Capturing Them

Chapter Fifty Five

Capturing Them
Chapter Fifty Five
Marc

It's Friday and the day has arrived.

I sit in the coffee shop that's in the middle of Charleston nursing a mug of coffee in my hands. The heat is almost burning but I need to feel something right now as we sit and wait for Kayli to arrive. Brandon is on my right with Raven next to him, Corey and Axel are on my left and all four of them are watching the door to the coffee shop like hawks.

I haven't seen Sang today and I wish I would have. She...calms me and my thoughts with just her presence alone and right now, I need to feel a sense of calm. Sighing, I release my mug and remove my phone from my pocket. Bring up her number I send her a text.

Marc: How's your morning going?

I hit send and stare at the message, already regretting it. I shouldn't bother her when she's at school. I'm surprised when her reply comes through only minute later.

Sang: it's fine. Are you okay?

No I'm not okay, and the need to be honest with her consumes me. So I given in and be honest.

Marc: No, not really. We're waiting for Kayli to arrive so we can end our relationship with her. Brandon said he told you that we were doing this.

Sang: Is ending your relationship with Kayli something you don't want to do?

I stare at the words of her message for a long moment. Ending our relationship with Kayli has been a long time coming—practically since we made dating official. All these months, I've been clinging onto the hope that we'd find a way to fix our spiralling relationship. That hope dwindled away when I finally realized—just this week—that this is something we have to.

Marc: it is, I realize that now. It's just... I thought she was my first love and now I'm not so sure.

Sang: You care about her, Marc, and that's okay. You may have loved her once, but to love wholeheartedly and completely, you need to be happy—all of you. In my opinion, none of you are happy.

Marc: This is coming from the girl who has never been in love before. *emoji smirk face*

Her reply takes longer this time and my heart thunders in my chest, wondering what is taking her so long. My phone vibrates, but right at that moment the bell jingles and my brothers start shuffling and moving around me. Lifting my eyes from my phone, I'm greeted with the girl I thought I once loved.

I slip my phone back into my pocket, deciding to read Sang's message later. Kayli's green eyes dart around the coffee shop before landing on us. As she makes her way in our direction, I notice how much weight she's lost. She didn't look like this Saturday, I'm sure of it. Her hair looks limp and unwashed and her eyes look bloodshot.

She goes to plant a kiss on Corey's cheek and he pulls away before her lips can make contact. She looks at him with a frown on her face. "What's wrong?" she asks.

"You smell like cigarettes," Corey says softly.

"Don't be ridiculous," Kayli mutters, sitting down in the only chair left at the table. "Where have you guys been? And why have you been ignoring my texts?"

"We're on a mission right now, a big one," Axel tells her. "It's taking up a lot of our time."

Kayli's eyes harden. "Always Academy shit," she growls. "Always fucking Academy shit."

"Hey, you knew what you were walking into when we decided to go official," Brandon tells her.

"Yeah, and now I don't like it." She looks to Raven. "You had to go on a mission with that girl from that other team."

"Kayli, you never used to be this jealous,," Corey murmurs. "The paranoia...I don't know where it's coming from."

"I do," Raven says, his eyes a hard glare in her direction. "Drugs. How long have you been on them, Kayli?"

Brandon sighs and shakes his head as Kayli darts her eyes between us. They finally land on me. "You're not going to let them be like this are you?" She asks.

I rub my palms over my face. "Kayli, you know Brandon found the drugs, you blamed it on Wil, and then you walk in here with bloodshot eyes looking like you haven't showered all week." I pause as she looks away and down at her hands that are placed in her lap. My heart constricts with the sympathy I feel towards her; like Sang said, I do care for her, I just don't love her. Maybe I never have and just thought I did. "What led you to this?" I ask.

Kayli is silent for a few minutes and we sit in silence with her. "I don't think this—you, all of you—is what I want anymore." She looks up and meets our eyes one by one. My eyes are wide with shock. Is she ending it with us? "I thought I did. I thought I wanted to love you for the rest of my life, but now I don't think I loved you in the first place. Yet, I couldn't let you go at the same time."

She looks to Corey and then to Raven. "I'm breaking the two of you up. I can't accept you being with each other and I don't think I ever will." She looks to me, Axel, and Brandon. "I wanted to be wanted, and you all wanted me. But I couldn't stand your protective ways, the Academy shit, and all the little things in between. I realized that I didn't want to be wanted by you anymore—not as a whole anyway, and that's the only way you'd have me."

"What are you saying, Kayli?" I ask.

She chews on her lip, something I once found attractive. Shrugging a shoulder she says, "We're over, done. I don't want this anymore."

Before we can get a word out, she's standing from her seat and fleeing the coffee shop. We sit in stunned silence for a minute and I'm not actually sure what to feel. She doesn't want us. I know we were here to end it with her, but she just ended it with us.

"Well, that was unexpected," Brandon murmurs.

"She didn't even apologize," Corey adds, shaking his head.

"Don't worry about it, Cor, it's done," Raven says, placing his hand over Corey's and giving it a squeeze.

Needing something to do, I pull my phone from my pocket and bring up Sang's text. My heart skips a beat when I read the words on the screen, making a smile spread across my face as hope blossoms.

Sang: It is, but it doesn't mean I'm not nearly there.