AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She answered my question, telling me the events of the day. The further into the story she got, the closer I came to overturning every damn piece of furniture in my apartment like some kind of mindless barbarian. If only I had the strength and capabilities.
I sat there and gritted my teeth as she described what I was almost positive were actual crimes committed by Javi. And I’m not talking about the drugs sold out of the bar or hiring people without proper contracts. I’m talking about him hacking into her bank account, and then taking a switchblade to her belongings earlier today when she called him out for it. I’m talking about her description of how they were sitting together on the couch in her apartment when she noticed his phone was dinging at all the same times hers was, because he had literally synced up their shit without her knowledge.
She finally gathered the strength to get up from bed and walk me around her apartment, but I almost wished she hadn’t. I could’ve done without seeing the broken light switch, the shattered plate on the ground, or the sliced teddy bear beneath the sweatshirt which I now realized she’d used as a bandage. It was the bear that sent her straight back into a fit, and my chest collapsed at the sight. She stood there crying in front of the camera with the little brown animal dangling from her fingers, its white guts fluffing out of it in chunks. Her connection with her stuffed animals was a special one, and I suddenly no longer wanted to die, but kill.
How the hell could anyone treat another human as such? Where the fuck did this Javi guy get off? While I wished there was more I could do to help, I selfishly refused to let myself dwell on it too much for the sake of my own sanity. I buried my face in my hands which were propped up over one scribbled forearm and another covered in sweatshirt, elbows digging into the desk in front of me.
“Are you okay, Jojo?” she asked, ending a small silence between us as she sniffled and sat back down on her bed with her mutilated bear.
I hated that she asked me that. The answer was no, but it wasn’t about me. That girl could have been dragging her own beaten body across the ground with one hand and a split eye and she would still ask if I was all right. Kai was like that.
“Of course.” I heaved a breath, digging the heels of my hands into my eyes as deeply as I could.
“Are you mad at me?”
Air whooshed from my throat as if I’d been punched in the gut. Is it possible for a heart to break twice in one sitting?
“Am I ma—?” I began to repeat her question back to her, but it came out angrier than I’d intended. After another deep breath, I tried again. “No, Kai. I’m not mad at you. You couldn’t have known it would go that far.”
“There were signs.” Her cries returned as she smushed her nose into the bear’s head, weakly looping one sweatshirt arm around it.
“Kai.” Her name sounded much more like a beg. And it was. A beg for her to be okay. For all of this to finally end. I had nothing helpful to say, nothing I could do to take away her pain. So, I stuck to the facts. “Kai, that’s not your fault. Leaving is easier said than done, and you are not responsible for his actions. I’m glad that you’re safe and he’s gone. I never liked him.”
She wiped a hand across her red cheek and sniffled loudly. “Yeah, well, you weren’t his favorite either.” Good. That was a snarky joke. More progress.
“Do your parents know about any of this?”
She scoffed. “Fuck no. We’ve broken up fuck knows how many times during this relationship. I stopped telling them about it after the first time. My mom had said, ‘That’s a shame. I really liked him.’”
My eyes gaped at that. “How could they like him? He is fucking abusive!” I wanted to explode in a fiery mess of red heat. Anger really wasn’t a frequent thing for me. Annoyance, disgust, judgment…sure. But anger was tougher to deal with, and I didn’t have so much experience with it.
“Don’t.” She cringed, wringing her neck tensely. “Don’t say that word.”
“Kai, don’t downplay this.”
“I’m not downplaying anything, Jo.” She scratched her head with both hands, itching nervously with a sound that ripped at my eardrums. “I know what happened. I know how it feels. Giving it attention makes it feel worse right now.”
“Then when are you going to give it attention, Kai? I’m sorry, but when?” It quickly became obvious that anger was going to win today because that really wasn’t my answer of choice, it was just the one that came out. Kai stared at me as I succumbed to myself. “You need to stop standing by while this shit happens to you. Stop being quiet.” I shot up from my chair and began pacing, my brain switching to a setting over which I had no control. “You have been making excuses for him since day one. Or maybe day thirty since you didn’t even fucking tell us about him for the first month. Look at me and tell me you haven’t been hiding his fuck ups and making excuses for him.” I stopped in front of the camera and looked at her.
No answer. Typical.
“Why, Kai? Why do you do it?”
Her jaw tightened, and I wanted to stomp my feet on the ground like an asshole. If she wasn’t going to come home, she at least had to be fucking safe.
And Kai could handle herself. Of fucking course, she could. She was so much stronger than she appeared. But people are truly evil, and her weakness had always been her faith in the world. I never shared that creed, and while it robbed me of a lot, it honestly saved me from even more.
She still didn’t answer me, but I didn’t say anything else. I needed her to think about it. Truly. For once. She needed to think about why she protected people who didn’t deserve to be protected. About why she hurt herself just so others could use her as a flight of stairs.
“I think…” She started speaking slowly, but immediately shut herself up. “You just don’t know what it’s like on the inside, Jo.”
No, nor did I fucking want to. “Then maybe you need to get out,” I said, slicing a hand through the air. “I’m asking not for me this time, but for you. Please, Kai, please come home.”
Her face backed away from the screen, the sides of her mouth pushing down. Her sadness became tinged with something harder, something like irritation. “I don’t have enough money, Jojo. I can’t buy a—”
“I do.” I neared myself to the desk, my rage melting into desperation. “I do. Oli, Noah, and I are doing well. We’re doing so fucking well. Our music is selling. We’ll get you home. I’ll get you home.”
“No, Jonah.” Her finger began tapping from her crossed arm position one, two, three on her opposite elbow. I was pissing her off and well aware of it.
