Bitterness roils within me. I’m not an angry person by nature, but that comment just slapped me hard. I grind my molars, searching for a calmer response than the one I’d like to give him about how we aren’t all so lucky to have perfect sibling relationships where we all communicate daily.
Some of us have torturous, heartbreaking ones.
Ones fraught with addictions and their aftermath. Ones where we’d go nearly a decade without seeing or speaking to one another. Enough time for a whole tiny human to make her way into a tumultuous, chaotic world and for the rest of her family to know nothing about her. Enough time to become an uncle, without having a clue.
I feel like such a complete and utter failure. I should haveneverstood my ground and cut Ryann out of my life. This is all my fault.
“Well, I don’t want to be a stranger to her, Kai. Her CPS caseworker says Morgan needs stability, since she has not had that ever. I can provide that for her.”
“So can your mothers,” he proffers.
“Don’t you see this is all my fault? Ryann kept her distance because every time she tried to come around she was met with my disappointment and hostility. I shut her out, Kai. Maybe… maybe if I hadn’t, we would have known about Morgan.”
“Good thing I haven’t given up the lease on my apartment, yet,” he hisses back. “Did it ever occur to you to ask me how I felt about it, Brooks?”
It did occur to me, yes, but I knew exactly what the answer was going to be. And I knew it would go about as well as it’s going right now. The thing is, while I love Kai, I wasn’t braced for the impact of having to choose between my niece and my boyfriend.
So, assuming care of Morgan is the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done, and it’s out of character for me, yes. But I felt compelled to do it. Somewhere deep inside, this just feels right—like I can somehow make up for my absentee role as Ryann’s brother by doing this. I’d just assumed that Kai would take one look at Morgan and see that she needed a home to live in, some stability and security. I thought that perhaps we could give that to hertogether.
You know what they say about assuming, though.
“So, what, you’re not going to move in now?” I snap back incredulously.
“Brooks,” he sighs, “you have an old soul, and I get that. But I am not ready to settle down and play family the way you are. You knowme; you know that’s not who I am! I don’twantkids! How can you possibly picture me raising a little girl?! ”
Truthfully, I can’t picture it. I couldn’t picture it. I forged ahead with the kinship foster license anyway. Guilt about how I treated Ryann the past few years gnawed away at me. Without a father present in Morgan’s life, because no one knows who that is, I stepped up, willing to fill that role.
Kai fists his hair and puffs out a pent-up breath. He spins away from me, places his hands on his hips, and surveys the space of my apartment around him. “I don’t know if I can make this work…” he mutters, almost so silently that I missed it.
Every ounce of me wants to wrap my arms around his waist, to pull myself close to him, and seek out comfort that I myself need. Because, throughout all of this, I’ve been doling out the reassurances, but haven’t been getting many in return. Instead, I dip my head and stare down at my stockinged feet, like there’s something fascinating about them. “Is this it then? Are we over? Two years, andpoofnothing?” I ask, my voice straining under the vulnerability.
“I love you, Brooks, but I just don’t know if I can do it…”
A tear manages to slip free and trails down my cheek. After everything I’ve done for him—all the caving in I’ve done, to try to makeuswork—and it’s down to this. My mothers were right, he and I are way too incompatible, but I’ve been trying to prove them wrong. This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, I guess.
Every piece of me wants him to just turn around, to face me, and see that I need him now more than ever. He doesn’t, though. Instead, I watch as he dips his head and makes his way into the master bedroom. All I can do is listen as he packs his things.
When he comes out a few minutes later, I’m seated on the sofa, leaning forward on my elbows with my fingers steepled under my chin.I let more tears flow freely, not making an effort to swipe them away, because I half expected the sight in front of me now: Kai standing there, speechless, with his duffel bag stuffed full of his belongings hung over his shoulder.
He shakes his head at me and silently pads over to the front door. Once he gets his shoes on, he rests his hand on the door handle and spins around to regard me. “We can still move forward with the business venture, but I think this is goodbye, Brooks,” he mutters. “I love you, and I’d still like to be your friend, but this—this isn’t for me.”
I can’t justbe friendswith him. Yeah, maybe I have an old-fashioned take on love and relationships; call me crazy for it. I can’t simply give my heart to someone and then just go back to being friends. That’s not who I am at all, doesn’t hegetthat?
I suck my lips in between my teeth and bite down hard, trying to fight back the onslaught of tears that are barely being kept at bay. I knew this was coming; still, I delayed the inevitable. My only response is a slow nod, and on that, Kai lets himself out.
Screw him. Screw the fact that I’ve been patient and there for him no matter what chaotic direction he chooses to go with his life. Every changed major, every new hair-brained idea he has to waste his trust fund, every goddamned thing, and here I am, the first time he’s really ever seen me in shambles, and he packs a bag and leaves. Screw Kai Hale and everything I thought we could have become together.
And screw everything I thought love was, because in one fell swoop, Kai just shattered that illusion. He broke off a piece of me and added it to the trash heap that my life has been over the past two and a half weeks. I’m sick of feeling so sure that I’m doing everything right, only to find out that I’ve been wrong all along.
Again.
Even those who are put on a pedestal, touted as being the ones who can put everything back together when everything crumbles, eventually fall themselves. It feels like an oppressive weight bearing down on my chest. It’s suffocating, keeping it all in for everyone.
I feel like I’ve lived my entire life being everyone’s caretaker.
But what happens when they crack? Then what? Who’s there to take care of the caretaker?
Once the door clicks shut, I curl up on the couch and give in to the emotions that rack me. I cry, I quietly punch the couch cushions, I grit my teeth in emotional agony. I go through several of the five stages of grief all in one epic meltdown. All with the exception of acceptance, because this is a hard pill to swallow.
