Come Back To Me (2 page)

wearing. I can feel Didi squeezing my arm with so much

force it’s as though she’s trying to stem an arterial bleed,

and I know if I turn around I’ll see her drooling un-

ashamedly. She might go to a convent school, but Didi’s

prayers centre around asking God to deliver her not from

trespassers but from her virginity.

‘Happy birthday,’ Kit says now. He hasn’t taken his

eyes off me the whole time and my skin is warming

under his relentless gaze. I can feel my face getting hotter.

‘Thanks,’ I manage to say, wishing I could come up

with a better response, something flirtatious and witty. I

know I had something planned for this moment, but my

brain has chosen to shut down.

‘Hi!’

It’s Didi. She has let go of my arm and now thrusts her

hand out towards Kit. ‘I’m Didi, Jessa’s best friend. You

must be Kit. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

Plenty of emphasis on the
lot.
I make a mental note to

kill her later. Kit glances over at me, clearly struggling to

contain his amusement, before turning his attention fully

back to Didi. He shakes her hand, introducing himself

properly, and it gives me a chance to mentally pull myself

together and really get a look at him. He’s six foot but he

seems taller, maybe because he’s standing so straight. I

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recognize the ink marking on his arm, poking out from

beneath his sleeve. It’s the same tattoo that Riley has. A

Marine Corps emblem. My fingers itch to trace it. Oh

God. For months I’ve been telling myself to get over Kit,

ordering myself to forget him. Didi rolls her eyes at me

every time I mention his name. She’s even added my

name on Urban Dictionary under the word
pathetic
. But

now, as I watch Kit casting his spell over her, I can see she

may finally be ready to cut me a break.

She’s firing questions at him like she’s a Chinese

matchmaker, asking all about his job and his uniform. I

wouldn’t be surprised if she starts asking him next how

much he earns and whether he has a girlfriend. I would

interrupt, but I’m still trying to gather my wits and

formulate a sentence, and, truth be told, I’m kind of

hoping she does ask him whether he has a girlfriend.

Though another bigger part of me doesn’t want to hear

the answer. Because what if he does? Taking a breath,

I remind myself he’s been in Sudan for the last nine

months living with a bunch of guys, sleeping in a room

with a dozen other men, eating in a mess hall. It’s not like

he’s been going to parties or out clubbing every night, so

it’s highly unlikely he’s managed to find himself a girl-

friend in that time.

Kit answers Didi’s questions politely, nodding and

giving the standard issue responses that they’re trained

to. In other words, no detail whatsoever. All I know is

that he and Riley have been in Sudan along with the rest

of their marine detachment, protecting the US embassy in

Khartoum. That’s all. They only got back yesterday.

As I listen to Didi and Kit talking, Didi telling him all

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Mila Gray

about how she only moved to Oceanside six months ago

and how her big ambition is to finish school and move to

LA (thankfully she omits to mention her other big ambi-

tion – to lose her virginity), I realize I’m fixating on Kit’s

lips, imagining what it would be like to kiss him.

Nothing has ever happened between Kit and me, noth-

ing ever could, so imagining is all I can do. He’s my

brother’s best friend and has been since they were four-

teen. We’ve known Kit since we moved to California

when I was eleven. He and my brother have been insep-

arable since the day they met at baseball try-outs. It’s

the kind of bromance you see in the movies. Not the

Brokeback Mountain
kind, luckily for me, but something I

was always a little envious of. Kit and Riley have prob-

ably not gone a day since meeting without seeing each

other. They’re closer than brothers. It’s a friendship that

persists despite the fact that my father hates Kit and has

tried everything in his not inconsiderable power to pull

the plug on it.

I glance through the window out into the garden where

my father and Riley are firing up the grill. As though

operating on some kind of sixth sense, my father’s head

snaps up. He was a marine sniper in his day and he has

an eerie ability to sense whenever he’s being watched. He

has me in his sights. Then I see him register Kit. A dark

scowl passes over his face before Riley ignites the char-

coal, sending flames soaring as high as the nearest palm

tree, and my father turns back around to bark orders at

him. Honestly, only in my house does a birthday party

get turned into a military operation.

It’s never been exactly clear why my father hates Kit so

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much, but I know it has something to do with his father,

who is also a marine, and who served in the same com-

pany as my father back in the eighties. It could also be

that my father blames Kit for some of Riley’s more ques-

tionable life choices – namely signing up as an enlisted

marine, rather than going to college and becoming an

officer, which is what my father had expected him (read:

preached at him from birth) to do. Then there was the

time they burned down the garage while setting off fire-

works. And the time they both streaked across the

bleachers during a televised football game. Yeah, now I

think about it, there are maybe a few reasons why my dad

holds a grudge against Kit.

Kit’s father is now a marine chaplain, having found

God after a long battle with grief and the bottle following

Kit’s mother’s death. My father meanwhile climbed the

ranks and is now Colonel, a role that he inhabits even out

of uniform, probably even in his sleep. That could be why

Kit is still in the kitchen with us and not out making fire

with the men. Or maybe it’s for some other reason?

Kit turns back to face me and takes a deep breath.

Behind him I catch sight of Didi making a ‘phwoar’ face. I

try not to laugh.

Just then my mother comes bustling through from the

kitchen carrying plates laden with food.

‘Kit!’ she exclaims delightedly. My mom doesn’t hold

the grudge towards Kit or his father that my dad does. In

fact she’s almost as fond of him as she is of me and my

brother. She treats him like her second son. Whenever

Riley and Kit come back on leave it’s like the Second

Coming. My mom throws off the depression that she’s

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Mila Gray

been shrouded in since they left and buzzes back to life. I

know that no matter how proud she is of them she hates

the fact they’re marines as much as I do. I’ve always sus-

pected too that she’s trying to make up for my father

treating Kit like he’s some sort of pariah. It gets kind of

embarrassing at times. Like now.

She sets a couple of bowls of salad and marinated

chicken down on the table and grabs Kit into a fierce hug.

She only comes up to his shoulder but he looks like he

couldn’t prise himself free even if he tried. Which he

doesn’t because he’s far too polite and I think he secretly

likes the fuss she makes of him.

Didi takes the opportunity while my mother is hug-

ging Kit to sidle up to me. ‘Oh man, I didn’t even rec-

ognize him from the photos. He’s so much hotter. I want

to see him in uniform. Just imagine. If this is how hot

he looks in normal clothes.’

I ram my elbow into her ribs. I’ve already seen Kit in

uniform. And Didi’s not wrong. It rendered me speech-

less.

‘Or naked,’ Didi whispers. ‘Actually, yes, forget the

uniform. Imagine him naked.’

‘Shhh,’ I murmur, not admitting to her that I have.

Many times.

‘He is
so
into you.’

‘Shuttup,’ I mutter as my mother lets Kit go. My pulse

spikes, though. Is Didi right? Or is she just saying that

because she knows it’s what I want to hear?

‘No, I’m serious, he can’t take his eyes off you,’ Didi

says, covering her words with a cough as Kit turns to

stare at me again. ‘See.’ Didi swings towards my mom.

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‘Mrs Kingsley, do you need a hand?’ she asks in an

exceedingly loud and exceedingly obvious voice.

My mom looks up, flustered. ‘Oh, that would be great,

thanks Bernadette.’

‘Didi,’ says Didi abruptly. She hates anyone calling her

by her given name. She grabs for the chicken and heads

for the doorway where great wafts of smoke are billowing

thanks to the lighter fluid accelerant my brother has just

thrown on the grill. She shoots me a look over her shoul-

der as she goes – eyes bugging, head tilting in Kit’s

direction. From this I deduce she’s telling me to go and

talk to Kit.

The trouble is I’ve never had to force myself to make

conversation with Kit before. It’s always come naturally.

Until now. For some reason my throat suddenly feels as

though it is stuffed with rocks. I can barely think a coher-

ent sentence, let alone speak one.

‘So, Jessa, how you been?’ I hear Kit say just behind

me.I turn around, my heart shooting like a rocket into my

rib cage.

‘You know . . . good. Fine. OK.’ Waffling. I’m waffling.

He’s laughing at me. I can see the way he’s trying not to

smile, biting his lips together. His lips. OK. Focus. Don’t

stare.

I take a deep breath. As no one but Didi knows, I’ve

liked Kit for years, have had a crush on him since I was

about fourteen and he was seventeen, but the last time

he was back on leave was the first time I felt it might

be reciprocated, maybe, possibly. Possibly not. It’s this

maybe, possibly, possibly not
that has kept me awake most

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nights for the last nine months. I kept on replaying the

interactions we’d had over and over until the memories

were so worn I wasn’t sure if I was patching them with

invented events, imagining things that hadn’t happened.

Had his fingers lingered in mine that time he pulled me

to my feet? Did he hold me extra close when he hugged

me goodbye? Did he look at me with burning intensity

because he was imagining kissing me or because I had

food stuck in my teeth? We’ve emailed each other regu-

larly while he’s been away and the emails have been

light-hearted, veering sometimes into flirtatious before

just as quickly scooting back onto more solid
just friends

ground.

‘That’s good,’ he says now. Is that a smirk?

Why can’t I stop staring at his lips? Why do I have to

lose my train of thought so completely when he stands so

close? And did he always smell this good? What the heck

is with me?

I manage finally to find my voice and construct a

whole sentence with verbs and nouns and pronouns.

Incredible. ‘What about you? How was it over there?’

I catch the slight flicker as his smile fades momentarily

before brightening once again. He rubs a hand over his

head. ‘Yeah, you know . . .’ He shrugs as he tails off.

Stupid question, I think to myself. Damn. For a

moment neither of us says anything. I start twisting the

end of my ponytail, something I do when I get nervous,

then, realizing what I’m doing could be construed as flir-

tatious as well as ditzy, I drop my hands to my sides. Kit

stands there waiting, watching me, that half-smile still on

his face. His expression is hard to read. He seems to be

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enjoying my discomfort, but there’s something else about

the way he’s looking at me. He opens his mouth as

though to ask me something, but then closes it again. The

air around us feels charged, but that could be because I’m

hyper-aware of every gesture I’m making and also of the

fact that my father is standing not fifteen metres away

holding something that could be interpreted as a weapon.

‘How long do you have?’ I finally ask, feeling my

cheeks starting to burn almost as hot as the chicken that’s

now smoking on the grill.

‘Four weeks,’ he answers.

I nod and stare down at my feet. Four weeks. A month.

And then he’s gone again. Why am I even wanting some-

thing to happen between us? It wouldn’t be worth it.

He’d be gone before I knew it.

‘So how does it feel?’ he asks me.

My head flies up. How does what feel? For an instant I