Shelter (8 page)

“Can I help you?” she said, looking rather irritated.

“I’ll take this one,” I said, my face burning beet red.

“I see,” she said, frowning sourly.

She placed the phone back on the kiosk and went to the back to locate the phone I’d chosen.

“You do realize you just chose the most expensive phone in the store, right?” Will sighed.

“Did I?” I asked. “Sorry, I just picked one.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “Mother won’t care. But do you need that much phone?”

“I don’t know, it just looks pretty,” I admitted.

He rolled his eyes at me again.

It took ages to get me signed up and pay for everything. She recommended I get a travel charger and case and a bunch of other crap. I told her I’d take it all, but I was in a hurry. She rang it all up and it totaled over six hundred fifty dollars. Oops. I guess I didn’t realize just how expensive the most expensive phone in the store would be with all the extras.

We finally got out of there and I plugged my phone in with the travel charger so it could juice up a little before I got home. It was only five minutes until we’d be home, but I wanted to show Kai my phone – that is, if he hadn’t left in disgust because I was so late.

As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. Kai was sitting out on the front porch when we pulled into the driveway. He perked up when he saw me, and I practically jumped out of the car while it was still moving.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Kai said, hugging me close. “I was starting to get worried.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I stopped off to get a phone on the way home and I didn’t know it would take so long.”

I showed him my phone, and he seemed impressed.

“I wanted to make sure you could reach me if you need me,” I explained.

I’d left my backpack in the car, and Will got it out for me. He carried it into the house and tossed it on the floor in the parlor. I invited Kai in, and he followed me up to my room.

My room was probably unusual. I didn’t have a bunch of teddy bears or frilly curtains like I imagined most human girls would have. The room was dark, and my bed was covered in rich browns. The curtains were thick and heavy, blocking out as much light as possible. The floor was hardwood and very dark – almost black. A large rug in creams and browns covered all but a few inches of the floor. My desk was a huge wooden antique, also dark. In fact, there was very little in my room that wasn’t dark. I just liked it that way.

Kai sat on my bed and he commented on how soft it was as he sank down into the downy pillow top mattress.

“I like my bed really soft,” I explained. “I can’t sleep on a hard bed.”

“Me, either,” he acknowledged.

“Do you know much about phones?” I asked.

“Phones?” he questioned.

I shoved my new phone at him.

“Oh, right. Phones,” he nodded. “Sure, what do you want to know?”

“How do I use it?” I asked.

Kai laughed. “You called your brother from my phone the other day.”

“No, I know,” I agreed. “I know how to call people. But I have no idea how to do anything else with it.”

Kai spent the next hour showing me how to add names and numbers to my address book. The first number he added was his own, of course. Then he helped me add my brother’s cell phone, and my home phone so I could reach my mother. He showed me how to send a text message, and the first message he sent from my phone was to his. He showed me how to use the camera, and how to access email.

“There’s one thing I really want to know,” I said. He hadn’t covered it yet.

“And that is?” Kai asked.

“How can I make my ringtone ‘Moonlight Sonata’ like yours?” I demanded.

“Oh, that!” he laughed. “Watch.”

He flipped through the options until he reached the ringtone store. He searched through the shop and found they had three different versions of “Moonlight Sonata.” He let me listen to each one. I hated two of them. One sounded like it was being played on a harpsichord. I hate harpsichords. The other sounded very juvenile. The other sounded like a concert piano piece. I loved it.

He added it as my ringtone, and a message popped up saying I’d just been charged ninety-nine cents.

“Oh, neat,” I gushed. “My first charge!”

We were still fiddling around with my phone – taking pictures of each other and sending each other goofy text messages, even though we were in the same room, when Kai’s phone rang.

He answered it, and his face blanched. The happy smile he’d just worn disappeared, and he hung his head. I could hear yelling through the phone. I guessed it was his mother. He listened to the shouting for a few minutes. He stared at the floor the whole time.

After he hung up, I asked, “Your mom?”

He nodded, and said, “I have to go.”

“Nooo!” I whined. “Why do you have to go?”

“I just have to,” he said. “I’m sorry. I really want to stay.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked.

He shook his head dejectedly.

“I will,” I assured him. “I really want to spend more time with you.”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll call you later.”

I gave him a hug, which didn’t last nearly as long as I wanted because he felt he needed to hurry home. I was hoping his mother wasn’t drunk, and I was really hoping things would go smoothly for him when he got there.

I tried to do my homework, but I kept staring at my phone. I was waiting for him to call, but he hadn’t. I was worried. I wanted to call him, but I was afraid he would get in trouble. It occurred to me that Kai was over eighteen, and he could leave anytime he wanted. Yet, for some reason, he stuck around and let his mother treat him like crap. I didn’t understand that. I knew I would be there for my mother, but then again, she didn’t treat me so miserably.

I finally managed to finish my homework around ten-thirty, and I put my stuff in my backpack. I washed my face and brushed my teeth more slowly than normal, but still he didn’t call. I put on my nightshirt and brushed my hair, but my phone did not ring.

I placed my phone on the nightstand and climbed into bed. I hadn’t slept in nearly two days, and I was thoroughly exhausted. I lied there staring at my phone for a while, and I finally drifted to sleep.

About two-thirty in the morning my phone beeped. I had a text message. I fiddled with my phone, and I finally got the message opened. It said:

“I love you.”

I stared at the message in disbelief. My heart thumped so hard I could feel it in my throat. Why did he tell me this via text message? Could he not call? I wanted to call him, but I was afraid of what might happen. What if I set his mother off?

I typed a message back:

“Can u call?”

I pressed send and waited. A few moments later he sent:

“No. :(“

So I wrote back:

“Wanted 2 talk in person.”

A few seconds later he said:

“Check ur email.”

I threw back the covers and walked over to my desk. I flipped open my laptop and loaded my email client. I had an email from him. I didn’t even know he knew my email address, and then I remembered he’d helped me add my email account to my phone. I opened the email and read it.

“Alice, I miss you more than I can stand.

Mom is drunk, and she’s acting crazy again. She said the only way she’d stay home is if I stayed with her, and I didn’t want her out driving drunk again. I’m sorry. I want to talk to you so much, but if she hears me talking to you she will seriously freak out.

I’m sorry about sending that text message. I’m not sorry I said it, because it’s true. I’m just sorry I didn’t have the guts to say it while I was at your house today.

I love you,

Kai”

My heart was doing somersaults in my chest. I wanted to be with him so badly. I ached in the pit of my stomach. I quickly sent him a reply.

“Kai,

I miss you, too. You have no idea how much. My stomach is in knots because I can hardly stand to be away from you.

I can’t explain it, but I’ve fallen for you. I never thought I could fall in love, to tell you the truth. But I have – with you. I never expected it would happen so fast or I would fall so hard, but I have.

I love you more than I can express in words, and I long to tell you in person.

All my love,

Alice”

I hit the send button, and I started to climb back into bed. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep as tired as I was, so I went downstairs to find a snack. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, something caught my eye in the parlor.

“Mother?” I asked, rubbing my sleepy eyes.

“Alice, darling,” she acknowledged. “What are you doing up?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” I responded.

“Come,” she said, beckoning for me to sit with her.

I sat down beside my mother, and she put her arm around me. She didn’t do this often, so it was a little surprising. She was a loving mother, but she wasn’t much for touchy-feely stuff.

“I hear you’ve been seeing Kai Walker,” Mother said gently.

“Yes, just for a couple of days,” I admitted. “You know him?”

“Indeed, I do,” she said. “It is time for you to know.”

Over the next hour, my mother related a story to me that I never could have imagined. Apparently, when my father started spending a lot of time away from home, she had hired Kai’s father to work as our gardener. She and Mr. Walker had begun having an affair.

My father found out, and he was livid. He and my mother got into a big fight, and in the process, he admitted he had been having an affair with Mrs. Walker for more than two years. In other words, he was sleeping with Kai’s mother while my mother was pregnant with me.

My father stormed over to the Walkers’ house in the middle of the night and broke down their front door. It never occurred to him that he’d been cheating on my mother. He felt he could do anything he pleased. But he was furious that she’d dare cheat on him.

Mrs. Walker thought he’d come to confess his undying love for her and take her away, and she ran to him – prepared to leave with him. She was deeply in love with my father. In that moment, her husband realized she had been cheating on him with my father as he’d had an affair with my mother, and Mr. Walker became enraged. He and my father got into a physical altercation.

My mother had rushed to the Walkers’ house and walked inside. She watched in horror as her husband and her lover fought. She knew her husband could tear her lover to pieces in an instant, and she feared it would happen at any moment.

Instead, a small child toddled down the hallway to see what had woken him up in the middle of the night. His teddy bear dangled from one small hand as he rubbed his eyes with the other.

Seeing his father being thrown about the room by another man scared him, and he screamed, “Daddy!”

At that moment, my father was distracted. Mr. Walker pushed him hard against the display case behind him, and the glass shattered. A huge shard pierced my father’s back, lodging deep within his heart. My mother and Mrs. Walker both screamed in agony and ran to my father.

Realizing what he’d done, Mr. Walker called nine-one-one and turned himself in. He was sent to prison for second-degree murder in the accidental death of my father. They couldn’t prove he had any intention to kill my father, so the charges were reduced from first degree, and Mr. Walker was sentenced to fifteen years in a federal penitentiary. He was murdered in prison by another violent offender when Kai was five, and for some reason his mother had always blamed him for his father’s death as well as the death of my father.

“Oh, Mother!” I gasped. “How can she blame him? He was only a little kid!”

“She refuses to accept any responsibility, and she loved your father too much to blame him,” my mother said gently. “Kai is the only one left she can blame.”

“Oh, poor Kai,” I lamented. “He’s so gentle and kind, and he loves his mother so much.”

“I know,” my mother agreed, stroking my hair. “It’s not fair, but it’s the truth about the situation.”

“Did she always drink so much?” I asked my mother.

“Kai’s mother?” she answered. “No, she never drank at all until Roger was killed in prison, as far as I know.”

I hung my head in sorrow. It was all so tragic. I couldn’t believe my own family was embroiled in such a scandal, and more than that I couldn’t believe everything poor Kai had been forced to endure. Could he really think his father’s death was his fault?

I had to see him. I went to my brother’s room and roused him from what appeared to be a peaceful slumber.

“I need to see Kai,” I pleaded.

He glared at his alarm clock through bleary eyes. “At three-forty-five in the morning?”

“Yes, Will,” I said somberly.