Page 34 of Kaine

***

As promised, aftermeeting her friend at the elevator, she takes the bag and sends her friend away again. Taking the bag to the couch, she spreads the papers around her, the laptop on her legs as she works, a coffee on the side table.

The scene is so domestic, I can almost smell dinner on the stove and some prime-time game show in the background on the TV.

And an ache spreads. I want to be there, be a part of it. Be sitting on the couch opposite her, my own work laid out around me, looking up now and then just to smile at her, to enjoy having her around. It’s a need I’ve never experienced before. A need to be a part of something, a couple, a family. I can’t understand these cravings. And why they’re appearing now. Why this woman is triggering them in me. A woman I barely know.

I just want them to stop.

It’s not a life that’s meant for me. The way I am, the way I’ve always seen myself.

My hand reaches up to the left side of my face, running over the lines and bumps, reminding myself what the world is like, and why I’ve chosen the life I have.

I turn up the volume on the monitor, and I’m surprised to hear the soft blues music drifting out of it. She’s turned on the music on her phone to help her work. I love this song.

I lean back in my chair, swinging my legs up onto my desk, stretching out my muscles. My body dragging with fatigue, my eyelids fight to stay open, watching her.

The song ends and continues onto another...and another...and then nothing.

***

I wake up, coughing.

It’s so hot, I think that if I touch my face, I’ll pull it away to see my skin melting over my fingertips.

“KAINNNNNNNNNNE!” Someone’s yelling out to me. I think it’s Dad. DAD! There’s smoke everywhere, and I cough. And I cough again, dragging more smoke into my lungs as I struggle for breath.

“DAD!!! Where are you?!” My knees crack as I fall to the ground, my eyes burning and all I see is smoke. Smoke everywhere. Dark, gray, angry plumes of smoke, its tendrils reaching out for me, and I duck and weave trying to avoid their restraints.

I don’t know where I am.

I’m crawling on the ground, looking for a door, a window.

“Dad! Mom! Jenny!” I sob. Where is everyone? Why have they all left me here?

“KAINE! Over here!!” It’s Dad’s voice again! There he is, on the other side of the kitchen. There’s a fire on the table, but I can get there, get to him.

I get up, ready to jump! “Dad! Catch me!”

There’s a crack and a scream, and I feel like I’m being skinned.

And then everything falls dark. Forever.

My eyelids snap open.

I’m sweating. All over.

I run my fingertips through my hair; it’s drenched.

I swing my legs back down onto the ground, needing to feel them on solid ground, to remind myself it was all a dream.

Except it wasn’t. It was all real. Too real.

I look around, and it’s darkening. The light from Jemima’s computer is dim, she’s gone home, and the view over Manhattan is a canvas of dark, menacing clouds.

I’ve been asleep for hours.

More hours than any night over the last few weeks.