Instead of You(24)

She looked slightly panicked at my question, her eyes widening and mouth parting just slightly. She didn’t have time to answer though because at that moment my mother made an appearance.

“McKenzie, honey,” my mother said softly as she walked toward her, sniffling, wiping her hand beneath her nose. Her hair was damp and she only wore an old tattered robe my father had gotten her for Mother’s Day years ago. “I found this yesterday in the bag that came home from the hospital with all of Mark and Cory’s belongings in it.” My lungs froze, wondering where she’d hidden that bag. I’d hidden it in the laundry room, knowing she wasn’t ready to deal with it, but then it had disappeared. I’d spent hours looking for it, knowing the contents had the potential to hurt. She made it all the way to McKenzie and then held her hand out toward her. Sitting in her palm was a little black velvet box. “This was in Cory’s pocket when he was killed,” she said, a sob fracturing her words.

If McKenzie had looked panicked before, she looked absolutely petrified now. Her eyes were locked on that little black box, wide with what I could only describe as fear. My mom motioned with her hand, encouraging McKenzie to take it.

Kenzie’s hand reached out, shaking, and her trembling fingers closed around it.

Something wasn’t right here.

“He must have wanted to give it to you on his birthday,” Mom said, no longer even trying to rein in her tears. “I think it’s some sort of promise ring.”

Shit.

McKenzie slowly opened the box.

Then she not-so-slowly stood and ran from the house.

In an instant I was chasing after her. I ran through the front door she hadn’t closed in her haste, and yelled her name as I sprinted down the driveway.

“McKenzie, wait!”

The rain hadn’t stopped and it was dark outside, but I could still see her thirty feet in front of me, her arms flailing and feet kicking up water behind her. I pushed myself harder knowing that if I didn’t catch up with her soon, she’d reach her house and once inside it would be easy for her to ignore me, to run and hide. I managed to make it to her, wrapped my arm around her elbow, and spun her toward me.

I was unprepared for the tears I saw falling from her eyes, mixing in with the raindrops hitting her face. Seeing her cry was like switching something on inside of me and I was instantly pulling her into my arms, uncaring of the rain quickly soaking through my clothes. All that mattered was that she was upset and I was there to comfort her.

“I’m sorry the ring upset you.” I had to speak louder than I wanted to be heard over the rain pelting the pavement. I felt the contents of my stomach churn when I realized what I had to say next. “It must be really difficult to think about what you’ve lost—what life would have been like for you and Cory.”

She went still in my arms. The cries stopped. Her breathing halted. She was like a block of ice pressed against me: cold and hard. Suddenly she was pushing away from me like my touch hurt her, like I’d caused her pain, and that caused me pain.

“Kenz, wait, what’s wrong?” She kept walking away from me, so I lunged forward and grabbed her arm again. That time she didn’t need me to spin her around, because she yanked her arm from my grasp and was suddenly just inches from me, looking up at me with agony in her eyes. “What is it?” I asked, my words a plea. “Please, just talk to me.”

“I thought—” she started, but an angry sob escaped instead of words. But she continued. “I thought I was going to spend my whole life with Cory.”

The cold rain was no longer a match for the hot pain that came from hearing those words.

“And I thought it was going to be difficult, at the very least, less than ideal, to spend a life with someone I didn’t love. But now,” she said, throwing an angry hand into the air, “Now I know I’ll have to live with the guilt of never telling him how I really felt. Every time someone tells me they’re sorry, sorry for me, I feel like a fake.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, my heart begging me, pleading with me, to make her talk faster, to make her words come quicker.

“He would have given me that ring, Hayes. He would have slipped it on my finger and told me he was promising to marry me one day. And I would have let him.”

“And?” I begged.

“And it would have been a lie,” she yelled. Rainwater flew off her lips, dripped from her eyelashes. “I lied to him for two years, maybe longer, and I definitely lied to myself.” She dropped her face into her hands, crying, shoulders shaking, and I didn’t dare try to guess what it was she meant.

“What was a lie?” I asked as I gently rested my hands on her shoulders.

“Everything.”

“Kenzie,” I said, stepping as close as I could get. My hands moved up her shoulders, across her neck, and came to rest on each side of her face. The last time my hands were on her face was the one and only time I’d kissed her. “What are you saying?”

“I didn’t love him, Hayes. I never fell in love with him, even though, sometimes, I wanted to. It would have been so much easier to love him instead of….”

“Instead of what, Kenzie?” I urged.

“Instead of you.”

She was looking up at me, but I didn’t see sadness in her eyes, I saw fear. Her words sank into me, absorbed into my skin, and flowed through my veins.