Dreams We Had

Chapter Fourteen - Kayden Akita

I lay there reading a book with my head resting in Kian's lap as he gently ran his fingers through my hair. Each time he would get to the end of a strand he would curl his finger around it then let it fall onto my face as I read. My mind began to stray from the words of the book and I started to think. I broke the intimate silence.

"Do you ever think about how life would be if none of this ever happened?" I asked, lowering the book and setting it on my chest. Kian looked down at me, puzzled.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I mean, what if certain things in our lives happened differently?" I began, "Like, what if your parents wouldn't have died, or you would have stayed with your grandparents and cousins in Japan and didn't come to America? What if my father would have given me up instead of keeping me, or my mother would have kept me? What if I, or you, would have been born straight? What if you wouldn't have liked me? Or, what if you would have gone to a different school, would we have still met, our families being close and all? Things of that nature."

He looked at me tenderly for a bit, processing my pondering, "I don't know, things would be a lot different than..."

"Well, no shit, but can you imagine just how different life would be? Who'd we be as people, and where we'd be?"

"Actually, I think about that way more than I'd care to admit, but as bad as it may sound I wouldn't have wanted my life to have played out any other way. I'm happy with the way it is now and how it ended up."

"Me too" I sighed.

"My life is perfect in its own flawed little way." He tilted his head back a bit; looking towards the celling, then back down at me.

"Honestly, I agree. Even though I've gone through hell over the past three years. It was totally worth it because now I'm here. And the scary thing is that if we were to go back and change one tiny detail in the past, our entire future would change. Maybe for the better, but maybe for worse..." I said.

"That's terrifying."

"It is, isn't it?"

"Kinda going off of that, when Momo asked about your father earlier, you said he contacted you. Has he really?"

I sat up, now sitting across from him cross-legged. I was mildly surprised at his ironically timed question. I reached down the side of the bed, pulling my phone off of the charger. I slid it around in my hand, unlocked it and looked at the single message.

"Well, no and yes. This morning I got this text from him. It's the first time he's tried to contact me in the past three weeks." I handed him the phone, "He wants me to come to over for dinner tomorrow night. He won't tell me why though. I don't know if I should go because it's the right thing to do or decline because of everything he's done." I mumbled under my breath as he handed the phone back to me. He blinked a few times.

"Well, that's kind of up to you. Do you want to go?" He asked in an astonished tone.

"No. But I think I sort of have to, I mean, it's the right thing to do, right? If I go, will you come with me for moral support?" I was so afraid of him and so damaged from the past that I felt obligated to go. Even if he did hurt me, deep down he was still my father, and I still sort of loved him. That was why I hadn't blocked his number; I still had hope that he would someday want to be in contact with me again. I hoped he still loved me.

"Of course, I will. I'm afraid he's luring you there to do something terrible, I can't risk losing another thing I love."

"Thank you. The only problem is that she really hates you, no offense."