I take her hand in mine and kiss her palm.
How some jerk-off had her, and treated her like shit, I’ll never understand. I’m going to be the luckiest asshole in the world when she finally lets me love her.
Chapter 42
*Jake*
I open the front door and she’s sitting at the dining table, shoe box and a bazillion magazines and craft stuff in front of her.
“What are you doing? Decoupage?”
She eyes me curiously and starts to laugh.
“What?” I say. “Mom went through a craft phase when she was pregnant with Ju-ju. Seriously though, what are you doing?”
I drop my gear bag near the front door and walk over to her.
She has a bunch of teeny bopper magazines in front of her. She’s cutting pictures out of them, Justin Bieber and One Direction, some dudes form those Vampire movies and the ones where kids kill each other.
I look at her for a long moment. She just stares back.
“You’re not going on a stalker road trip with Heidi are you?” I ask seriously.
She laughs.
I walk to the fridge to pull out a bottle of water and walk back to her.
I sit on the chair next to her and she gets up and sits on me.
We haven’t spoken about what happened the night of Logan's frat party. We haven’t made anything official and we still haven’t kissed. That kissing part, is quickly driving me crazy. Everything else, I don’t mind. We sleep in my bed every night and we more than a lot like each other, that’s enough for me for now, but not forever. Soon, we’re going to have to talk about it.
I put my hand on her waist and she puts her arms around my neck. I kiss her temple.
“What are your plans for tomorrow?” she whispers.
“Spending the day with you?”
She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Whats going on, Kayla? Did something happen?”
She removes herself from me and sits back down on her chair. She picks up the scissors and starts cutting the magazines again. She’s quiet, and I let her be.
Because I know this side of her. She’s working up the courage to speak. So I wait.
“It’s Emily’s Birthday tomorrow.” She says quietly, putting down the scissors then looking up at me, tears filling her eyes.
Shit.
I pull her chair closer to me, then lift her and cradle her like I used to.
“We used to do this thing, as a family, like a tradition. On the 2nd of January every year we’d sit down and make ourselves these boxes.” She points to the shoebox. “We’d stick pictures on them of things that remind us of that year. Like, what we were into at the moment, guys, movies, songs, anything. We’d leave an opening at the top, kinda like a mailbox, and we stored them in the Kitchen pantry. Whenever someone did something worth remembering we’d write it on a notecard and put it in their box. It wasn’t even if it was worth remembering, just… I don’t know, anything, really. Like, if someone did something nice, or made you laugh. Those sorts of things. I remember one year I put in Emily’s that I saw her picking her nose and eating it.” She laughs a sad laugh.
“We started it when I was about 5 and we used to make Emily’s until she was about that age too.” Tears are running down her face and I wipe them away with my fingers. I try to breath through the lump in my throat because I don’t want her to see me crying. I don’t want her to know how much my heart is breaking right now. How much I wish that I could fix this, this pain she has to carry everywhere, every day.
“Every year on our birthdays we could open it and read the notes. It was like a years worth of surprises and memories at once. We always opened them at dinner on our birthdays and we would go through them one by one. It didn’t matter if it went for hours. We laughed and cried through every single note.” She’s quiet again as she remembers.
“It sounds like an amazing tradition,” I say, squeezing her tighter.
“It was only for Dad, Emily and I. Mom didn’t get one,” she continues.
I have to clear my throat. “Why not?”
“Because, Dad said, every day, we should treat Mom like it was her birthday. That she meant, and was, and did, so much for the family, that we should appreciate her every second of everyday. Dad made her a special box, made of plastic. And we’d write notes for it, but there was so many she got to read them once a week. A lot were from dad, just reminding her of how much he loved and appreciated her. Some were from me and Emily. We used to write stupid things, but we’d always mean them. Like, thank you for washing my baseball gear, or dance gear, or thank you for encouraging me, or helping with my homework. She was an amazing woman, and Dad was right. She did so much for us. I’m glad she got to know once a week how we felt.”
We’re both crying now, not looking at each other, looking past each other. Me, trying to imagine her life. Her, remembering it.
“We kept the old ones from previous years in the garage. The fire took them all. That son of a bitch took away so many years of love, and memories, and laughter.” She sobs now as the anger consumes her. “I fucking hate him, Jake. I hate him so much. And I don’t fucking understand why? Why he couldn’t just let them go. My parents wouldn’t have done anything if he’d just let them go. It’s not like…” She sniffs and has to take a few deep breaths, and I sit here and let her feel, because she’s never spoken like this before. She’s been sad, and hurt, but she’s never been angry. “It’s not like he turned around and they were there and he just started shooting. It was one shot each, straight to the head. He must have known what he was doing.”
She’s crying into me now. The tears soaking through my sweater and I hold her. Because it’s all I can do. Until both our tears have stopped and I pull away so I can look at her.
Big brown Bambi eyes look back at me.
“What can I do to help?” I ask her.
She sniffs once and hands me a bunch of magazines, “Go through these and cut out anything you think a 10 year old girl would like, I’m going to make some tea.”
*Mikayla*
When I bring the tea back to the table, Jake isn’t there.
“Where are you?” I yell into the rest of the house.
“Hang on, I’ll be there in a sec.”
I sit down and wait for him.
“How about this, can we stick this on?” He hands me a photo of me and our friends at my graduation. Me, in the middle and him and Logan on either side, the others around them. Jake has his arms around my waist and Logan has his around my neck. Everyone is making stupid faces, cross eyes, tongues out, rabbit ears, Cam pretending to hump Lucy. Jake and I, we’re just looking at each other, into each others eyes with huge goofy grins.
“I thought… never mind, it was a stupid idea,” he says, starting back down the hall.
I stop him by grabbing his arm. “Jake, it’s a beautiful idea.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I take the photo from his hands.
“Think she woulda liked us?”
I think about this for a while.
“No, Jake, she would’ve liked them. You, though, she would’ve loved you.” Just like I do.
***
*Jake*
There’s a knocking on the door.
We’re in my bed and Kayla is wrapped around me.
It’s perfect.