The Event

21.

Kayne let himself feel the pain of his loss.

He opened up just a little more about the people who gave him life. The woman with the long straight brown hair that used her very body to bring him into his world, but never showed any attachment to him in her cold gray eyes, and the man who would clap him on the shoulder every new day, but that hardly ever spoke more than a handful of words to him most days.

His life had been cold. Sterile. He and his parents hadn't known any different, and neither had the generations before them. That was just the way their life worked. But Kayne still needed to mourn the loss. The same as anyone else. He felt things now, and I needed to be the strong one for him for once.

I let him lean his weight into me, and I held him for a long while while he let it all out, all those new little thoughts that had plagued him since he's had his eyes opened to what it was really like to be alive. Being who Kayne was though, his momentary weakness was literally only momentary. After a minute he packed it all back up inside him and sighed, pulling away.

Holding up just my own weight now felt weird and my body was cold from the separation. As if he noticed it too, Kayne shivered a little, then laughed as he pulled me back over and put his arms around my shoulders.

I may not have really gotten all that much crucial information that I wanted from him, but I felt so much closer to him from the things that he did open up to me about. I thought I might actually be able to look at him now and not see one of "them", but instead now the boy he is. Not that different from the rest of us. He's got his own determination and pain fueling him just like me.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked after another minute.

"Shoot." I smiled up at him, hoping to lighten the mood, wanting to forget the way those green eyes shined with tears in them.

His eyes shifted slightly. "Have you ever..." his voice trailed off and I could feel my face heat up.

"What?" I asked nervously. There was really no good place for that question to go and I was just embarrassing myself thinking of all of the possibilities for what it could be.

"Have you ever had a pair, or match?"

I sighed in relief and he smiled, a confusion in his eyes like he had no idea what I'd thought he was going to ask, which he probably didn't. Maybe being a clueless alien wasn't always bad.

"You mean a boyfriend?"

He rolled his eyes like a pro and laughed a little under his breath. "I don't understand that term. I've heard it used, like with you and Tommy, but I've never understood it."

I scrunched up my face and shook my head quickly before he was even finished. "Tommy is definitely not my boyfriend. That had to be the most awkward kiss ever."

"And ours?" He lifted one eyebrow.

The blush returned. "Not awkward."

"Not even the first one?" He teased and I laughed as he tickled my side.

I swatted his hands and we both stilled, the heat shifting from my cheeks and down through my body. "The first one was definitely weird, but the rest have all been good."

"Just good?"

"Better than good."

He smiled, pleased with himself. "You avoided my question." He pointed out and I bit my lip, caught.

"A match or pair? Nope." I shrugged it off. "Nobody."

"Why not?"

Kayne and his never ending list of questions sure to embarrass me.