The Perfect Emotion (45 page)

It takes me a moment to figure out what he’s referring to. Once I realize he thinks that I’m the one who sent Reed after him I shake my head back and forth. “No, I didn’t,” I state calmly.

“Bull shit!” He yells towards me, but keeps a safe amount of distance from me. I tremble, but try my hardest to hide my fear. Fighting my natural instinct to bite the bottom corner of my lip and tuck my hair behind my ears I loosen my grip on my bag.

As I start to walk around Kyle to leave the situation he grabs onto my wrist snapping me back in place. “Get your fucking hands off me, Kyle or I swear to God I’ll scream,” I say with as much force and determination as I can muster up right in his face. Shock glazes over his eyes, which then scan the look on my face. He releases my wrist and takes a step back with his hands up in surrender.

“Kate, I just want to understand.  Look what he did to me for Christ sakes… I had to have nose surgery!”  Seeing the evidence of Reed’s confrontation on Kyle fazes me differently than when Reed showed up with blood on him. 

“There’s nothing to understand, Kyle.” I gesture to the space between us. “This is over. There is nothing between us other than you stalking me. Don’t call me, don’t write, don’t go to my house and don’t come looking for me up here either. I’m filing a restraining order.”

“You bitch,” he paces the space around me, but keeps his distance.  “You owe me more.  I fucking loved you.”  The distaste I feel for him is evident in my look of disgust as I continue to shake my head back and forth telling him no.  “Trust me I’ll get you in the end.  I’ll be seeing your cock sucker of a boyfriend in court, so you go ahead and file that restraining order… you’re gonna need it!

I don’t respond as I give him one last look before I say, “I’m leaving, don’t follow me.” Then I hold my chin up, keep the tears locked up and walk self-assured away from him.

“Kate… shit, wait,” he calls to me as I round the corner towards the lit up front entrance to the dorm.  I never turn back around to see where he goes and pray like hell this is the end of this.  My heart thumps a rhythmic pattern of fast and then slow, then faster again.  I tremble and shake having used all my energy to do what I just did.  Then the tears stream down my cheeks long and silent. 

Leaning wobbly against a wall in the lobby I contemplate brushing this off and avoiding it.  Maggie and Derek are upstairs waiting for me and I know will comfort me.  Maggie will encourage me to tell Reed. 
Reed, oh God, Reed
.  Thinking of his arms and the settling they’ll provide spreads over me like silk.  Reed’s words that eventually I’ll come to him on my own race in my mind.  Wiping my cheeks as best as I can and without thinking much I drop my bag and break through the doors in a sprint.  I’m grateful for the yoga pants and tennis shoes I’m wearing.  The light cool air of the night hits my face giving me strength to run faster.  The adrenalin pushes me to move one foot in front of the other easily.  The release I feel in my chest from the impact of my feet pounding the pavement harder than usual surges an electrical feeling.  Then the thought of pressing myself into Reed, smelling his distinct masculine pine scent and the tone of his voice when he calls me Katherine causes more tears to spill from the sides of my eyes. 

I approach Reed’s house and pick up the pace, race up the porch steps and take a few deep breaths before opening the door.  Looking around the family room I see a few people, but just head straight to the staircase to find Reed.  One of his roommates mumbles, “Ah, Kate,” but I continue to climb the steps two at time with urgency.  Craving, yearning, wanting to tell Reed everything and him to make it better… knowing I can trust him.  I gasp as I reach Reed’s bedroom door and wait to try to catch my breath.  Lightly, I knock, but he doesn’t answer.  Shifting from foot to foot I nervously remind myself that Reed will want me to come to him. 

Turning the handle slowly I push the door open to a dark room.  My eyes scan over and then I swear my heart skips several beats.  There under his bed covers is the form of a petite body with soft brown wavy hair, a bare foot hanging out with pink painted toe nails and an arm covered in a charcoal sweater hugging his pillow.  I stare for a moment too long feeling like my world has just been uprooted.  My vision begins to go black and white spotted like a TV that has lost reception.  The room spins too fast for me to stop it.  A lack of oxygen has me stumbling, light-headed as I step back from the room. 

Just as I make my body move towards the staircase the bathroom door opens with the face of the guy I thought I had
more
with.  He stands there in just a pair of sweats, his chest still damp and glistening from the shower he must have had.  The strands of his hair drip onto his muscular shoulders sparkling in the light from the hallway.  I stare at him with tears falling freely and my mouth agape. 

Shaking his head from side to side when he sees that his bedroom door is opened he steps towards me. “Kate, just wait, it’s not, it’s not what you think,” he says firmly and assured. I take a step back away from him looking from him and back to the stairs. Without another rational thought left in my body I bolt for the stairs and sprint out the front door unsure of where I’ll run to now. Not caring where I just keep running.

Scrambling into my room as quickly as I can I flip the light on and look for a shirt not caring about the destruction I leave in my wake.  I look at Jessica stirring in my bed knowing that poor Kate saw her there thinking that I’d veered from her. 
Fuck
.  She squints her eyes and slides up a bit looking at me like I’m crazy.

“Wh-what are you doing? Where are you going?” She asks in a slurred voice probably from the drugs that ran or still run through her body.

“Get your shit and get out, Jess,” I bark out.

“What, why?”  She sits up completely with her sweater hanging off one of her shoulders loosely.  “I need you, Reed.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t have me. I swear to God if you’ve messed this up for me I’ll make your life a living hell, Jess.”

“It’s not possible, it already is a living hell,” she mutters sadly.  I know I sound like an asshole, but I’ve been here with her before.  Not doing it again.  There is only one girl that I’ll be there for and she just ran out of here like a bat out of hell because she thinks I’ve cheated on her. 

“Not my problem. Get up and downstairs in five minutes or I’ll have the police come remove you. One of the guys down stairs will take you where you want,” I say as I slam the door and fly down the stairs as quick as I can. After checking to make sure one of them is sober downstairs I hand them a hundred dollar bill and tell them to get her out of here within the next twenty minutes.

The first thing I do when I hit the pavement outside is call Maggie who is just as worried because she never saw Kate after her class.  I don’t give her the details, but tell her we had a fight and she left running.  She agrees to call me as soon as she hears from her.  The pit in my stomach grows with each step I take.  Unsure of where she would go at this hour I decide to wait outside of her dorm building knowing that she will have to come back here eventually.  Hopefully, she’ll return here sooner than later.

After running around campus for forty-five minutes the pain in me is unbearable.  Slowing my pace and then sliding into a walk I head back to my dorm wishing I could crawl into a cave and hide.  I feel like I’m having an out of body experience or that this should be happening to someone else.  My heart hurts like its never hurt before.  The heaviness is like a fifty-pound weight I now have to carry around.  As I approach the dorm I see Reed’s frame resting on one of the sidewalls waiting for me.  The urge to turn and run the other direction is there, but I force myself to walk towards him and face the damage.  Old me would continue to keep running, but new me faces conflict.  Avoiding is no longer an option as I move forward.  Unlike my approach with Kyle earlier I can’t appear to be level and strong… my shoulders slouch, as well as my chin and I know my face looks drained and saddened.  Reed stands up as soon as he sees me approaching, but doesn’t move towards me, instead he waits for me to get closer.  His hands hang at his sides and his hair is disheveled dropping slightly over his eyes, but as I get closer to him the blue is bright and glassy.  The worry and stress is etched across his face like cracked glass. 

“Why?” I ask shyly.

“God baby, no, no, I would never.  It’s not what you think,” he answers right away and I see him twitch to approach me but refrains in the end.

Swallowing past the lump and tears I reply barely above a whisper, “I-I don’t believe you.”

“I know, I wouldn’t either, but I swear to you. She showed up high as a kite so I told her to sleep it off. I barely said two words to her. I showed her to my room and was going to sleep on the couch. Kate, I would never.”

I raise my head up closing my eyes tightly.  God, I want to believe him.  Shit, I’m pretty sure I do, but what if I’m wrong.  I can’t get hurt again.  I can’t afford to have another person abandon me.  I don’t think I’d survive.  Lowering my head I look into his eyes and see something that resembles truth.  My hands cover my reddened cheeks and I shake my head back and forth unsure what to do. 

Reed interrupts my despair by stepping closer and removing my hands to place his on my cheeks.  He places his thumbs under my chin to raise my head upward to keep our eyes locked on each other. 

“Look at me, look at my eyes, Katherine. Does this look like the face of someone who would hurt you?” My breath hitches and I try to move my head away, but he holds my face in place.

“I don’t know, I don’t know what to think, Reed.”

“Yes you do.  Don’t look away.”  His eyes darken to almost sapphire and pull me in so that I’m unable to look away.  “Does this look like the face of someone who would cheat on you and hurt you?  Or does this look like the face of someone who is madly in love with you?”  I gasp and then the air rushes out of my lungs causing me to breath fast and heavy. 

“I, I,” I stutter unable to get a complete thought through my head.

“Shhh, shhh” he whispers.  “This isn’t olive juice anymore, Katherine.  At least not for me and now you have to be the one to decide what this is for you.”  My full name rolls off his tongue like honey embracing me, caressing me to his heart.  “I am here and I’m not going anywhere.  I’m so sorry about Jessica I should have turned her away, but she could never cause me to veer from you, never.”  His words sit in the fresh air of the night and I take them in letting them cover my body in a blanket of emotions… passion, respect, desire and more than anything else… love.