"Denny...man, I'm..." he trailed off, words failing him, as his eyes drifted to their still shaking hands.
Denny released his hand and brought his to his hip. "Yeah...I know, Kellan. That doesn't mean we're okay...but I know." His voice was tight, his accent thick, and tears stung my eyes watching the two once close friends struggle to even find words to give each other.
"If you ever need anything...I'm...I'm here." Kellan's eyes moistened as he said that, but they remained fixed on Denny's face.
Denny nodded and clenched his jaw. Several emotions seemed to sweep through his features before he finally sighed and looked away. "You've done enough, Kellan."
My heart squeezed painfully at the infinite ways that one sentence could be interpreted. In one line, Denny had pretty much summed up everything between them - the good, as well as the bad. It tore my heart, and warmed it at the same time.
I felt a tear roll down my cheek, but I was too intently watching Kellan to do anything about it. I was sure he was going to crack. I was sure he was going to sob and beg Denny's forgiveness on his hands and knees if he had to, but then, a ghost of a smile touched his lips and he swallowed roughly, forcing back the tears encroaching on his eyes. It seemed that Kellan had decided to take the good in that sentence, and leave the rest behind.
Kellan clapped Denny's shoulder affectionately. "Take care...mate." He said it warmly and with no trace of an implied accent; Kellan was one of the few people I'd met who never tried to sound like Denny. With Kellan, it somehow seemed a level of respect that he never tried to copy him.
Denny seemed to understand that and while maybe not exactly reciprocating feelings of respect for Kellan, he did clap him warmly on the shoulder. "You too...mate."
Then Kellan gave him a swift hug and walked away from us. The urge to reach out and grab his shirt, to make him look at me, talk to me, was so great...but I couldn't make a scene with Kellan while saying goodbye to Denny, not after everything we'd put him through.
So I balled my hands into fists to stop the strong desire sweeping through me, and I silently watched him leave. Just as the crowd was swallowing him up, he turned to look back at us. Our eyes finally met for the first time in so long, that an actual ache ripped through my body at the all too brief connection. I watched his mouth drop open and his face contort in pain and I knew he'd felt the same agony rip through him. He wanted me...he still wanted me, but I'd hurt him too greatly.
His hand came to the bridge of his nose as he turned back around, the crowd immediately obliterating any sign of him. I closed my eyes and when I reopened them, Denny was watching me with an expression on his face like he finally understood something. I didn't know what he'd seen in that one painful glance, but he'd definitely seen it. With a shake of his head and a suddenly sympathetic look, he put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me to him, in an almost consolatory way.
I lay my head on his shoulder and as one, we turned to face the windows, to watch his plane gleam in the sun. "I'll miss you, Denny," I finally whispered, once I could speak again.
His arm squeezed me tighter. "I'll miss you too, Kiera. Even with everything, I'll still miss you." He paused, then whispered, "Do you think...?" I pulled my head up to look at him, as he turned his head to look down at me. "Do you think, if I had never taken the job in Tucson, you and Kellan never would have...?" He looked down at the ground and bunched his brows. "Did I throw you to him?"
I shook my head and rested it on his shoulder. "I don't know, Denny, but I think that, one way or another, Kellan and I would have..." I looked up at him as he looked back down on me. I couldn't finish that sentence, not directly to him, not with his dark brown eyes looking back into mine so painfully.
"I'll always love you, you know," he said thickly.
I nodded and swallowed. "And I'll always love you... always."
He smiled softly and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, his fingers starting to brush my cheek. With a look of great internal debate, he finally bent down and gave me a tender kiss on the lips. It lasted longer than a friendly kiss would, shorter than a romantic kiss would. Somewhere in the middle, just like us.
When he pulled away, he kissed my bruised face once, before I laid my head back on his shoulder. I squeezed his free hand while his other held my body close to his, and we waited. Waited for them to announce he would leave. Waited for our separation to be permanent. Waited for our deep, but broken connection, to be physically severed.
Eventually it did happen and with a long sigh he pulled away from me. After grabbing his bag from where he'd dropped it when he'd taken Kellan's hand, he kissed my head in farewell. I clutched his hand and held on to him until the last possible second. The very tips of our fingers were the last pieces of our bodies to stop touching each other. I felt something leave me when the contact stopped. Something warm and safe, and at one point in my life, something that had been everything to me. He held my watery eye contact with his own until he disappeared around the corner, and I knew that those warm, deep brown eyes and that charming goofy grin, were finally lost forever to me.
My body shut down. I felt it going. I felt my legs leaden and my knees buckle, and my head fade to a hazy gray-black. My legs hit the floor with a thud that I was sure shook the bolted seats in front of me, and just as I waited for my still tender head to smack painfully onto one of those seats, warm hands cradled me.
I recognized the scent first, the unmistakably delicious odor of leather and earth and man that was Kellan Kyle. I didn't know how he was with me, and I couldn't see him yet through my foggy vision, but I felt him and knew it was his arms that held me.
He lowered my head carefully to his knees as he huddled on the floor beside me. One hand stroked my back, while the other felt my face, making sure I was okay. "Kiera?" His voice still sounded distant, even though I knew he was right beside me.
My vision started clearing and his faded jeans came into focus. I weakly lifted my head and attempted to understand what was happening. His eyes softened as he gazed down at me, his casted hand rubbing my back, his other fingers tracing my face lovingly. Instantly I realized I'd fainted, and he'd been watching me, always watching me, and had saved me from a world of pain. Then I remembered our distance, and my ache and overwhelming grief at watching Denny leave. I sat up and threw myself into his arms, straddling his knees on the floor and tangling my arms around his neck, never wanting to let go. He stiffened and convulsed like I'd hurt him, but eventually he brought his arms around my back and held me tight to him, rocking us gently on the floor and murmuring that it would be okay.
The roar of the airplane's engines brought our attention back to the ache forefront in our minds, and we both turned to look at the window and watch the huge plane begin to taxi away from us. We both watched it silently, tears streaming down my face and soft sobs escaping my lips. Kellan continued to rub my back and rested his head against mine, occasionally bringing his lips to my hair. I clutched at him fiercely and when the plane left my sight, I dropped my head to his shoulder and sobbed mercilessly.
He let me hold him until my pain eased, if not stopped. When I was hiccupping and attempting to breathe with some normalcy, he gently, but firmly, pushed me off his lap. I tried to stay, embarrassingly clutching at his clothes, but he was persistent and eventually he released himself from under me and stood.
His face was resolute as he stood in front of me. I had to look down. I had to stare at the floor. For a brief moment I'd thought we'd reconnected in our mutual grief, but I must have been wrong. His face didn't look like he was welcoming me back to him. His face looked like he was about to say goodbye again. I didn't want to hear it again.
A hand reached out and gently touched the top of my head as I stared at my knees on the floor. I tentatively looked up into Kellan's amazingly perfect, bruised face. A soft smile played on his lips and his eyes had warmed a bit, although, the sadness never really left them.
"Can you drive?" he asked lowly.
Grief threatened to wrench through me again at the thought of driving home alone and sitting in my empty apartment alone. I wanted to tell him no, that I needed him , that I needed to stay with him, and we needed to find a way back to each other, back from my mistake. But I couldn't. I nodded my head, yes, and prepared myself for the one thing that had always sort of terrified me...being alone.
He nodded and held his hand out to me to help me stand. I took it and clutched his warmth tightly as he pulled me up. I stumbled a bit and put my hand on his chest to steady myself. I felt a bandage under my fingertips and he flinched in pain. My hand was resting on his Pecs not his ribs, so I wasn't sure why that hurt him. Maybe his injuries were worse than I knew. Maybe he just didn't like me touching him.
He removed my hand, but continued holding my fingers. We faced each other, both hands clasped together and standing close, but an almost insurmountable distance was between us.
I'd chosen him and then left him. How would he ever forgive me?
"I'm so sorry, Kellan...I was wrong." I didn't offer any more explanation than that. I couldn't, since my throat closed up completely and speech just wasn't possible.
His eyes misted over and he nodded. Did he understand what I meant? That I meant I was wrong for leaving him...not wrong for loving him. I couldn't explain and he didn't ask. He bent his head down to me and I instinctually raised my chin. Our lips met in the middle - soft and passionate, pulling apart, before fully sinking into the feeling of being together. Dozens of tiny, hungry, not nearly long enough kisses that spiked my heart rate.
Finally, he forced himself to stop, and pulled away before it got to be too much, and we both caved to the underlying sexual tension that was always between us. He dropped my hands and took a reluctant step back from me. "I'm sorry too, Kiera. I'll see you...around."
Then he turned and left me, breathless, spinning with confusion and grief, and...alone. His words echoed in my ears and I felt one hundred percent positive that he hadn't meant them. I felt positive that I'd just seen the last of Kellan Kyle.
Somehow I made it home. Somehow I managed to not break down while driving, and smack right into the back of someone in my tear-obscured vision. No, I saved all of my tears for the heart-shaped pillow my sister had scrounged somewhere for me. I drenched that thing, and then mercifully fell asleep.
My world felt a little lighter when I woke the next day. Maybe it was because my head felt better and the bruising was switching colors, indicating that some healing was going on somewhere in my body. Or maybe it was because the final painful break with Denny had been made, and I didn't have to be anxious about it anymore. It was done...we were done...and even though those words hurt my heart, I felt okay.
Showering and getting dressed brought even more relief, and as I looked over my beaten skull, I wondered where my life would go from here. Certainly I needed to find a job. And I definitely needed to catch up on schoolwork. Winter break had already hit while I'd been recovering, but a few phone calls from my doctor, and me, and surprisingly Denny, had gotten me an extension on the classes I was behind in. And if I poured myself into school, I was confident I'd be caught up before next quarter.
I clenched my jaw and decided that was what I'd do. I may have lost my job, my boyfriend, and my lover, but if I focused hard enough, I could possibly keep my precious scholarship. And if I did that...maybe, just maybe, my heart would heal as slowly and assuredly as my head.
Denny called me two days later, right before my sister and I were about to fly home for Christmas. My parents had the tickets they'd gotten for Denny and me, switched over to my sister and me, and seemed genuinely sorry when I'd told them that things hadn't worked out between us. They'd also grilled me for two hours on when I was coming back to Ohio U.
Denny told me all about his new job and his upcoming plans with his family. He seemed genuinely happy, and his good spirits lifted mine. Of course, his voice did break when he wished me a Merry Christmas, followed immediately by, "I love you." It seemed to slip out of his mouth without him thinking about it, and a silence hovered in the air between us as I wondered what to say to that. In the end, I told him that I loved him too. And I did, there would always be a level of love between us.