Part Two: Chapter Fourteen

The feel of him over her, around her, inside her was a powerful reminder of how intensely they had missed each other and how deep her feelings for him were rooted. Their reunion after so many weeks apart was now complete; they had talked, rehashed stories that were first written in letters during their absence, ate food from the diner where they shared their first date, and now as the moon kept watchful vigil over them, they consummated their love once again.

Mark Ainsworth had been called away leaving the two teenagers snuggled together in front of an episode of X-Files. It didn't take more than the sound of the door being shut and latched for Nick and Kaylin to act on the heat bristling between them as they lay on the faded blue sofa, their eyes barely following the movements of the screen.

Nick was lounging with Kaylin curled up between his legs, her head resting on his stomach, his fingers brushing absently through her hair when Mark came in the room to tell them he needed to take off. Kaylin was sure the excitement that began coursing through her was palpable, but before she could adjust herself she felt Nick's leg clamp down on her side. She looked up at him and he gave her a grin without taking his eyes of the flashing set in front of them. She relaxed back to where she was laying, taking the silent cue that he felt it too. Mark rushed about, going to change from his jeans into a dress shirt and tie; there was a possibility of another company moving in to town and he was called in to the discussion on the behalf of the union.

"Guys I'm sorry to have to bail on our welcome home party," Mark said as he gathered up papers from and stuffed them into a briefcase, "but if they want to hear from the union," he paused, "this is a good sign. Nick, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it, dad, seriously. I plan to be home for a long time," he laughed. Waving to Mark who was already heading for the door.

""Bye Mark," Kaylin hollered as the door was shutting.

Mark popped his head back inside, "Sorry, Kaylin, 'bye! Tell your dad what's going on, he'll want to know. Nick, I'm locking the door, the guy next door thought someone was breaking in the other day." Mark didn't wait for a reply, but pulled the door shut and locked the deadbolt from the outside.

At the sound of the door, Nick slipped his leg over Kay and slid down next to her, his back to the TV. "Well now I can't see the TV," Kaylin mockingly complained but snuggled against him, "I'm so afraid that I'm going to wake up and I'll just be alone wearing your shirt like always."

"Not like always, babe, just for the last few weeks," Nick said, brushing a stray lock of her hair away from her face. "and you're not going to wake up." He put his arm over her and rubbed her back. "Babe, I can feel every bone in your body," he stood up and took her hands in his, leading her to stand up as well, "c'mere, let me get a better look at you." He lifted her shirt up over her head and ran his hands down her arms then tracing her ribs with his fingertips.

"You know, some guys like skinny girls," she quipped, reaching up to put her arms around his neck.

"I'm not one of those guys. I like my girls to look like you, and right now you look more like Kate Moss," he put his hands flat against her stomach "look, my hands can go almost completely around your waist!"

Anxious to stop the scrutiny of her body, Kaylin reached for the hem of Nick's tee shirt and began to gather it up to pull over his head, "How 'bout we just stop talking for awhile?" she suggested and stepped closer to his body lavishing the feel of his skin against hers. "I missed you so much," she choked on her words as Nick craned his head back to look directly into her eyes as she went on, "it was so hard to do everything: to go to school, to stay at home, everything was a mess." Nick didn't say a word but pulled his arms around her to hug her. "I'm just so glad your back. Promise me your OK now. Promise me you won't ever go away under those circumstances again."

Nick nodded into her hair, "I promise," he mumbled as he started to kiss along the side of her face and down her neck.

This night their time together wasn't the awkward, groping sex of teenagers but the intimate clinging of two people desperate for the other. Nick found himself holding back tears when he was positioned to look at Kaylin's naked body lying under him. She had been wasting away while he was gone, and he felt guilty for it. He was right in comparing her to Kate Moss, all bones and skin, but what a beautiful set of bones and skin it was. He loved her like the earth around him and was desperate for the air and water that only she could give him. He learned that as his addiction to substances wained he would become addicted to the attentions and dependency of her, that it was a common problem of addicts, but he didn't care. Right now, and for as long as was humanly possible, she was his and she was all he needed.

Part Two: Chapter Ten

Stephen talked while he drove. The police had found a few grams of cocaine in Nick's jacket in his locker; he was arrested immediately. Stephen had class with Nick and saw everything happen. When the principal came in to get Nick, he looked over at Stephen and told him to get Kaylin immediately. She was his first thought: not being arrested, not getting in trouble at school, just Kaylin and what she would think and do.

Kaylin's head was spinning, and she was breathing hard. "This can't be happening. Seriously, Nick doesn't do coke. This is ridiculous." She was talking more to herself than to Stephen whose hands gripped the wheel as he sped up. "Stephen, you've got to be kidding me."

He rolled his head to look at her and gave her a look that made her know he was dead serious. "Kay, you honestly think he doesn't do coke? Really?" he had a doubting tone to his voice. Nick liked to have a good time, and although Stephen had never seen Nick put the straw to his nose, he could definitely picture him doing it. Kaylin was staring out the windshield blankly, her mind too full to process everything it needed to take in; it was like staring into a deep lake and trying to see to the bottom but the motion of the waves, the darkness of the water, the need to blink kept preventing it.

"What do we do now?" was all she could manage to say. Stephen pulled his battered car into her drive and turned to look at her. Her hands were clenching and unclenching the blue fabric of her book bag, her long hair was wind-blown in front of her face, but she didn't bother to brush it away.

"I'm not sure," Stephen began, "but I told him I would get you. Let's go inside and I'll make some calls, see if I can find out anything, OK?" He started to get out the door.

"You're coming in my house?" Kaylin said, slamming the car door, she couldn't remember the last time Stephen Rizzman had been in her house. It must have been when her mother was still alive, because she remembered that she got in trouble for having Alicia and her brother over without asking first. Her mother was known to lock herself in her bedroom for hours, sometimes days, on end.

"Is that OK?" Stephen stopped in his walk to the door.

"Yeah, sure. I just, well," Kaylin smiled in spite of herself, "I was just thinking it's been awhile." Stephen smiled too. Kaylin was just another one of his sisters, she spent the night so much at his house that sometimes he forgot she had another home.

They went inside, and judging from the quiet, no one was home. There was a note on the pad of paper Seanahair kept on the end table next to his armchair that said he had gone to confession and then was going to the VFW for a dinner. Stephen put his book bag on the floor by the door and covered it with his jacket before finding Kaylin in the living room reading the note.

"Everything all right?" he asked, fishing his beeper out of his jeans and checking the display.

"Yeah, my grandfather is gone and my dad's still at work," Kaylin said, setting the paper down. "I'm going upstairs to change, I'll be right back."

"No problem, can I use the phone?" Stephen asked reaching for the cordless. Kaylin nodded her head and dashed up the stairs.

Before she had even entered the doorway, she saw the red light on her machine blinking away. Her small room was dark, and the phone and little machine sat on a small table by her bed. She rushed in and pressed the play button.

"Kay, babe," it was Nick, "I'm OK, don't worry. I'll get this take care of. Please don't be upset, please don't be mad at me. I love you. I'll call you again when I can. Oh my God, Kay, I love you, please don't be mad. OK, I love you, bye." Kaylin was kneeling by the table, holding the answering machine like it was Nick himself.

"STEPHEN!!! STEVE!!!" Kaylin hollered over her shoulder before she heard the next beep.

"Hello, this message is for Kaylin McSandsen. This is Corporal Jordan of the Greenbrier County Sheriff's department. I'm going to need you to stop by the police station when you get this message. If you need a ride, or can't come tonight give me a call back at" the message cut off. Kay shifted around, and sat on her legs; Stephen standing in her doorway, he had heard the whole thing.

"What should I do?" Kay's eyes welled with tears as she looked to Stephen for an answer. Her chin started to shake as she tried to hold back crying. It was all too much.

"C'mere, girl," Stephen went over to her and pulled her up and into his arms for a hug. "It's going to be OK. Listen, we need to head over there though. I called Alicia and she said that that Jordan guy called over there looking for you, too. C'mon," he started to walk with her to the hall. By the time they had walked down the stairs and were in the foyer, Kaylin had gathered herself together, and had pulled away from Stephen's encouraging arm. She looked at herself in the mirror, and wiped a hand across her face to remove the tear streaks.

"Let's go," she said, turning to the door.

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The drive to the county sheriff's department was a long one, but Stephen made quick work of it. Kaylin spent the ride letting her eyes drift over the blur of scenery as it passed. Her mind was taking in the reality of what had happened. She loved Nick with everything that she was. Never in her life had anyone treated her like she was something important, something other than ordinary. Her mother's love and affection was the moon: waxing and waning regularly, and her father was sun: distant and harsh, and able to burn if you didn't protect yourself. Seanahair had tried, God love him, in his own way to let her know he cared, but he was older, and his ideas of parental love came from a world that she would only read about.

But Nick, this gorgeous boy that the fates had put in her life; Nick spent everyday telling her how much he loved her, how he adored her. He was the bright light that she clung to in the darkness that was her world. Without ever asking for anything, he settled in her life like a fixture that was and always would be there. He helped her on seanahair's bad days, he brought her to parties where only the beautiful people went and made sure she saw that his eyes never left her. He would wait outside her window if he heard her father screaming while they were on the phone.

Her mind went to the nights they spent together, entwined in each other's embrace. There were nights he would lay beside her, content to just hold her in his arms rather than feel her under him. But of course she had given herself to him, and that first time without having to be told, his touch was gentle and caressing, his movements slow and paced. Every time since he acted like he had never seen her naked before, and was astonished at the beauty of every inch of her. His soft murmurings after made her relax into a peaceful bliss that she never knew existed. Remembering those private times was like embracing herself in Nick now that she felt alone and scared.

Stephen slowed the car down as they approached the stretch of highway that would lead them to the sheriff's department. "Kay," he said measuring his words, "if they tell you it's true, that he did have coke on him," he looked over to her, she hadn't shifted her gaze from the window and, except for her close proximity, he wasn't even sure she was hearing him, "if it's true they probably want to question you and what you knew about it. I'm not going to tell you to lie, Kay, but you need to be prepared for whatever they might ask you, you know? Remember, don't believe anything they tell you, it's like on TV, they'll say anything to get you to talk." He looked over to her again, she had bit her bottom lip and looked down, tears spilling from her eyes. "You understand what I'm sayin' right?" He reached over and put his hand on her knee, shaking it a bit. She nodded, and wiped her eyes again.

"I have no idea what's about to happen," Stephen mumbled, the feelings of someone he cared for hurting and not being able to help her rattled him. Stephen Rizzman had known Kaylin since she was a toddler running around his living room with Alicia while his mother looked on. She was as much a sister to him as his blood kin, and now he was more worried about the way she was acting than whatever trouble Nick was in. Kaylin McSandsen was always level headed and calm, but the girl who sat beside him now was a barely a shadow of that; she was shaking and crying, and there was panic in her voice.

They both stepped out of the now parked car, and Kaylin paused gathering her thoughts, looking at the squat brick building and readying herself for whatever was about to happen. The wind had a chill that warned of frost that night, and a feeling of loss tied itself to her stomach again.

Part Two: Chapter Eight

The world changed forever that night. In the harsh light of the next afternoon, the local papers held the headlines that the factory was closing. Nick's father had been in Columbus trying to prevent it, and Kaylin's father had been drinking trying to deny it.

Nick stayed with Kaylin all day at her house helping her clean and care for Francis whose wheezing was getting progressively worse. Kaylin found she couldn't hide the black, mucous from Nick's eyes, but he never complained. Francis brushed his fingers along the bruise on Kaylin's face and turned her head to look at the scabbed over gash behind her ear. No one said a word, but Francis moved his eyes to Nick whose eyes held the anger of the previous night, and he understood. Francis knew his son's faults and had heard the argument, heard the sound of his granddaughter being hit, but his belief not to intervene held him at bay. It wasn't until he saw the damage to her face, saw the heat in this boy's face, that he realized something had to be done. Francis smiled at Nick, and put his hand on the boy's shoulder as he walked by.

This day, nestled in the house was like a bubble, shutting out the reality of the outside world. They all knew that eventually Aaron would come home, the truth of the factory closing would hit both their households, the summer would come to a close, but for this one day, they acted like a family, the dying old man, the bruised girl, and the boy who loved her.

As the day wore on, Francis napped, and Kaylin took Nick upstairs. She could hear the old man's breathing machine click and beep, so she knew he was sound asleep. It was then that Kaylin showed Nick how much she loved him, and with stifled pleasure they gave themselves to each other for the first time.

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Kaylin was browning meat for Hamburger Helper, and Nick sat at the table playing Gin with Francis when the screen door was heard. They all looked around, and Francis started for the foyer, waving Kaylin and Nick to remain.

"Dad," Aaron said, seeing the old man approach from the kitchen, "everything OK?" Francis, never one to speak much, took his grown son's arm and led him outside out of earshot of the two teenagers preparing dinner only a few feet away.

The dinner was a quiet one, with Francis' coughing the only sound to be heard other than the familiar clinking of the dinner wear. Francis and Aaron had been gone a long time, and when Francis returned, he took his seat in silence. Nick and Kaylin had been sitting in the kitchen waiting for their return and took this as a sign to start dinner. Francis was seventy and every bit the gruff stereotype of a former coal miner, he spoke very little and his few actions were measured and part of a strict routine: it was no use asking him about his conversation. As the table was arranged, Aaron came in and joined them, looking humbled and getting a glass of whiskey from the cabinet. He seated himself not at the head of the table, but across from Nick who sat next to Kaylin along the wall.

The hailstorm that they expected from Aaron never came; his thoughts were elsewhere. His father had chided him like when he was younger and minced no words telling him that he was earning the respect of his friends, but loosing the respect of his family and his God. Aaron's mind was aching from his inevitable job loss, his intervention with his father, and the pain in his daughter's eyes whenever she looked at him. At some point she had become a woman. She had gone from a chubby little girl with ringlets who always hugged him when he came home, no matter how late, no matter what he must have smelled like (grease, booze, smoke), to a woman with all the attributes he had once loved in her mother. At thirty-six, his life had slipped away from him before he had a chance to realize it. He stared at the glass of whiskey he sipped from and then looked to the boy seated across from him who was chewing slowly, taking in the man.

Without a word, Aaron finished his dinner, stood up and went to his room.

Chapter Ten

The next weeks flew by for them both. Kaylin had days of rehearsals and lessons, Ryan had begun the daily shows for the tourists flocking to New York for the start of the holidays. Thanksgiving had been spent together, neither of them could get away because of their work commitments, and Kaylin had revealed to him that both her parents had died when she was younger. When he offered his condolences she thanked him but waved them off, insisting that it was a long time ago and not worth crying over anymore.

His shows were mainly during the day, with the occasional dinner-time performance on the weekends, since it was a child-themed show. Kaylin’s rehearsals hadn’t entered into the grueling stage yet and she still had quite a few nights when she was home before nine. Those nights they spent together, getting take out food and watching movies. Sunday nights, however, was their night to go out, and go out they did; dancing, dinners, and even the occasional touristy museum or attraction. New York was an enchanting place over the winter holidays, especially when you are young and have someone in your life; Kaylin and Ryan enjoyed the time and each other, even as Kay got more and more withdrawn during their private time; her usual bubbly nature became more subdued as she immersed herself in her work.

More and more Ryan would wake up in the middle of the night and find her gone, sitting downstairs looking outside or just off into nothing. She always smiled warmly when he would come to find her, and insist she wasn’t sleeping because of work or worry about work, but her eyes avoided his as she said it.

One night, Ryan shouted out, “I love you,” as the throws of climax hit them both. Kaylin bucked back at him, shocked from his admission and overtaken with her own bodily response. Her back was to him, and he leaned down, kissing her along the scar that ran across her body. She jumped, disengaging herself and leapt to the bathroom down the hall before he could say or do anything. He silently cursed himself for choosing such an inappropriate time to announce to her what he’d been feeling since the moment she came sauntering to his table at that horrible club over a month ago. He scrambled out of the bed and pulled on a pair of light pajama pants, while padding down the hall after her.

"Kay?” he said to the closed door of the bathroom.

Kaylin was sitting on the toilet, not using the facilities so much as trying to see straight from what had just occurred. Her head was in her hands and as her eyes scanned the tiled floor into a blur of geometric shapes, she realized that she wasn’t in control of this anymore; she felt dizzy and out of sorts. This wasn’t a new feeling to her, but it was one that she had spared herself from for many, many years now.

She shook the thoughts from her head and grabbed at a tee shirt hanging precariously half in/half out of Ryan’s laundry hamper to her left. Pulling it over her head she went to the sink and splashed cold water on her face. She looked at the person in the mirror. Had she been a stranger to herself since meeting Ryan? Since getting this role? Where was the Kaylin that knew her place in this world? Where was the Kaylin that kept her focus and her distance? Needing to feel grounded, humbled, she pulled her hair back and turned her head to the left and looked at the scar running down her neck; she twisted and saw the first few inches of the scar on her back. She was still her; she was still the same person she had always been. Just now she had a steady income; now she was going to be a star; now she was loved.

She heard Ryan’s knock and was startled away from her thoughts. She needed to go home.
Kaylin opened the door and flashed Ryan a shakey smile. “I gotta get going,” she said dancing around him and over to where her clothes lay in a heap by the sofa. “It’s Thursday, and you’ve got an early show and the producer is trying to do some sort of publicity stunt with me and Quinn tomorrow afternoon, so I’ve gotta get my beauty sleep.” She was babbling; cracking bad jokes and avoiding his eyes like they were the sun.

“Kay, what are you doing? Stop, Ok? Just,” she was dressed in a flash and trying to lace up a Nike when he came over and crouched down next to her, “just wait a minute. Tell me what’s really going on here.”

“Nothing!” she said quickly, picking up her fleece and heading for the door. “Call me tomorrow after your show. Hopefully we’ll be done by then.” She fumbled with the door before stopping. She flitted over to him and lightly kissed his lips, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ok?” and with that she was gone.