Being Kalli (19 page)

Scout must sense a change in me. She one-arm cuddles me to her and I take it. I wouldn’t dare ask for comfort but given to me like this I relish it. I cuddle around her mid-section and dig my head in.

Into her top, I say, “She wasn’t raped at ten by her mum’s lovely boyfriend. She’s never subconsciously or consciously stuffed up all her relationships for fear of the guys getting her alone and raping her.”

I push back and look at Scout. “She wasn’t allowed to be
so depressed to want to end it all. She had no right. I was the dirty slut. I was the fuck up. The bitch.

“
She couldn’t have helped it, even if she could have known right afterward. She didn’t know he would do it to me.” I punch the backrest behind me.
Feels good
. “In fact, I wish I could unleash on her about how much she’s violated the rules. She was not allowed to leave me after I finally connected with her properly.”

That last line
turns my muddled thoughts into sense. I’m not mad at Mum one bit. Rather I’m mad at me, wholly. What a crap daughter I am. I went on to Aunty Nicole about Mum needing help when I didn’t see the signs of depression, didn’t realise how Mum would take that news infinitely worse than another person would. I blocked the signs, too.

Blocking.

I suppose I’m so good at blocking I don’t see that I’m like everyone else. I think shit about people who pretend to be happy and such. I’ve made myself believe my issues are okay and I’m fine. But really, I’m still like an explosive. No ignition, no troubles, no worries. But bring me the right fuel and I could explode.

After I explain more details to Scout
about Mum, I feel more indebted about how much she’s helped.

“I just don’t know how I can thank or repay you for all you’ve done.”

“Um, Kalli?” Her voice is hesitant. “Maybe we’ll be even after this.”

“Not a chance. What happened?”

She plays with her cropped hair, scratching mindlessly while her mind seems a million miles away. “I swear to you. I swear the boys were asleep and all. But I just missed her. Fuck, and I know it sounds bad, but I was getting lonely. I hadn’t seen Steph in ages and I can’t bring her home …”

Scout stays silent, so I say, “You invited her here.”

“Yes! Ack, don’t hate me. It was the middle of the night, and the boys will never know.”

“I’m glad you are human after all. Now I do feel less shitty about you being so great to me.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Scout,
‘course you were lonely. As long as I don’t get surprised when I look in my bed, I’m thrilled. You shouldn’t hide your relationship with Steph.”

“Well, maybe one day
soon.”

Scout determines I’m fine and sane, and she leaves me to unwind and get back to things here. The moment she leaves
, I drop the boys off for their half-day at preschool. When I am home, I start Googling and dialling. After, I open up my savings account, and Mum’s. Thanks to my teaching, I earn much more than my friends. Between Mum and I, we have enough to get her started in a treatment facility. I’ll need a huge amount to keep us going, and that won’t explain how I can pay the bills, but I’ve realised my priorities.

One,
university doesn’t matter if it’s going to take me somewhere I’d hate to be.

Two, my violin does
matter. It would be amazing if I could earn enough money to help Mum doing something I love.

Maybe I can scrape together enough now I’m getting my life on track.

• • •

Nate visit
s us when Mum’s back.

He comes over with a plastic sheet thingy, filled with truck and car mo
ulds. He brings out an easy recipe to make melted chocolate, which both he and Mum help to scoop in the moulds. After we let them set in the fridge and all three of us wash up and put the utensils back away, the boys watch TV in the living room further down.

At one point Mum seems to slide
off, seemingly not hearing me talk, and instead wiping down the edges of the grooves in the mould. Later, though, she looks directly into my eyes with a full smile that tells me she’s
back
. The attempted suicide and initial treatment have planted her feet on the ground, but there are some odd moments and I worry for her still.

After, Mu
m kisses Nate on the cheek, says thanks, and takes the boys to play at the end of the house.

Nate stands behind the
bench, fingertips perched on the surface, assessing me. I take him in, wondering how the hell to say thank you for including Mum and giving her free love, equal to the power her therapy with her psychologist has to change her way of thinking. He didn’t once make her feel she looked like she needed help.

Stepping
to the edge, I rest my hands on it, crossed over at my elbows. Biting my lip, I risk looking at Nate.

His lips are parted, and the eye contact is firm, unmistakable. He swallows, and it’s a deep, sexy swallow that I can’t help but fawn over. He leans over, and just as I think he’ll kiss me, he whispers, low and deep, “Where are they?”

Taken out of the moment, I blink back surprise. “Who?”

“Your mu
m, and the twins.”

I can’t help but stare at his lips, still parted, and at his throat, swallowing again. “They aren’t coming back.”

Nate grins and grabs me under my arms, pulls me over the kitchen bench without straining much, just his neck blood vessels bulging under his skin, as he pulls me over.

I pull my knees forward and spread them out, meeting Nate around his hips. I hook my feet around under his ass.

With his hands on my shoulders, he kisses my collarbones and then settles his hands down my length at my waist. In his grasp my chest heaves, and I stare at him panting and breathless. What the hell am I going to be like when we actually do stuff again?

When he speaks, I have to pull myself back
here
. I get carried away with Nate’s scent. It’s light and woody, but mostly something unique that makes him, him. He looks from my chest to my lips and up to my eyes, and says, “Let’s go out. Now. I want to take you somewhere.”

As soon as
he slides me off the bench leaving me to change while he waits in his car, I run around my room like a headless chicken. I dart to my wardrobe and start picking clothes to no avail. I need hours to put something amazing together, and then some space to decide if it’s a stupid choice, but I don’t have that. My hair will have to stay. I blow-dried it straight yesterday anyway.

I hop in the shower to wash my body
only, and then come back to my closet with a gown wrapped around me. I grab my skinny jeans since if I need to stay warm, they’re the sexiest way to go on a date yet still retain heat. I put on my suede boots and wrap the straps around them, knotting it just behind my knee to hold the material up. I layer up with a low-cut tank top and a slouchy top.

I’m
touching up my blush when Nate texts, and asks if I’m ready. I go speak to Mum and the boys, telling them we’re leaving. She touches my elbow and says thanks, with a faint smile showing through her expression.

We arrive
at Pancake Parlour. The date’s looking up even more so from my view as I enter the mid-50s style diner. Maple syrup and chocolate and buttery smells are thick in the air. It’s the type of place I come to and feel more at place wearing jeans than a tight dress. Smiles are given freely, from both waitresses and customers alike.

Our table is a wall booth, the seats curled around the table leaving
only the pathway side open. We slide in on opposite sides.

“Can I get you guys drinks to start?”

Nate and I lock eyes and I bite my lip, trying to hold in a chuckle.

Nate answers for us saying, “Yeah, vanilla chai lattes
, if you have them please. Two.”

“Sure thing.” The wa
itress collects the drinks menu and leaves.

The thing about these restaurants is they are always busy, yet with separate booths
I can’t stop looking at parts of Nate—never his eyes—and wonder how I can feel so exposed in this crowd.

My heart thrums in my ears, and it’s distracting trying not to wiggle my fingers in them or slap the side of my head to make the heavy
rhythm stop. I snatch up my gaze to Nate’s eyes to see him looking at his forearms crossed on the table. And I stare. What the hell do I say? That was one
hot
almost kiss before. I like being control, yet Nate pulled me over that bench like I was an empty sack. Then he seduced me in a way so hot, I’m still wondering how I didn’t ignite.

I know we’d never be here even trying to sort out a relationship if it weren’t for my epic stuff up, but I wish it didn’t happen right now. I could see how we’d otherwise be here, laughing over our vanilla chai lattes. I’d be giving Nate shit for admitting he likes it, and he’d respond like,
Yeah? Go on. I’ll get you back later
, and we’d end up leading to his stupid habit of calling the vibrato I do on my violin vibration, to sexual vibrations, which would end in us having a happy end to the night.

Thanks to me, though, I’m wonder
ing how to even start a conversation with him about us. Together.

“
I can see you, you know,” Nate says, starting as a whisper and ending in a firm tone, looking at me.

“Oh.” I duck my head
and start looking through my handbag, which is stupid. I stop. “Well …”

“I like it.”

Still with my eyes diverted, I bite my lip, but my stupid little girl grin escapes anyway. He’s looking. There’s no hiding how happy I am that I know he likes that.

“Good.”

“Good,” he replies.

I nod. “Cool.”
God, how stupid.
Say
something!
“So, thanks for coming this afternoon. Mum’s been talking with me and therapy has been good, apparently, she says, but you made her feel normal and I think it helped her not being ‘that’ person with the problems.”

He smiles,
then
hmm
s to himself, probably thinking it over. “I just wanted to see you guys, make everything happy for once. It’s been so hard.”

“You did more fo
r us than you realise. I love the twins, but I didn’t see until recently how much I still love my mum. I really can’t thank you enough for that little thing you did, because it was so big for me. She’s always felt different.”

I pause then, my throat t
oo tight to talk and my cheeks heat up at the thought. Am I about to lose it? Here? I probably am so I finish off everything I have to say by nodding to the table, pressing my lips into a thin line and trying to make the hot flush dissipate.

“Kall?”

I lift my chin, my head feeling heavy. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

My chin drops. It happens too fast to hide it with another action. I gulp. Gulp, gulp, like a fish.

He sweeps a pensive glance over me. He says, “You are wild and crazy and fun and sexy and beautiful
, right down to your soul, but you’re also helpless. Only, you don’t say it. You just help your friends, and give your hard-earned money to your family. You are a party animal, but looking after your loved ones will always come first, given the choice. And you don’t realise that you can speak to me without sounding wrong or bad. Because you’re like family, Kall Bell, and like you, you’re my first priority.”

“But
… I hurt you so bad.”

“You’re human, Kall. You bottle it up and keep stuffing all your own problems down until it blows. It blew up that night. I’ve been thinking about everything
, and you’re just as confused as I am about why it happened. I think I have a solution.”

I smile. A real smile that I let Nate see and feel. “How?”

“Come to me. I want to know. Everything you need to say or do. Just please don’t push me away again, because I’d rather be here for all the ugly and painful inside you, than pretend what we have is nothing, because that is pure torture.”

I take his hand over the table and lace my fingers through his. All I’m seeing is Nate.
It’s only when the waitress drops off our coffees do I remember we’re at Pancake Parlour with all this noise that hasn’t existed for these last ten minutes.

I was trying too hard to force a conversation before.
And now, it’s natural.

“I don’t want you to
think I’m afraid,” I say. “Of you, or anything in life.”

His eyebrows pinch together. “What do you mean?”

“I was afraid of myself before, my fears, never you. You’ve always made me feel safe, appreciated, and now … so much more.”

“I had bad news planned
to say if you wanted to leave me again,” Nate says, dropping his chin.

“How did you think it’d turn out?”

He looks up, and squeezes my hand as he says, “Like this.”

“But I haven’t really
answered you yet.”