She Craved Peace

By Harnoor Kahlon

Kylie had never clutched on to a piece of paper tighter than she was right now. But this feeling of abandonment that was making her angry enough to burn the paper in her wasn’t even the worst part, now she had to go back home and unpack her bags, try to get a refund for the plane tickets and then go to work tomorrow and have to explain to people how her girlfriend just changed her mind about the trip they had been planning for weeks. She supposed she was her ex-girlfriend now. This breakup was an inconvenience on so many levels. First reason was that Kylie needed this vacation; work had been a nightmare. Jack Wilson—the firm owner—was retiring which meant that kiss ass Elliot got a promotion. Elliot is not a leader, he’s like a dog, he’ll follow you around, obey and be loyal. He needs to be instructed, he can’t be the instructor, the trip was the perfect excuse to get away while the chaos died down. She couldn’t take a trip on her own, that would just be pathetic and she cared about what people thought, everyone does, some people are just good at fooling themselves. Second reason was that she was looking at atleast 2 weeks of intense over thinking. If Maeve just broke up with her, she wouldn’t have fixated too much. They’d just been going out for a month; it wasn’t anything too intense. Maeve was good company. Kylie didn’t have many friends. She wasn’t shy or anything, she just never learnt how to make friend, it was easy in school because the circumstances pushed people to socialize but when there was nothing pushing her to talk or to exchange phone numbers or make an effort to meet up. In her opinion when she made an effort it was desperation but if anyone else made an effort it was sweet. Dating was easier than making friends, when you approach a person you find attractive your intentions are clear you know the effort you are going to put in and except in the case of guys, where little to no effort was required, if a guy gets any hint that you might be interested in him, you have all his attention, not all guys were like that but most were. Making friends was a nightmare, you had to second guess every move, which move was going to make them like you and which move was going reveal the that fact you’re mental. She finally reaches home, when she is done emptying her suitcases, she spends 1 full hour on the phone trying to get a refund, after a considerable amount of threats she was successful. She didn’t want to eat Chinese food and watch TV and feel pathetic so she cleaned her entire apartment, after she was done, she had some cereal and slept while watching TV.

There are 2 types of people in this world. The first are the ones who live, laugh love and never regret a moment of something that once was, the second type is the ones who live, laugh, get high on life and then stand in front of people’s houses with a tank of gasoline. She didn’t actually burn the house down, that would have been arson. This the second time she has done this is the last 2 weeks.

This was hopefully the last time; she lights her cigarette and walks home. She throws the cigarette away before entering her house, she doesn’t smoke often, she knows its an awful habit. But she feels like the most powerful woman alive when she takes a drag and holds the cigarette in her hand like it’s her weapon. It’s her against the world.

Kylie was dressed in black boot cut pants and a beige turtleneck. Her dark brown hair was neatly tied into a bun with the exception of the two strands of hair which were loose in the front of her face. Her eyes kept searching the room with an occasional swig of her drink.

Holden, who was sitting in a booth seating with a couple of chairs lined up in front of him, kept eyeing her back intensely stealing snippets of her face. He was vaguely aware of the funny anecdote one of his friends was narrating. For some reason all he could focus on was this woman’s bra which was marginally visible from her shirt, he wondered what fabric her top was made of, he also wondered if all her clothes were made from the same fabric. He knew if someone were to glance his way, his blatant ogling would more than inappropriate. He decides to go and talk to her, he tells his friends he’s going to the washroom and walks up to her

“Hi”, he says

“You decided it was better to look at my face than my bra?”, Kylie replies

Holden turns red but brushes his embarrassment off immediately, “Are you waiting for someone?”

“No”

“Good, do you mind?”, he asks gesturing to the stool beside her

“Not at all”

“I’m Holden”

“Kylie”

“What’s your friend narrating?”, Kylie asks looking over to his table

“She’s venting and making fun of her latest love interest”

“Ah”

“What are you doing here all alone?”

“I’m looking for something interesting”

“Story of my life, you like to read?”, he asks picking up Kylie’s book form the counter

“Ohh yes, and its not just a ‘I know how to read and here’s a book’ kind of thing, it’s more, I’ve been visiting my local bookstores for 3 days a week since I was 13 to see if any new books had arrived or any of the prices of my favourite books had dropped and also because everytime I am in a bookstore I feel like I’m home”

“What’s this book about?”

“I don’t know yet, I couldn’t tell you more that what’s written at the back”

“You want to go to a bookstore?”

“Really?”, Kylie asks

“Yeah”

“Always!”

“Grab your coat”

Kylie follows Holden outside the bar, they both talk about usual things on the way to the bookstore. Holden told her that his dad is very disappointed that he never became a lawyer. Kylie asked him what his job was and he told her that he worked in Marketing, she didn’t ask what he did in marketing. When they reached the book store Holden told Kylie that they both were going to pick one book and explain it to the other person in one line, if the book sounded interesting to the other person, they would have to buy it as a gift. Kylie got 2 new books and Holden ended up reading one them in the store. Kylie let him borrow the book and told him to return it when he was done.

Holden walked her home and they said their goodbyes.

It had been 2 weeks since she’d gone to the bookstore with Holden. The faint sound of music plays in the background as Kylie makes a sandwich. She has been making this sandwich since she was old enough to use a stove, her earliest memory of making this sandwich is waking up at 5am in the morning on a holiday, to make this sandwich and eating it while watching ‘Barbie in the dreamhouse’ on her mom’s phone while she and everyone else in the house slept. Her memory evolved over the years to making this snack whenever she felt happy, humming while cooking and then eating it while watching Gilmore Girls. A loud short noise interrupted Kylie’s state of euphoria, someone was honking. She tried to ignore the unpleasant noise but it only grew louder and more incessant. She decided to take a peek at the mindless idiot who was manically honking this late at night. She walked over to her window, opened her curtains and windows to find a black SUV parked on the road. The honking abruptly stopped after she stuck her head out of her window, she wondered if this was all some joke or a dare to see how long before an annoyed resident starts shouting. She was about to head back to her sandwich when a familiar blonde flock of hair stuck out of the SUV and yelled, “Holden, you idiot, she’s here”

A minute later Holden appears Placing a hand atop his heart he exclaimed with relief, “There you are! I was worried I might never find you, that you were lost to me forever!”

“You forgot where I lived?” was all she said, ignoring his theatrics

“Which answer will get you down here the quickest?”

“What’s down there?”

“An adventure!” he replied with gusto

“Going grocery shopping is an adventure for you, you’ll need to be more specific.”

“Come on Rapunzel, take a chance, climb out of your tower”

“I am very cozy up here thank you” she retorted

“I’ve got your book”, he takes her book out of his coat pocket

She thinks for a moment and then says, “Give me 5 minutes”

She changes, locks her apartment and makes her way to Holden’s car. He opens a door for her and she gets in, Holden gets in after her.

“That is Finn”, he says pointing to the blond hair guy she recognised from the bar, “Our lives are in his hands tonight as he is driving”

“Let’s hope I don’t spot a pretty girl on the road”, Finn replies with a cheeky grin

“And that is the beautiful Aurora”

“I usually go by Rory”, she replied the woman sitting in the co-driver seat

“And I”, said a voice from behind, “am Matthew”

“He’s drunk is what he is”, said Holden

“Where are we going?”, I asked

“We’re going for a drive”

“Where’s my book?”

“It’s in my coat pocket”

“When will I get it?”

“Soon”

“Why not now?”

“Because I’m trying to keep up the mystique”

“Why do you need mystique?”

“Because you’ll get bored otherwise”

“Why do yo-”

“You both are just adorable bickering like that but Finn needs to be told where to go Holden”, Rory says cutting Kylie off

Holden gives Finn directions as they go along, after a while he presses a button and opens the sunroof.

“Get up”, he says to Kylie

“No”, she retorts

He takes her hand and pulls her up, he helps her take her head out of the sunroof and comes up behind her

“Now let go”, he whispers in her ear

“What do you mean?”

“Spread your arms”, he says as he takes her arms and spreads them, “Now will you loosen up your muscles or do you need some help with that too?”

Kylie rolls her eyes and does as she is told. The wind hit her face with a refreshing energy. She felt free. She took a deep breath in and for the first time in a long time her mind was clear, she had no thought whatsoever. It was feeling she always craved for. Calm, she never felt calm or peaceful but that’s was she was feeling right now.

The next day while she was at work, Holden called her.

“Hello?”, she answered

“Meet me for coffee”

“No”, she replied

“That is your standard response for everything so I’m going to send you the location”

“I won’t be coming”

“Don’t you want your bo-”, he trails off, “You dirty thief”

“And you foolish man, your first mistake was teasing me with it and the telling its location and then not noticing when I so easily took my book back. Although I don’t blame you entirely you were rather busy mentally going ‘Oh my god! How did I get to make out with this amazing woman’ ”

“Fine I’ll resort to begging”

“I’ll be free in half an hour, come pick me up”, said Kylie and hung up.

They both sat in silence as they drank their coffee’s. It was not an awkward silence. After a while Holden broke the silence

“I think we should date”, he stated

“No”, Kylie replied

“I think we should date”, Holden stated again

“Really? why?”, Kylie asked setting her coffee down

“Because we both want to”

“Well I want to do a lot of things doesn’t mean I do them”

When the waiter comes to give the bill, Kylie waves Holdens hand away and pays.

“Need to save your money to buy me books if you’re going be my boyfriend, come on drop me back to work”

In the following weeks Kylie got to know Holden’s friend group a little better, she’d already met Finn who was in a long-distance relationship with this guy who lived in Canada, they were in an open relationship. They talked on their phones almost every day and they met each other every other month. Colin always smelt like leather and smoke, he said he didn’t smoke but one time Kylie had a fight with Holden and he took pity on her right after which he made her swear she won’t tell anyone.

She got to know Rory a bit, Rory was literally the life of the party, she was fun and charismatic but not in a way that made her annoying. Her not being annoying was impressive because she was a real estate agent. Kylie thought maybe she was not annoying because she was actually funny. Rory couldn’t commit with any guy, she would get a new guy faster than you could remember the name of the last one . Her not being able to commit would have been fine except that most of the time Rory got hurt.

Lastly, there was Matthew. Kylie liked Matthew the best. He was her spirit animal. He was the flirty, hedonistic one. He would be drunk half the time which she enjoyed. The best part about him was that he would buy drinks for Kylie too.

Kylie loved hanging out with Holden, she loved hanging out with his friends. She was having fun. And that is exactly why she did not want to say anything when she found out that Holden was pursuing someone else. She found out when she bumped into Rory at the supermarket but Holden had said that he’d gone to meet her, when she asked her about Holden she told her he was with the ‘other girl’. Holden must have told her that they were seeing other people.

It had been 3 weeks since she found out, she never confronted Holden or cornered him and asked him to choose because she was scared to death that he wouldn’t choose her.

“Tell something random, something that happened today”, Kylie asked Holden

“Wh- why?”

“I like hearing random things about a person more than I like them telling me their deepest darkest secrets”, she shrugged

“Of course, you do. You’re like a predator or some shit. You like to hunt for a person’s personality than have it handed to you. When you hear random things about them you analyze them. You remember the way they talk, the way they walk, their body language, what they notice in their environment, what they fixate on. You memorize these details and then deduce everything you need to know about them”

Kylie looked at Holden with an expression she never had before, she was smiling, not fully, yet her eyes were wild.

“Come on”

“Where?”, Holden asked as he followed her

“You don’t always get to be the mysterious one”

“Where are we going?”

“My lips are sealed mister”

They reached a park and sat on a bench near the pond.

“Describe me”, Kylie said

“You’re wild, you try to be this pristine lawyer and you’re pretty damn good at pretending but you’re a wild person”

“Hm, now I’ll do you”

“You’re intoxicating, and being with you hurts me but I love it. Everytime I go home I tell myself I’m never seeing you again but then I sleep and wake up craving to see you, smell you and touch you”

“How do-”

“You can’t ask questions”, she cut him off, “You that kid comes here almost everyday to feed the birds, I wonder if one of them will ever snap his hand and drown him in the lake. I wonder what would the colour of the lake be once it’s filled with his blood”

Holden looks at Kylie with an expression that craved to hug her but he knew he shouldn’t

“I have to go home, I see you tomorrow”, she kisses him and walks off.

The most fascinating and dangerous thing about a psycho is that you never know if they’re psychotic if they don’t want you to know.

That evening Holden came to Kylie’s apartment, so frantic that he could be having a panic attack.

When Kylie opens the door Holden looks at her for a long moment and then whispers, “I’m sorry”

Kylie shows no expression and walks away, she goes back to cleaning the dishes.

She scrubs the dishes aggressively while he stands behind the counter. “You lied to me”, she says plain and simple

“That’s not what happened I was trying to-”

“YOU”, she shouts and slams the dishes in the sink and then lowers her lowers and says with a silent anger, “lied to me, have the courage to admit that”

Fear glints in his not only knowing how hurt she was but also of the fact that the knives were too close to her. He didn’t know why that detail even bothered him but it did, was she even capable of using the knife? He knew she would never use it intentionally but knowing her like he did now, he knew there was a wild side to her, the side which didn’t really care about anything.

“I did, I lied to you and have been lying to you”, he said softly

“How am I supposed to know when you’re telling the truth now?”

“You’ll know Kylie, I know you’ll know. Please just, please”, the last part came out strained.

“You need to leave”, was the last thing she remembers, after that it was a blur to her now cycling so fast that her leg muscles screamed in pain. She wanted to test if the muscles would tear if she didn’t stop. Right ahead she saw a wall, and a familiar memory started coming back to her the time she felt free. She wanted to feel free again and this time she wanted to make it last.

Let go

She lifted her hands, the cycle balanced itself and headed straight for the wall. She felt euphoric, but then a little voice told her to hold on and reminded her of the feeling she had when she was happy.

Brakes were applied.

Kylie lay at a six feet distance from her bike.

The next touch she felt, felt like Holden’s.

By Harnoor Kahlon