Nothing We Could Do

Bonus Chapter 2: Time apart

IVANNA

"He still slept with that stuffed animal you know."

I looked over at Zeke who was perched on the other end of the couch as we'd been chilling out. "What?"

"When that whole situation happened. He still slept with the stuffed animal you got him for Christmas."

I sat up, a thick lump growing in my throat. Me and Kioshi hadn't talked much about our time apart and instead kind of decided to just move past it since it was so difficult for the both of us. I swung my legs over the couch from my previous casual position and straightened up as I faced Zeke.

"Only when he was drunk." He continued, his sincere eyes holding a slight sadness.

"Did he tell you that?"

Zeke shook his head, looking a little unsure, "I don't think it's my place to tell you but you need to know. You need to understand."

I nodded, "Him and Naveen will be ages shopping anyway, they'll probably get distracted by free samples or something."

A small smile played on his lips as he knew his friends probably would. But then his face dropped again, "He never told me but I saw it. He was drunk pretty much all the time during that time."

"Yeah, he told me that much."

"When he was sober he would lock the teddy in a drawer. He never quite got up the courage to throw it away." A thoughtful expression crossed his face, "Though now I think about it, maybe that was him being unable to get over you and discard you like he tried so hard to convince me and himself that he had."

Zeke continued in a solemn tone, his every word breaking my heart a little more. "But when he was drunk, Kioshi would always tear his room apart looking for it, I remember trying to put him to sleep and he'd just refuse until I helped him find the toy. When he found it, only then would he become complacent and let me drag him to bed to sleep off a hangover."

My bottom lip trembled violently as I tried to keep everything in.

"Kioshi would wake up hungover and confused with dried tears down his cheeks and the toy clutched right above his heart so hard that he would always complain about how his fingers ached for some reason. He never understood why he woke up with the doll, he never tried to understand, he would just get up and bury you in his drawer again in a weak attempt to get you out of his mind."

Zeke's eyes were mournful as he shook his head.

"He couldn't escape you, even in a drunken haze, he felt the overwhelming grief."

My eyes blurred with tears that I tried to desperately to blink away at the thought of Kioshi suffering so much unknowingly.

"Every time I'd try to convince him to tell you the truth he would shut down. If I ever mentioned your name he would escape somewhere in his mind so he wouldn't have to dig up the emotions tied to you. I think it was his way of dealing with the loss of such an important piece of his life."

I shook my head and looked down at my lap, "None of that had to happen. Dammit, it could have been avoided. I should have known, I should have believed him."

"Why? You had no reason to."

I looked up, "Why do you say that."

Zeke shrugged, "He never gave you a reason to. He had a reputation, his initial intentions matched that. You had every right to doubt him and he made a decision to not correct that. Kioshi created his own personal hell."

"Why? I still don't get why he didn't tell me."

"Because as much as you had every reason to doubt him, he doubted himself too. His experience with Amy made him believe that he wasn't someone worthy of loyalty, taught him that maybe you'd be better off without him like she had been."