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“No, Kai. I’m very proud of you for how hard you’ve worked. We tried our best. We really did, but sometimes you have to admit when a problem is too big.”
A sour laugh escaped Kai’s throat. “Just like you do? You, who refuses to accept help for Po because you’re so determined to do it all on your own? You never admit when a problem is too big, even when it’s clear you’re holding Po back. Maybe you’re the reason he’s not getting better.”
Jun felt the barb as if he’d hit her. He thought she was a bad mom. The one time she admitted she needed a man, this was what happened. He told her she was a bad mother. Fury welled in her belly. This was why she never trusted men, because they couldn’t be counted on. This was why she never asked for help, because when she did, she was slapped down. Her mother had done it, and now Kai was doing it, too. Maybe she was a bad mom, but she’d damn well never ask for anything else again. If Kai didn’t care about her or Po enough to stay alive, then that told her all she needed to know.
“I knew this would happen. This has been a waste of time.”
“Waste of time!” Kai’s eyes grew hard. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we are a waste of time.”
The air in the room felt too thick, too hard to breathe. Jun hadn’t meant that they were a waste. She’d meant that trying to talk sense into him was a waste of time. But Kai had made it personal. He’d made it hurt.
He snatched his car keys off the kitchen countertop. “I’m going out,” he said.
“But...we need to talk,” Jun managed. Was he really going to leave it like this? It sounded like he was ending it.
“There’s no point in talking,” Kai said. “No point at all.”
Jun watched helplessly as he walked out the front door and slammed it behind him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AFTER THE DOOR SLAMMED, a sob escaped Jun’s throat and she collapsed on the couch, crying. How had it all gone off the rails so fast? She loved Kai, and yet now it was all dark and twisted and...broken. Kai didn’t understand her, not one bit.
But he was right that she’d failed Po. She’d failed Kai. She’d now failed herself. She was a terrible mother and an even worse personal trainer. She’d led Kai on, got him to believe that he could surf again when she really had no business promising that. Just as she had no business trying to cure Po. She’d been trying for more than a year, and Po was no closer to getting over his fear of water. Hell, in just a few weeks, Kai had managed to get the boy to at least stand in the water. That was more than she’d gotten him to do.
Jun let the tears run down her face. Well, you were right, Mother. You were right to shun me. I’m worthless, moralless, just like you said I was.
The thought made her cry harder. She swiped furiously at the tears on her cheeks, yet they kept coming.
Fat lot of good it did, Mom, you trying to make me tough. Look at me now! Weak. So very weak.
Weak mother. Weak personal trainer. Weak woman who let Kai have his way with her. Begged him to, actually, and now he was probably out there drinking and flirting and doing his best to forget she even existed. And that was what truly hurt the most. Not that he’d insulted her mothering wisdom or her skills as a personal trainer or that he was angry she wanted him to quit surfing, but that at the very first sign of trouble, he’d bolted. She loved him and believed in him enough to know that he would be fine without big-wave surfing. Surfing didn’t define him. If she could only get him to see that.
But she couldn’t. He wasn’t going to listen to her. He hated her now.
He’d said he loved her that very evening, but now, only a few hours later, he’d run off. It proved to her that he wasn’t sincere, that his idea of love and hers were two very different things. In some ways, it meant he was more like Po’s father than she wanted to believe.
Jun sniffled, wiping her nose, and forced herself to stop. She was going to get a cab to the airport. Even if she had to sleep in the terminal, she would, and then she’d catch the first flight home.
* * *
KAI HAD EVERY intention of going to the very first tourist bar he saw and getting so hammered that he’d probably have to spend the night in the drunk tank. But the second he’d gotten halfway down the road, he thought about turning back. He saw her face when he’d told her there was no point in talking. Did he really believe that? Or was it just a defense mechanism because she’d hit him where he was most vulnerable: surfing. He felt as though she was the last person to abandon him. Yet, wasn’t it just because she cared? Bret, Jun and Jesse—they’d all been telling him what he knew all along, and just because he was too stubborn to let the truth in, didn’t make it any less true.
