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Her lips pursed but her face lit up. “That’s a shame. You’re an extremely talented skater.” She paused for a moment. “If you’re ever interested in coaching, we can always use someone with your knowledge and skill.”
It was something I wanted to do but now that the opportunity was presenting itself, I felt pressure. Pressure that I didn’t know I could handle. “It’s something I’ve thought about,” I admitted quietly.
“Well, if you’re ever interested in exploring that, come find me. I’m here most days in the afternoons.”
I nodded at her as I slipped my feet into my sneakers and grabbed my bag. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I hope you do come find me, Winter. We have a lot of kids that could benefit from you.”
Linda left me with that as her parting remark. It was all too much and too soon. In the short amount of time that I had been back in Orchid City, so much shit had been thrown in my face. I just wanted to get settled in and work in peace at the library. It was conflicting and contradicting.
I mulled over Linda’s words as I walked out to my car and slipped inside. It was almost as if the universe heard my thoughts and plucked her out of thin air and placed her in my life for a reason. Maybe it wasn’t something I should ignore. I needed time to think about it, but she made it clear that I could help and they needed that.
I knew in the back of my mind that I’d be back to talk to Linda. I didn't know when, but it was something I wasn’t going to be able to dismiss. They needed my help and there was no reason why I couldn’t do that. It was time for me to give back.
* * *
The house was eerily quiet even though the TV was playing softly in the background. Perhaps it was because I was in the house alone that made something feel off. It wasn’t like I wasn’t home alone before in my life, but being the only one who was occupying the space had a weird feeling. It was like there was a void inside the walls and I wasn’t big enough to fill it.
As I curled up on the couch with a book, I looked around the room and silently cursed my parents. I wished this place wasn’t a family heirloom. I wanted to sell it. I wanted to go back to Vermont and forget about anything that happened over the past few days.
Most importantly, I wanted to go back to my life wherehedidn’t exist.
There was a soft knocking sound and I glanced up at the TV from my book. It was a house hunter type show, but there was no one knocking on the screen. I turned the volume down and my heart rate kicked up the pace as my breathing grew ragged. I stared at the TV, waiting for the sound again. As I heard it, I realized it wasn’t coming from the show. It was coming from the front door.
Panic welled inside me as I climbed off the couch. I held my phone in one hand and clutched it tightly. I didn’t have a weapon to defend myself. There was no reason anyone would be at my front door at this hour. If it were Sutton, she wouldn’t knock. She had her own key and was free to let herself in whenever she pleased.
My footsteps were light and quiet on the hardwood floor as I inched closer to the front door. The knocking stopped and I was once again cursing my parents for not getting a door with a window or some kind of a peephole. I flicked on the light switch for the front porch and looked through one of the glass panes alongside the door.
My stomach fell to the floor and my breath caught in my throat as I took in Kai’s expression. It was grim and tortured. His hood was pulled up over his head and his hands were tucked in the front pocket of his hoodie. Inhaling deeply, I slowly took a step back and unlocked the door before I pulled it open.
Kai’s head was tilted down and he slowly lifted it as his gaze barreled into mine. His jaw was tense and his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. The air between us was thick with tension and emotion. There was so much brewing in his eyes, I couldn’t pull a single emotion out of them without pulling them all out. My breath was caught in my lungs and my eyes desperately searched his.
Words failed me at that moment. The silence between us was deafening. It was suffocating, yet I couldn’t move. I was lost in the depths of his eyes, sinking and drowning.
Kai’s lips parted and a ragged breath escaped him. “Winter.”
There was a heaviness to his tone as his eyelids fluttered shut. His shoulders sagged, almost in relief. There was no reason for him to be here right now. I didn’t want to see him, yet I couldn’t will my feet to move.
“Is everything okay?”
Kai swallowed again and reopened his eyes. “I didn’t mean to come here. I didn’t know where else to go.”
The pain and hopelessness was laced in his words. This was the side of Malakai that no one ever saw but me many, many years ago. This was how he used to come to me when we were younger, yet he always let himself in. We were trapped in a weird place where neither of us knew how to act around the other after the damage had been done. It took me a long time to pull myself from the rubble from the wake of his destruction but I did it.
I put myself back together, even though the pieces never fit properly again.
And now he was here, needing me to put him back together as well.
I scanned his face in desperation, but there wasn’t a single mark on him. I breathed a sigh of relief as I didn’t see that there was any physical harm done to him. There was a part of me that wondered what was really worse. Sure, the physical abuse he endured with his father wasn’t healthy but he went through a lot more emotionally and verbally.
“What did he do?”
Kai’s lips pursed and he shrugged with indifference as he tried to put his walls back up. “Nothing that he hasn’t already done.”
I shifted my weight nervously on my feet. Kai cast his gaze down onto the ground. The air between us was growing thicker and it was almost palpable. There was so much pain, so much turmoil that was between us. So much damage. I didn’t think my heart would ever fully heal. I never knew the state of his heart because he shut me out before I had the chance to understand what he did to himself that night when he finally had pushed me away.
Taking a step back, I pulled the door open with me. It was possibly the worst thing I could have done, but I couldn’t leave him standing on my steps like this. Not when he was so full of despair. Not when he had nowhere else to turn. And certainly not when he needed me the most.
