Billy
Iwas sulking on the couch in my father’s living room. I was acting like a giant baby. The way I saw it, Wyatt should have felt happy that I wasn’t keying his truck. What kind of a man invites his older brother’s ex-soulmate back to their house? A jerk, that’s who. Sometimes a man just has to be sour and the people around him can suck it up. My father came into the room carrying an iced tea and sat down in his recliner. My father wasn’t a big talker. He was the stoic kind that skulked in the corner and only talked when he deemed it absolutely necessary.
So, I was surprised when he said, “I heard your Kit-Kat is back.”
I scoffed, “My Kit-Kat. Come on, dad.” Still sulking.
“Make no mistake, Bill, that girl’s your girl. Apart or together, you belong to her.”
The stoic old codger was a die-hard romantic. My father loved Kat. He always had. I stood up. It was so irritating. “Just stop it with that nonsense. It’s been ten years. It’s not like we had a fight, dad. Kat Bennett is a stranger that we all once knew.”
I stomped off, but before I crossed out of the room, he grumbled, “Stubborn mule.”
I couldn’t go to my house—which always felt a little like Kat’s house—because now it would definitely feel like Kat’s house because Kat was in it. Trapped, I just lingered in my father’s kitchen, poured myself a glass of iced tea, and waited for the coast to clear.
I couldn’t break free of the film reel of Kat in my head. Kat laughing at me from across the dinner table. Kat with her face pressed into my shoulder at a horror movie. Kat’s hair spread out across my lap at dusk, near a bonfire. Kat brushing my little sister’s hair. Kat looking at me with utter affection because I freed a kitten from chicken wire. Kat crying at my momma’s funeral. Kat on the stool at Hazel’s as beautiful as ever.
I thought I’d feel relief when I heard the gravel sputter under Kat’s SUV, a rock-solid good-riddance-to-my-old-baggage feeling. Only, it didn’t feel that way at all. Instead, I felt a cool emptiness in my chest. I had a chance to say something. I had a chance to take on the mess that I’d been carrying on my shoulders for ten years, and I literally said nothing at all. I don’t know what I could have said. But the idea that she was gone again curdled my stomach. The girl who wasn’t my girl was gone again.
I needed to clear my head, so I decided to go back to the house and shower before dinner. I hollered to my father, “I’m gonna clean up before we eat.” And then I headed towards the front door. As I pivoted to reach for the knob, I looked through the windowpane and saw Kat and Sarah coming towards the house. They were smiling. Sarah looked happy. It was a different happy than I’d seen in a long time. Sarah wasn’t a glass half empty kind of girl, so she looked happy a lot, but what was passing between her and Kat was something special. They were laughing in the way girls laugh together. Sarah didn’t have a lot of that. For a second, I was glad that they were together. And then feeling good while looking at Kat scrambled my brain, so I turned, headed upstairs, and hid in my littlest brother’s bedroom to collect myself.
I paced back and forth in Cody’s room. Cody was Sarah’s twin. His room smelled like sweat socks. I told myself, I’m a man, not a sixteen-year-old boy. I basically run a ranch. I am the oldest of four brothers and one bossy little sister. I am not about to let some old flame make me weak in the knees. I needed a new plan. Avoiding Kat wasn’t an option. Maybe it was time to bury the hatchet. Was I capable of that? It had been ten years. My father cared about Kat, Sarah cared about Kat, and I was keeping her from them. Maybe I could try to be the bigger man. A part of me was afraid that letting Kat in a little wasn’t an option for me, that it was an all or nothing situation. But maybe a friendship with Kat would be good. Maybe if I let her in a little, having her near me would mean I wouldn’t have to feel so sad that I lost her in the first place.
Downstairs, I heard male voices, which meant that Cody and Wyatt had arrived. The house started to smell like food. And I knew if I didn’t go down soon, everyone would already be sitting at the table by the time I entered the room. I didn’t want that. I wanted to go into the dining room with everyone else. I headed to the kitchen because I was pretty sure that everyone but my dad would be in there. They always were. Somehow, even at a party, my family was always gathered in the kitchen.
I smiled as I walked in, let my eyes drift to Cody, and nodded my head in hello. There was a lot of silence. Everyone was staring at me. I crossed to the refrigerator and said, “I’m gonna have a beer. Anyone want one? Kat?” I leaned into the fridge, took a beer, and then glanced over my shoulder for confirmation. My siblings weren’t looking at me anymore, instead, they were looking at Kat.
“I could have a beer,” she said. Her tone was soft, sweet. And just like that, the ice in my chest started to melt.