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He continued speaking. “Check this out.” He pulled out his phone and navigated to his music app. A tattooed thumb clicked through his profile until a playlist titled Gym popped up on the screen. He scrolled down, stopping over a set of songs I was quite familiar with. A set of songs I’d written myself.
Excellent. This asshole was listening to my music, which I had written about the love of my life, as he spent two hours daily with her grunting in tight clothing.
“You guys are awesome,” he said. I still hadn’t said a thing. He might as well have been conversing with the off-white paneling on the side of the house. “Seriously. I hadn’t listened to you guys before Kai showed me but now I’m, like, a fan, dude.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly. No matter how angry I was, I was always grateful to the people who listened to my whining. They were the ones who made this all possible for Oli, Noah, and me.
“You don’t like me, do you?” He put his phone in his pocket and ripped straight through the tension between us.
“Not particularly.” There was no point in lying.
Aaron laughed, finally removing his arm from my shoulders though replacing it with a hand on each one as he turned me to face him. “I know, I know. It’s kinda hot. But don’t worry. I don’t want Kai any more than I want every other fucking person on the planet. You know she’s not into that, and I’m not into breaking you two up.”
“We’re not together.” I clenched my jaw until it hurt, considering escape routes. Perhaps if I ran, I could work up enough momentum to hop the tall fence surrounding the yard.
“Just shut up, dude. Seriously. Drop the act. From man to man, I like you, and I like you for her. From what I’ve heard, you balance her out. And she needs that. She wants that. But you stay cold for too long and you’re only gonna make her act out. You know how she is.”
I glared at him. “She knows what she needs, and she can do whatever she wants. She’ll accept this eventually.”
“Yeah, she might, but you’ll be shit outta luck. Don’t act like putting up this front makes it any easier for you, dude.”
“It was never easy for me, dude. Not for one second during the last twelve years. But it was for her, and it should stay that way.” My hand scraped behind my head as I looked around myself, anxiously waiting for this interaction to end.
“You’ve been after her for twelve years?” His face stretched with disbelief.
Shit. This was exactly why I didn’t socialize. Kai was such an enveloping part of my world, that I’d forgotten entirely that my love for her wasn’t common knowledge. Oli knew, June knew, Noah knew, and Tiff knew. And I knew that keeping the secret from Kai ate away at them. June especially. I had a feeling Kai’s parents knew too, as they alluded to it on many occasions. My parents knew too, obviously. My mom had seen every pathetic attempt I made throughout high school to get her attention. And that was it. Those were all the people I interacted with.
So now Aaron knew.
“I’d appreciate it if you kept that to yourself,” I mumbled.
“I already assumed, man, and I felt sorry for you because of it. Hearing the confirmation is a heartbreak for the entire male species, to be honest. I mean your whole…” He circled his hands my way, gesturing to my general presence. “Just… Sorry, dude.” He wasn’t apologizing for making assumptions, but rather because he could tell I was the saddest piece of shit in human history. How empathetic of him. “But what if she feels the same way?”
A scenario I hadn’t even considered. An impossibility. My love for Kai was something uncontrollable, something overwhelming, something I knew perfectly well was madness but, still, I felt it. There was no way my beautiful girl was as crazy or desperate as I was. She did just fine living her own exciting life.
I ignored his previous question and used this momentary lull in our rivalry to warn him. “You shouldn’t get too close to her without asking. She doesn’t always respond well to it.”
“I know.” Part of me hoped he didn’t. It would’ve made it easier to hate him. “I grabbed her by the waist once as a joke and she turned right around and pushed me. She’s only okay with upper arms and upper back and only hard contact, like a hug or fist or maybe flat palms, and only when she’s not hot or sweaty or tired. No soft touching. No fingers. I got it. Don’t worry. Can we be friends now?”
“We have nothing in common.”
Aaron laughed. “I like you.” He wrapped me in an enormous hug, shifting me back and forth on my feet. “We’re going to be friends.”
“Where’s the bathroom?” was all I managed in response.
He chuckled once again as he directed me inside the house and up the stairs.
???
Kai
Over the years, a position in which I frequently found myself was bent over; two hands on the sink, two feet on the floor, leaning in as I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
Fitting, for someone getting railed by life.
Though, today, the tears that usually rolled off the end of my nose didn’t come. I had no concept of how long I’d been standing in the private upstairs bathroom. I only knew my body was frozen.
The door opened abruptly, jerking me from my position and freeing me from my mind’s hold. Jonah’s reflection appeared in the mirror. He stopped immediately when he saw me, and I stared him down in the glass. “The door was cracked. I thought…”
