Keira’s cough lessened two days later, and she was able to push Kona out of her dorm, promising him she could manage to brush her teeth and take her meds without him hovering. He left, finally, after a long kiss and a vow that Keira would eat something more than a pack of Skittles and whatever those noodles were that Leann left in their mini-fridge.

Her professors weren’t worried about the absences. It seemed the entire campus had been hit hard by the flu, and after a few quick emails on the slow university server, Keira was caught up and preparing for finals. She should have been happy. She should have been glad that the semester was winding down and Christmas break loomed. But her mother had called the day before and at the end of that conversation, Keira mentally scrambled for an excuse not to return to Mandeville when classes ended. Leann was spending the holiday with Michael’s family in Georgia and Keira didn’t think bunking at Kona’s place would go over well with Professor Alana.

“So, you’re dating that boy?” her mother had said when Keira picked up the phone. No “hello” or “how are you feeling?” The woman started in with an interrogation because she was angry, because she knew Keira was rebelling again.

After a dramatic, mostly forced cough, Keira answered her. “Yes, I am.” She listened to her mother’s slow, angry exhales, then Keira tried for sympathy. “He took care of me, Mother. Leann took off because she didn’t want to get sick again, but Kona stayed. He’s a good person, and I care about him.” Her mother didn’t listen. To her, Keira knew, there was only the dark skin, the features that were too wide, hair that was too black, too thick. She hung up on her mother when the woman beginning talking about mistakes and the conversation they’d have when the semester ended.

It was that conversation that weighed on Keira’s mind as she sat on her bed, trying to study for her Geometry exam. She knew most of their discussions, most of the times her mother didn’t get her way, left Keira being smacked around and eventually agreeing to cave to whatever the woman wanted. Not this time, she thought, tapping her pencil onto her Geometry book. That was her biggest worry. She’d promised Kona if her mother tried slapping her again, that she wouldn’t just take it. She’d fight back, and Keira knew she’d be forced into retaliating when she stood firm on not walking away from Kona. He was hers, and she would keep him, no matter how many times her mother screamed, no matter how hard she hit her.

Keira laid back, moving her gaze over the white ceiling, to the plain light fixture in the center of the room. It was a white bubble with a brass center and looked oddly like a nipple. “The tit light,” as Leann called it and Keira let her vision blur, thoughts cluttered with imaginings of her mother’s angry scowl, with the hot, wine-tinted breath she knew the older woman would have. Then she blinked, eyes shifting to the left when someone knocked on the door. A quick glance at her clock and Keira jumped up, surprised that she hadn’t noticed that Kona’s practice had been over for nearly half an hour.

She hadn’t seen him since last night, and studying and worrying over an argument she knew was a few weeks away had distracted Keira so that she hadn’t had time to miss him. They’d spent nearly the whole week together, Kona snuggled with her on her small bed, him only leaving for practice and to pick up food.

Keira pulled the door open, ready to tackle him, but the dark bruise under one of his eyes had her pausing.

“What happened?” Keira caught the cold brush of him passing her, how he shook his head as though that mark under his eye was nothing. He moved around her room with his hands in his pockets, thick hoodie bunched over his wrists and his large shoulders set rigid, severe.

“You take your medicine today?” Kona moved his chin toward her bedside table, to the collection of wadded up Kleenex and the half-empty bottle of amoxicillin.

She wouldn't allow him to divert her.  “Tell me what happened?” When Keira touched him, he stepped back, moving out of her reach.

Kona’s sigh came out hard and he rubbed his eyes with his head down. “Luka and I had words this morning. It’s nothing.”

“If it was nothing then you’d let me touch you.”

A quick flash of his eyes and Kona’s top lip twitched. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll let you touch me after you explain to me what you and my brother were talking about that day at camp.” Kona pulled himself up to his full height, crossing his arms and the twitch in his lip shifted to his cheek.

Keira had a good idea where this was coming from, but she wouldn’t start right away accusing his mother. If he wanted to dig a hole, she wouldn’t give him a shovel. “You saw us together, Kona. We were just talking. You had your eyes on us the whole damn time.”

 “Not when I was talking to the scouts. I didn’t even see Luka leave, and I damn sure didn’t see him touching you.”

Kona rarely paid attention to details. He didn’t usually remember what he ate at lunch or who he’d borrowed a pen from in his class. Keira knew that. He was about the big moments, and details didn’t fit into big moments. So Keira knew he wouldn’t have remembered not seeing Luka. She knew he wouldn’t have paid attention to when his brother left or how long she and Luka sat next to each other as he practiced.

“Who is in your head, Kona?”

She knew he caught her meaning. She knew Kona understood what she was implying. But instead of coming to his mother’s defense, something he often did, Kona just glared down at her, both hands back in his pockets. “You got something you wanna tell me, Wildcat?”

“Yes,” she said, taking no pleasure in how he lifted his eyebrows, how that stupid surprise on his face had him dropping his mouth open. “I want to tell you that you’re a jealous, insane asshole.”

“That’s not funny.”

“You see me laughing?” Keira walked back to her bed, anxious and needing something to do with her hands. She didn’t want to slap him. She didn’t want her anger to flare up. She could feel him watching her as she busied herself with the trash on her bedside table, with how she closed her book and stuffed her pencils into her backpack.

“You and Luka, Keira? Is that what’s going on?”

Keira threw her bag to the floor. “Yes, Kona, that’s it exactly. You know, in those half-hour moments when I’m not with you, or when I’m in class, that’s what’s going on. Me and Luka are all over each other in the middle of the hallway between classes or behind the cashier’s desk in the cafeteria when you leave to take a piss. Are you stupid?”

Two fast strides and Kona stood in front of her, but Keira didn’t cower away from him. She never did. He was a jackass with a temper, but so was she. She knew he hated being called stupid. It cut too close for Kona, that’s why she said it.

“You wanna say that again?”

Keira tilted her head, ignored the curl on his mouth. “You heard me fine. And you deserve being called stupid if you think for a second that I would do that to you.”

That curl grew tighter, shook his top lip and Keira’s eyes moved down to the fists at Kona’s side. They stared at each other for just a moment longer than was necessary to challenge and Kona stepped back, pacing around her room with his fingers moving through his hair.

“What happened to ‘yours/mine,’ Kona? What happened to us promising we were it for each other? You think that didn’t mean anything to me?”

She hated how he stopped short, how the stupid sneer on his face only got worse. “You tell me. You went with him to Lucy’s.”

“To find you!” Why was he dredging up the past? He was the one who told her to forget about it. “And what did I get for my trouble, Kona? You with your face in some redhead’s tits.”

“Yeah, and I got clocked with a bottle.”

That stung. Every time Keira looked at that shiny scar on his face, she felt guilty. Kona knew that, would frequently tell her to “let that shit go.” Now he threw it back in her face because he was angry, because his bitch of a mother was whispering nonsense to him, playing on Kona’s insanely jealous nature and the still simmering anger he held against Luka.

Keira was trying, she had been trying, not to let her temper lead her into something she’d regret. And the past month had been nice, they’d grown closer, they rarely fought. She closed her eyes as he returned to his pacing, rubbing her face as a slow count moved in her thoughts. “He’s your brother.”

“And he’s fucked me over before.” Kona returned to the foot of her bed, hands hanging lightly on his hips as he waited for her reaction. He was goading her again, seeming to forget the peace they felt together; seeming to want that spark to flare between them. She knew he was pushing, trying to urge her to slip up. But there was nothing for her to admit. The only thing she hadn’t told him about was the brief conversations she’d had with Mark Burke the past few weeks and there was no way she’d mention them now. God knows the shit storm that would bring.

“He was protecting you because you put him in the middle of bullshit.” Keira knew her voice was loud, that a shout hinted behind each word she released, each lifted octave. “Besides, Luka may have hurt you, but I haven’t.”

One quick movement of his head and the scowl on his face changed, became a bitter smile that was forced. “Not yet.”

Keira wished he’d slapped her. She wished he’d told her he’d cheated on her. Somehow those things wouldn’t have cut as deep. Instead of lashing out, she sat on her bed, profile to him. She was still tired, still worn out from the flu and the week of inactivity. “Get out,” she finally told him, all the fight out of her voice. She didn’t flinch or pull away from him when he knelt down, when he wrapped his fingers around her arm.

“You fucking my brother, Keira?” Kona’s tone was soft, light, but Keira knew him. It was the calm before the storm. It was something they both did, quiet words that brewed hot, that steamed out with the escalating rage. When she closed her eyes, shaking her head, that grip on her arm tightened. “Are you?”

Keira moved her head slowly, knowing he’d see the warning in her eyes the second he looked at her. “Get out of my room.”

He jerked his hand away from her, standing as he moved to Leann’s side of the bed. “Here she goes, little coward running away.” Keira stood, shoulders set when Kona kicked one of Leann’s wedges across the room. “Just tell me the truth!” Keira watched him come undone, how his gaze went around the room, how his fists squeezed so tight his hands shook. He was looking for something to hit, something that would take away the tension, and Keira didn’t think, did nothing more than stand in front of him when he darted toward the bookshelf next to Keira’s desk.

“You wanna hit something, then come at me, Kona.”

“Keira, get out of my face.” He stepped away from her, nostrils flaring, breath coming faster when she didn’t move. “Back off!” And when Keira didn’t budge, when she followed him, Kona bent his elbow and slammed his fist into the drywall over her head. She felt the dust and chunks of the wall in her hair, against her neck. “He wouldn’t say anything, just like you. Why not, Keira? Why the hell not? If you aren’t doing anything, why wouldn’t he just tell me? Why won’t you?”

“Because you’re being ridiculous. Because you’re being insulting.” She watched him stomp around the room, shaking his hand to clear the dust and dirt from it. “Because you let that stupid bitch get into your head.”             

“That stupid bitch loves me. She would never lie to me. She would never tell me something that was bullshit, especially not about my own brother!”

“Oh my God, Kona, of course she would.” Keira couldn’t believe how blind he was. He didn’t see how easily she manipulated him and part of her felt sorry for the big idiot. “She hates me, you know that, and from everything you’ve told me, from little comments Luka’s made, she doesn’t like him either. If she wanted you away from me, why not focus on the other person in your life that she hates?”

“She does not hate him. You don’t…you don’t know…” and then Kona went for her guitar. Keira moved fast, tried wrestling it out of his massive hand, but he held her off.

She could only step back in shock, hands over her mouth, tears flooding her eyes as Kona held her father’s Hummingbird by the headstock. “Please. Oh God, Kona, please don’t—“she heard the crack and fell to her knees, catching the guitar before it landed on the floor.

Keira cradled it, held the loose strings in her hands, shuddering when she saw how the headstock dangled from the neck, the silver keys untightened. Her father was in those strings; he was in every fret, every worn groove and Keira ran her fingers over each one, hopeless, vision blurred and foggy with the thick cluster of her tears. The first man she loved died all over again, and no matter how much she tried to pull the strings back, no matter how she moved the headstock back into place, it was ruined.

Kona knelt beside her and Keira closed her eyes not wanting to see the tortured way he looked at her. His refrain of “baby, I’m sorry…I didn’t mean it” was a screech to her ears that made her sick, and when he tried to touch her, Keira jerked his hand off her shoulder, pulled the broken guitar closer to her chest.

“Just go,” she said, bending her forehead to the cold neck. “Please just go.”

And for once, Kona didn’t argue. For once, he left Keira alone with her tears. 

 

 

 

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for a few weeks.” Mark’s breath beat into the phone, and Keira stopped on the first flight of stairs of her building. He was a friend, would never be anything more than that, but he kept calling her, kept up with whatever stupid thing she and Kona were arguing about on any given week and informed her of every drunken gripe her mother made to his. Those usually included more than one reference to Keira. But the way Mark hesitated, how he flirted around his words, had Keira worried that he was trying work up to something that made him anxious.

When only silence met her on the line, Keira sat down on the stairs, pulling her bag between her feet. “Mark? Whatever it is…”

“I know. Hell, I don’t know why I’m so nervous to tell you.” He laughed then, clearing his throat. “It’s not like you’ll judge me, I know that, and it’s not like our mothers’ schemes are gonna work out.”

Keira smiled, the first time in the week since Kona broke her father’s guitar. “Okay then, so why are you nervous?”

“I’m kinda new at this shit. Hell, I, um, wanted you to know that I have a date this weekend.”

Keira rolled her eyes, adding her own laugh to Mark’s. “Dude, that’s good. Did you think I was waiting for you to ask me out again?”

“No, that’s not…Keira, my date, well, I’m going out with Robert Miller on Saturday night.”

Robert was a kid Keira remembered from summer camp. He was nice, with big brown eyes and thick blonde hair, and he said “please” and “thank you” to everyone, even at eight. Then Keira blinked, realizing what Mark was really saying.

“Oh.” Her breath fogged against her phone and Keira rubbed it dry with her coat sleeve. “Oh,” she said again, trying to gather her thoughts. “Well, Mark, that’s good. I mean, I’m surprised. I had no idea…”

“I know, and I’m sorry I didn’t mention it before.”

Keira scooted against the wall when two girls she recognized from the team house walked down the stairs. She didn’t bother watching to see if they glared at her. “It’s no big deal, and, let’s be honest, we were sort of doomed as a couple to begin with, right?”

“I guess we were.” In the background on the phone Keira heard the noise of the hospital, and she wondered if Mark would reveal anything to her stepfather. She doubted Steven would be welcoming or understanding. Knowing him, he’d likely fire Mark on the spot. A door closed and the sounds of the hospital went silent. “Sorry. I had to sneak into the break room. Listen, I don’t know why I’m telling you about this. I guess hearing my mom on the phone with yours the other day had me worried about you, but I didn’t want you to think I was trying to work up the nerve to ask you on another date.”

“It’s fine, Mark, really.” She didn’t like that her mother was gossiping about her, but really Keira didn’t care that much what she and her friends thought. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Finals are coming up, and I’m gonna spend the weekend locked in my room studying, but thank you for telling me. I guess it can’t be easy, not even in New Orleans.”

“No, but I’m sort of getting to a point where giving a shit isn’t really important to me anymore.”

Keira admired Mark. She loved that he was fine with who he was, and part of her was jealous at how he was embracing this discovery about himself. But it wouldn’t be easy, not with his parents, not with anyone they’d both grown up with. “Have you told your mom?”

“No. Not yet. I’ll do that after the holidays. My internship will be over by then. If I told her now, she’d go blabbing to your mom, and we both know what will happen then.”

“God, yes.” Three more girls ran up the stairs and Keira stood, making room for them on the landing. “Listen, I’ve gotta go, but you let me know if you need anything—if you just need to vent, or anything. And Mark?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really proud of you.”

She disconnected the phone and, not for the first time that week, dreaded going into her room. Leann had rehearsal, was rarely there, and Keira had been spending much of her time alone. No Kona, no Leann. It had been confining, suffocating. She had no guitar. She had no keyboards, nothing that would ease the ache in her chest.

Predictably, Kona had called. He’d stopped by a dozen times, but Keira never answered. She needed space from him, again, but this time she wouldn’t run away to Mandeville. The threat her mother made the week before still loomed, and Keira was tired of running from her problems. It was something Kona always called her on. But that didn’t mean she was ready to talk to him. She could avoid him away from their English class, but he was impossible to disregard during Miller’s lectures. She left early, arrived late, and sat between Skylar Williams and her boyfriend Dylan Collins, much to the girl’s displeasure. Skylar glared at her for fifty minutes straight, but Keira had felt a different stare on the back of her neck, one that crackled the air in the room. Kona kept his distance, stayed silent when Miller called on Keira in class, but she always felt him staring, always knew he hung onto everything she said.

Keira walked down the hall, eyes immediately going to her door and she only relaxed when she saw the pin board empty. It was the first time in a week that Kona hadn’t scribbled something on a Post It, begging for her to call him. Mingled with that relief was a little disappointment, and Keira cursed herself, felt stupid for wanting him so much, for missing him despite everything, but she couldn’t help it. Things were gray, the air too thick when he wasn’t around. He had broken her father’s guitar. He had severed her last tie to the man, the one she loved most, with a crack to the headstock. She should hate Kona for that. She should hate him for forcing her to place that broken guitar in the dumpster, for the empty space the loss created in her heart.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

As she turned her key and inched the door open, Keira caught the scent of something overpowering and sweet. Stepping inside, she nearly tripped over two vases, both holding a huge bushel of roses. Eyes slipping up, Keira was floored by the ridiculous amounts of flowers in her room. Nearly every surface was covered. The floor, the desk, her dresser, Leann’s bed, hers, the bookshelf; every conceivable free space was covered in roses, tulips and hibiscus. The smell lingered, surrounded her as she stepped further into the room. Keira blinked, head shaking, eyes scanning and she had no doubt who had done this. There was no way Michael would be this over the top. Her cousin’s boyfriend was also always broke, and a tattooer’s budget didn’t allow for this kind of ridiculous gesture.  

Kona. It had to be. Who else could get flowers this big, this bright, in the middle of December? Who else would take the time to arrange petals and single stems all over her bed—what else was on the bed?

Keira’s mouth fell open, and she took two steps, hurried and excited, when she saw the Hummingbird laying in the center of her bed. She picked it up, examining the neck for a fray or break, but nothing was there. It was pristine—beautiful—and when she strummed against the strings, the sound was flawless, deep and familiar. 

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, barely managing to hold back her tears. The frets still held those precious grooves, and Keira felt like she was touching her father, letting his smile kiss each fingertip as she played a few quick chords.

She’d only just noticed the card on her bed and lowered the guitar to her lap to open the envelope and read Kona’s messy scrawl.

I’m nothing without my always. Please don’t leave me lost, Wildcat.

He’d said the P word again, and that whispered word she didn’t think he’d remember saying the first time they were together had stuck; it was a detail Kona committed to memory.

Keira wiped her cheeks, her nose clogged and stuffy, but she didn’t care. Her smile made her face ache, and she wanted nothing more than to run out of her dorm to find Kona. But before she could leave, Leann walked through the door, her eyes becoming round, growing bigger the more she glanced around the room.

“Holy. Shit.”

“Right?”

Keira stood next to her cousin, still clutching that small note, and Leann looked to her bed, smiling when she spotted the guitar.

“He got it fixed.”

“Yeah.” Keira rubbed her nose on her sleeve and followed Leann to her bed, moving three dozen clumps of flowers before she sat next to her.

Her cousin’s gaze kept searching, eyebrows lifting when she spotted another bushel, another ribbon-tied grouping of flowers in unusual places. “He’s relentless,” she finally said. Keira shrugged and watched Leann take a rose from the bundle on her lap. Keira knew she was thinking of something, weighing what she should and shouldn’t say before she even met Keira’s eyes. She expected it. Leann generally didn’t lecture, not since that night she’d walked in on Keira and Kona attacking each other’s faces on her bed. She’d cautioned Keira, told her not to let Kona overwhelm her, but had stopped with the tedious warnings about STDs, cheating linebackers, and hoes who would take advantage of their fighting.

Leann twirled the rose between her fingers, eyes on the tops of the petals and Keira knew another warning was coming. “It’s not my business to tell you how to live your life, Keira.”

“Since when?” When her cousin didn’t join her in her laugh, Keira leaned against the wall, arms crossed as she waited for the lecture she knew was coming. “Say what you think.”

“I like Kona. He’s nice.” Leann grabbed Keira’s hand and she let her cousin rub her fingernail over the chipping paint on her thumb. “When he’s not acting like a jealous prick, he’s good for you, and I’ve never seen you smile the way you have these past few months.”

“But?”

Leann glanced at Keira then returned her attention back to Keira’s finger. “But, I think the two of you have some serious anger issues.” She took a breath, turning onto the bed to face Keira as though she was just working up enough energy to say what she was thinking, had likely been thinking for a while. “I think you’re both young. I think you’re both dealing with emotions that you’ve never had before. And when you have two people who are…um…prone to angry behavior, then those emotions are exacerbated.”

“Shit, Leann, have you been paying attention in your Psych class or something? Exacerbated? Really?”

Her cousin sighed, pulling her knees to her chest. “I’m being totally serious. You both are dealing with shit you’ve never felt before, and you know the tempers, the arguments the…everything else, it’s all exaggerated by what you’re feeling.”

“So, you think we’re bad for each other?”

Leann’s shoulders fell and Keira could tell by how often her eyes moved away from Keira’s face that her cousin was trying not to hurt her feelings.

“I think this relationship isn’t always healthy. That’s all I’m saying.” Leann seemed surprised by Keira’s laugh; she frowned at that high sound and pursed her lips when Keira’s laughter only got louder. “You’re such a bitch. I’m trying to be serious here.”

Keira waved her off, falling to the bed in a fit of giggles when Leann threw a rose at her. “I know you are. I’m…I’m sorry.” She sat up, trying to breathe again. “Oh, sweetie, you don’t think I know all of that? We are certifiable, completely and utterly bat-shit crazy.”

“And that’s normal to you?”

“Oh, God, no. Kona and I both know we’re totally not good for each other.”

“Then why…”

“Because I love him. Because he loves me. We’re stupid for each other. We push each other’s buttons, Leann, and most days I can barely manage to keep from scratching his eyes out.” She sat up then, scooting to the edge of Leann’s bed. “But other times, we’re still and quiet, laying on each other, me scratching my fingers through his hair and him on top of me, arms around me, protecting me from the world. I couldn’t live without that. I couldn’t live without that and be really happy.”

Her cousin opened her mouth, waved her hand as though she wanted to make a point, but the loud bang on the door silenced her and then Keira forgot Leann’s worry as she jumped off the bed and opened the door.

Kona took a step and then Keira was around him, legs on his waist and her mouth against his before the door closed. Behind them, Keira heard Leann moving around the room, kicking flowers out of her way as she grabbed her dance bag. Her cousin’s presence barely registered. Keira was too caught up in the feel of Kona’s hands on her back, how tightly he hugged her, his lips on her neck as he mumbled “sorry” and “always” over and over.

Keira caught Leann’s retreat before she slipped out of the room, Keira heard her mutter under her breath, “You two are crazy.”