Kyle buried his head in his hands. I wrapped my arms around him.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Kyle. I’m trying to make this easier on you.”
“Why do things always have to be so…” He stopped in the middle of his sentence, struggling to find the words.
I touched his face, running my hands tenderly over the rough patches of whiskers. My lips brushed over his as I dusted them with my affection. “It doesn’t have to be a goodbye. We can think of it as a ‘to be continued’.”
“So when Jake wakes up, we can try again?”
“Yes,” I agreed, swallowing the lump in my throat. There was just too much uncertainty in his life to pin my hopes on a future together, and I had a terrible feeling that this was it for us. I stood up. “I’m going to go now,” I managed to say before the emotions caught up to me and I gulped back a sob.
“Kenzie.” Kyle stood too, grabbing my hand and pulling me into a hug. We held onto each other for a long time. The sadness I’d been struggling to keep in check poured out of me. The reality of our situation weighed heavily on my heart. If the time had been right, we could have been something great, but the fairytale ending I’d imagined with him couldn’t overcome the pressures of real life. I pulled out of Kyle’s arms.
“I have to go,” I sniffled. “My dad is waiting in the parking lot.”
“Do you want me to walk you down?”
“No. Go back to Jake. He needs you.”
Without another word, we exited the apartment, Kyle heading off in one direction, and I in the other.
“Goodbye,” I whispered.
39
Kyle: The Awakening
I’d never beengood at hiding my emotions and wasn’t surprised that Kenzie saw straight through my pathetic façade. She was right to leave me. I would never have room for her in my life as long as Jake lay unresponsive in his. And there was no way for me to explain that to her without divulging the injustice that bound me to my brother in the first place. So I went on with my sad existence, pushing thoughts of her from my mind as I hung on my brother’s every tiny flinch. He was in there somewhere, and I wasn’t giving up until there was no hope left to hold.
But as the days went on with no change, my family slowly began to deconstruct. Managing tragedy had never been our strong point, and it didn’t help that we’d been given more than our fair share of it. Heartbreak had a way of bringing out the worst in all of us. Arguments erupted. Words that could never be taken back were spoken. Feelings were hurt. Apologies attempted. Wash, rinse, and repeat. The McKallister clan was nothing if not consistent in our grieving methods.
Keeping my focus on Jake, I put every last bit of my tattered soul into saving my brother’s. Choosing the nightshift to give my overly exhausted parents a break, I kept vigil at Jake’s bedside in the dead of night for hours on end. When the medical complications first sent him into the coma, I didn’t have one-sided conversations with him like the others did, choosing instead to just sit there impassively, wallowing in my misery, as I obsessively watched him breathe. But after this past week, and Kenzie and the show, something broke open in me, and I couldn’t hold back my grief any longer.
That first night after Kenzie left, I just cried – ten years’ worth of tears shamelessly poured out of me. Thankfully there was no one to judge me except my comatose brother, who didn’t seem to mind my waterworks. Then, in the days that followed, my silent grief found a voice. The thoughts inside my head escaped with such brazen intensity that I wondered how’d they’d all managed to get along up there in my muddled brain. The trivial words came first. Simple stories. Mild observations. Then the deeper layers made their way to the surface: pain, heartbreak, betrayals. From there, the hidden tiers of my psyche pushed their way through the crowds as I recounted every goddamn insecurity I’d ever harbored. Jake was like a slumbering priest and I the disgraced sinner, looking for absolution.
Yet still I held back. That one shameful memory clung to its refuge, refusing to seek amnesty with the others. Whether I kept it safe for my sake or Jake’s wasn’t clear. In consciousness, Jake had always placed a muzzle on any mention of that day, and my guilt kept me from pushing for answers. But now, with my brother in no condition to protest my insolence, my secret shame crept from the shadows.
“I’m going to start by saying that your objection to this conversation is duly noted. But seeing as you are the asshole who won’t wake up, I’m going to dump my shit in your lap and see how you like it.”
I realized I was being a total dick, but I couldn’t help myself. When I’d first started talking to Jake, my words were kind and quiet and gentle, as if harsh tones might keep him from waking. But as the days went on and he didn’t open his eyes, my tone turned sharp and challenging. I was pissed at the world and furious at Jake for remaining in his stupid fucking coma.
“So here it goes. I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry. I’ve done way too many dumb things in my life, but that…” My voice faltered, and more tears threatened to burst forth. I had no idea my body could produce so many. “That’s one I can’t ever take back. If I had just listened to Mom, to you, we wouldn’t be here today, and I own that. I’ll never forgive myself. And the worst part is, I don’t know how you feel about what happened because you never talk about it. Are you mad at me? Do you blame me? Because you should! We were supposed to go the skate park, and you, like the obedient, kiss-ass you were, just mindlessly followed directions. As always, I was the one to lead you astray. I wanted to go to the business park to ride the handrails on the stairs. You said no because we’d gotten in trouble the time before, but it was a Sunday, and no one was there to bust us. I totally played you. All I had to do was insult your skate jumping skills and you were like putty in my hands. Why did you have to be so damn competitive? And why would you even listen to me in the first place? You knew I never made good decisions. Jesus Christ, Jake, how could you have been so stupid?”
I stopped myself. Talk about blaming others for my own shortcomings. Was I seriously pissed at Jake for getting kidnapped when I was the one who’d led him to his doom?
“Okay, sorry, that was a dick move to blame you. Don’t be mad. Let me start over. So…” Something caught my eye and I stopped talking. Had his hand just moved? His pointer finger… it moved. Or was I just seeing things? “Jake? Are you awake?” I grabbed his hand. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
I waited. Nothing. Had I just imagined that?
“Jake?” I called to him again, but this time got right up next to his face and blasted his name in his ear. He didn’t flinch. I sat back and stared at him for the longest time, willing him to give me a sign that he was in there somewhere.
After several minutes of false hope, I continued my confession. “In my defense, Jake, I didn’t know he’d be there. How could I have known that? I mean, he just appeared out of nowhere. I saw him first and panicked. I remember the confusion in your eyes when he grabbed you. You didn’t even see him coming. I should have warned you, but it happened too fast. One minute we were fine. The next…” I stopped again, feeling the emotions overwhelm me. “The way he played us against each other, threatening to hurt the other if we didn’t obey. It was like he knew we were brothers. How would he know that? I mean, if it was just random, how would he have known?”
That part of the story had never made sense to me. The common assumption was that the kidnapping had been completely indiscriminate, and that Ray had seen us heading toward the business park and had followed us there.
“We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s what they said… the place I brought us to. But if that were true, how would he have known we were brothers? How would he have known we would do anything to protect each other? It certainly wasn’t by observing us at the business park because, if you remember, we spent the majority of our time there arguing over who had the better jump off the stairs. I did, by the way.”
I stopped and watched his face for a reaction. If he were listening, that last bit would have swayed him to open his eyes. He’d always hated losing to me. But Jake didn’t move, so I continued.
