Perfect Strangers

Shock registered over his face and his body swayed, his vision instantly blurred and he felt his heart start to palpitate. Swallowing hard he could feel the bitter sting at the backs of his eyes. “Pardon?” He whispered, but he was talking to himself.

She was no longer stood in front of him, and as his vision finally cleared enough to see, he saw her continuing with her angry march down the road away from him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

She was out of his view now and for the first time since he landed in Florida, he felt lost. He didn’t know what to do for the best. Did he chase her and have her give him the same deathly look as earlier, the look that had his balls shriveling into prunes? Or did he leave her, let her calm down and talk to her later?

His legs had made the decision for him when they had refused to cooperate, leaving him watching her walk away from him, and for the first time in a long time, he felt crushed. His past relationships had never lasted long, he’d struggled to find that emotional attachment with a woman but with Myla everything was different. She was feisty, challenging, and confusing to him, but he had felt the emotional connection between them that day in the bedroom, the day he ended her eight-year reign of abstinence.

The day everything between them changed. The day he realized his feelings for her had changed. Now it was too late to turn back. He had already fallen for her and had tried to tell her as much with carefully chosen words that wouldn’t have her thinking that he was latching himself on onto her, and as he finally found himself walking back up the road towards the Fox’s residence, he decided he wasn’t going to let her go.

As he ambled up the tree-lined avenue, he spotted a familiar car parked in a driveway. Crossing the street, he walked to the front door, rapped on it and waited. If he had a chance in hell keeping Myla, he needed to understand her, to understand what had gone on in her past and there was only one person right now that could provide him with the answers he needed.

The door creaked open slightly causing him to look up at the swollen face of Darcy. She went to slam the door shut again, but he had already foreseen her reaction and he wedged his sneakered foot, preventing her from shutting the door. “Go away, Kai. I’ve nothing to say to you,” she growled from behind the half open door.

“Maybe you haven’t, but I have. I need answers to some questions, and you’re going to be the one to answer them,” he snapped back. His hands pushed firmly on the front door making her let go and stumble backwards, he charged his way inside of the house and slammed the door behind him.

“Kai, I don’t want any trouble, I’ve had enough for one day,” she retorted moving away from him and through a hallway.

“I haven’t come here for trouble, I need your help. I need to understand Myla, I can’t be there for her if I have no clue what the fuck is going on. I know you and Casper ran off together and broke her heart but that’s all I know,” he rambled as he followed Darcy along the hallway, eventually coming into the kitchen.

With one wave of her hand, she motioned for him to take a seat at the kitchen table. “Do you want a drink?” She asked and plugged the coffee machine in then filled it with water.

“Uhm, do you have anything stronger, please?”

With a nod, she walked to a large black American fridge and pulled out a cold bottle of Budweiser, uncapping it she handed it to him. “So, why do you care so much about Myla if this between you both is a pretense?”

“It started out that way, but things have changed between us,” he shrugged taking a swig of his beer.

Placing a cup under the coffee machine she pressed the button then turned to look at him, “She’s the one you were pouring your heart out about to me that day, isn’t she?”

He nodded. “Just like the husband who left you, so happens to be Casper? What a small world, hey?!”

“How did you put him in hospital?” She quizzed as she stirred the sugar into her coffee and took a seat opposite him.

“He’s Jack’s best man at Grace’s wedding. He’s shown up a few times to speak with Myla an–”

“–Why does that not surprise me? I knew he would come back here once he got wind Myla was back home. The guilt of jilting her at the altar has been eating him up for years.” She cut in over the top.

“And we had a few runs in out in the park. I tackled him for the ball during a soccer game and broke his leg,” he continued, ignoring her.

She rolled her eyes and nodded. “Well, that figures.”

“What happened, Darcy? Why did you do it?”

Taking a sip of her coffee she unsteadily placed it back down and gulped. “I didn’t plan to steal him from her you know, it just happened. Something happened to Myla one day and everything changed.”

“Something happened to her? what happened?” He asked with urgency laced in his tone.

“I don’t know Kai, I don’t know what happened. We were fifteen and Myla had been vomiting all over the classroom, so she was sent home early. I called in on her on the way home to see how she was but was met at the door by her mother, she unusually, wouldn’t let me see her. She was kept off school for a week before she could return and during that week, neither Casper or myself was allowed contact. Victoria had locks placed on her bedroom window to prevent Casper from sneaking in like he always did.”

“What do you think happened to her that day?” he pressed.

“I don’t know, but she changed. She developed this thing where she continually drummed her forefinger on top of surfaces, against her leg, on windows, anywhere. It was like she was sending Morse code or something and she would do it for hours on end, relentlessly. It was like some kind of coping mechanism.” Her eyes pulled away from his and she looked at her coffee cup cradled in her hands.

“She became withdrawn and distant, and Casper found it hard to be around her, so they called it off and took a break from each other, it didn’t last long though and they soon got back together, eventually over time Myla became a little bit more of her old self, but the cracks of whatever happened to her, never healed.”

Kai was too stunned to speak. He could feel the dull thud of a headache approaching as he tried to digest what Darcy had told him.