Chapter 27: Kai

“I miss him. I miss Kai.”

Eva’s last words hung in the air above us. There were only six of them - words, I mean. One could argue there were only four unique words, actually. But the most important of the four was the last one: Kai.

“He was your boyfriend,” I stated knowingly.

Eva blinked, her slightly off-kilter blue eyes moist and shining as she stared up at me. But then her eyes unfocused as she started staring past my left ear, and her face took on a haunted expression. Ultimately, she closed her eyes, nodded, and bowed her head back over my shoulder. And when she tightened her grip to hold me closer and pushed her face into the crook of my neck, it was clear she wasn’t going to be any more forthcoming than that.

“I don’t have all the details,” I repeated. “All I know so far is that you and Kai met in high school, got together almost right away, and were practically inseparable after that.”

She sighed and buried her face into my chest, muffling her brokenhearted voice as she wailed, “I thought we’d be together forever. Losing him ... it just ... I couldn’t...”

I simply held her closer when she trailed off, never quite finishing that sentence. I held the back of her head, stroking it lightly. And when she didn’t continue, I muttered, “You got depressed and tried slashing your wrists, but your dad found you and rushed you to a hospital. You went through all the psych evals - hence the crack about not needing another shrink to psychoanalyze you - pulled yourself together enough to finish high school. And when it came time to going to college, your dad thought it best for you to make a fresh start away from the islands rather than stick around in the same place where everything had fallen apart.”

“Papa wanted me to get a fresh start away from anywhere that would remind me of Kai,” Eva mumbled into my neck.

I took a deep breath, stroking Eva’s spine. And when she didn’t volunteer any further information, I sighed and murmured, “I know you must’ve loved him very much.”

Eva started softly crying again, and for a long while neither of us spoke. I cradled her in my arms - she was much taller than Belle or Lily, and yet felt so small at the moment. We sat upright together on her bed, me gently rocking us both back and forth, back and forth, over and over again until her tears dried up again.

At that point, Eva released her arms around me, and I took that as my cue to release mine as well. She sighed, pivoted her hips, and then scooted away from me and over to the desk which served as a sort of headboard for her bed to snag a tissue from the box on the desk’s first shelf. And while she blew her nose once, and then a second time, and finally a third time, I took a moment to take my first look around the girls’ bedroom.

It was not a large room, perhaps fifteen feet long and only ten across. Two small desks were in opposite corners by the window, and if the girls backed up their chairs at the same time they’d bump into each other. The twin-long beds ran parallel to each other, leaving less than three feet of space between them. I now understood what Lily meant about having a hard time taking care of herself at night when another girl was sleeping three feet away. At least the room had a reasonable amount of closet space over by the door, although even that area was packed to the gills with the girls’ belongings.

The walls and shelves on Lily’s side were covered with Hawaiian paraphernalia: posters of beautiful landscapes, knick-knacks like a bobble-head hula girl, and photographs such as a large family photo nestled within a surfboard frame. The walls on Eva’s side, however, were bare. The desk had three photographs in small frames, all three of them either of herself and her dad or just her dad. She definitely got her height from him, although their facial features were dissimilar enough that I had to figure she’d gotten her looks from her mom.

When Eva finished blowing her nose and wiping her eyes, she turned to slide her back against the wall, raised her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them.

I remained where I was, seated sideways on her bed with one foot on the floor, and gave her a warm but concerned look. “Would you like to tell me about Kai?” I asked gently.

“Not really,” she muttered, but then took a deep breath and gathered herself, seemingly prepared to tell me about him anyway.

So I patiently waited her out, letting her collect her thoughts while she fiddled with her cuticles. And after a minute, she stared stonily into the middle distance across the room and began in a low, quiet tone, “He wasn’t the boy next door, like you and Belle, but we were still from the same neighborhood. Hanalei is a tiny town; everybody lives off of Weke Road. It’s expensive - like multi-million-dollar homes expensive. A lot of people rent out their houses to tourists, and it’s not the kind of place locals usually want to raise kids. I mean, the school only had one classroom per grade, and those classrooms weren’t full. So you could say that everybody knew everybody else.”

I nodded slowly.

Eva sighed and pursed her lips. “I never got along with the other girls though, even when I was little. I was a shy kid - bit of a loner - if you can believe it,” she remarked dryly.

“I can believe it,” I replied with a small smile.

“But then Kai moved into the neighborhood in ninth grade, right when I’d hit my growth spurt and grew these big boobs that all the boys were staring at. I was having a hard time trying to figure out who I wanted to be, but then he came in all swaggy and confident. I never did make any girlfriends. It was more fun to hang out with Kai and his boys - go surfing, go hiking, play video games ... throw rocks at rental cars.”

I snorted at the last part.

“While Lily was taking hula classes,” she continued, “I was probably holed up in Kai’s bedroom listening to Pearl Jam, Live, and Soundgarden.”

“Nice.”

She stared off into memory for a bit, her eyes losing focus as she smiled softly.

But the smile didn’t last. A moment later, she started choking up, her eyes got moist, and she raised both hands to cover her eyes. When she started sobbing, I immediately slid over to hug her again, but she held a hand palm-out to me, keeping me at bay while she fought to control her tears. So I gave her a moment to compose herself, and she got her breathing under control pretty quickly.

Ultimately, she sat up to grab another tissue and this time just brought the entire box into her lap. She wiped her eyes, sighed wearily and gave me a look that plainly said she’d rather not continue.

So I nodded slowly, slid back to my original position, and prepared to get up. “I really just came over here to make sure you were alright,” I explained. “I never meant to hurt you by making you relive this stuff, and it might be best if I leave you alone.”

“But I don’t want to be alone,” she mumbled, nearly breaking down again, before she sat upright and gave me a wide-eyed look of surprise. It seemed to me that she was all onboard with the idea of me walking away and not making her talk about her past anymore, right up until she wasn’t.

“Then I won’t leave you alone,” I stated reassuringly, “if you really want me to stay.”

Eva bit her lip, grimaced as if in tremendous pain, and then immediately scooted herself over to my side. I opened my arms and wrapped her up in a fierce hug, and then the waterworks started again. “Don’t leave me...” she whispered hoarsely. “Don’t leave me...”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I assured her. “I’m right here, and I’ll be right here for as long as you need me.”

“You really mean that?” she asked plaintively, pleading with me, really. “You’ll stay here with me? Promise?”

“Of course I will. I promise.”

“Stay here with me. Stay with me.” She shuddered. “The two of us against the world.”

I stroked her spine, kissed the top of her head, and repeated back, “The two of us against the world.”

And then she started sobbing again.

My cell phone chiming with an incoming text message broke Eva’s latest crying fit. She sat up straight, shifted herself out of my arms, and then started wiping her eyes. When she reached for the tissue box, I fished out my phone to check the screen.

“Are they asking you to come back?” Eva asked quietly, her gaze on the phone in my hand.

I shook my head. “Not at all. Belle’s just asking how things are going.”

“And what are you going to tell her?”

“Just that we’re still talking,” I said while futzing around with how to type: Still talking on a 10-digit keypad. It took me a little while, but I eventually got the message sent off.

“Don’t know why they care,” Eva muttered. “It’s not like any of them bothered to come over here with you.”

“Lily and Naimh both wanted to,” I explained. “Belle suggested it would be better if it was just me. She said you’re clearly closer to me than any of the girls, and you seem to only open up when we’re alone. But if Belle’s wrong and you’d rather the rest of the girls come over, I can tot--”

“Gods, no,” Eva interrupted me with a dismissive wave. “Belle’s right: if the whole group had shown up, I would’ve locked the door and refused to let anybody in.”

I nodded. “Makes sense.”

“I’m glad you came over. I wanted to talk to you – to apologize for how things went the last time we saw each other.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” I said affably, arching an eyebrow and smirking at her. “The last time we saw each other, we had a pretty awesome sex session and you let me blow a massive load into your virgin asshole.”

Eva snorted and immediately grinned, unable to stop herself from chuckling even as she shook her head. It was the sort of comment I wouldn’t normally say to a girl in such a situation, but for some reason I could tell Eva had a sense of humor about it, and the momentary laughter seemed to help her relax.

But then her expression turned thoughtful as her thoughts themselves turned inward. She went quiet, narrowed her eyes, and sighed. “Kai could be the sweetest guy too ... and then out of nowhere make the crudest remarks ... just like you did. And that’s not the only way you remind me of him.”

I blinked. “Me?”

Eva’s eyes narrowed as she studied me. After a moment’s pause, she took a deep breath and then explained, “We grew up privileged. My dad and Kai’s both owned successful companies, and we could afford anything we really wanted. But most locals outside of Hanalei don’t like privileged kids, you know? Kai himself didn’t really want to BE a snooty, privileged asshole like some of the other kids we knew. So we went out of our way to fit in with the regular kamaʻāina. Bought a beater van to drive around, and even slept in it sometimes. Kai dressed cheap with hand-cut tank tops and surf shorts. He acted like a tough guy and spoke more pidgin than Lily does.”

I blinked again. “I’m not seeing the resemblance to me.”

Eva chuckled. “People thought Kai was this foul-mouthed moke with his full-sleeve tattoos, wild hair, and a dozen piercings. Only our inner circle knew the real Kai – the sweetest guy in the world who was always there for me. The two of us against the world.”

It started to dawn on me where she was going with this, and why that particular sentence resonated so much with her. “Ahhh...”

“I’m sure the outside world sees you the way I saw you – a handsome playboy rolling up with a half-dozen hot girls hanging on your arms. But only The BTC girls truly know the guy who genuinely loves his girlfriends, who does everything in his power to be there for each and every one of them. You’re special. I misjudged you at first. And for that, I apologize.”

I smiled in response to her smile to me, but after a moment I took a deep breath and gave her a concerned look. “I appreciate your apology, unnecessary as it may be. But at the same time, the words you said right before you stormed out last Wednesday were absolutely true: I’m NOT Kai. And I never will be.”

Eva closed her eyes and shook her head. “I never should’ve said that to you. I know you’re not him. The two of you look nothing alike, sound nothing alike, and don’t act alike at all. I mean yeah, he was a total sweetheart with me, but he was a bad boy through and through with a violent temper. I can’t count how many fights he got into, which wasn’t such a great idea because he barely weighed more than I do.”

I grimaced and nodded.

Her eyes unfocused, and she got that haunted expression on her face again.

But rather than let her dwell on the past, I squeezed her against my side tightly and bent to kiss her crown. “I’m sure Kai had his flaws, as all guys do, including me. But at the end of the day, I’m sure he loved you very, very much. And I know you loved him very, very much. So it totally makes sense for his loss to still resonate with you today.”

Still staring out into the middle distance, she nodded slowly. Eventually she sighed, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly while turning to look up at me. And then she pulled back the left sleeve of her sweatshirt, turning her hand palm-up so I could see the underside of her wrist.

To my everlasting relief, there were no fresh scars scratched across Eva’s forearm. Ever since first hearing Lily’s story, I’d worried whether or not Eva had turned to repeated cutting as a method of dealing with her inner demons and felt the urgent need to come over here and check on her, but as far as I could tell, the only time she’d ever actually tried to harm herself had been the single suicide attempt. There were three old scars, and they weren’t even immediately visible; no one would’ve seen them at first glance. Even knowing exactly what she was showing me, I had to lean over and peer closely to make out the darker shade of the three ragged lines marring her otherwise unblemished skin.

Still, anyone who got a good look at her wrist would immediately suspect that she’d tried to kill herself at some point in the past. So I definitely understood why she’d chosen to wear that black leather wristband all the time to cover the scars. And if I had to guess, I’d guess that the men’s wristband itself had originally been Kai’s.