Forty - One - Serena

“You’re not ready.”

 

 

 

I can’t sleep.

I’m restless. Miserable.

I’ve reached for my cellphone a million times only to remember that I’ve smashed it to smithereens.

I’m itching to check the thief’s Instagram feed. He hasn’t been posting much of late. And when he does it’s usually a food pic with #whatimeating, or a screen-shot of a song he’s listening to.

I drag my restless ass out of bed and pad across the room. I pick up my handbag from where I’d dumped it on the ivory chaise earlier and lazily dig around for my work phone until I find it.

Unlike my personal phone, it is still intact, but has zero apps, since it is used strictly for work. 

Trekking back to the bed, I slide under the covers and spend the next thirty-minutes or so installing all of my favorite apps and signing into my accounts.

The first thing I do once I’m done is check his Instagram. He’s not posted anything in four days.

I want to tear my hair out.

Where is he? What is he doing? Is he thinking about me?

I open the Hangouts app and tap on his name. His chat box header reads, Last active 3 days ago.

 

Serena: I need to see you.

It’s 1:15AM. He might be asleep. Or just won’t answer at all.

After ten minutes of waiting, I lose hope and go back to his Instagram, scrolling through his old posts. I ache when I come across the post of me in his bed in Los Angeles.

 I want that back. I want to go back.

My desperate heart jerks up in hopeful attention when my phone suddenly pings with a Hangouts notification. I can’t open it fast enough.

 

Kholton: Why?

Serena: Because I need to.

Kholton: Why aren’t you running for the hills? Why would you even want to have anything to do with me after what I’ve done?

 

Pondering this, I place the phone face-down on my chest and gaze up at the ceiling.

“You’re in love.”  Those are the words Alaric used.

“I know he loves you.” The words my father used.

Me? I believe none of it. Love is such a strong, powerful, and scary word. Kholton and I are one thing and one thing only, and that’s complicated.

We weren’t even in a relationship. We weren’t “dating”. We were just…bullshitting. We both needed something from each other and we lied our way into a tangled mess to get it. Only, in the end, neither of us ended up with what we came together for to begin with.

I’m not pregnant and he’s seventy million dollars broker than he was before, which I’m sure is the opposite of what he wanted.

Maybe, along the way, we became…something. There was lust, and weakness, and our inability to resist each other. We were—are—infatuated with each other.

Yes. That’s it. That’s the word. Infatuated. Not love. Let alone being in love.

 

Serena: Joyce Meyer was on the radio this morning. She gave a sermon on forgiveness. I’ve decided to give it a try. She promised it would make me feel lighter.

Kholton: Do you?

Serena: Do I feel lighter?

Kholton: Yes.

Serena: That depends.

Kholton: On?

Serena: On if you let me see you.

Kholton:  You’re not ready.

Serena: What do you mean?

Kholton: You’re still a crab.

Serena: What does THAT mean?

Kholton: Means you’re still full of shit.

Serena: As opposed to you??? You hypocritical scumbag!

 

He doesn’t reply.

I hate him.

And now I really cannot sleep.

I glare at my phone. Waiting for him to message me back.

He doesn’t.

When yet another hour of restlessness slips by, I hop on Instagram again so I can glare at his pictures and curse his stupid face. That’s when I notice he’s made a new post. Thirty-eight minutes ago.

It’s a screen-shot of what he’s listening to. Find Me by Sigma.

Caption:

 Only when you’re ready…

#nomorebullshit #allornothing #onlythetruth

 

Only when I’m ready? What the heck does that mean?

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!

 

 

“What do you think it means?” Naan asks the following morning when I go to visit her.

“I don’t knnnoooww,” I stress through a frustrated huff.

She starts to laugh but it transmutes into a cough. She’s been nursing a nasty cold with a horrible cough and it doesn’t seem to be easing up. She’s sworn to me that her doctor doesn’t think it’s threatening, but I fret each time she erupts into one of these relentless coughs.

“Oh, you do know,” she says once she’s recovered. “You are just not ready to admit it.”

Saying nothing in return, I gently glide the hairbrush through her thinning mane. She loves getting her hair brushed and her scalp massaged and I love doing it for her. I never had a mother to spend time with like this. To listen to old stories and talk about relationship issues with. Naan has become that person for me, crude and unfiltered as she is. I pretty much stole her from her grandson.

“He was in the hospital, you know.”

I pause mid-brush. “What?”

“Collin,” she clarifies, using his old name. “He was in the hospital.”

The hell? When? “For what? What happened? Is he alright?”

“Yes, yes, he’s fine now.” She waves a hand and sighs begrudgingly. “He gave that undeserving bastard one of his kidneys.”

“He had a freaking surgery?!” Brush in hand, I round her armchair so I can see her face-to-face. “But…I thought he wasn’t a match.”

She jerks her head. “Turns out he was.”

I can’t believe this. He had a piece of himself removed and gave me no chance to be there for him? “Who was there to take care of him through the recovery? Why didn’t you tell me, Naan? I can’t believe this.”

“Because he asked me not to.” She gives me an apologetic smile. “And he wasn’t alone, so stop pissing about. That Natalie girl took time off to take care of him. The Cage twins, too.”

My limbs go rigid. My blood cools. Natalie? “Who’s this Natalie, Naan? What does she look like?”

She frowns at me. “You don’t know Natalie? Tall, gorgeous, raven hair? She told me you and her are friends. Was she lying?”

When I take too long to answer, Naan curses under her breath. “I should have known she was lying. I always thought there was something shady about that one. Between you and me,”—She lowers her voice to a whisper—“I think she’s CIA. The bad kind.” 

Blinking out of my daze, I speak up, “No, no. She didn’t lie. We are friends. I just didn’t know they were friends.”

Things are all starting to make sense now. Their strange interaction that night he first came to our house. They already knew each other.

But why hide it? And why wouldn’t she warn me? Unless she was in on it, too.

Wow. My father’s perpetual paranoia was not for naught. You simply cannot trust anyone.

But why Natalie, though? Why would he ask her to be there for him and not me? At such a momentous time in his life, he chose to alienate me and pull her close? Why?

Naan begins coughing again and I rub her back in soothing circles, though in a dazed fashion, wondering what other secrets are there.

Tiredly, she breathes out, “I need to lie down.”

I wheel her chair into the bedroom, remove her flats and help her into bed. It really bothers me how sick she looks. This has to be more than a simple cold. Yet, what can I do? Naan has refused my help and I’m not a family member so I have no rights to force her to get a second doctor’s opinion.

“You need to tell him,” she addresses me with a weakened voice.

“Tell him what, Naan?” I’m confused. But am I really?

“You know.” She pats my hand on the bed. “Do it before it’s too late.”

With that, she rolls over and close her eyes.

 

 

 

Serena: Why didn’t you tell me you were in the hospital?

Kholton: Because I was in the hospital.

Serena: You could have told me BEFORE you went under the knife. I would have wanted to be there for you.

Kholton: You forgot that I’d just conned you?

Serena:  I wouldn’t have given a shit. Your life is more important than a stupid brooch!

Kholton: You serious? It’s not about the brooch, Serena. It’s about TRUST. You trusted me and I betrayed you. What is wrong with you? Be mad at me!

Serena: Khol…

Kholton:  And yet you still can’t tell me…

Serena: Huh?

Kholton: It’s no biggie. The operation went well and I recovered quickly.

Serena: Who took care of you?

Kholton: Brock and Brian.

Serena: And Natalie?

Kholton: Naan’s got a big mouth.

Serena: Did you sleep with her?

Kholton: That’s sick, Serena. She’s my grandmother. Of course not.

Serena: I swear to God, I will hunt you down and strangle you if you don’t answer me right now!

Kholton: *laughing emoji*

Kholton: Wish you would...

Kholton: Yes, I did. But that’s long before I met you.

Serena: Was it serious? Was it a “thing”?

Kholton: Nah. Impossible. Sporadic and unplanned, usually. That woman was MIA 99% of the time. 

Serena: Do you have feelings for her?

Kholton: Is that a serious question?

Kholton: You’re insane.

Kholton: Seriously.

Kholton: The answer is no, Serena.

Kholton: I’ve got mad feelings for YOU tho.

 

I don’t respond.

I hate him.

 

 

Later that night, while sleeplessness has a picnic on my eyeballs, I find myself reaching for my phone again.

 

Serena: I hate that you slept with her.

Serena: Even if it was before me. I still hate it.

Serena: I hate that she was there for you and I wasn’t. 

 

Although he’s shown as “active” online, he doesn’t respond. Instead, he creates a new post on his Instagram. A screen-shot of what he’s listening to.

If You Let Me by Sinead Harnett.

Caption:

Tell me what you want.

#quitdrivingmeinsane