The night air was warm, but a bitter chill swept through AJ's body as he sat outside his house. Looking out onto the blue lit water of his pool, he didn't know if it was because of the wind that blew fiercely, or because he was getting a bad feeling about Jenna.
He could hear her words echoing in his mind "AJ I really miss you . . . I can't give myself to you completely until I know for sure that Nick and I are really done . . . You were the first person I ever really loved Alex . . . our chance might be long gone, but I'm hoping there's still something there . . ." He knew it was too good to be true. She'd never come to him. Even when she found out Nick was with Kayla. He waited all day for her to call. Hoping, wondering, worrying. Midnight neared and still nothing. It was always too good to be true.
Everything would have just been easier if he could have let her go, but he never made things easy for himself. Never. AJ's thoughts jolted to a stop in his mind as the cordless phone rang in his hand. He glanced at his watch as he brought it to his ear. One am, he thought. A sigh escaping his lips.
"Hello?" He asked tentatively.
"Nothing you say and nothing you do is going to make it better!" The voice screamed. For a moment he was happy, thinking it was Jenna upset over Nick, but sadly it wasn't. "Jenna and Nick are the happy fucking couple now. I don't wanna hear I told you so. I told him you'd say it, I know you want to say it, but I'm telling you right now, I can not take hearing it."
"Kayla, where are you? Are you home?" AJ questioned. Finally recognizing her voice, wishing he hadn't heard her words.
"Never mind where I am. I feel like I'm in hell." She spat.
"Please Kay. Let me come get you, or you come over here." He pleaded, but it was too late. She hung up.
He sat with the phone in his hand, staring back out across the water. 'Jenna and Nick are the happy fucking couple now'. That's all he could hear. Over and over again in his mind. That wasn't supposed to happen. Nick was supposed to tell Jenna he was in love with someone else and Jenna was supposed to come back to him. That's how he planned it. Kayla wasn't supposed to get hurt. Nick was supposed to love her.
I have to find her.
His mind screamed, forgoing his own hurt and worrying more about where
Kayla was and if she was okay. AJ left his seat and went into the
house, checking the caller ID to see where she had called from. Pay
phone. Dammit.
He picked up his keys from
the counter and left the house, speeding away in his car, wondering where
on earth she could be.
AJ knocked on the door of Kayla's apartment, hoping she was there. He had called everyone and everywhere he could think of looking for her, all the while driving towards her house well over an hour away. He knocked again. It was almost 5 am, but finding her was the first thing on his priority list, he couldn't sleep until he did. Finally her roommate Sam answered the door, looking freshly out of bed.
"I'm sorry I woke you up, but is Kayla home?" He asked, whispering so he wouldn't wake anyone is the other apartments up. "I called earlier and no one answered, I'm just hoping she's here now."
"Yeah. She went to bed already though." Sam yawned.
"Was she okay?"
"Actually she started crying because we ran out of milk." Sam said with a curious look. "Then she just went to bed. I wasn't going to bother her about it, it was too late."
"Can I come in for a second." He asked. " I won't stay long, I just need to check on her."
"Yeah sure." Sam said. "Was she drunk or something?"
"I'm not sure. She sounded drunk when she called, but she could have just been upset. She and Nick broke up today."
"Oh." Sam nodded with feigned interest.
"I'm just going to peek inside and make sure she's all right. You can go back to bed if you want. Sorry for waking you."
"Don't worry about it." Sam said, taking his offer up, returning to bed.
AJ kicked off his shoes and walked towards his friends room. He opened the door slowly, careful to make as little noise as possible. She was curled into a ball on the edge of her bed, her blankets tangled on the floor. He crept closer, wanting to cover her up so she'd at least be warm as she slept.
"Fuck!" He said, biting his lip so he wouldn't wake her. Something he's stepped on had dug into his foot. Glass? He thought as he pulled it from his aching foot. Looking down where he had stepped. Something lay broken on the floor, glass and water were everywhere. He hobbled to the bed and quickly covered her up, kissing her lightly on the forehead and returning to the glass. He picked as much of it up as he could see, putting it in the garbage and wiping up the water with a towel.
He went back into the living
room and sat on the couch, eventually falling asleep, content that she
was alive.
"AJ, what are you doing here?" AJ awoke to his arm being prodded by Kayla. "AJ!"
"I'm awake, I'm awake."
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Nice greeting Kay."
"Seriously. What are you doing here?" Kayla yelled with a cold hard scowl on her face.
"I came to check on you last night. I guess I fell asleep." He said, trying to adjust to the light that shone in his eyes. He looked down at his watch. It was almost one in the afternoon. He couldn't believe he'd slept that late.
"I don't need to be checked on." She snapped. "and I don't need to hear you say I told you so, so if that's what you're doing here, you can just keep it to yourself and get the hell out."
"I wasn't going to say a word." He said sincerely. "Are you all right?"
Kayla sat down next to him on the couch. "I'm fine."
"I picked up the glass off your floor last night. I didn't want you to cut yourself like I did."
"You cut yourself?" She said with guilt plastered on her face.
"Just a little cut, I stepped on a piece of glass."
"Sorry, I just needed to break something."
"I understand." He smiled. "So do you want to tell me what happened?"
Kayla sat silent on the couch next to him, her gaze suddenly going from his face to the floor.
"If you don't want to talk about it I'll understand Kay." He said.
"Can we go somewhere else. Sam's here, and I just need to be away from everything familiar."
"Of course." He said, getting up off the couch, and stretching his arms out above his head. They left her apartment and drove, away from the city towards no where in particular, just away from the troubles that were bothering both of them. Nick and Jenna. He was grateful he had her pain to dwell on, because letting in his own hurt would just be too much for him. So he drove.
Hardly a word had been spoken during the seven hour drive they had made, but they finally stopped when both their stomachs grumbled fiercely. Kayla told him she didn't want to be around people, so he checked them into a hotel and ordered in supper.
"Do you think I'm running away from things?" Kayla asked him after they had finished eating.
"No." He said pointedly, not taking his eyes of the movie they had purchased on pay per view.
"Because I feel like I am." She sighed returning to the movie. "I feel like it's easier to do this, to go away from him, than to admit that I'm heartbroken."
AJ sat up and shut off the television. "What happened Kay?"
"We had a fight over going to Christine's party, but we made up. He was supposed to come over to my house but he never showed up." She said calmly. "I didn't think too much of it. I mean, he's not notorious on remembering things, so I called and didn't get an answer. I tried to get ahold of him all day, and eventually I just got so worried that I went to his house."
"Was he home?"
"Not when I first got there. But he showed up. He just wasn't himself. Asked me what I was doing there and said he forgot to call because he was out on his boat all day. I knew something wasn't right." Kayla sighed. "He just blurted it out. Jenna's back and we want to give it another try."
AJ could tell she was trying to hold her emotions in.
"I was so angry. He's trying to be all nice about it, which only pissed me off more. He wanted me to stay so we could talk about it." She half laughed. "I mean, can you imagine. 'I know I let you fall in love with me, but here's your heart back, now let's talk about how I ripped it out of your chest.'" She screamed. "I just don't know whether to punch a hole in the wall or curl into a ball and cry. I've never felt like this before."
"You've never had your heart broken before." he knew what it felt like. He knew all too well.
"Why are people like that AJ? How can they hurt someone they say they love? Because I loved him, and I trusted him and now I just wish every feeling I have would go away. I don't want to cry. I don't want to let what he did get to me, but I just can't help it. I feel like I'm being squeezed so tightly that I can't breathe. Like I'm drowning." She said, the tears that had come to her eyes spilling over. "I'm sorry." She said, wiping them away with the back of her hand.
"Don't apologize, let it out if you need to." He said soothingly. And like he had given her permission to cry freely, the tears returned to her eyes.
Kayla cried like he'd never heard her cry before, curled into him as he held her close. Her body shaking like a leaf in the wind. He had done this to her. She was absolutely broken and it was all his fault. He rocked her in his arms for as long as it took her to calm down, her tears finally subsiding to a small sniffle. He felt like he was drowning right along with her, but for different reasons. How can people hurt someone they say they love? He asked himself Kayla's question over and over again. A list of all the people he had hurt in his quest for Jenna scrolling in his mind. So many innocent victims of his own selfish desires.
AJ slipped out from beneath Kayla's grasp when he was certain she had finally cried herself to sleep. He left the room and went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind himself, locking it tight and turning the water on. His heart raced a mile a minute and he sunk down to the floor, his own tears exploding from his eyes. He couldn't take anymore.
"What am I doing?" He cried to himself, "I'm killing people I love. I'm hurting them. I hurt Kayla. I promised her I'd never hurt her. I promised myself. What the fuck am I doing?"
Kayla was his greatest friend in the world and he'd fed her to a snake to serve his own selfish needs. She had been completely in love with Nick, and he could very well have been in love with her. He played all the cards he had, and every one of them backfired on him. He should have known Nick was weak where Jenna was concerned. and now it was too late. He'd destroyed whatever happiness Kayla could have had. He destroyed her.