A few of you may recognize this from the first version of The Awakened that I wrote, but either way, I thought I'd put it up here for temporary entertainment purposes.
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It was a little peculiar, standing alone on top of a skyscraper in downtown Denver, but not nearly as peculiar as it should have been. Kyla had come to expect this sort of thing in her life recently. Maybe not the skyscraper part, but the absurdity, yes. She never knew when she would be blessed with one of these, “This cannot be my life,” moments, but she was beginning to think they reserved themselves for absolutely the worst times possible.
She’d kept count tonight. She was on number five.
Getting down into the hotel by way of the fire escape was thrilling, to say the least, but the fact that Kyla had to pull it off in four-inch heels was really the clencher.
No one would ever believe this, she thought to herself. She could say that about a lot of things.
In the past few weeks, madness had become more normal to her than normality had ever been. At this point she almost expected it. What she didn’t expect, however, was to come face to face with a cleaning lady that didn’t speak a word of English upon her entrance into the hotel.
Smiling at the woman nervously, Kyla darted past her before she could ask questions that Kyla wouldn’t understand. She got into the elevator quickly and exhaled for the first time in five minutes when the doors finally closed, trying to make herself breathe as she descended story after story. Somehow it didn’t work out like she’d hoped.
Maybe if her life weren’t so completely insane, it would prove a little easier. Maybe if her date hadn’t left her on the roof of a thirty-eight story building.
Maybe if her boyfriend didn’t have wings…
Ugh, she thought again. This cannot be my life.
And that made six for the evening.
Slipping into the ornate lobby with its marble floors and fancy red area rugs, Kyla fished around in her purse for her cell phone. And then for the next hour and a half, she pretended to be engrossed in the text messages she wasn’t actually getting and the games she wasn’t actually playing.
It was quite possibly the most awkward hour and a half of her life, and the looks the forty-year-old man with the creeper-stache at the front desk kept giving her did not help the situation at all.
Then, when a boy with shaggy brown hair and a band shirt with the words “For Today” scrawled on the front of it finally walked into the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, Kyla felt her heart jump. Seeing Caden, she was so happy she could have kissed him, but then she caught sight of his expression and thought better of the idea. Somehow she didn’t think he would go for that right now.
There was no doubt that her best friend loved her, enough to drive from Woodland Park to Denver to rescue her from God-only-knew what he was thinking after her last phone call to him. But even Caden had his limits.
He stopped about ten feet in front of her and stood there, eyeing her from her oversized earrings to her bright red pumps. Kyla could have died.
“Caden…” she started to say, but he cut her off.
“Are you okay?” he asked her coldly.
She nodded and cast her gaze to the rug, the pattern of which she had memorized in intricate detail.
“Come on,” he said. He turned without waiting for her and headed back out the entrance.
Walking out onto the 16th Street Mall, Caden marched without hesitating through the meandering crowd, not even bothering to turn around and see if she was following him. Kyla took a deep breath before did, dreading the car ride ahead of her.
And she thought abandonment on a skyscraper was bad.
Neither of them talked until they pulled onto I-25, but Kyla would have been fine with the silence lasting the entire way.
“What happened?” Caden asked her point blank as he merged with the Denver traffic.
She stared out at the lights of the city, wishing he could have started with something easier. Like… “Hey, let’s have the God talk,” for example. It figured that this would be the one time he’d opt out of that one.
Kyla had been racking her brain for the last hour and forty-five minutes, trying to come up with an explanation for this whole mess (which to Caden could only look really, really bad) but she had nothing. Apparently an hour and forty-five minutes wasn’t enough to explain away insanity.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
Caden laughed at her. “Well that’s too bad, Kyla, because I do.”
She made a face and turned her head away, but she didn’t respond.
“Is this about your blonde-haired, Ducati-riding sleepover buddy?” he asked her. There was an undeniable edge of spite to his mockery that she tried to ignore.
“No,” she said flatly.
Caden mumbled, “You’re a terrible liar,” and she wrinkled her nose.
He didn’t say anything after that, just put on some music that would drown out his anger and make any attempt at conversation completely impossible. Caden decided Devil Wears Prada would do the trick tonight. He was right.
Neither of them spoke a word until he pulled his Jeep up Ponderosa Way and parked outside the condo at the far end of the block. Kyla cringed when he killed the engine.
Sighing tensely, Caden kept both of his hands on the steering wheel, something he didn’t even do when he was driving.
“Kyla, I need you to talk to me,” he said.
She kept her eyes fixed on her neighbor’s house.
He waited for her to speak, and when she didn’t he dropped his hands from the steering wheel and leaned back in his seat. He was trying to be calm about this, but Caden was every bit as impatient as she was and three times as stubborn.
“Did something happen to you?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
“Yeah, okay, let’s go for the truth now,” he said. “Is this about Nathaniel?”
She flinched at his name and Caden saw it.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he muttered.
Kyla looked at him when she realized he’d taken that wrong. “He didn’t do anything,” she said.
Caden exhaled sharply and swallowed hard, clutching again at the steering wheel with one of his hands. She watched his brow furrow in the frustrated way it always did when he was fighting back emotion that he deemed unacceptable.
“Where is he?” he asked a little too tensely.
“I said he didn’t do anything,” Kyla reiterated.
Caden’s voice practically shook, “But he took you to a hotel and left you there?”
She kept her mouth shut tight, determined not to say anything since she knew there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t make this worse.
“Honestly, Kyla, how do you think that looks? If I’m wrong here, please tell me.”
It hurt her, the assumptions he was drawing from this, and at the same time she knew it was stupid to feel that way. If their roles were reversed she would think exactly the same thing.
“You believe whatever you want,” she mumbled. “I’m going inside.”
She started to open the door and he grabbed her by the wrist. “Kyla, talk to me…”
She whipped around and glared at him. “What do you want me to say, Caden? That I had sex with him? I mean honestly, is that what you think?”
She couldn’t remember another time she had ever seen her best friend more upset. He was actually shaking now, and his grip on her wrist was getting tighter. It was cruel; Kyla knew it was cruel to say that, but if cruelty kept Caden from the truth, then that was what she was going to use.
“And even if I did,” she said harshly, “who are you to judge me? What right do you have to question what I do?”
Caden answered her slowly. “When I’m the one you call to bail you out of whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into, I have the right.”
Silence. She couldn’t respond to that even if she wanted to. She couldn’t say a word because she knew he was right.
“Fine,” Caden said, letting go of her wrist. “You wanna play the quiet game? Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll just sit here until you decide to be honest with me.”
Kyla tried for the door again, and for the second time he stopped her. She scowled and leaned back hard against her seat, crossing her arms in front of her and knowing she looked twelve.
“Just tell me,” he sighed.
She was cold in her answer. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know what happened,” he said. “I want to know why.”
Before she could stop herself, Kyla muttered under her breath, “Yeah, join the club.”
Caden shot her a look. “What was that?”
She pressed her lips together, determined not to go there.
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled. It was just enough to spike her emotion again, too.
“Why did you leave me?” Kyla blurted out suddenly.
He stared at her confused, obviously not having expected that. Caden didn’t seem to know how to respond to the question and Kyla didn’t blame him.
“What?” he finally asked.
She was burning with anxiety and anger now, too much to hold it back. “You didn’t ask me,” she said. “You didn’t even ask me if I would be okay.”
Caden looked baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“I needed you Caden!” she screamed at him.
She didn’t want to do it. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him, but at the same time it was the only thing she wanted to do.
Before he could respond with a single word, Kyla got out of the Jeep and slammed the door. She didn’t tell him anything she wanted to, she didn’t even thank him; she just went straight to her room, sat down at her desk and put her hands to her forehead. Then she stayed like that until she was finally able to glance out the window. As soon as she did, she regretted it. The sight of Caden sitting in his Jeep with his hands on his head in the exact way hers were was too much for her.
Kyla dropped her hands and turned away from the window. Then she pulled off her stupid red heels and threw them across the room.
This cannot be my life.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It was a little peculiar, standing alone on top of a skyscraper in downtown Denver, but not nearly as peculiar as it should have been. Kyla had come to expect this sort of thing in her life recently. Maybe not the skyscraper part, but the absurdity, yes. She never knew when she would be blessed with one of these, “This cannot be my life,” moments, but she was beginning to think they reserved themselves for absolutely the worst times possible.
She’d kept count tonight. She was on number five.
Getting down into the hotel by way of the fire escape was thrilling, to say the least, but the fact that Kyla had to pull it off in four-inch heels was really the clencher.
No one would ever believe this, she thought to herself. She could say that about a lot of things.
In the past few weeks, madness had become more normal to her than normality had ever been. At this point she almost expected it. What she didn’t expect, however, was to come face to face with a cleaning lady that didn’t speak a word of English upon her entrance into the hotel.
Smiling at the woman nervously, Kyla darted past her before she could ask questions that Kyla wouldn’t understand. She got into the elevator quickly and exhaled for the first time in five minutes when the doors finally closed, trying to make herself breathe as she descended story after story. Somehow it didn’t work out like she’d hoped.
Maybe if her life weren’t so completely insane, it would prove a little easier. Maybe if her date hadn’t left her on the roof of a thirty-eight story building.
Maybe if her boyfriend didn’t have wings…
Ugh, she thought again. This cannot be my life.
And that made six for the evening.
Slipping into the ornate lobby with its marble floors and fancy red area rugs, Kyla fished around in her purse for her cell phone. And then for the next hour and a half, she pretended to be engrossed in the text messages she wasn’t actually getting and the games she wasn’t actually playing.
It was quite possibly the most awkward hour and a half of her life, and the looks the forty-year-old man with the creeper-stache at the front desk kept giving her did not help the situation at all.
Then, when a boy with shaggy brown hair and a band shirt with the words “For Today” scrawled on the front of it finally walked into the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, Kyla felt her heart jump. Seeing Caden, she was so happy she could have kissed him, but then she caught sight of his expression and thought better of the idea. Somehow she didn’t think he would go for that right now.
There was no doubt that her best friend loved her, enough to drive from Woodland Park to Denver to rescue her from God-only-knew what he was thinking after her last phone call to him. But even Caden had his limits.
He stopped about ten feet in front of her and stood there, eyeing her from her oversized earrings to her bright red pumps. Kyla could have died.
“Caden…” she started to say, but he cut her off.
“Are you okay?” he asked her coldly.
She nodded and cast her gaze to the rug, the pattern of which she had memorized in intricate detail.
“Come on,” he said. He turned without waiting for her and headed back out the entrance.
Walking out onto the 16th Street Mall, Caden marched without hesitating through the meandering crowd, not even bothering to turn around and see if she was following him. Kyla took a deep breath before did, dreading the car ride ahead of her.
And she thought abandonment on a skyscraper was bad.
Neither of them talked until they pulled onto I-25, but Kyla would have been fine with the silence lasting the entire way.
“What happened?” Caden asked her point blank as he merged with the Denver traffic.
She stared out at the lights of the city, wishing he could have started with something easier. Like… “Hey, let’s have the God talk,” for example. It figured that this would be the one time he’d opt out of that one.
Kyla had been racking her brain for the last hour and forty-five minutes, trying to come up with an explanation for this whole mess (which to Caden could only look really, really bad) but she had nothing. Apparently an hour and forty-five minutes wasn’t enough to explain away insanity.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
Caden laughed at her. “Well that’s too bad, Kyla, because I do.”
She made a face and turned her head away, but she didn’t respond.
“Is this about your blonde-haired, Ducati-riding sleepover buddy?” he asked her. There was an undeniable edge of spite to his mockery that she tried to ignore.
“No,” she said flatly.
Caden mumbled, “You’re a terrible liar,” and she wrinkled her nose.
He didn’t say anything after that, just put on some music that would drown out his anger and make any attempt at conversation completely impossible. Caden decided Devil Wears Prada would do the trick tonight. He was right.
Neither of them spoke a word until he pulled his Jeep up Ponderosa Way and parked outside the condo at the far end of the block. Kyla cringed when he killed the engine.
Sighing tensely, Caden kept both of his hands on the steering wheel, something he didn’t even do when he was driving.
“Kyla, I need you to talk to me,” he said.
She kept her eyes fixed on her neighbor’s house.
He waited for her to speak, and when she didn’t he dropped his hands from the steering wheel and leaned back in his seat. He was trying to be calm about this, but Caden was every bit as impatient as she was and three times as stubborn.
“Did something happen to you?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
“Yeah, okay, let’s go for the truth now,” he said. “Is this about Nathaniel?”
She flinched at his name and Caden saw it.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he muttered.
Kyla looked at him when she realized he’d taken that wrong. “He didn’t do anything,” she said.
Caden exhaled sharply and swallowed hard, clutching again at the steering wheel with one of his hands. She watched his brow furrow in the frustrated way it always did when he was fighting back emotion that he deemed unacceptable.
“Where is he?” he asked a little too tensely.
“I said he didn’t do anything,” Kyla reiterated.
Caden’s voice practically shook, “But he took you to a hotel and left you there?”
She kept her mouth shut tight, determined not to say anything since she knew there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t make this worse.
“Honestly, Kyla, how do you think that looks? If I’m wrong here, please tell me.”
It hurt her, the assumptions he was drawing from this, and at the same time she knew it was stupid to feel that way. If their roles were reversed she would think exactly the same thing.
“You believe whatever you want,” she mumbled. “I’m going inside.”
She started to open the door and he grabbed her by the wrist. “Kyla, talk to me…”
She whipped around and glared at him. “What do you want me to say, Caden? That I had sex with him? I mean honestly, is that what you think?”
She couldn’t remember another time she had ever seen her best friend more upset. He was actually shaking now, and his grip on her wrist was getting tighter. It was cruel; Kyla knew it was cruel to say that, but if cruelty kept Caden from the truth, then that was what she was going to use.
“And even if I did,” she said harshly, “who are you to judge me? What right do you have to question what I do?”
Caden answered her slowly. “When I’m the one you call to bail you out of whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into, I have the right.”
Silence. She couldn’t respond to that even if she wanted to. She couldn’t say a word because she knew he was right.
“Fine,” Caden said, letting go of her wrist. “You wanna play the quiet game? Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll just sit here until you decide to be honest with me.”
Kyla tried for the door again, and for the second time he stopped her. She scowled and leaned back hard against her seat, crossing her arms in front of her and knowing she looked twelve.
“Just tell me,” he sighed.
She was cold in her answer. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know what happened,” he said. “I want to know why.”
Before she could stop herself, Kyla muttered under her breath, “Yeah, join the club.”
Caden shot her a look. “What was that?”
She pressed her lips together, determined not to go there.
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled. It was just enough to spike her emotion again, too.
“Why did you leave me?” Kyla blurted out suddenly.
He stared at her confused, obviously not having expected that. Caden didn’t seem to know how to respond to the question and Kyla didn’t blame him.
“What?” he finally asked.
She was burning with anxiety and anger now, too much to hold it back. “You didn’t ask me,” she said. “You didn’t even ask me if I would be okay.”
Caden looked baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“I needed you Caden!” she screamed at him.
She didn’t want to do it. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him, but at the same time it was the only thing she wanted to do.
Before he could respond with a single word, Kyla got out of the Jeep and slammed the door. She didn’t tell him anything she wanted to, she didn’t even thank him; she just went straight to her room, sat down at her desk and put her hands to her forehead. Then she stayed like that until she was finally able to glance out the window. As soon as she did, she regretted it. The sight of Caden sitting in his Jeep with his hands on his head in the exact way hers were was too much for her.
Kyla dropped her hands and turned away from the window. Then she pulled off her stupid red heels and threw them across the room.
This cannot be my life.
