Page 77 of Ky
“Isn’t that my line?” I asked in a joking way as my heart began to slow back to a normal rhythm.
“No jokes. No running. Talk to me.” It wasn’t a request, of course, and I knew there wouldn’t be any charming my way out of this.
I focused on what was around me, what was real. The soft bed and cool sheets. His light but warm breaths on my shoulder. The hum of the ceiling fan. Once I felt the room around me, I began to speak.
“Ingram and I were eating pizza rolls. We were sitting on the couch watching…something. The doorbell rang and I didn’t even think anything of it. I mean, the guys stop by randomly sometimes. So I answered it without even looking. I remember hearing Ingram laugh in the background at something on the TV. I had a smile on my face because hearing her laugh and be free, well, it makes me smile.”
I knew he’d get it even if I couldn’t really explain it.
“There were five people standing there. At first, I thought they were like those door-to-door religious people by the way they looked. I didn’t even think. Then one of them stepped forward. He was tall but skinny. His hair was brown and I remember thinking that he really looked like he needed a haircut. His eyes were void of life almost. I couldn’t explain it. Then I saw the knife, but only a flash before he stuck it in me.”
I gasped as the memories flooded my head. I hated it but I couldn’t help it. Just like I couldn’t help the tears that started streaming down my face.
The pain. I couldn’t even begin to describe the pain that I felt at that moment. Not just physical. No, because the moment my flesh was ripped open, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop what was to come.
“I stumbled back thinking that I had to get away. That I needed to get to Ingram before they did. He still had a hold of the knife and I could feel it slicing my skin more as I pulled away. I turned, but he grabbed my arm. So then I thought that I should try to fight him. Stupid, right? Me—fight someone off. So I tried. I got a few punches in and then he brought the knife up. I didn’t think, I just reached for his arm with both of my hands. I wasn’t strong enough, I knew it, he knew it. I don’t know what happened but I think my body twisted as I lost my hold and the knife slice my throat.”
I couldn’t help but bring my hand up and touch the bandage covered wound. The mark that I knew would be there forever. The jagged scar that would haunt me every time I looked in the mirror. The pity I’d see reflected in the eyes of the ones that would see it.
“Someone else pushed me down. He kicked me but I remember not really feeling it over the pain from the hole in my side. They stepped over my body like I was nothing. I tried to push myself up but my arms felt so heavy and weak. I was so pathetic, Ky. So fucking useless and…”
“Chris,” he said as he propped himself up on his arm and looked down into my eyes. “I want to sit here and tell you how you are none of those things, not even in that moment, but I know words are cheap and you won’t believe me. All I can do is tell you to look into my eyes. Tell me what you see?”
I cleared my throat. Ky was a closed book most of the time. But his eyes—his eyes always told me what I needed to know. He tried to hide them every time he was trying to shut me out. Every time he didn’t want me to know how he really felt.
I couldn’t open my mouth to speak. There were too many things dancing in his eyes. It pulled me in and wrapped me in warmth. It begged me to smile and kissed away my sorrows. It was beautiful and magical. And it was all for me. Just me.
“Everything,” I whispered in a hoarse voice. “I see everything.”
He kissed me, hard and unrelenting. He took the weight of the world away from me and he gave me life again. It was desperate. It was needy. It was full of too many emotions to hold on to.
“I almost lost you. I’m not okay with that,” he said after he broke away and rested his forehead against mine. “Not when I was ready to give you my all. Not when I felt like I’d finally just found out what makes me whole. Not then, not ever.”
“Who knew you could be such a sap,” I said as I wiped the tears from my eyes.
“Don’t get used to it,” he said back and gave me a sexy as hell smirk.
“Do I need to point out that you called mebaby?” I rolled my bottom lip into my mouth and pinched it between my teeth. Yeah, I might have been out of it and in some weird nightmare land, but I heard it and I sure as hell remembered it.
His head dropped to my shoulder and I felt his body shake with silent laughter. I smiled as my fingers ran up and down the smooth skin on his arm.
“Yeah, can we just forget that part?” he asked, his words sounding slightly muffled.
“Oh no, we cannot.”
“I figured,” he said then kissed my shoulder.
“Ky,” I said after a long while of breathing each other in.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I still don’t know how I feel. Or if I really feel anything.”
“This works both ways,” I said and let the words linger in the air for a moment before I spoke again. “I want to leave this room knowing that we aren’t hiding anymore. I want to get it all out and leave it behind. I want this with you and I don’t want anything to hold us back anymore.”
He shifted and I lifted my arm up. His head came to rest on my chest, right over my heart. I rested my hand on his hip and wasn’t surprised when his hand moved to hold mine.
“I’m not going to sit here and pretend like that was my first kill. We both know that would be a lie,” he started and I could feel the heaviness of it on his soul. “But I feel like it should feel different than the others. Only it doesn’t and I feel like that makes me really fucked up. I killed my parents. I can even say it and not feel anything.”
“Well, there’s a lot there. I kinda get it. Some might say it’s fucked up, but if you finally feel free then how is that wrong? Not only you, but Ingram too. I mean, I’m not sure how she feels about it all, and that is something we are going to have to sit down and deal with, but if you ask me, I don’t see the bad in it.”
