Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 90887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
I sing without looking at her, weaving the words and guitar melody to create something sad and beautiful. The breeze carries away some of the notes, and I'm glad. The song is sad, conjuring loneliness and times past. Things that can't be undone, and as I'm singing it, I wonder how I'll feel tomorrow when this night is over, and there is no going back.
Sometimes I hate looking forward to things. I hate the anticipation and the longing because I know that once I've stepped through the door of the experience that the other side will be darker and lesser. What will it be like to step into Kyla's sunshine and have to walk tomorrow without it?
Sentimentality is something I try to push aside. I'm a person who wants to live in truth, not swamp myself in thoughts of what might be or could have been. I want to dwell in what is.
And this night with Kyla is what is. What happens after won't be changed by what happens tonight. At least, that's what I tell myself.
Tonight I get a chance to show her something new. She gets to experience me, and I get to experience her. It's like a dance.
Another Civil Wars song flits into my mind: it's a cover of a Leonard Cohen song. Dance me to the end of love.
Is that how I'll feel at the end of tonight? Kyla's not a girl who'd be easy to forget. She's the kind of girl who reaches into your chest and wraps her slender fingers around your heart to cradle rather than wound.
She's the kind of girl that any one of us should have been looking to love rather than fuck.
But this game was my idea. My idea before I'd realized who and what Kyla is, before I understood what she could become.
I know my brother feels the same. I told him I didn't want to know about his night or anyone else's. I didn't want the knowledge to taint my own. But I can see that they're changed by the time they've spent with Kyla. There's warmth in their eyes when they look at her, and effort in all their interactions.
But even if we all wanted her, what good would that do any of us?
Kyla could choose, I suppose, but that wouldn't be fair. The ones who didn't get picked would spend the rest of their lives wondering what we could have done better. Maybe Kyla would regret her choice at some point too. It would end up a giant and confusing mess.
No, we're in this game, and it has an expiration date, and there is nothing I can do about it.
As the song comes to an end, I finally look up and find a single tear leaking down Kyla's soft cheek.
She uses the back of her hand to swipe it away quickly as though she's embarrassed to be so affected. But I've seen that music can touch her, and now I want her even more. To diffuse the charged atmosphere, I pick up my kebab and take a big bite. Kyla does the same, but the thoughtfulness I sense from her lingers.
So I tell her about some embarrassing stories from our teenage years like when Carl got caught balls-deep in his neighbor by her father and had to run home without his pants and underwear. Or the time that Niall and Nash drew Noah a mustache with a permanent marker the day before his big date with the head cheerleader. And when I and Lex pretended to be each other so we could share each other's girlfriends; it backfired because they realized and dumped us both. "Justice," Kyla remarks, and I nod my agreement.
“What about Kole and Kase? I want a funny story about them too!"
"They've always been trouble," I tell her. "What about the time they met an older woman at a nightclub, went back to her place, and in the morning saw framed pictures of their momma in her house?"
"What?"
"The woman was their mom's best friend in college. She'd only just moved into town, and they hadn't been formally introduced. I still don't think their mom has found out, which is a good thing. No one wants to find out that kind of thing about their sons and their BFF."
"Oh my God. You guys are all terrible."
"Were terrible," I say. "All very past tense."
"So what is this?" she asks, waving her free hand between us. "Isn't it more of the same? Won't you all be sharing funny anecdotes about this game with each other in the future?"
"No way," I say. "This isn't anything like those stories. This is grown-up shit."
"Grown-up? How is having one-night stands grown up? Isn't this the kind of thing we should have stopped down in our teens?"
"One-night stands?" I guess I'd never seen what we're doing in that way. It's not like we're never going to see each other again. The thought of never seeing Kyla after tonight makes my stomach clench.