Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(59)

She didn’t like the look he gave her, didn’t like how hard he frowned, as though it took effort not to argue with her. Instead, Kona leaned against his car, his hands covering his face, then stilling in his hair as he looked up at the sky.

Keira turned from him, resting her aching head on the back windshield and left Kona with whatever thoughts kept him away from her. It was a moment he seemed to need, but Keira’s dizzy head only got worse, the throbbing beating like a pulse and she couldn’t take the quiet or the cold wind that started to make her fingers burn.

“Take me back to my dorm. I’ll get Leann to bring me to the ER.”

“No. I’ll do it.”

“Kona…” she faced him, still leaning against the car and his shook his head, guided her into her seat and fastened her belt.

“Let me do this, okay? This is my fault. At least let me do this.”





Keira wasn’t the type of girl who cried into her pillow. Not since her father’s death had she spent nights awake, soaking the fine cotton fabric against her face. She thought there was nothing left in her, no feeling that warranted any semblance of an emotional catharsis. Her greatest love, her fiercest protector, left her when she was ten and at that time, Keira understood that her tears would not help. In the morning, with her face puffy and eyes swollen, she’d still wake to a world her father had escaped. Why cry? It wouldn’t bring him back. It wouldn’t do anything but have her mother complaining about the dark circles under her eyes.

But as she rested in her dorm, waiting for Kona to return with her filled prescription, Keira let those long-restricted tears fall. It didn’t make her feel any better. It didn’t take away the searing pain working in her head and it didn’t have her eager to forget how all of this happened.

Keira couldn’t tell the difference anymore between anger and sadness. She knew loss; it had been the slow burn that tightened her stomach for eight years. But heartache? Grief for something she’d never really had? Why did that make her sob like a toddler for a missing teddy bear?

Maybe it was how Kona had acted at the hospital. Maybe it was the way he held her close, how he paced outside Radiology when the doctors scanned her brain. Maybe it was the weight of guilt she felt coming off of him like a fever. Keira couldn’t be sure, didn’t know how to analyze all that emotion and identify it for what it was. She thought maybe it was the sense of something disappearing; the death of something bright and brilliant that she almost held between her fingers.

I’m stupid, she thought, rolling onto her back.

Really, she figured it was Kona’s silence that brought on the full weight of her tears. How he had barely spoken, how the entire two hours they were in that ER he never said more than “are you okay?” and “I’m so f*cking sorry.” He hadn’t been the Kona she’d come to know. He hadn’t told her a dumb joke to make her smile. He’d only listened as the doctor told her she was fine, that a few Lortabs would sort out her headache.

Annoyed by a new wave of tears clouding her vision, Keira got up from her bed, made ginger steps to the bathroom to wash her face before Kona returned, knocking twice on her door before he came inside.

“Keira?”

She stepped out of the bathroom, not even attempting to return the smile he gave her.

“You need to take one of these.” He lifted the white, stapled bag at her and pulled a bottle of water from his jacket pocket.

“Did Leann call back?” she asked, returning to her bed.

“Yeah. She’s on her way. Shouldn’t be too long.”

She took the pill when Kona handed it to her and washed it down with Kona’s water. He watched her closely, eyes sharp as she swallowed. “Did you tell her what happened?”

“Don’t worry about that. She knows I f*cked up.”

“Kona, don’t do that.”

He waved her off, taking the bottle back from her before he set it on her bedside table. “Those pills are gonna kick in soon and trust me, you wanna be flat on your back when they do.” No joke. No smart little comment laced with innuendo. Kona pulled her comforter from under Keira’s legs and lifted it, waiting for her to lay down.

But he didn’t leave when Keira snuggled under her covers. He just sat on the foot of her bed, elbows on his knees as he watched her. The silence rose back up, and after a few minutes, Keira felt stifled by the quiet.

“Don’t you have practice today?” He nodded, but kept his gaze on his hands, twisting the large state championship ring around his finger. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

The bed shook twice when Kona’s jerked around to stare at her. “Shit, Keira, don’t thank me. Don’t f*cking thank me when I put you in this situation.”

“We were fighting.” She sat up slowly, rested against her headboard and Keira could tell moving only made Kona’s guilt worsen; he grunted once, nostrils flaring and she shook her head, frustrated by his attitude. “You were mad,” she said. “I was mad. Shit happens.”

“Would you listen to yourself?” He stood up then, fingers sliding through his hair. “When are you gonna get it through your head? I’m no f*cking good for you.”

“That’s what you think? You think I’m some sort of enabler?” Keira came to her knees then, ready to slap him if kept insulting her. “Like I’m taking your shit because I’m weak?”