Chapter 17: Kyle
I was at home, tidying up my apartment. It wasn’t often I spent much time in it and I did have very high standards for neatness. It wasn’t really untidy, though—I don’t own much that can get untidy—and I had to admit to myself that I was really just trying to make myself busy.
I didn’t want to think too hard about Bethany.
When I thought of her, my heart lit up. I smiled. I couldn’t help it. The thought of her sweet body, her gentle smile, her delicious playfulness. I had no idea what it was about her—all of that and none of that—but she made my life worth living just by existing in it.
I stopped what I was doing and stared at the wall as that thought and all it meant hit into me.
“Come on, Kyle. Don’t you think you’re going a bit, well, too fast?”
I sighed. Yeah, let’s be honest. I was falling for her badly.
I was on my knees at my drawers, organizing my tie collection. I dropped a Dior tie into the set and stood, stretching my back out.
I should really know better, I reflected, than to trust someone to go this far into my heart.
All the same, though, I couldn’t help being so attached, so quickly.
My phone rang. I grabbed it, suddenly alert. What if it was her? Or my dad, asking why I wasn’t at work? A mixture of joy and adrenalinecc ran through my veins.
It wasn’t either of them. It was Chase, one of my acquaintances from my playboy years.
“Chase?” I was amazed. “What the hell, man? It’s been ages.”
“Hi,” he chuckled. “Good to hear you. How’s it been?”
“Okay,” I commented.” Haven’t seen you in a long time!” I hadn’t seen him since I stopped living that lifestyle about two years ago.
“I thought I saw you in Diamond the other day,” he said.
I blushed. “I was there.”
“Hey!” Chase sounded happy. “Great. Well?”
“What?”
“Well, are you coming out later?”
I chuckled. “That’s really nice of you to say that,” I said. “But no…I don’t do that anymore.”
“Come on, Kyle!” he sounded exasperated and a little disappointed. “Let’s do it. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
I felt myself smile. “I found something nicer.”
“Oh?” he sounded curious. “What’s that? Are you saying you’ve settled down?”
I smiled. Let him guess. “Maybe,” I said.
“Wow,” he sounded amazed. “Good for you.”
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “Thanks, Chase,” I said.
“Well, then. Good luck, man.”
“Thanks, Chase. Same there.”
As the call ended, I found myself sitting there with a silly smile. I had never really thought about that before. But clearly it was in my mind, or why had I said that now?
Well, why not?
I laughed. Here I was, with my phone in my hand and my sock drawer open, sitting in my room and dreaming about a girl.
“Maybe other people did this years ago,” I told myself. As a teenager I had other things on my mind than navigating the space of relationships. Maybe other people had gone through this years ago. But I hadn’t. Well, I was just glad I was feeling it now—it felt wonderful.
Come on, Kyle. Enough dreaming. Let’s go for a walk.
I swung my arms, letting the circulation flow through my shoulders, realizing that I had been sitting cramped up almost all afternoon. I decided to go for a walk. I took my jacket, my wallet and my keys, and headed down. My phone slapped against my thigh as I tugged on my jacket.
As I headed into the sunshine, I realized that I didn’t know what time it was. For a workday, that was unthinkable. I grinned. It had been way too long since I took time away. I reached into my pocket out of habit, finding out how late it was.
“Only three P.M.,” I told myself. It looked later, with the sun slanting in long orange lines across the path, making thinned-out shadows of the trees. I smiled. I didn’t know if it was just imagination, or whether, since meeting Bethany, I was starting to appreciate the natural world more.
It must be her artistic influence on me.
I grinned and, as I drifted past a beautiful bed of daisies, I stopped, snapped a picture, and sent it to her. It was a good reply to her last text. Better than anything I could have thought up.
I was feeling proud of myself—pictures are worth a thousand words—when I turned along the street into the park. While I walked briskly round in the fresh air, letting the warmth and the sunshine seep into me and stretch out the aches in my body, I wondered seriously whether there was a chance for me and Bethany. I hoped so.
I smiled to myself. There was no reason why not, I reckoned. She liked me. I really liked her. And something in me told me I could trust her. I was very reluctant to trust anyone—understandably, given my background—but she seemed almost like I could try. I let myself entertain the idea.
The park was starting to get crowded by the time I left—people coming back from work early, or kids coming back from school. I could hear them moving about—running feet, shouts. Someone had brought a radio and it shattered the peace of the garden. I stood, stiffly, and headed up the pathway.
I reached my street and checked the time, seeing it was four thirty. I should probably go back home. See if I needed to go out to buy anything as ingredients for dinner. I rolled my shoulders, considering a trip to the gym. My phone showed no new messages and I had to allow that I was a little disappointed. I had kind of hoped that Bethany would reply with some comment to my picture.
I sighed.
“Come on, you. She’s probably resting,” I told myself with a frown. After all, I’d woken the poor woman up early. I grinned to myself, the memories of earlier flooding back.
I opened the door, headed upstairs to my apartment and checked the shelves of the pantry. I didn’t have much in the way of things to eat. I headed down to the store.
By the time I was back, I still hadn’t heard anything from Bethany. I remonstrated with myself briskly.
“Kyle, you took more than a day to reply. Stop expecting anything more of her.”
I sighed. Grinned at myself. It was five thirty. I could go to the gym and then cook dinner and get an early night’s sleep. I considered inviting Bethany out for lunch tomorrow.
Why not?
I knew it would probably be hard to fit it into my schedule, but it was worth it. At the thought of the fact that she was only in town a few more days, my heart clenched tightly. I didn’t like that thought. I might as well try to spend as much time with her as I could.
I sighed and texted her. Join me for lunch at Waddington’s at twelve tomorrow afternoon?
I put my phone in my pocket, reminding myself sternly not to check it again until much later. Then I went to the gym.
When I got back, I started cooking something quick—stir-fry vegetables. I enjoyed cooking. I was busy adding coconut milk and wondering if I’d got the ratio of oil, coconut and ginger right yet, when my phone rang.
My mind instantly jumping to thoughts of her, I ran for it.
“Hi?”
I sighed as I heard Dad’s voice and greeted him, feeling like someone had hit me in the chest.
“Kyle,” he said at once. “I heard you had to reschedule the meeting today. You’re ill?”
“I was,” I said quickly. “I feel better now.”
“You went through the proper channels? I don’t want you taking it easy because you’re my son. You know I don’t tolerate laziness.”
I was speechless. “Who are you?” I said.
I could almost hear him blink in surprise. “What do you mean?”
I laughed, humorlessly. “Look, either you’re my boss—in which case you would wait to find out through the correct channels whether or not I filed a sick note today. Or, you’re my father. In which case your concern should be for me. Not my productivity. No?”
I should have felt a joy in the silence on the other side.
It lasted for about half a minute. Each second made me shiver.
“Kyle,” the voice said on the other side. I had been about to hang up—I had thought he’d gone off somewhere.
“Yes?” I said levelly.
“I have no idea what just got into you,” he said tightly. “But I would appreciate it if you didn’t do that again.”
“Do what again?” I snorted. “Question you?”
“That’s enough,” he said tightly.
“No,” I said, my temper suddenly blazing forth. “It isn’t. It hasn’t even got close to being enough. It hasn’t even started yet.”
When I put down the phone I was shaking.
I leaned on the table, then sat down on the couch. I closed my eyes. I felt like something had been torn open inside me. Like all the anger, all the pain, the cage he had put me in all my life, was finally torn. Like I was free.
It was Bethany that did that for me, I realized. Her shock. Her outrage and her care. Her love.
I sighed.
“Bethany,” I said. “Thank you.”
I put my phone down on the coffee table and leaned back, sighing. Whatever I had done, that was only the start of it, I knew. I would have more battles on more days. My dad wasn’t going to change that easily, not overnight.
I didn’t really want him to.
I wanted to change. I had stopped really caring about him and his ways. He wasn’t the master in my life. I was the one living it. It was about time I did that for a change.
I no longer wondered whether or not I should have been born. The fact was, I was here now. There wasn’t anything I could do to change that fact. What I could do, though was to own it and finally start living my own life. As it was meant to be lived.
Now, before it was too late.