Changed

Chapter 4: Why Can't He Love Me?

*Sorry i havent updated in age but life is busy, hope you like this chapter and any feedback is appreciated :)*

Kyle’s house. With the formerly turquoise paint of the beach house peeling and the ash collected on the front lawn, it still looked as I had always remembered. Then I thought I saw a shadow move across the window, and I started at it for a long time, because I had actually made it, and in my heart I expected there to be no signs of life. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? There were no more shadows and I wondered if I had gone crazy or died and imagined the whole thing. By now I had realised the dead could be just as crazy as the living. I staggered up the stairs, kicking up layers of death that made me gag and choke. I knocked on the door but no one answered, and I pushed it open.

Kyle and his father faced each other in the living room with the old tapestry of the Jews at Masada hanging over the grand piano. Kyle looked taller and thinner, his dark hair as long as ever. He looked like a man on the run wearing the NYU jumper I had given him. Mr Michaels was still Mr Michaels, in a navy blue sweater and dark dress pants.

Mr Michaels was shouting. “You stupid faggot, you’re going to die out there.

“Just shut up!” Kyle shouted. “Stop calling me that!”

“Kyle”, I whispered from the doorway. “Kyle, it’s me.”

“Kayla!”

Kyle whooped, gathered me up, and hugged me against himself. I felt as light as a leaf, unbelievably dizzy and reeling with happiness. Kyle was alive. He was safe. And he was still here, in his old house, living indoors, with his parents.

“Oh God, are you okay?” he asked, and then before I could answer, he said, “Have you seen Edann?”

“No”, I said and he deflated. I saw the misery on his face, I felt it in the way that it nearly crushed me.

In the kitchen, his slim, black-haired witchmother was cooking as if nothing had changed. They had electricity and gas, and as I smelled the hot food-onions, meat-my mouth began to salivate. I burst into tears and Kyle held me in his arms, swaying me slightly. He smelled so good. So clean, almost angelic. His father’s eyes bulged like and insects and he started at me as if I was an intruder.

“I’ve been trying to get here,” I explain. “Everything was on fire. Then the rain came.

“The rain.” Mr Michaels said, glancing at the tapestry.

“Now we can look for Edann,” Kyle said.

“Don’t speak that name!” Mr Michaels snapped.

For God’s sake, do you really care about that now? I wanted to snap back. But I took Kyle’s hand and folded it under my chin. I was the layer of ash-mud on my hands and wondered what I looked like, a zombie probably.

“I was just about to leave, to search for him.” He said, bringing my knuckles to him mouth. He kissed them then laid my hand against his cheek. His tears damped my skin like soft, pure rain. “He just called before it happened, from midtown. I don’t know what he was doing there. We had just had a fight.”