Consumed » Kai Parker

Fifty Six

"Happy birthday, Charlotte!"

I freeze in the doorway, clutching my bag tightly to my side as Elena, Bonnie, and Caroline all enthusiastically wave Happy Birthday! balloons at me.

"That's...today?" I mumble, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. They exchange looks, their smiles still plastered on but there's concern tweaking the gestures now.

"You forgot your own birthday?" Elena says slowly, lowering the balloon clutched in her hand and walking closer to me.

I shut the door to my dorm behind me and deposit my bag on the floor, shrugging off my coat. "Yeah, I've just...I don't know. Been too preoccupied with school, I guess."

Or rather, I've been thrusting myself headfirst into college assignments and even attending optional evening seminars with every intention of busying myself to the point that, hopefully, I wouldn't have time to think. Particularly about Kai.

He lied when he said he'd be back Saturday night, after making a hasty escape to god-knows-where. I spent the night in his–our?–apartment alone, with all my texts and calls to the witch having gone unanswered.

The only contact I'd had with him since was a single, curt text that he sent on Monday morning, after I'd tried to call him again.

I'm fine. Need time.

Need time. I'd kept repeating his vague reply in my head, as my hands tightened around the phone screen. The lone, gray bubble on the messages app seemed to stare back at me in a taunt, tucked underneath a column of blue–my many, many cellular queries about his whereabouts and is he okay and damn it, Kai, you can't just cut me off and expect me not to go out of my mind worrying.

He was fine, he said. Another poorly disguised lie.

This coldly distant behavior from my boyfriend made me want to scream and rage at Joshua Parker. He took away more than Kai's magic in that basement, a fact that became clear the moment Kai started talking nonsensical bullshit about leaving me alone when everything was over.

He stayed true to his words, it seemed. The one time I didn't want Kai to stick to his pattern of promise-keeping, he stubbornly held fast. Now, it's Wednesday afternoon, and the two of us haven't seen each other. Not even during the multiple times I showed up at the apartment during my breaks between classes, hoping I'd find him there and that he'd be ready to talk.

He really is leaving me alone.

It frustrated me to no end. Can he really believe that this is what's best, after everything the two of us have undergone together in the last few months? The notion is so utterly ridiculous that I want to laugh, or cry, or find the siphon and yell delusional.

There's another nagging sense of paranoia that's been tugging at my Kai-related thoughts, begging to be pulled into my awareness. I've tried to harshly shove it to the back of my mind, lock it, throw away the key, but the question pleaded to at least be heard, if answers weren't something I could provide.

Did Kai run away from me solely due to his horribly misguided belief that I don't deserve his supposed baggage? Or was this current radio silence on his behalf because I told him I love him?

His reaction had been one of a person thrown entirely off their well-maintained guard–brutally shoved, actually. I had the image of his wide-eyed face, gaping mouth, and difficult-to-decipher flitting emotions stamped firmly in my mind, turning it over repeatedly for further analysis. Still, I couldn't pinpoint what exactly he might've been feeling then, besides the obvious shock to my declaration.

I'd been surprised, too, as I said the words that immediately set into motion a record-scratching freeze in our argument. Not because I didn't mean them, but it was like it came from deep in my subconscious, like a different section of my mind took over and knew I needed a forceful nudge toward the truth.