Midnight Kisses| ✓

Chapter 16

I freeze and so does the world around me. My body is unresponsive and Kevin is walking past me, without even glancing at me, a stupid grin on his face and in a drunken stupor. And I am internally screaming. Even if I didn't know it before, I know for sure this boy is the reason my bestfriend is dead.

"Kevin." The voice that rings out is not mine but it's me who is walking towards him and grabbing him by the shoulder and turning him towards me, even though he practically towers over me.

"What?" he asks half annoyed and when he sees it's a girl he smiles. He looks so pathetic and lecherous, I barely can contain my disgust.

"You," I jab a finger at him "are a major motherfucker." I mostly never curse out loud. I am a non-violent and I have prided myself I checking my temper all the time. When street workers wolf whistled at me and Emily when he walked passed, she would shout and show them the finger while I tried to placate her and drag her away.

No more. No it's my turn to protect Emily.

Kevin looks shocked, his mouth gaping open. His friend who is slightly less drunk then him, at least he's not slurring his word says, "Look you've got it wrong babe. I know he probably shacked you up and left you but he means nothing by that."

Kevin looks between his friend and me, "Fucked her? I don't even know her man."

So I was right. He is a major asshole. I slap him so hard, his flesh bites into my hand leaving it smarting. But I am surprised with the low fury on his mouth. I have shaken him, if only a little bit.

"You don't know me. But you do know Emily Lee Whitson." Recognisation dawns in his half dazed eyes and then something flickers behind it. Fear.

"Fuck," he says and already he's turning away. Coward. Looks like I am not the only one here.

"Why did you do it?" I say still hanging on to his jacket. "Why did you kill her?"

"Dude," his friend says. "What is she talking about?"

"She's crazy," Kevin declares shielding his face from me, like I am some sort of demon coming to hunt him.

"You ask your friend why he thinks I am crazy," I am on the verge of tears. Fuck I hate myself. "Because he fucking killed my best-friend. So yeah if I am crazy it's because of him."

Kevin runs a hand through his hair. "Let's go, dude. She's totally cuckoo." But his friend, whoever he is does not move. And in that split second Novahk emerges out of the alley and run straight to me. "Kris? You okay" he asks before looking at the two guys.

His eyes grow cold. "Kevin," he says in an ominous tone. Novahk is a good three inches taller than Kevin though not as wide. Both Kevin and his friend are in fraternity jackets, and instead of Alpha Gamma, it might as well as say Assaulters/Rapists.

"Look the bitch brought her boyfriend." The moment he says and there's a sick crunch. The momentum of the punch knocks Kevin down and lies on the grim dust road, and what looks like blood is flowing from his nose.

"Fuck," he screams. The other guy launches himself on Novahk and he pushes back but they both end of rolling on the floor. I run to Novahk and try to hold the other boy while Novahk punches him too. He rolls away trying to get his bearing while I pull up dragging Novahk with me shakily. He's got a black eye and my hair band has been torn away from head and there's dust on m jacket and jeans.

Kevin tries to get away but I kick him in the butt. Atleast my karate classes are paying off. "Stop," he says pitting dust from his mouth "I didn't do anything okay? I was in the video but I didn't know how it ended up online, okay? I had nothing to do with that. We were just having some fun. Now if some pervert takes a video and leaves it online what do. Confess fuck and then go to jail. She was a minor, for fuck's sake." Half his words are incoherable but are enough for the bile that I taste in my mouth. A pathetic human being. Pathetic Kevin who instead of showing remorse for his actions is trying to justify them.

I kick him just for it but I know one thing; he' telling the truth. I am no close to finding what actually happened then I was yesterday. "When did it happen?" I ask and he looks at me blankly. Novahk is sitting on the ground while the other guy is throwing up. Kevin looks close to a good case of nausea too.

"Last summer. She practically came up to me and flirted with me. She said she liked me. It wasn't like I forced her or anything. Heck I didn't even know she was only fifteen until later"

"Where did it happen?" I ask gritting my teeth to check my temper. When rage doesn't come to you easily, it's even worse, it's building in and in on itself and like a volcano it will spew.

" At a party. In my house."

"Was she alone?" I demand. I feel a presence behind me. It's novahk. He keep his hand on my shoulder, moving himself between my arms so that we are half hugging. "Let's go Kris. There's nothing else we can do here. The asshole doesn't know."

Kevin looks up at us holding his nose to his Tshirt the underside of which is soaked with his blood. I picture Emily sashaying up to him and begging for a kiss. I close my eyes to it, I don't even want to go there but he's shown my bestfriend in a altogether different light. And I can't help but hate him for it.

Novahk slowly peels me away from the two boys and doesn't elt go even when we are out of their bloody sight. I keep my head on his shoulder and breathe in him. He holds my hand and we walk like that towards the bus stand. "I am glad you're here, Novahk." Daring I peek a look at him and he stops, my shoulder encompassed in his arms.

"Me too." He looks at me in the eyes and then at my lips and I light up like the skies above us. The cold, cloudless sky where Venus twinkles down on us.

And at that imperfect moment, Novahk kisses me perfectly. It's like slow dancing and feathery his lip barely touching mine and then he pulls back but I stop him holding him by the wrist and tugging on his jacket's collar by the other. "Don't stop." And then we are kissing again and it's like a meteor shower, so fleeting and yet so powerful, that encompasses whole our being I feel weightless, and if Novahk doesn't hold on to me, I'll fly away.

I kiss him, pouring into him all my desperation and frustration all my fears and show him all the demons inside me. And he keeps kissing me back, holding me by my waist to pull me closer and I hear a sweet melody ringing in my ears, a lullaby that my mom used to rock me to sleep. I haven't thought about it in years. But with Novahk it's like all the lights inside my body have been switched on together.

How was your first kiss like? I had once asked Emily.

Like the rain in the first spring. But with Novahk it's summer just after the rain, the smell and it feels as if the stars and the suns are together and the universe exists only around us

But even normal people need a moment to breath after kissing like that. He keeps his forehead on mine and doesn't stop hugging me. But every perfect moment shatters and so does this one when a car stops in front of us, focusing is headlights on us.

"You there," an officer steps out of the car and for moment I think it's Novahk's dad. But as he comes closer it's an unfamiliar short man with wheat blond hair. I feel relieved but that lasts only for a second before he turns to Novahk's back and says, "You're under arrest."