It was a piece-of-shit Jeep when Kyle bought it. Barely drivable. He broke down twice on the way home.
I smile, then laugh a little just thinking about it.
Kali rode with me and we followed Kyle and his new baby. That was the first time we’d been alone together in a while. Probably close to a year. I think Kyle knew I had a thing for her. He kept trying to get Kali to ride with him in the Jeep. It was her birthday too, he kept saying. She should ride in this spectacular monster he just purchased.
But it was drizzling that day and the Jeep didn’t even come with a soft top. No doors, nothing. Just the roll cage. Kyle was soaked by the time he got it back to the townhouses but he didn’t care.
Kali and I didn’t care either. We spent almost an hour in my car alone, just talking. I didn’t have a Jeep back then, just a reliable late-model Toyota Camry my parents gave me a few months back.
Kali was excited about senior year, I remember. We were all about making plans that summer. One year left and then what? I was always headed towards a tech school for auto mechanics and body work a few towns over. That crappy Jeep—this beautiful monster on the lift in front of me— was my school project the whole two years I was there.
I built the thing that killed my best friend.
I did that.
But Kali and I that day Kyle drove the beast home, we just talked. I didn’t make a move on her. I knew better after that time I saw her naked. But I chatted her ear off. Asked her every question I could think of. It’s been a long time since I had such a nice conversation with her.
I already knew I wanted her. I already knew that one day this would happen. I never suspected it’d take so long and I certainly never thought it would be Kyle’s death that would spark it. Or this stupid Jeep, for that matter.
Such is life.
Kali said something to me that day that I never forgot though. She said, “Aiden, why don’t you have a girlfriend? You’re too handsome and sexy to not have a girlfriend.”
And I said, “I’m saving myself for you, pretty thing.”
She blushed so pink. Got so hot. She hid her face from me for a few minutes, just staring out the side window. And then she sighed and said, “Well. You’re gonna have to kill Kyle if you want me all to yourself. Because he’s the boss of us both.”
I frown in the here and now. Thinking back on that day.
“I guess I did kill you after all,” I say out loud. “Because I made you this death trap.”
If I had an ax I’d kill it right now. Just hack it up into bits.
I don’t.
I take my phone out instead and without even thinking, or questioning why I do it, I call Kali.
To my surprise, she picks up. “Hey,” she says.
“How’d you know it was me?” I ask.
“Duh. I have your number in my phone.”
“Hmmm. Didn’t even know that. You’ve never once called me, ya know.”
“Really?” she says.
“Really.”
“Does that piss you off?”
“Nah,” I say.
“So… do you need something?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I think I need you.”
“Aiden,” she says.
“Not like that,” I say. Lying. I do need her like that. But that response very clearly tells me she doesn’t feel the same. “I just mean… the old us, you know? The friends us.”
“I’m back in the city,” she says.
“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, I figured there was a good chance you ran away.”
“I didn’t run away.”
“Then why didn’t you wake me up? How did you even get back to your parents?”
“Walked. And I didn’t wake you up because you were dead asleep.”
“Right,” I say.
There’s an awkward silence after that. And then we both say the same thing at the same time. “We probably shouldn’t have—”
We both stop.
Another pause and then I’m the one who continues. “We probably shouldn’t have gotten drunk last night.” Then add, just to be a dick, “That’s what you were thinking too, right?”
She sighs. “Aiden, look. I had fun last night. Which comes with a whole lot of guilt all by itself. But we’re not going to do this. It’s disrespectful to my brother.”
“OK,” I say, feeling hot all of a sudden.
“He never wanted us to be together.”
“Understood,” I say.
“He’d be disappointed if he ever knew.”
“Got it, Kali.”
“Don’t get pissed at me,” she snaps. “I didn’t ask for this.”
“You kinda did,” I say. “And you know what? I wasn’t asleep when you left this morning. I was wide awake. And I let you go. So yeah, it was a mistake and I’m over it.”
And then I end the call. It takes every ounce of self-control not to throw my phone at the wall. Instead, I just turn it off and toss it onto my tool cart.