Page 54 of Forever and Ever

Noah

Whenyoupurgeyoursins, you’re supposed to feel some kind of relief. Not that it’s promised. I guess I just assumed.

I spent enough time in confession as a kid to know that no matter what dumb shit came out, you’d feel better once the truth was set free. What was done, was confessed.

As an adult, I thought it would work the same.

I sat on the couch across from Merry and told her all the shit I’ve been holding back from her and everyone else for the past year. There should have been church bells ringing, a choir singing. I had been cleansed. I had been purged.

The truth was out.

The worst was over.

Instead, the devil had other plans. Because not even five minutes after baring my blackened soul to Merry, there she was, standing on my fucking doorstep with a fake halo hanging over her bright blonde head of hair.

“Kali,” I say, not sure how I don’t choke on her name.

It’s been a long time since I’ve said it. Even longer since I’ve seen her. And her showing up can mean only one thing—the past is catching the fuck up and it wants to take my present with it.

I’m not even sure how Kali knows where I live. It’s been four years since I’ve spoken to her. And in the few trips I’ve made back home to Fairfield, California, I’ve made sure to avoid her entirely.

My parents have my address, but they’ve never visited. That would require them to admit they haven’t disowned me, and I don’t see that happening.

Merry looks confused, and I don’t blame her. If only she knew what the sight of the two of them standing side by side does to me.

Kali looks like an angel on the outside. Her hair is so white blonde it almost glows. The apples of her cheeks are rosy, and her bright blue eyes are bursting with energy. Merry, on the other hand, might as well be the darkness. Wild wavy hair, nearly black eyes, skin slowly being eaten up by black and gray tattoos. To anyone looking in, they’d see a yin and yang. A good and evil. Only, their assumptions about who is what would be wrong.

Maybe an alternate universe just opened its mouth and swallowed me down.

“Kali?” Merry repeats her name like a question, with a furrow of her eyebrows, before her eyes widen as realization hits. “Oh, Kali.”

As if I’m not lost enough in this moment, Merry looks like she was just hit by a bus. And it isn’t necessarily shock that stains her face. It’s hurt… maybe.

Merry isn’t the kind of girl who lets people see that she’s been affected, so I’m still learning those expressions on her. All I know is that her cheeks flush and her fingernails are digging into her palms. I feel her clenching in and closing off, and I’m desperate to stop it.

She was finally opening up. We were sitting in my living room, and she sang her beautiful song that shot straight to the darkest pits of my bones. We were talking, confessing, getting closer.

For as long as Merry has held back, her guard was finally down. She was right on the edge of sharing parts of her I’ve been waiting for. I could feel it.

And then the doorbell rang.

The fucking doorbell.

Fucking Kali.

If it weren’t for Merry’s eyes holding in my last bit of sanity, I’d go swallow a bottle of pills right now and pray for oblivion.

“What do you want?” I turn to Kali. Harsh, but I don’t really care. I might be the most carefree motherfucker on the planet, but Kali Matkowski brings out my absolute worst.

Kali’s face falls, but I don’t feel the least bit bad about it. If she showed up here expecting the fourteen-year-old boy who chased her around and begged her to date him, then she came to the wrong place.

That boy was gutted like a fish—by her.

I’m done with our childhood games.

“Give us a minute,” Merry says, closing the door in Kali’s face, which would make me laugh if I was capable of feeling any kind of amusement right now.

It might be a small gesture, but it’s protective coming from Merry. And her leaving Kali outside as she turns to face me, makes me fall for her just a little bit more in this moment.

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