20. Kayla

Chapter 20

Kayla

Outside Rico’s, we say our goodbyes, and I hang back a little while Ryan fistbumps Cameron. It’s the best they’ll manage under current circumstances. Yes, I saw this coming a mile off, but I can understand why it would be a shock for Ryan.

Hannah told me how their secret was discovered, and I would simply never return home if that happened to me. Ryan and I have always been pretty careful with our sneaking around, though we’re not faultless.

Four years ago, we got busted kissing on his sofa after we thought everyone was asleep. If his dad had waited thirty more seconds to get a glass of water, he’d have definitely seen me topless. Instead, he covered his eyes and walked straight past the two of us, who were frozen in place, leaving with a cheery ‘I saw nothing’ .

Hannah and Cameron head off with their sledges in hand, ready to make the journey back down to the Richmond house. I loop my arm around Ryan’s waist and lead him in the opposite direction.

“Are you ok?” I ask.

“Do I have a choice? It’s my sister and my best friend, I can’t exactly avoid them.”

I hug him closer when a crowd spills out of another bar, making space for them to pass us on the narrow pavement. “You worry about her. ”

“I don’t want her getting into a long distance thing. It won't work.”

“Why wouldn’t it work?”

“Because we don't,” he grunts.

“Oh, come on, that’s different and you know it. If they want to make it work, I’m sure they’ll find a way.”

I barely know Cameron, but I know Hannah. She doesn't take risks, was always the smart voice of reason when Ryan and I wanted to get up to mischief as kids. She wouldn’t get into something with him if she hadn’t weighed up all the pros and cons first.

Whenever I’ve considered the possibility of something more serious with Ryan, my entire list is cons.

He stops walking, and my arm slips loose from his waist. Beneath the glow of a streetlamp, his expression is so forlorn it makes my chest hurt. I want to look away, but I can’t, not when I know he’s being sincere.

“What if I want to make it work, Kayla?” His soft words suck all the air from my lungs.

For almost a decade, all I’ve wanted is this. Not a sign, not a feeling, but actual concrete words. Proof he wants me the way I want him. Now I have it, I wish he’d take it back. It’s too late.

“I said, what if I want to make it work?”

My feet stay rooted to the spot, even when he reaches out to pull me back into his arms. I land with my palms against his chest. Normally, I can’t get close enough, but this is suffocating.

“Why are you saying this now?”

His hands sweep from my shoulders down to my elbows and back up to my wrists. He circles them with his fingers, thumbs pressing into my pulse point as if he’s checking I’m real. There’s some muscle memory there, but I can’t place it while my head is full of his words .

“I missed you so much, and I know I should have tried to get in touch with you. That was a dumb fucking move on my part, but I can’t imagine going home and waving you off with a ‘see you next winter’ anymore. That’s not going to be enough for me.”

“We couldn’t make it work when I was in Edinburgh and you were in London. What on earth makes you think we can make it work between here and L.A.? The time difference would kill us if the distance didn’t.”

Me. It would kill me.

“We’ve never really tried! It’s only nine hours. I’ll call you before I go to bed and we can chat while you eat your breakfast. Then I’ll call you before I start work and you’ll be getting home.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say, tugging my hands back. “Do you hear yourself? I don’t want a relationship based on phone calls.”

“But you do want a relationship with me?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Please, Kayla? Please give us a chance.”

“It’s not what I want, Ryan!” I yell.

“You don’t want me?”

“Stop twisting my words.” A woman across the street stops to assess the situation. I wave her on and lower my voice. “You’re not being fair. You can’t abandon me for three years and expect me to agree to a long distance relationship just because your sister and your friend have hooked up and you’re feeling some kind of way about it. There’s no world where you and I work.”

His face crumples, and he looks up at the stars, but it’s too late. I’ve already seen the exact moment I break his heart.

“Ryan, don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying. ”

Even in the dim light, there’s no hiding his tears. I cup his cheeks, tilt his head back down to mine, and brush them away with my thumb. There’s nothing worse than seeing him hurting. I’d take all the pain and bear it myself if it meant I could get his smile back.

“This fucking sucks. And it hurts so much,” he shudders out, and I nod and sniff back my own tears. “Can we go home?”

“To mine?” I wouldn’t blame him if he’d changed his mind. About tonight, and about me. He nods, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, and we carry on in silence.

In my apartment, I help him out of his jacket and shoes. He’s not even drunk, just emotional and exhausted, which is no surprise given how little sleep we’ve had these past few nights. Between sex and skiing, my thighs have never worked so hard.

He lets me take his hand and lead him to the living room. I flick on a side lamp, sit him down on the sofa, and rush to change out of my ski gear and into comfy clothes. I half expect to find him asleep, but when I sit down, he shifts to rest his head in my lap.

We were teenagers, half-watching some dumb Christmas movie the first time we did this. A play fight that started with innocent tickling and ended up with us panting for breath and him looking up at me the way he is now. Our first kiss happened the very next day. I always thought that was the point of no return for us, but I think we were entwined long before then.

Smoothing his hair back off his face, he hums contentedly, leaning into my touch. It’s a dangerous cycle. Even in pain, we find comfort in each other, only for that comfort to turn into more pain when we go our separate ways.

The only thing worse than having him for only two weeks of the year, would be knowing he’s mine, but getting none of the benefits. None of the closeness, the kisses, the knowing smiles across a room. We’d have to go about our separate lives never getting a goodnight hug or grabbing lunch together. We aren’t cut out for that kind of torture.

“I thought I could get over you,” he says quietly. “But I couldn't, and I hated you telling me you tried to get over me, too.”

“Shh, it’s late. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“You said you couldn’t think of anything worse than loving me.”

“What?”

“The last time I saw you. That’s what you said.” His arm snakes around my back, and presses his cheek against my belly, the weight of it all rushing out in a sigh. “You said it and I snuck out the next morning and I felt so bad I puked in a bin at the airport.”

“Oh, God.”

The hot tub, my almost-confession.

I press the heels of my palms into my eye sockets until it hurts. That wasn’t what I meant, and anyway, it was ridiculous to pretend I couldn't love him when I already did. And still do.

I've interrogated the memory of that last night countless times, picking it apart to figure out where we went wrong. Tangled in sheets, he'd slipped out while I was in such a state of bliss I hadn't fully registered 'see you next winter' passed my lips. Was he mad I didn't say a proper goodbye? Should I have been mad he didn't either?

“It was never because I didn’t want you,” he continues. “It’s because I wanted you so much it scared me you might not want me back. I thought it was for the best, throwing myself into work and trying not to think about you.”

“That's why you didn’t come back?”

He nods and sniffs. “The first year, I really did have to work. Production was behind, I pulled eighteen-hour days to keep things on track. It was the worst Christmas ever.”

“And last year?”

“Honestly? There’s no reason I couldn’t have come last year.”

“The redhead. Was she the reason you stayed?”

He twists his head and takes a deep, shaky breath.

“I told you we were never serious. I was coming, I had a ticket booked, and I’d have called it off with her, but I got in my head and convinced myself you’d probably met someone.”

That is the exact reason why this is impossible, and why our pact needs to end. It isn’t sustainable. One of these days we’ll meet other people who we want something more from, and if that happened while we’d made some sort of commitment to each other, we’d never recover. I certainly wouldn’t be able to live here, surrounded by memories of him.

How long can we keep doing this? Am I going to die knowing I had a lot of great sex but nobody ever truly loved me because I held out for him?

“Well, what if I had Ryan? What if I was seeing someone this year?”

“I’d have kicked his ass,” he grumbles, throwing me his best frown.

“Same way you kicked Cameron’s ass earlier and got turfed out in the cold by your dad?” His eyebrows knit together, and I smooth them out with my thumb. “Hannah told me.”

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he says.

“You’ve been drinking. Let’s forget this conversation happened and go get some sleep.”

“I can’t forget anything about you. Not ever. You’re my North Star. You always guide me home.”

He pulls a blanket from the back of the sofa and drapes it over us. We lay entwined for a while, in silence but for the sound of our breathing and the low hum of the refrigerator. Outside, the moon is full and high above the mountain. When we were kids, it gave me such comfort to know we could look up and see the same sky, same stars. We never get the chance now we live in different time zones.

“Can you lie to me?” he asks sleepily.

“Hmm?”

“I know you said there’s no world where we work, but can you pretend, like old times?”

“Ryan.” My eyes squeeze shut, and he rolls to his side, burrowing his face against my stomach.

“Please?”

We should be happy right now. He’s here, in my arms, and in my house. It should be enough, but it’s torture, and the more we do this, the worse it gets. A little daydreaming can’t make it any more painful than it already is.

“Somewhere…” I whisper, stroking his hair in smooth, slow motions. “Somewhere, there’s a world where we’re together. You wake up in my arms every morning, you feel my heart beating against your cheek. Some days you make the coffee, some days it’s my turn, but you always come back and drink it in bed. I scrub your back in the shower, and you wash my hair. We ski every day, eat pizza for lunch. You’re mine, and I’m yours, and we are so, so happy.”

Long after he’s fallen asleep, I keep going, spilling my heart out, wiping my tears before they can drip onto his face. I tell him everything, all those worlds I’ve pictured, every wish I’ve ever made, even though I know they don’t stand a hope in hell of coming true.