’t imagine what it’s like going through something like that. Who was it that you lost?”

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly as my hand tightens in his. It will never be easy talking about them, but it seems to be easing some of the weight off my heart to say their names out loud, “Their names were Will, Casey and Brian VanPelt.”

His head jerks toward me, “I knew Brian through the construction place that we volunteered for a few summers ago. He went to lunch with us a couple times and was an alright dude.”

I nod, “That he was to say the least.”

“So, they were family?” he asks.

“Might as well of been,” I say softly. A tear rolls down my cheek, “They were mine.”

“Wait, what?” he asks stunned. “What do you mean yours? Like your boyfriends?”

As I nod again, he whistles under his breath, “Wow.”

“I’m not a whore if that’s what you’re thinking,” I say going on the defensive. “It wasn’t conventional, but I loved them, and they loved me. What’s so wrong with loving more than one person huh? Who the hell ever set up those fucked up rules anyways?”

“Woah,” he says pulling my hand to his lips, “I wasn’t judging babe and I’m sorry if it came off that way. You just caught me by surprise is all. I tend not to have a filter sometimes and you are more than welcome to slap me if it ever offends.”

He softly says, “Hey.” When I don’t look at him, he pulls my chin to face him, “There’s nothing fucking wrong with the way that you love, and I’ll kick anyone’s ass who tells you otherwise.”

Another tear tracks down my cheek, “It’s not like it matters anymore right?”

“Don’t think like that. While you’re still breathing, there’s always tomorrow and I’ll be damned if I let you forget it,” he says right before he pulls me in for another kiss that’s even more breath taking than the last.

Feeling Dizzy

As my alarm blares at me, I have a moment where I consider just skipping school today. Teagan didn’t bring me home until late last night, well early this morning, and I wasn’t lying about being a total bitch if I didn’t get sleep.

My phone beeps from somewhere under my pants I had shucked as I crawled into bed. “Ugh,” I groan throwing the covers off my body. Fuck, it’s cold. I shiver and dig through my pockets. It stops beeping as soon as my hand folds around it. Of course. I take it with me back under my thick quilt.Screw it, I’ll just go in late today.Just as my eyes close and feel myself drifting off, the phone starts beeping again.

I look at the screen and see that it’s an incoming call from Teagan.

Pressing the green button and holding it up to my ear, I grunt as a hello.

“Good morning, sleepy head. This is your wakeup call,” he says sounding chipper as fuck.

I grunt again and think about hanging up on him, “I didn’t ask for a wakeup call.”

He laughs, “Of course you did. You just don’t remember it.” There’s noise in the background and even though he pulls away from the phone, I still hear him say, “Dude shut the fuck up.”

It makes me smile, but I say, “Remind me again why I bought one of these things if all you’re going to do is wake me up before the crack of dawn yelling in my ear.”

He laughs, and I hear Goose’s voice in the background, but I can’t understand what he’s saying. “Fucking A,” Teagan then says, “Hang on just a sec Kendall.”

There’s rustling around the phone and I can hear them talking, but all I want to do is just fall back asleep. In the few seconds it takes for him to come back, my eyes close again and I nod off. “Ok, Kendall. You there?”

I half groan, half growl into the phone, “Don’t want to be. I just want to go back to sleep.”

Maverick’s deep voice comes down the line and sends those crazy butterflies into overdrive, “That’s what you get for staying out so late. You’ve got school today just like the rest of us.”

“Yeah,” Goose says, “Why do you get to play hookie and we don’t?”

“Why can everyone hear me?” I ask.

“Oh,” Teagan says, “The guys had me put you on the Bluetooth through the Rover.”

I’m just going to pretend that I know what that is. I feel like such an idiot when it comes to some of these things, because I’ve never used them before. If there’s no need for them, then there’s no need to know about them.

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