K.C. and Dave: A Short Story

K.C. and Dave: A Short Story

Part 1

K.C. took Dave’s hand.  She always took his hand.  And he sighed contentedly, as he always did.  It was another Friday night at the old theater house that showed black-and-white double features every week.  Tonight was Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story and Bringing Up Baby.  A strong-willed woman and an affable man.  She snuggled closer to her friend; he breathed in the welcomed scent of her shampoo, and the movie began.

Such was their relationship. K.C. wasn’t ready to deal with messy ideas like love or lust; she just knew that Dave was there and was hers, and she was thankful. Dave wasn’t ready to scare her or lose her, so he endured her innocence and enjoyed each moment that he was lucky enough to be in her world.

At the end of the second movie, K.C. released Dave’s hand. She always released his hand. And he bit silent a protest, as he always did. It was another Friday night of leaving the old theater house and walking two blocks down the well-lit city street to the only late-night restaurant whose comfort food was healthy enough to muster K.C.’s affection. A strong-willed woman and an affable man. As they discussed the protagonists’ personalities in both movies, the commonalities of it all was not lost on Dave, though K.C. didn’t think to look beyond what was portrayed on the silver screen. She wistfully fantasized about living in a time where such lives were possible; he smiled as he always did at her lively ruminations, and … And.

 

Part 2

Dave had been by K.C.’s side for nine years now. They met on her first day of high school, when Dave caught the books, hers of course, falling out of the locker next to his. That also was quick to become routine as K.C. had more books and intellectual curiosity than could fit in such a small space. Of course, K.C. never noticed that Dave would lag behind at his locker, quite finished with the pretense of switching algebra book for chemistry, watching her out of the corner of his eye and trying to impress the girl who was balancing calculus and Proust years before she should have touched either.

Not that K.C. didn’t notice Dave or appreciate him. She was comforted by his presence, grateful for his ever-outstretched hand that steadied books she’d cast aside while she grabbed notebooks underneath. And she enjoyed their soft locker-side banter, humbly surprised that someone was talking to her without asking for the answer to the homework or asking her to move aside. In fact, Dave was the one question she had in her freshman year that she just couldn’t answer. He didn’t make sense. He was articulate and somewhat popular—a sophomore basketball player who knew the cheerleaders by name—yet he noticed her. Each school day she looked at Dave with puzzled eyes filled with why-does-he-notice-me, which she never knew that he was mistaking for who-is-he?

His quiet grace—and her lack thereof—created that comfortable one-minute dance that they played four or five times a day for months. Their brief ballet changed one day because of an outside catalyst: a senior named Mike.

“Katie, I have been looking all over for you. Did you know your locker is in the lowerclassmen hall? Katie?”

Dave looked back and forth between the senior and the girl he’d come to think of as his. K.C. was trying to squeeze two philosophy books next to her bulky winter coat. She hadn’t even noticed Mike. So Dave spoke, happily becoming her protector and shield.

“Her name’s K.C. She has to get to the other end of school for physics class in a minute. What do you want?”

Mike was unfazed. Katie, K.C., what did it matter? He ignored the pesky J.V. player and tried again. “K.C.” He tapped her on her shoulder. “K.C.?”

She turned, dropping the philosophy books that, of course, never hit the floor. “Mike?”

“Yeah. I know you understand all this Hobbes and Locke and stuff for history class, right, and I just don’t get it. And I can’t fail this test today. I really can’t.”

K.C. looked at Dave and was glad to see he was there. But why was Mike there? “Ok? Do you want my notes to study?” She turned back to her locker. “They’re around here somewhere …”

“No. Well, that’s awfully nice, I guess, but I really need you to just explain it all to me. I have study period now. So, if you grab your notes and book, then you can, like, follow me to my class.”

“I have physics.” She handed him her history notebook. “My notes are here. Good luck studying. I have to go.”

Frustrated that she would for some reason choose to go to some class when he needed help, Mike stepped in front of her as she moved to walk away.

K.C. was confused. Why would he stop her from going to class? What should she do now? She looked at Dave and tilted her head, now more confused. Dave was shutting her locker door, and she wondered how often he did that. When was the last time she did that herself? That was odd. She turned back to Mike. He was looking at her expectantly. But why would she miss physics class because he didn’t study? And she gave him her notes. She looked back at Dave again.

Dave was surprised she was still there until he saw Mike blocking her path. He was supposed to be her shield, and there he’d messed up the first time, assuming she’d left when she said she was leaving. And she looked so confused.

“K.C.,” Dave said, “would you like me to walk you to class?” She nodded. She didn’t know why. Dave put his hand on her shoulder, steered her away from Mike while glaring at him over her head. His K.C. had been rattled, and Dave didn’t like that. Suddenly his job was to make sure that didn’t happen again.

And so K.C. and Dave’s friendship began.

 

Part 3

Seeing K.C. or Dave without the other quickly became as odd as seeing a jelly sandwich. Dave’s inner circle knew that the couple wasn’t a couple; they also knew that K.C. was off limits, nonetheless. And K.C.’s inner circle … well, that was Dave, her books, and an exceptionally fluffy cat who knew to curl up on K.C.’s writing hand or an open book to get attention.

K.C. was academically intelligent beyond her years, having already skipped two grades, and by the second half of the year, she was taking all junior- and senior-level classes as a freshman. People, though, she just didn’t understand. Why did Mike refuse to talk to her after that one time at her locker? Why didn’t other students ask for more information during class? And why was so much time between classes spent on adjusting clothes, hair, and make-up? K.C. spent weeks in the library, researching adolescent interpersonal communication styles for her English research project. The work culminated in an articulate essay double the required length, an essay that was honest in its conclusion that the author was the anomaly and that she would remain so until she cared less about learning and more about fitting in. Knowing the consequences, K.C. continued to be K.C.

And Dave continued to be Dave, though a more academically focused one. He devoted himself to K.C.’s happiness, as that in turn created his own. Over the summer, mounds of DVDs and video games were moved into his closet to make room for a two-person desk and bookshelves. Dave was never invited into K.C.’s house in their first year of friendship, and he didn’t ask why. Instead, he enjoyed the fact that she had no curfew, minus her self-imposed one, and that his parents were okay with her being in his room for hours on end. Even the door-open rule slowly came to an end as they realized that, as much as their son stared at this waifish girl when she wasn’t paying attention, she was as ignorant about the meaning behind those stares as they were ignorant of the Russian literature she read at their dinner table.

“It is summer,” Dave’s mom once said. “Why are you studying? I know an accelerated school can be difficult, but you can put the books away, you know.”

Dave smiled around his food, swallowed, and tweaked K.C.’s ear. She looked up, surprised, her left hand still turning a page and her right hand holding a fork she wasn’t aware she’d been using. “Yes?” Dave’s mom repeated herself.

K.C.’s eyes lit up. Someone wanted to discuss something. Wanted to talk to her. And wanted her opinion. “Oh, I’m not studying, well not per se, Mrs. Riley. You see, I was in the Intro to Russian I class in the fall and then they moved me ahead into Dave’s Intermediate Russian class in the Spring. The junior-level class is Russian Literature, and I just couldn’t wait. I already read War and Peace and Lolita, which doesn’t really count since it was written in English first, but I still read it in the Russian translation for practice, and now I’m onto The Master and Margarita. Did you know it was banned for years? Anyway, the teacher, Ms. Wharton, not related to the novelist, and the principal said that I could get credit for the class if I did the work over the summer and turned in the research essay and exam next month right before school starts. That means that in the fall I’ll be eligible for the junior-year trip to Russia, which is over Winter Break, while taking the senior-level Russian class, which is Russian History and Culture. Honestly, I think knowing cultural information should happen before the trip and before the literature class. I told the program head that, and he said he’d get back to me, but he never did.”

It was the most Mrs. Riley had heard the girl speak, ever. It took her a minute to catch up, during which she noticed Dave trying to hide a smile of amused pride. Pointedly, she said to Dave, “Russian trip, why does that sound familiar?”

“Well. Um. You and Dad said I can go if I kept my grades up. I've been doing some of the readings with Kace this summer, so I won’t be so swamped next year. Well, I read the English translations while Kace reads in Russian.”

K.C. interjected, “Dave is practicing his Russian, though. Sometimes he reads the Russian translations to me. Plus, there are questions ask about nuances that I don’t always—"

“You’re both going?” asked Mr. Riley. “I didn’t hear that part before.”

“Well, I couldn’t let K.C. go alone. She gets lost on her way home.”

K.C. turned red. “That was only once. I was distracted by the hydrangeas down the street and then forgot that I was supposed to backtrack.”

Mrs. Riley looked at her husband. “She does two years of Russian in one year, does the third year during the summer, and gets our son to read during the summer break, and she gets lost in our neighborhood. Who is this girl?”

Mr. Riley just said, between mouthfuls, “Ask Dave. She’s his, after all.”

 

Part 4 

Ten years later, Dave walked two doors down the block from K.C.’s home to his own. Meanwhile, K.C. was inside her apartment that took up the first-floor of a small, rented house, leaning against the door and closing her eyes to keep with her the security that came with Dave’s lips on her forehead. Her father refused to let her live with anyone who wasn’t family, especially Dave, but she would feel much more comfortable if the house weren’t so quiet, if Meeps hadn’t died the month before. The snuggly cat had helped her feel both secure and at home once Dave left at night, when it was just her with the second-hand furniture and silence.

Sighing, K.C. walked into the living room, put Enya in her c.d. player, and sat at her make-shift U-shaped desk. Books of Carl Sagan, H.J. Muller, Baruch Spinoza, and Albert Einstein were open, with heavy annotations, on the two card tables on her left. Friedrich Nietzsche, Joseph Campbell, Immanuel Kant, and Soren Kierkegaard were equally annotated and piled on the marred roll-top desk on her right. In front of K.C. were her laptop and her notebooks on a small, rectangular dining room table. She rolled her chair to the table, opened her notebook to an earmarked page, and began.

In the morning, Dave woke to his alarm and was three blocks away at Zingerman’s just twenty minutes later. As usual, he was the first customer. Gina, one of the two morning people on the weekends, started making Dave’s regular order as he walked toward the register. He thanked her, commented on her new two-toned pigtails while paying, and then balanced two coffees with a bag of pastries. He walked the few blocks back to K.C.’s, where the light was on, and he let himself in to see K.C. bleary eyed at the desks.

“You stayed up all night again,” he said while putting the hot coffee and a muffin in front of her.

K.C. took a sip of coffee and, without looking up, started talking as if they had been mid-conversation. “Did you know that Sagan’s quote ‘Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time,’ the one from Episode 8 of Cosmos that you like so much, works really well with Kierkegaard’s ‘What the age needs is awakening’ from his journals? I mean, for what I’m doing, of course. And then add to that—” K.C. fumbled through a few books then flipped to an earmarked page, “—And then add to that this; listen to this: ‘Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed. The living images become only remote facts of a distant time or sky. Furthermore, it is never difficult to demonstrate that as science and history mythology is absurd. When a civilization begins to reinterpret its mythology in this way, the life goes out of it, temples become museums, and the link between the two perspectives becomes dissolved.’ That’s Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. And that’s the connection I was looking for. Isn’t that great?”

Dave took the book from her, put the muffin in her hand, and waited until she took a bite. “I’m glad you finally found that connection, though you’ll have to explain it to me a bit more after our class. Drink the coffee. You’ll need it.” Dave walked through the kitchen, noticing that Meeps’s water and food bowls were still on the floor and half full, and down the hall into the bathroom. “Don’t pick up that book again; you don’t have time,” he called. Dave heard her sigh as he started the water in the shower. “Come on, get cleaned up. I’ll grab your things.”

K.C. did as told, as usual. And Dave gathered K.C.’s materials for class, also per their norm. It was another Saturday morning of rushing to get K.C. out the door and to the Ann Arbor Public Library where they volunteer-taught a science class that was supposed to be for preschool children, but moms and dads had started staying, then started bringing older siblings, and now their once-small class took up the biggest room in the library. A strong-willed woman and an affable man. The commonalities in their preparations were often lost on Dave, though K.C. never could see the difference between his ideas or instruction and hers. She quickly dried off and climbed into the clothes he’d laid out for her before she was literally skipping down the sidewalk and across the busy streets. Dave carried the materials and drinks, and when they walked in the library’s front door, their well-honed dance in front of their eagerly awaiting audience began.

 

Part 5

By the time K.C. and Dave were finished with their class and walking toward their apartments, K.C. had been awake for just under thirty hours, and her steps were now sluggish as the coffee had lost its effect. “Meh, sun bright,” she grumbled as its rays escaped from a cloud.

“Aww” was Dave’s reply as he ruffled her hair and then left his hand barely resting on the back of her neck, his thumb rubbing the spot he knew would be tense from hours of leaning over books. “We’re almost to my place. You can take a nap there.”

“But my apar—”

“Uh huh, I know.” Dave didn’t let her finish. Dave knew she would protest about sleeping in his bed when hers was so close. He also knew that, should she go home, she’d see her desk and go back to work rather than get the much-needed rest. “Come to my place, and I’ll make you lunch when you wake up,” he said.

“Ok,” she said, putting her arm around his waist and her head on his shoulder. Her eyes shut for a moment, and she walked happily without the sun in her eyes. Then, afraid she’d stumble, she opened them. “Nnh. sun still bright.” She pouted and tried half-heartedly to bury her head in his shirt. This time, she did stumble. Dave let out a sigh, and she smiled, knowing what he’d just surrendered to in his head.

He stopped, shifted their half-empty bag of supplies from shoulder to hand and said, “Okay. Hop up.” He bent a little at the knees, and she hopped on his back to get a piggy-back ride for their one block left.

“Mmm, thank you,” she mumbled into his neck. She closed her eyes, quickly succumbing to the cadence of his steps and falling mostly asleep. K.C.’s daydreams drifted her back to a half-hour earlier when they’d been packing up and the little kids had been helping. “Uh oh, the glitter,” she whispered, not realizing that she was speaking or that her lips were caressing Dave’s bare skin.

“Glitter?” Dave asked, not sure whether she was awake or asleep.

“Tommy got the glitter … all over the floor. … The. The.” She was tasting something salty as she spoke. That didn’t make sense. She moved her tongue across the bottom of her lip, unwittingly moving it across Dave’s neck as well. His step faltered then stopped completely for a moment. “Hmm. Tasty. Tired. Sleep.” He realized, without surprise, that she had no idea what she was doing to him. He took a deep breath, then two more, then continued walking.

 

Part 6

The lights are so bright and the room is so large. The walls and wooden floor are the same shade of gray. How is this room so empty? I am here. I think. Molecules are here. And the light coming in through the picture window shows dust. So much dust. I reach toward it to collect the dust and put it into jars. Mason jars line the wall, all filled with dust. Dust is full of molecules. A Carl Sagan book is on the windowsill, casting shadows. My finger runs across the cover of the book, making a line in the dust. A jar shatters behind me. I turn around to see the center-most Mason jar now shattered on the floor; shards of glass sparkle in the sunlight amid the pool of silver glitter now seeping into the grey carpet.

Sitting in my wooden chair, I bend down and reach underneath my desk for my glue stick. On the blue-grey industrial carpet, I see glitter, construction paper clippings, and red and pink felt hearts underneath desks around me. We’re making Mother’s Day cards instead of doing math today. I’d rather do math. That’s why I come to this class, to the sixth grade room where they all look funny at my Hello Kitty shoes and pull on my ponytail. Theresa said, “Looks like you don’t get to play Doogie Howser today, Kitty Cat” when I sat down. Who is Doogie Howser? I don’t want to play with him; I just want to do the cool long division problems again. “Meow. Meow. Kitty Cat, don’t you know how to make a card? Here.” She leans over and pours silver glitter all over the carefully-cut butterfly I’d just made and was about to paste onto a blue piece of construction paper. “Here, count the specks of glitter, Kitty Cat. That’s what you’re good at.” I am good at that. I tried to help her just yesterday, and she got mad. She used to be nice to me. Now she just ruined my butterfly. I look sideways at the teacher’s desk. Ms. Cullen always tells me to take care of myself. To stick up to the kids who tease me. She’s not even looking this way. And I don’t have time to make a new butterfly.

I push back my chair and walk toward the teacher sitting at the front of the room. “Miss, if you leave the room, you won’t be able to come back to finish the test,” she says this to me without looking up from the latest edition of Vogue. Why would a high school teacher be interested in Vogue? Wouldn’t she be happier reading Walt Whitman? e.e. cummings? I place the finished test on her desk. “Miss, you’ll forfeit your test,” she says. “Just try.” I open my mouth to tell her I’m finished, but I recognize the look she’s giving me as she glances up from the magazine. She’ll call me precocious and rude and so many other things. I just nod, pick the test back up, and sit back at my seat. And I spend the next two hours of my Saturday morning watching the dust dance in the light coming through windows too high up to see anything but sky.

The fluorescent lights shine in my eyes as the table moves out of the machine. The lights are so bright and the room is so large. The walls are the same shade of gray as the machine and the table I’m lying on. How is this room so empty? Where are the doctors? Where is my dad? The table is really cold, and I wish I had my socks on. I want to go home. I miss Suzie, Mommy’s old cat. Suzie cuddles me when I’m scared. She curls up between my shoulder and tummy and purrs so loudly in my ear. I feel tears rolling out of the corner of my eyes, into my ears. The lights are so bright. Where is everyone? I sniffle and wipe my eyes. I’ll get in trouble if I cry again. I close my eyes and breathe deeply like Dad used to tell me to do.

Icicle lights dangle from the high school gym’s ceiling, and the disco ball shines bright lights into the dark. I’m swaying in strong arms to the music. The cover band’s surprisingly good. “Oh, my love, my darling/ I hunger for your touch/ alone, lonely times.” My cheek rests on Dave’s chest. This is surprisingly comfortable, and the dancing is surprisingly easy. Mmm. He smells good. I snuggle closer to him, accidently moving the blanket off my feet. I cover them back up, and Dave spins me twice before dipping me. Mmm. That would be fun to do. My fingers play with the button on his shirt, and I hear a basketball game on the television.

K.C. wakes up fully and realizes that the taffeta gown is really a New York Knicks throw blanket over her jeans and t-shirt. “When did I how?” No, that didn’t come out right.

Dave smiles down at her. “You fell asleep on the way home about four hours ago.”

“I had weird dreams.”

 

Part 7

In the spring of their senior year of high school, Dave walked halfway down the stairs to get K.C. another cup of tea before he stopped in his tracks. His parents were dancing in the living room to Sam Cooke’s “Nothing Can Change This Love.” They hadn’t pulled out the old records in years, not since before the weeks-long fight about signing Dave’s older brother’s papers to go into the military academy three years ago. And now here they were, his mom’s hands resting on his dad’s shoulders; his dad’s breath flirting with the top strands of her hair. Dave watched this private moment for a few stanzas then turned to go back up the stairs. K.C.’s tea could wait.

Contentment settled over his face as he moved down the upstairs hall and into his bedroom doorway. K.C. had college informational packets spread out across his desk and bed. She’d been pre-accepted into several schools and sought after by many more. Months from now, she’d be barely fifteen and off to college. Up until that morning, he’d been petrified for her. Dave assumed they’d be going to separate places; he hadn’t even dared to apply to the Big Ten and Ivy League schools that were fighting for K.C. And the Russia trip almost a year ago and the two Habitat for Humanity weeks they did just outside New Orleans over the previous summer did anything but settle his nerves when it came to K.C. taking care of herself. Sure, she could outthink him in anything school related, but her street smarts had the naïve glow of a sheltered five-year-old. Dave shook his head in the doorway as he remembered their arguments over her “right” to go off on her own in New Orleans, followed a frantic call to his cell phone two hours later when K.C. realized she didn’t know where she was and had lost the paper saying where they were supposed to meet. Today, though, he found out she wouldn’t be going alone.

The half-dozen booklets on the bed represented colleges that K.C. was interested in and where Dave had been accepted—schools he hadn’t even applied for. And the five that she was staring at on the desk? He shook his head, still in disbelief. She’d secured full rides for both of them to them all.

This had been K.C.’s birthday present to Dave earlier in the afternoon. They’d celebrated with Dave’s family and a few friends—it being his eighteenth birthday, his parents had put a luncheon together. After lunch was the usual present opening—with gag gifts from a few guys on the team and you’re-a-man-now gifts from family. K.C. waited until last and then handed him a scrapbook of acceptance letters and scholarship offers. His future secured, he now only had to choose.

Thus his parents were dancing downstairs. Thus K.C. was pouring over which choices may be the best, now that she’d had his input. And thus Dave’s contentment. His K.C. had made sure they would stay together.

 

Part 8

Relieved of the heavy financial burden of Dave’s college education, his parents paid for visits to the colleges offering full rides. Visitation weekends consisted of a Friday basketball game; a Saturday plane or car ride of Mrs. Riley, Dave, and K.C. (whose father paid her way but never went nor asked which college they were visiting); and a missed Monday and Tuesday of school.

The trio knew what they were looking for.

Having already done her research, K.C. had two main questions: Was the school’s research innovative? Were specific professors willing to work one-on-one with undergraduate students?

Dave had three: Could a basketball player live in the honors dorms, away from the stereotypical parties (and closer to K.C., which even Dave’s mom knew was the real concern, even if K.C. did not)? Did the education program offer a number of classes on educational theory? What was the campus food like—a seemingly insignificant question until the fifth college trip, when the answer caused both K.C. and Dave to cross the otherwise appealing college off the list.

Mrs. Riley had questions of her own, mainly involving dorm, campus, and city safety measures and statistics. The answers crossed yet another college off of the list.

They were down to three possibilities and just two weeks before acceptances were due when Mrs. Riley saw K.C. in a setting would have never expected: two towns away, at a deposition regarding an appeal of a murder case.

“I know her,” Mrs. Riley, the stenographer, said to room when K.C. entered. She tried to catch K.C’s attention, but the teenager was busy highlighting a textbook. How was this child involved in this horrific case?  Lawyers conferred; Mrs. Riley was allowed to stay as long as she didn’t interrupt the process, and they began forthwith.

“State your full name for the record, please.”

“Samantha Anne Roberts. But I go by K.C.”

“What is your relationship to the defendant?”

“She is my mother.”

Mrs. Riley paused for a moment then kept typing.

“This is a deposition for her appeal. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my mother was convicted of the murder of my older brother, Kyle Boyd Dennison. It happened nine years ago. He was thirteen. He would have been 21 today, and 22 next month. A feminist group thinks she should be in a mental hospital or completely released.”

“You didn’t testify in the case eight years ago. Do you know why?”

“I was six. My dad thought the trial would traumatize me, and the prosecution had enough evidence without my testimony. I didn’t think I would be traumatized; I’m good at answering questions. But it wasn’t my choice. This time, Dad said it was up to me.”

Speaking of your father, what was your relationship with him before the day in question?

“You mean before my mother killed my brother. No need to avoid the words. We, Kyle and I, lived with our mother. Whenever Dad—my dad that is, we didn’t know whose Kyle’s was—whenever he came to town, he treated both Kyle and me to lunch and a movie. Sometimes, he’d also take us shopping. One time, Kyle didn’t have gym shoes that fit, and my only school uniform was stained. Dad came to town at least every other weekend. He wasn’t allowed to come into our apartment, but he’d see the living room when we opened the door to leave with him, and he was worried. He wanted to see us more, but he lived two towns away, and mother wouldn’t let us have overnights and Dad’s. Dad was great—”

“You weren’t allowed overnights? Was your dad untrustworthy?”

“My mother said that CPS said she had to know where we were at all times, and the easiest way to make that happen was for us to always be at home. She said that lunch and movies should be plenty; she never got that with her own father. But I don’t know what her father had to do with mine. I asked, but she never answered.”

After thirty minutes, the lawyers finally got to the main reason for the deposition: “Would you please describe what you remember from the day your mother allegedly killed your brother?”

“Dad was suing her for custody. Of both of us. When we came home from school that day, our mother was already yelling before we got inside. It was my fault, she said. If I hadn’t been born, and if I weren’t who I was, if I were just more normal, more like Kyle and more like her, Dad would let things be. I said I was glad someone wanted to make sure breakfast was on the table and my sheets were clean. We all were in the living room, and she walked away, into the kitchen. Kyle told me that was the wrong thing to say, but I didn’t understand why since it was the truth. He was reminding me that truth can sometimes provoke people to be angry when she came back into the room, waving an ice pick. ‘You stabbed me in the heart,’ she said. ‘It’s only fair that I do the same.’

K.C. stopped talking, and Mrs. Riley looked across the room at her. The young girl was staring straight ahead, obviously lost in thought. 

“Please continue,” a lawyer said. Mrs. Riley’s eyes closed; her fingers typed.

“I didn’t know what she meant. I never stabbed her. I know now that she was being metaphorical. But I didn’t understand. And she said, ‘Do the same.’ Didn’t that mean stab herself in the heart? Someone had to explain to me later that she meant ‘do the same to me,’ but I didn’t know that in the moment. So I didn’t know to protect myself. I should have known. Kyle, he knew.”

K.C. took two audible deep breaths. “Kyle and my mother both moved at the same time, he in front of me and her toward me. Then Kyle went absolutely still, and my mother started screaming. I don’t know what she was saying, but then she yanked away from Kyle, and I saw her holding the ice pick, now sticky with blood, and blood was spurting onto her yellow shirt. Kyle was still alive, still standing, and I somehow heard him mumble, “Run, Kitty-Cat,” before his body lurched at my mother, and they both fell into the wall, the living room wall. I was scared, and I ran out the front door. Kyle was still alive when I left. I didn’t think he was going to die. I didn’t think. I just did what he told me, and I ran.

“Later, the pathologist, Dr. Montgomery, explained arteries to me. She was impressed that Kyle spoke at all, let alone that he stopped our mother from coming after me. You see, the ice pick pierced his arterial wall, and Kyle bled out before I even reached the firehouse, which was two blocks away, which is where Kyle always told me to go if there was trouble. He said I could run there faster than I could get a neighbor to open a door, so it was better just to go straight there. Dr. Montgomery said there was no way I could have saved him because my mother would have killed me if I stayed home, and no one could have run to the fire station fast enough. No one. I checked, and she was right. The fastest person in the world could have run much faster than me because they have longer legs and years of training, but even they couldn’t have made it in time. I calculated the speed, but I don’t remember it. So there was nothing I could have done.”

Silence reverberated in the room until someone started clicking their pen and another person cleared her throat. Eventually, the lead lawyer continued the questions: “Ms. Roberts, what makes you certain that your Mom wanted you dead?”

Mrs. Riley typed for another hour while silently crying for K.C. and her deceased brother. At the end, the lawyers walked away with rounded shoulders, not getting the answers they had hoped for. Mrs. Riley came over to K.C. as quickly as possible. “Honey? Where is your father?”

K.C. tilted her head to the right, as she always did when a question confused her. “At work, of course.”

“Ooh, baby.” Mrs. Riley gave her a hug. “I’m so sorry he’s not here, sweetie.”

K.C. returned the hug, patting Mrs. Riley on the back as if she were the one who needed support. “It’s okay Mrs. Riley. He stays away from anything having to do with my mother. She—”

“Ms. Roberts, if you’d like a ride home, we are leaving now.”

Mrs. Riley didn’t let go of K.C. “No thank you, Jeffery. I will take her home. You’ve put her through enough today, wouldn’t you say?” She then steered K.C. away, and they walked out the door and then out of the courthouse.

They remained in silence until Mrs. Riley was turning the car out of the parking lot. She then said, “That must have been hard for you. It was hard for me, and I didn’t go through what you did. Why didn’t you ever tell us?”

“Ma’am, it was hard for you because you’ve never heard the story. But I’ve dealt with it. Beyond that, why discuss my mother? Why discuss Kyle? I loved him, yes. He’s gone, and my mother will hopefully never get out of prison.”

Mrs. Riley swallowed and nodded, accepting K.C.’s way of coping with the issue.

“That said, I’ve been thinking about those three schools that are left. They’re equal in so many ways, including opportunities for Dave and me, that now I think it comes down to where we’ll be comfortable. I think I would rather be at one of the two that’s in the city versus in the middle of nowhere. And even though Hartford is a small town, it at least is close to so much. That still rules in Dartmouth, which is good since it had the educational theory and policy focus that Dave wants. It also leaves the University of Michigan because Ann Arbor is just awash with things to discover, even if the rest of Michigan really isn’t. So we have a Big Ten school and an Ivy League school, both of which will let Dave play as a walk-on. And I don’t want to make this decision by myself, but I think I know which one we should choose.”

K.C. animatedly talked for the rest of their ride to the Riley house. Every Wednesday for the past two years had ended with the Rileys and K.C. eating dinner together, and tonight would be no different.

 

Part 9

 "So, I graduated yesterday. See, I brought the tassel. As if the ground and the casket and six feet of dirt are see-through. I don't know why I brought it, why people say I'm supposed to. But it does feel right. Weird. I was supposedly valedictorian, but I turned it down. I said that someone who'd been with the class all of the way through should do that. And Dad watched me walk.  He was excited. He carried a camera and smiled in pictures and everything. It was weird. I didn't know what to do. He and I haven't smiled much around each other in the past ten years.  Maybe we have so much sad to wade through that smiling just isn't worth the effort.

"Anyway, Dave said I need to let you be a part of the celebration. He said you would have been the proudest one when I crossed the stage.  Dave and his mom, they’ve asked about you a lot.  What you liked to eat, why you taught me your math, how old you were when you started taking care of me. They seem to love you as much as, well no, I guess if you put them both together, that sum would be close to how much Dad or I love you.  We both still do.  Dad keeps your picture in his wallet. It's one of you and me, the first time you got to hold me.  I wasn't even a week old, and you have this huge grin on your face, all excited that you've been deemed big enough to pose with this wriggling newborn.  That's what I thought, and then Dad told me last year you were smiling about something else.  It seems I was fussing that day. A lot. Mother set me down on the floor for a minute to get some peace, and she came back five minutes later, freaking out because she couldn't hear me crying and thought I'd suffocated myself.  Instead, there you were, holding me, and beaming away because you'd quieted me when she couldn't. Mother took the picture because she was—and here Dad said is a direct quote—'so proud of her baby boy and wanted proof of how good he was to such an ungrateful little girl.' I think Dad was trying to show me that Mother was unreasonable even then. That I never would live up to her expectations or make her happy.

"Dave also said that I need to come talk to you because we'll be leaving soon. I might as well be talking to the branch on your neighbor's headstone. It'll give me the same kind of response. But Nietzsche said "God is dead" and look at all of the people who still talk to him. They bow their heads at the ground, like I'm doing, and they talk to the guy who’s supposedly upstairs, like you. Look down to talk up. These things really don't make sense.

“We're going to college in a few months, and Dad gave me my graduation present yesterday.  He got Mr. and Mrs. Riley's permission, and he's sending the two of us to stay with his cousin, my second cousin whom I never met, in Germany for a whole month. A month in Germany!  I guess the cousin is a, oh, what did he call it, a career man in the military, and he's been stationed there for five years or so now.  Our passports are still set from the Russia trip, and the cousin is putting us up, so our parents just had to pay for the plane tickets and some food and spending money.

"So, yeah. Dave said I needed to say good-bye to you. So I'm talking to something non-corporeal that has no cognition of what's going on on this plane, from what I can tell at least. Doesn’t seem to matter where I say good-bye considering that, so I don’t know why I had to come here.

"Lots of silly, stupid things matter.  Like the fact that Dave doesn't want to live with the basketball team because he wants to be with me in the honors dorm.  And like the fact that it snows a lot in Ann Arbor and my feet get cold really easily.  I see that mattering. I just can't imagine an hour of taking notes with cold, wet feet.

"And that crinkle in your nose that you got when Mother got home faster than you expected. It seems to matter that I remember that crinkle.  I didn't have time to see that crinkle that day. Not to see the crinkle, not to finish playing tag—you were it—, not to know what to do when I no longer saw the blade. We walked in the house, Mother was so upset, and I didn't see the crinkle, and then I couldn't see the blade.

"I love you, Kyle. And I still don't know why you did it, why you sacrificed yourself for me.

"But I love you. And I thank you.  I got to graduate yesterday. And in three days, I get to go to Germany with my best friend. And then we're off to a whole new state, college, and climate. Because of you, I got to walk across a stage, get step onto a plane, and have to suffer through wet, cold feet in class.

"Thank you."

K.C. laid the tassel on the ground, shook her head at herself for doing so, and walked away.

 

Part 10

Dave was preparing to graduate with a master’s degree from the University of Michigan. K.C. was finishing her second year of Ph.D. work from the same school. Other schools had accepted K.C. into their programs, but K.C. did not like change. She’d lived in the same house since her second semester of freshman year, after not acclimating to dorm life. On Mondays, she walked to the People’s Food Co-op, grocery shopped, and spent her afternoon preparing hard-boiled eggs, salads, and casseroles for her week. Tuesdays through Thursdays were for classes and library research. Fridays and Saturdays were for writing chapters of her dissertation; Fridays also were movie nights, and Saturdays also were AAPL sciences classes. And Sundays were her days for curling up on the couch and reading Russian poets, philosophers, and novelists, for pleasure. They were also the days for her weekly check-ins with her dad.

On one such Sunday, Dave checked his school email and read his acceptance letter into the school’s Ph.D. program in Education and Psychology. Minutes later, he was pacing in K.C.’s living room as she finished her call with her dad.

“I just don’t get it. They’re giving me a full ride again. No grad assistantships, just everything paid for. Why?”

K.C. set down her cell phone and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Dave, don’t.”

“Still, Kace? I realize the extent of the work you had to do in high school, how much you had to do to get me scholarships to all those schools. My shoulder goes out in senior year, and I still have a full ride here? I was too scared to question it. Master’s degree. They give me a graduate assistantship and a stipend. And now the Ph.D.? You fixed that, too?”

She sat quietly, watching him. And she quietly answered. “No.”

Dave, however, was not so quiet. “What do you mean, ‘no’? How in the hell do you explain this?”

“Easy. You earned it.” K.C. stood, and while her voice didn’t get louder, it did get quite emphatic. “You’re smart, focused, and diligent. You applying for your master’s degree? I was working on two master’s degrees: physics and philosophy. And while you were applying for the Ph.D. program that you’re shocked you were accepted into, I was doing my second year in mine and fighting tooth and nail to get them to let me do my research.”

“I was a basketball player.”

“High school? You’re upset about high school? You were going to be a walk-on here, Dave. None of the scholarships that I found you were athletic. How did you not know that?”

“I was a star player!”

“Yeah. Of an small academic school.”

“YOU were the academic star. I was just—

“A straight-A student? With stellar extra-curriculars?”

“Because of you! You saying I wasn’t good enough for a basketball scholarship?”

“You were not. Not for the schools we were applying to.”

“Fuck you. How dare you fucking say that? What the fuck is wrong with you anyway?”

K.C. tilted her head. She was just answering his questions, and he was getting madder and madder. And how did he not know these things already? She was about to ask when Dave walked to the front door and slammed it behind him. Standing up, K.C. moved to her desk and turned to her notebook on the connections between Sagan and Nietzsche. A teardrop fell onto the page. When was the last time she cried?

What just happened? She didn’t understand.

 

Part 11

Three days after storming out of K.C’s house, Dave felt her hand. He swore he felt her hand. And he sighed, resigned. It was another Friday night and another movie at the old theater house that showed the double features that Dave and K.C. went to see every Friday. Tonight was different, though; K.C. wasn’t there. This affable man thought he’d mend fences with his strong-willed woman at the theater tonight, and the significance of K.C. not being there wasn’t lost on Dave. He let the extra ticket fall through his fingers.

Such was their relationship that Dave wasn’t ready to deal with messy ideas like blame and regret; he’d just always known that K.C. was there and was his, and he was thankful for her friendship. Dave wasn’t ready to anger her or lose her, so for years he swallowed his layered doubts and enjoyed each moment that he was lucky enough to be in her world.

How long can relationships last like that, though? How long could Dave ignore the ache he felt when she took him for granted, expecting him to be there when she needed him, assuming he would continually pick up whatever fell in her wake? And how long could Dave deny the “I resent this” that scratched his throat or suppress the screams that he wanted stir her to consciousness?

And at the end of the second movie, Dave released his breath. She hadn’t come. She always came. And he bit back a silent protest, crushed at the realization. It was another Friday night of leaving the old theater house and walking two blocks down the well-lit city street to the only late-night restaurant whose comfort food was healthy enough to muster K.C.’s affection, only to realize that he wasn’t hungry. A strong-willed woman and an affable man. The futility of it all was not lost on Dave. He wistfully fantasized about living with K.C., in love, gave a bittersweet smile to his lively ruminations, and … And.

 

K.C., Part 1

Dave,

I sat to write down my feelings, like I did as a kid, before I could just talk them out with you. I was going to write about missing you coming over with Zingerman’s and teaching our library kids without you yesterday. Four days. That’s the longest we’ve gone without talking since that girlfriend you had freshman year, the one who got all jealous about our friendship.

Anyway, I sat down to write and couldn’t. The oddest thing kept happening; I kept thinking “I miss Kyle.” I was going to write about missing you, but it was Kyle’s name that was begging to be put down in ink.

I remember when your mom and I told you about Kyle and my mother over dinner, that day of the deposition, and you had known a silhouette of the details but had never pushed. Your mom said my real name was Samantha and asked whether you all should start calling me that, or Sam. “Only my mother, who still wants me dead, called me Samantha” was all I could say, and you all looked stricken. Like you weren’t sure what to do or say next. Like you weren’t sure who I was. I pretended not to notice, but I did.

But you had your brother, away in the military, but still alive, and your parents were together and loved each other and you. Of course you didn’t understand.

I really do miss Kyle. I was never different in his eyes.

We used to do our homework together. Mom would be out on dates or at work or, I don’t know, somewhere, and Kyle and I would put our stuff on the coffee table, sit on the floor, and watch reruns of Murder, She Wrote and Matlock while doing homework. We’d do my homework first, coloring in number pictures and spelling small words. Then we’d do his homework together. He’d teach me about mass and matter while studying for science, using whatever was around us for examples. And he’d have me read his history chapters out loud to him, saying he liked to visualize what was happening, though I think he just wanted me to work through the bigger words.

I guess Kyle did for me what I did for you in high school. You and I would work on your algebra together then I’d have you help me with my trig or my calculus. We’d work on your Russian verbs and then you’d read to me from The Master and Margarita. Maybe I never realized that you thought I was dumbing things down for you. I don’t know why you would think that. Just like I was holding my own with a twelve-year-old’s homework when I was six, you were holding your own with my homework. You were even helping me at times. Derivatives and integrals in calculus? I wouldn’t have gotten them so quickly without you.

Kyle used to say the same thing to me, but about grammar. Semicolons were his derivatives. But we’d read the exercises together and figure it out, just like you and me.

I never thought of you and Kyle being alike, you know. But you both protected me and accepted me, you both … you both … And now you both may gone. Is that right? Is our friendship ending? And, of all things, is it ending over things that have been left unsaid? I never knew you were so sure that your successes were due to me. That I paved the way or something. You must have been resenting me for years.

Dave, what am I going to do without you? What am I going to do if you don’t walk through my door again, if you decide not to take the Ph.D. just because it’s exactly what you wanted and thus must be too good to be true?

I know my mind works faster than yours. It works faster than most. But I didn’t think it would come between us. I mean, you never said anything. You never said ANYTHING. Not until Tuesday. How could you have left so many things unsaid for so long? This isn’t like me telling you about Kyle and my mother. They were out of my life before you came in it. This was you not telling me what you felt about ME.

How much else do I not know? What else did you not share? Will you ever? Or is this the way it is now? Absence and silence.

No, that’s the way it was then, too. Wasn’t it. You were silent before Tuesday, too.

K.C. looked at the email. She could send it to him, but for what purpose? So he could yell at her some more, say it’s her fault for not understanding things he never said? K.C. was used to getting such treatment from neighbors and classmates, even professors. But not Dave.

She deleted the email, turned out the living room lights, and started to get ready for bed.

 

K.C., Part 2

Two months later, K.C. celebrated her birthday by herself. She walked down South Main to Cherry Republic, where she bought two bottles of cherry wine: a Moscato and a Riesling. And a bottle opener. And mild cherry salsa. And some Cherry Crème Honey. Once home, she poured the Moscato into a tumbler, slathered some of the new honey on a couple pieces of toast, and turned on Miles Davis’s album Kind of Blue. Half of a bottle later, she didn’t know whether she was awake or asleep, talking out loud or thinking loudly.

In dreams he came, in dreams he came. I should really get some sleep. But he comes when I’m sleeping. He sits at my desk. And then, in the morning, I cry. So no sleep tonight, no sleep tonight. I’ll be awake. He won’t come, but if he does, I’ll be awake.

K.C. sashayed into her bedroom and flipped on the overhead light, blinding herself.

“And what will I say, what will I say?  What will I do? I don’t know what to do.  I just don’t. It’s Dave. I mean, it’s Dave.  But I can’t sleep because Dave has my key” and he lets himself in even months after we spoke.   I used to love him. I might still. “Not the same, of course, but still.”

K.C. looked at the mirror over her dresser, surprised to just see herself. But we are not K.C. and Dave anymore.  We are not. He is him and I am me. “He just can’t have a key anymore he can’t. Can’t.” She nodded her head for emphasis.

Okay. Awake tonight and key tomorrow. K.C. attempted to take off her jeans. One leg wouldn’t budge, and she fell onto her bed. So. Tonight. Tonight God comes into my dissertation. He must. Metaphysics and physics and philosophy. I must mention whether Nietzsche killed God or God killed Nietzsche. She finished taking her jeans off, forgot what was next, then found her pajamas—underneath her.

“Bible. New International Version.”  Dr. Gessinger said it was one of the best. But where to start. Where is it that the sun stops? Or go backwards. One of them! That would be a good thing. That would fit. K.C. fished out her pajama pants and struggled to put them on, frustrated with both the pants and her line of thinking. “But it’s also been done. I don’t want to be that person. Don’t want my writing to be that.” But, well, I don’t know the Bible. Mother did.  Mother did.  But she also killed Kyle. “Yeah, that juxtaposition never sat well.” She put her pajama shirt on over her blouse. “That’s wrong.” She tugged them both off. How about Genesis. Eve. And some people, who mentioned that there might have been another woman. Another woman. “Oh yes!” Success in thought and in pajamas. Sarah McLaughlin had a music festival named after her. Lilith Fair. Lilith. Adam’s first wife.

Let me see, let me see. K.C. walked back to the living room, turned on the desk lamp, and found the NIV Bible in one of her stacks of books. She flipped pages and skimmed until she came upon Genesis 2:22-23. “Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called “woman,” for she was taken out of man.’” Okay. God has a rib and makes a woman. No stem cells there, nor sperm, but okay.  That’s Eve. But flip a page forward. She flipped the page forward. Genesis 1 … Genesis 1:27, middle of the sixth day, it says “So god created man in his own image, in the image of God he reateed him; male and female he created them.” So that’s Lilith, right? Lilith who was made at the same time and who was equal.

Tired. Me and these ideas. Tired.

K.C. flipped through the pages and found “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” That’s pretty.  But they’re just words.

Dave gave me words. For years, I had his word.  Then he walked away while I cried. What is more important? The words or the action? And this book? I have more than two thousand pages of words. But they are just words. Is the proof in the locusts and famines? Is it in the killed first sons or in Job’s loss of everything due to God and Satan gambling? Where are the actions that show God is better than Dave? Where in these two thousand pages is a reason to … reason.  I just need a reason.

How’d I start thinking about Dave and God in the same sentence? And why is it that the wrong one has the key? I can’t sleep tonight. And this book isn’t working for me.  New book now. New locks tomorrow. 

 

K.C., Part 3

I want to be a better person. 

K.C. looked at the seven words she had written in her journal. A better person. The sentence resonated with her. It was real. She could be better. But. But. 

But wasn’t she enough as she was? She’d just spent the summer learning how to truly survive on her own. For the first time, there was no Dave, no dad, just K.C. and her work. She did two weeks of working at her desk for 36 hours at a time before setting her cell phone to go off at 10 p.m. each night as an warning that she had a hour left, and again at 11 p.m. for her what she called her “all hands off desk.” A regular sleep cycle—she’d never had one until she couldn’t rely on someone else to wake her up or put her to bed. 

She would be published in three academic journals this year, and she would be presenting at four national conferences. Wasn’t that enough? Didn’t that prove her worth? 

She looked down at the page. “I want to be a better person.” The words looked back at her, accused her of not living up to her potential all of these years. And then she looked at the elephant in the room: the envelope. Two mornings ago, she’d woken up to see this envelope on her desk chair. The “K.C.” on the front was in Dave’s handwriting. The envelope was thick. At least four pages were folded inside. A letter? They hadn’t talked since he’d stormed out. She’d thought about it. She’d dialed without pressing send, written emails without hitting submit, walked to his door without knocking. Two days ago, after four months of silence, Dave silently slipped her a letter. 

And K.C.? She couldn’t open it. A better person would. She closed her eyes, a tears finding their way out of the corner of her eye yet again. A better person would. 

But she just couldn’t. 

 

Dave, Part 1

Dave felt guilty using the key again. He’d used it several times over the summer, making sure K.C.’s dishes were done or garbage was emptied, but this was the first time he’d used the key since the letter.  It’d been a week with no response.  And while he couldn’t bring himself to knock, he did have a key.

After quietly walking to the u-shaped desk, Dave turned on the small desk lamp, the one he’d bought her for Christmas three years ago, and saw the envelope on top of a pile in the corner of her desk.  It was unopened. 

Did K.C. really care that little?  Did his words mean nothing to her anymore?  True, they no longer spoke every day—well, they no longer spoke period—but Dave thought that he would still matter to her.  He didn’t expect K.C. to notice all of the little things he’d still been doing for her, didn’t expect her to know that she was ever on his mind, but he did expect … he did assume … that he meant something to her, that their years of friendship hadn’t been cast aside so quickly.

Dave sat in the desk chair, staring at the letter that wouldn’t have solved everything but at least would have explained so much.  Maybe the fact that she didn’t read it didn’t mean what he thought.  Maybe she was saving it for a time she could devote her energies to it.  Maybe she … no.  It’d been a week.  Nothing made her conscious decision not to acknowledge his efforts okay. 

Dave ran his hands over the worn lines of the old desk.  He missed K.C.  With every breath, he missed her.  And, yes, he’d been silent for a summer, but it’d taken that long for him to understand his own emotions and responsibilities.  And while Dave still wasn’t sure that two plus two didn’t equal five, he did know that he missed his K.C. and wanted her back in his life.  He knew that his pride wasn’t worth her absence. 

Dave reached out, fingered the envelope with his handwriting on it.  He also knew that he was worth more than what she was giving him.  He was worth the time it took to read four pages, to respond in kind—or even in brevity. 

Now he had more to weigh.  He would swallow his pride for her.  He would beg her to be in his life again.  But if she wouldn’t even read his words?  What then?  What now?

 

Part 12

“Hey, little girl, is your daddy home; did he go and leave you all alone? All alone.  I got a bad desire. O-o-oh, I’m on fire.  And tell me now, baby, is he good to you? And can he do to you the things I won’t do to please you?  I can take you higher.  O-o-oh, I’m on fire.”

“Dave, I don’t understand this song. Who’s talking? And what kind of things would a dad do to please his daughter that are the same that this guy would do? I mean, isn’t that sick? And “little girl” and “baby” also … I mean, is this a pedophile singing?”

“K.C., just shut up and dance, will you?”  Dave spun her around once, watching her semi-formal dress collect rainbows from the disco ball overhead.

K.C. complied with half of the request.  Head on his shoulder, she kept talking close to his ear.  “Seriously, though.  What am I missing? ‘At times I wake up with the sheets soaking wet.’ Well, that could be from three main things, right? Is he thinking about this little girl in his sleep? And then telling us that he’s having such dreams?  I mean, who would be crazy enough to admit he even wrote this song?”

Dave smiled, bemused, and maneuvered them out of the way of a group of girls walking through the dance floor, from tables to punchbowl.  As he did so, the now-former point guard caught Dave’s eye, making kissy faces.  The basketball team had been hounding Dave for three seasons now, waiting to see proof that K.C. and Dave were an item, something they all “knew” to be the case since Dave never looked at anyone else and refused to let any of the guys date K.C.  Dave rolled his eyes at Bobby, turned on the floor again, and then realized K.C. was still talking about the Bruce Springsteen song.

“—get the fact that some guys are all about taking away innocence and ‘conquering’ the woman—or girl in this case, as if people could be some kind of conquest to begin with, but I don’t understand why that is? I mean, do some guys need that in order to feel manly? Do they need to have power over the person they’re with?  Do they not realize that they’re no longer in a give-and-take, mutually-respectful relationship if they need to have power over the other person?  And this guy, the one in the song, he wakes up ‘with the sheets soaking wet,’ he says only this little girl ‘can fill his desire,’ and he’s saying that he craves the power over this innocent little thing, right? That he wants her to do his bidding.  Well, maybe not to do his bidding, not in the, ‘Go get me a beer’ kind of way, but that he wants to take her from the daddy who isn’t satisfying her the way he could, and he wants to satisfy her. Yeah, right. He wants to satisfy himself.  Even that supposed interest in taking her higher is all about what he can do. What he can manipulate.  We stopped. Is the song over?  Oh, it is.” 

K.C. took a step out of Dave’s arms, turned to survey the rest of the ballroom, and watched as other prom-goers left the dance floor.  Then she looked back at Dave and tilted her head, obviously confused.

He put a hand on her sequined shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Why isn’t anyone else bothered by this?”

 

Part 13

Dave was … he was devastated, confused, heartbroken. While Dave sat at her desk, staring at the envelope, a sleepy K.C. was standing in the doorway with hands rubbing her eyes then running through her hair, trying to decide whether she was awake and whether Dave actually was sitting in her living room.

K.C. rubbed her eyes again. It was 2 a.m. She was too tired to care. She padded barefoot to the desk, giving Dave a start when she silently reached for his hand. He was so mad, so confused. Yet he put his hand in hers and let her lead him down the dark hall and into the bedroom. K.C. climbed back inside the bed, pulled Dave down next to her, drew the covers over both of them, and snuggled into his side. In moments K.C. was asleep again. And Dave, despite being mad and confused, brushed her hair off of her face and put an arm around her. Soon the anger melted and the confusion didn’t matter. And then he was asleep, too. 

 

Part 14

When K.C. and Dave would look back on the next morning, both would remember the impossible—that they awoke mid argument, K.C. pushing herself out of Dave’s embrace.

“I couldn’t read it. Couldn’t. I wanted to. But what if it said something else I didn’t know you thought about me? What if you blamed me for more than your acceptance letter? What if it said good-bye? And I needed to know how I would feel about these things. I needed to know what my response would be.”

“You had to control the situation, you mean?”

K.C. kicked at the blankets. “Ugh.” She climbed out of the bed and turned to face Dave, who was now sitting up against the headboard. “What control? What are you talking about? I didn’t know you felt—I didn’t know you resented me until the last time we talked. I didn’t know you wouldn’t come back. That you’d be gone a whole fucking” Dave’s eyes widened “Yes, I said ‘fucking,’ I do that now—a whole fucking summer. What was that about? And then you write a letter, let yourself in, and expect me to drop everything, read it, and respond? Who’s trying to control things, Dave? Who?”

“Expecting you to respond isn’t control, K.C. It’s assuming that you’d give me that respect.”

“Respect? Respect? Like you creeping into my place, was it twice? Like you taking out my garbage—yes, I know, I’m not that oblivious—but refusing to talk to me? Like you resenting me for years without giving me the chance to respond or even know about your feelings? That kind of respect? What else did you keep from me?”

Dave started to get up. K.C. saw that, sometime during the night, his pants and socks had been discarded, and he now stood in his boxers and t-shirt. “K.C., I—”

“No. You don’t get to ‘K.C. I.’ And you don’t get to leave letters. And you don’t get to show up unannounced in the middle of the night. You gave up all of that. You gave up those rights. You.”

Silence fumed, lashed across the room with comments that remained behind clenched jaws. Dave took in the scene. K.C. looked ready to pounce over the bed and rake out his eyes, yet her hands were trembling, and, well, she was standing in pajamas with Snow White’s Doc on them, ones he’d bought a lifetime ago. He saw himself all over the room. Little gifts he’d given her, little keepsakes, pictures of them together. She hadn’t changed a thing since he was last here, except for an empty wine bottle or two. Those were definitely new. Then Dave looked back at her furious eyes and set jaw. She’d changed, though. He’d never seen this emotion in her. Dave shook his head and let out a deep breath, then did it again.

“I didn’t give up.” Just that statement. Quiet, exposed. And hollow. The both knew it wasn’t true, even if Dave wanted it to be.

It was enough to make K.C. come undone. Dave watched from the other side of the bed as her jaw unclenched and she tried twice to speak. Then her eyes closed and chin moved to her chest. He saw K.C.’s chin quiver and her hand move to the bed, stabilizing her as she turned to sit on the bed with her back now to him. And while he couldn’t see or hear her tears, Dave knew K.C., knew that she was crying and doing her best to hide it. He’d watched her hide tears from other people before, but always other people. Never him. 

Dave silently got dressed and let himself out. He’d give her time to get herself together. They’d talk tomorrow.

 

Part 15

K.C. shut her locker. “I don’t like sports.”

Sighing loudly, Dave banged his forehead on his locker and said, “It isn’t ‘sports.’ It’s me. Playing basketball.”

K.C. tilted her head. “Basketball is a sport.”

Dave was still facing his locker when he said, “I went to Russia with you, and you can’t even come to a basketball game for me?” He then turned to face K.C. as her head tilted.

“You didn’t want to go to Russia?”

“That’s not the point.”

“How is that not the point?”

Dave’s voice carried down the crowded hallway as he replied in exasperation. “How do you not understand? It’s a basketball game. They’re fun. People cheer from the stands. You’ll have fun. You’ll get to see me play.”

“I’ve been to most of your practices. I’ve seen you play.” K.C.’s voice remained calm and modulated, which only upset Dave further. He slammed his books on the floor.

“You do homework while I practice. That’s not the same!”

K.C. looked at the books all askew then looked down the hallway. People were watching. Why was Dave so angry? She took a deep breath. “I don’t enjoy basketball. I don’t enjoy crowds. I hate loud noises.”

“I know.”

“So why do you keep asking me to go? And why do you think I’ll have fun?”

“Because maybe it isn’t always about you.” At this point, Dave was yelling.

K.C. thought about yelling, too, but didn’t think it’d get her anywhere. She was frustrated with the whole conversation. “Why do you think I go to your practices? To learn how to play? I’m there to support you.”

“While you do homework.”

“You want me to sit on my hands, silent, and watch you run up and down the court?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Maybe I should give up my college plans and start knitting baby booties during your games.”

“I give up. Don’t come.” Dave started walking away, leaving his books on the floor.

K.C. spoke under her breath, not sure Dave would hear her and not caring either way. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

 

Part 16

K.C. rang the doorbell at Dave’s house, and he answered it moments later with surprise on his face. “What are you doing here?”

“We always have dinner at your house on Wednesdays. It is Wednesday, right?”

“Yeah, but we had a fight.”

“I know. But it’s Wednesday.”

Dave held open the door. She was right, of course. It was Wednesday.

 

K.C., Part 4

K.C. called the locksmith two hours after he left. Paying a stranger to change her locks was easier than asking Dave for his key. They just weren’t K.C. and Dave anymore. She wanted them to be. Wanted things to be back to normal. And, truth be told, she’d hoped they would be when she saw him the other night. She’d hoped that she’d wake up in the morning and he’d have Zingerman’s waiting for her. But he didn’t.

 

Dave’s Final Part

Dave walked from Zingerman’s with the order he hadn’t held in months. He wanted to apologize to K.C. and find a way to make it up to her. Coffee and croissants seemed like the place to start. But when he turned the corner, he saw a van in her driveway and someone changing the lock on her front door.

Years later, Dave would pinpoint that moment as one that changed his life. He knew—knew in a way that was visceral and complete—that walking away the day before meant he’d walked away from his last chance. He’d waited too long, he’d left too much unsaid, and he’d assumed even more. Dave couldn’t do that anymore. He walked past her house, his stomach sinking with every step, and entered his own apartment.

The next decision was surprisingly easy. He started packing. Dave had spent the summer conflicted about whether to start his Ph.D. or move on, and move on it would be.

 

K.C.’s Final Part

After the locksmith was done, K.C. was emotionally exhausted; she quickly fell asleep on top of her bedcovers. And when she woke up as the sun was going down, she didn’t look for Zingerman’s. She didn’t look for Dave. She’d already put his pictures in a drawer the night before.

Instead, K.C. made herself a pot of tea and sat in front of her laptop. After a summer with no distractions, the first draft of her dissertation was finished.  It was time to celebrate.