“Keira?” He raised up on the bed, holding her face as I pushed the call button. “Wildcat…no, don’t take off the mask,” he told her moving her hands away from the oxygen mask. “Baby…”
She seemed to realize, then, that she was in the hospital. She stopped fumbling at the mask, and instead started to look around. When she saw me, she feebly tried to offer her hand to me, and I quickly crossed the room to gather it into my own. We had a few moments to hold her, for Dad to kiss her gently before her room filled up with medical personnel. There was activity then, lots of it—the quick action of the two nurses coming in to check on her, followed by a doctor who questioned Mom quietly, calmly, and then spoke to Dad after his examination. And then, when she was more alert, stronger, and sitting up in her bed, we had a visitor.
My baby sister was tiny, much smaller than Koa had been. Still, watching my father hold her against Mom’s chest, I thought that she fit so easily, so naturally into the ohana my parents had built.
“Makana,” Dad said, holding her like she was made of glass, like he had never seen anything like her before. “Keira because she is beautiful. Makana because she is a gift.”
And Keira Makana Riley-Hale, that precious baby with the mouthful name and beautiful caramel skin like mine, like my little brother’s, held our father’s finger with the tightest grip and leaned against my mother’s mouth when she kissed that tiny cheek.
My mother hadn’t simply been there to pick up my father’s broken pieces. She’d been the one to hold his heart in her hands so that the children she gave him, the light she put back into his life covered him, filled him with love so thick he would happily have drown in it.
Until that day when my mother teetered so close to death I had not fully understood what had drawn my parents together all those years ago. Now I did. It wasn’t just love. It was the potential of who they’d become together.
It was the same potential I’d squandered that day with Aly when I stupidly told my father I’d never love anyone like I had Emily. It was those careless words that had Aly retreating, disappearing from the hospital.
I couldn’t take back those words, but I could try, I hoped, to recapture the potential of us, if she’d let me.
I had to try.
24 February, 2014
Leann had the loft cleaned and still there were scuffs on the floor and peeling paint on the baseboards. I didn’t care. Wal-Mart sold poor-choice paint colors customers returned that I could have remixed for very little. The Dollar Store had sponge brushes that would cost me pennies. This place, though small, though a little spartan, I could make all mine.
“Hey,” I heard behind me, figuring that the voice belonged to the cousin Leann said would be stopping by with a used mattress.
I didn’t bother to greet him, and pointed toward the back of the loft. “Over there is fine.” He came inside, dragging the mattress on the floor. It wasn’t until it was down and against the wall that I noticed him.
He couldn’t be sixteen, like she’d mentioned. No way. Those shoulders were far too broad, those arms too big for someone whose body was still figuring out how big or small it wanted to be.
“There,” he said, turning around with a warm, friendly smile on his face. And when I could only manage to stare back at that beautiful face, the smile disappeared. “Um,” Ransom rubbed the back of his neck like he was uncomfortable with my staring, like, ridiculously, he wasn’t used to it, and I shook myself for being a weirdo.
“So…sorry.” I walked to the door, waiting for him to follow, a little anxious that he was in my room, more embarrassed that his smile had rendered me stupid. But he was busy looking around the loft, to the small kitchenette with brand new appliances and the smaller laundry closet to right.
“It’s just gonna be you living here?” he asked, his gaze still moving up the walls and to the window air conditioning unit Leann told me she’d picked up from Sears.
“Just me.” My God, he was beautiful. There really wasn’t any other adjective worthy enough to describe him. Skin darker than mine, perfect, absolutely perfect cheekbones and those eyes? Me zanmi they were black. Black and big and very intense.
“You don’t have any furniture?” He stepped toward me and I managed to lower my eyes away from his face, hoping he didn’t see the blush rising in my cheeks. Didn’t want to, I wanted to keep looking at him, but I figured he wouldn’t appreciate being gawked at by some girl he didn’t know. “Leann said you didn’t bring much with you.” Another head shake and that friendly smile of Ransom’s took on a different expression, like maybe he thought I was a little slow or something. “We have a bedframe at my folks’ place. It’s just a metal frame, but it’ll keep the mattress off the floor.” He moved his head then snapped his fingers as though something had just unlodged from his memory. “In fact there’s an extra bedroom set in the attic. Headboard and all. I can bring it back here for you tonight if you want.”
“Non. Don’t do that,” I said, forgetting how flustered he made me as I gazed at him again. I didn’t need anything. I would manage just fine on my own. “Leann has done enough and I don’t want to be any trouble.” I barely breathed when Ransom frowned, feeling stupid, somehow sorry that I’d turned down his offer. I wouldn’t have minded a few more minutes watching him lifting heavy things. Then I blinked, trying to get myself, and my libido under control. This guy was nice, generous and I ogled him like a teenage boy with his first boner.
Just then, Ransom’s smile widened and he crossed his arms. “I get that, really. You wanna do this without help.” When I only stared back, silent, he laughed. “Listen, you’re talking to a guy who was raised by a bad ass. I recognize one when I see one. You being here, getting out on your own with no help, that’s bad ass behavior.” Ransom lifted his chin. “I respect the hell out of that, but sometimes, it’s okay to take help when it’s offered. That doesn’t make you any less of a bad ass. That makes you a survivor.”
He didn’t wait for me to say no again. Instead, Ransom smiled that gorgeous smile of his, and walked right past me, leaving with a wink before he stepped out onto the landing. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he told me and I knew, just then, with the sound of his steps moving down the stairs, that I’d be counting the minutes until I’d see Ransom again.
I kept counting them.
Present
I’d felt something earth-shattering, something real when I fell hard for Emily. It had been new and exciting and everything that you’re supposed to feel for your first love. Loving her was easy. Forgetting her had been impossible, but I tried. Aly, though, I realized would not be so easily forgotten. But then, I didn’t love her like a sixteen year old kid. What lived in my heart for Aly was a hurricane that tore away everything in its path. It ripped apart what remained of who I was, that boy who only wanted his penance.
She had checked up on my mother, calling Dad for an update on Mom and Makana’s condition, using stupid excuses to keep clear of me. I hadn’t believed that she’d caught some weird cold and didn’t want to expose my mother to anything. I knew damn well that classes were over until January and so Aly saying she needed to get the studio ready was just a bad lie. She didn’t want to risk seeing me. I understood. But that didn’t mean I’d stay away.