lifeline ⇾ kai parker

28┃promises kept and unkept

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

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THE DIAMOND ON HER FINGER sparkled from afternoon sunlight pouring in through floor-to-ceiling windows. The jewel and its two adorning stones might as well have weighed a ton. It conveyed a promise to a life she had been working her way towards and had said yes to without consideration. A decision that was not meant to be made lightly was executed in exactly that manner, and Mila had been pushing away doubts ever since.

She unfolded one of the few remaining boxes that had yet to be filled with her belongings. She was moving in with Alex. After she agreed to marry him, going along with his suggestion to not wait to move in together was just as easy, just as thoughtless. Mila was going through the motions because... what else was left for her to do?

Alex was a nice a guy, and she needed a nice guy in her life. She cared about him, she grew to love him, and unlike all of the other things she's done, marrying him made sense. The picture of their upcoming future was clear, resembling work-filled days, home cooked meals eaten, shared Christmases, and an overall peaceful existence. It would be a bit predictable, maybe, but not despairing. She could settle for that.

Clothes that were never worn and buried in her closet were taken out one by one. Whatever she was keeping was going into the box and what she wasn't she threw into a pile on her stripped mattress. The simple process was interrupted when a crumpled shirt unraveled in her hands, one too big and arguably outdated to be hers.

It was the only piece of him Mila had allowed herself to take with her. She knew it was there and yet its reveal caused to her to act like she didn't. The pads of her fingertips glided over the soft cotton, feeling it thinner in some places from wear.

She remembered how the blue color looked in the darkness. Like a light centering around all of his dark, shadowy features. It glowed almost as much as his saddened, lost eyes that searched for safe haven in her bed. They both ended up finding something that night.

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THE CLINK OF METAL AGAINST metal, the door departing from its frame, echoed throughout the spacious room. Her body twisted at the noise, squinting with tired eyes at the silhouette that stood in the entryway. She sat up on her elbows. Her eyes were well-adjusted to the dark so it didn't take long to recognize who it was.

"You awake?" Kai asked, just loud enough so she could hear him from across the room. Still, he managed to speak in a soft, hushed manner. It was rather unusual, considering he was always talking loud and freely with no regard to how much it bothered other people, Damon specifically.

This was one of the many nights she had decided to crash in one of the guest bedrooms at the Salvatore House after a long night. Relunctedly, the brothers allowed Kai to stay, too, since he was behaving decently as of late. He was set up in the room right down the hall before they departed to their own beds for the night.

"What's wrong?" Mila replied hoarsely. After hearing what she sounded like, she cleared her throat.

Kai took that as an invitation to step into the room, and he shut the door quietly behind him. She watched him shuffle across the floor to her bedside; the outlines of his t-shirt and boxers were more noticeable from the shortened proximity. She was finally able to get a clear look of his wide eyes and how he anxiously bit his lip. She could tell he was unsettled by something.