A Timeless Place

Chapter 48

Gray Revelations and Alibis

Wes? My head snapped up at the sound. Surely it was Wes. Surely we wouldn't leave things as they were - so ugly, valanced and broken.

However, instead of those familiar big gray eyes, a pair of bright blue eyes stared back at me in concern.

"Kitty?" Kevin was instantly kneeling in front of me, concern written all over his face. "What's wrong?"

"Kevin?" Of course, why should I expect Wes to come back when things were obviously over between us? I could feel my eyes burning as I frantically blinked away my tears in a bid to appear normal. "What're you doing here?"

"I was walking home from a football team meeting and saw you. Is everything okay?"

"I-," my mouth immediately went to form the words 'I'm fine'. But the genuine concern and worry that clouded those ice blue eyes stopped me. For some reason, I had always found it easier to talk to Kevin of all people. He was the one I talked to about Bridgette and my concerns about Wes and now- now I was lost for words.

"I- I don't know."

"Are you hurt?"

I didn't know the answer to that question too. Was I hurt? Wes had only spoken words to me, yet why did my chest hurt so much that I couldn't breathe anymore? Why did my lungs feel as though they were punctured with the same knife that had ripped my heart into pieces? How could someone mean so much to me? More importantly, why did I let Wes get this close to me?

"Kitty," Kevin placed his hands on my shoulders. "Please, just tell me what happened."

What had happened...I shook my head in disbelief. How could I admit that I had been played by Wes? That I was stupid enough to fall for him when so many had warned me that he would break my heart. How could I have been so foolish to think that I was different? Me. The girl with more emotional baggage than a soap opera. There was only so much time before he became tired of climbing over my endless walls.

And that was when I finally broke. I could not help the tears that welled up and ran freely over my face. How had everything become like this so fast? It was just last week that I was writing to mom about Wes.

Suddenly I felt warm arms around me. Kevin was sitting next to me, gently tugging me from my frozen position into his chest. He wasn't Wes. But he wrapped his arms around my shoulders, holding me just tightly enough to keep me from falling into pieces.

But Wes had already taken a piece from me and I could feel his absence profoundly.

"I can't see the Southern Cross," I whispered to Kevin. "Everything is so wrong."

In some way, Wes was right. And that was why I had lashed out at him. Losing my mom was a big part of who I am. Even years later, I was writing one-ended letters to her. Every night I wished things would go back to the way they were. Every night, I wished my family would be whole again. Not once did I try to face what had happened and accept it.

Kevin brushed my hair back from my tears, "It's still there even when you can't see it". He gently picked up my hand and raised it to the sky, moving it in the shape of a cross across the dark clouds that had accumulated over the Autumn evening. "As long as you know it's there- right there- it doesn't matter if you can't see it. And it is there, always."

When I turned my head back to Kevin, his eyes were looking straight into mine, again searching for something I didn't know. And probably didn't have. I broke our eye contact and looked at the grass beneath the bench. The wind had picked up but I was still warm in Kevin's embrace.

"Wes cheated on me," I broke the silence, trying to distract myself from all my thoughts as I incessantly picked at my green scarf.

"He'd be an idiot to," Kevin shook his head in disbelief.

"But he did," I could feel the air pierce my lungs before they formed those words. "I saw him kissing this girl- Renee."

"Renee?" there was an immediate recognition in Kevin's voice. His steady gaze fell from mine and to the ground.

"You sound like you've heard her name before," I raised an eyebrow at him.

"She's Wes' ex-girlfriend."

I was taken aback. Wes and Rene?

'I've been there before and I've been badly hurt just like you.'

Had Wes been talking about Rene?

"But isn't she's with his brother now- Mason?" I asked. That explained it all; Wes' reaction when he found out about his brother's engagement, the awkwardness that hung around the two of them whenever they were in the same room.

"That was why they broke up," Kevin looked back at me with a grim smile. "Quite a few times too."

"How long ago was this?"

"Renee and Wes started dating maybe four or five years ago. But they were on and off for some years," Kevin explained to me.

Could it be possible that this whole time, Wes only had feelings for her? Was I just another distraction in his endless list of girls to forget the girl who once broke his heart?

"Kitty," Kevin broke me out of my reverie. "If Wes is really back with Renee, you should stay away from him."

I was taken aback at Kevin's frankness. "Do you think she's better than me?"

Kevin was shocked at my reaction. "No! Quite the opposite! You're better than the both of them. Please, don't get mixed up in their affairs. From what I remember, things got quite ugly last time between Wes, Mase and Renee. You don't deserve getting hurt over an age-old quarrel of who loves Renee more," Kevin pleaded with me.

"I thought Wes doesn't do dating," What I actually meant to say was that 'I thought I was different'. But I couldn't bring myself to say that, especially after all that had happened.

"It's because of Renee. He's been hung up on her ever since she chose his brother over him," Kevin explained to me. His words felt like an echo. A horrible memory that I wished to forget. So it was true. This whole time, Wes' heart had already belonged to another girl.

I laughed bitterly at the irony. He claimed that it was me who couldn't move on from my past yet his past was the one catching up to him. And he let it. I was still dreaming about my past. He was still living it.

"Kitty?" Kevin asked tentatively.

I looked at Kevin and managed a small smile, "Thank you, Kevin."

Kevin raised an eyebrow at me in suspicion, "Why are you calm?"

"Isn't that a good thing?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "Would you like me to mope?"

"I'm not sure anymore," his eyebrows knitted together as he surveyed me. "Is this a healthy calm? Or the calm before the storm?"

"I need to go, Kev," I quickly stood up, resolution already forming in my mind as what to do next.

"Should I grab a body bag or shovel for what you're going to do?" he asked apprehensively.

"I promise I won't do anything," I vowed to him. But I added just for entertainment, "yet."

"Just prepare an alibi for me and I'll be there," he grinned.

I waved to him as I walked off.

"Kitty!" he called once more.

I turned around to see pity in his eyes. Pity, which I guessed I deserved, along with every other girl Wes had used as a rebound for Renee. But it still broke me.

"Are you okay?" he looked at me earnestly and genuinely.

I swallowed with immense difficulty, the tightening in my chest threatening to return.

"I will be," Imanaged to reply before I nodded and left as quickly as I could before those eyescould break my heart into more pieces than it was in already.