CHAPTER 15 - HOC EST CORPUS

Part 2

Kai took in a deep breath and continued his story. “Anyway, by the time I was a senior, I knew a group of guys who had decided they ruled the school, you know? They decided to pick out one kid—his name was Tim, Tim Pinkerton—his last name was hilarious to them. They called him... they said he was their bitch. Made him get stuff for them, tripped him up when he brought it, that kind of stuff. Probably worse stuff that I didn’t see. I tried to be extra nice to Tim, but I think he was afraid of being my friend—he wasn’t sure that I wasn’t gonna be like them, since... my family and their position—my family has a lot of money, is what I’m saying. I know you don’t talk about that stuff here, but, yeah, they do. On my mother’s side—the Hawaiian side. Well, the white part of my mother’s side. We’re mixed—native and Chinese and European—and we ended up with some sugar and pineapple plantations because a lot of upper class—like practically royalty—native Hawaiian women married rich white guys in the 1800s. I guess it’s complicated for outsiders. Kinda shitty that’s where our money comes from, but my grandparents try to use it for good causes on the Islands.”

He took another deep breath. “Am I tiring you out? Cass said I shouldn’t talk to you for too long because you have to rest.”

Bard shook his head, gently, though he still had to hold in a hiss of pain. “I like hearing you talk.”

Kai’s mouth spread into a smile, showing his sharp, slightly crooked teeth that Bard was fascinated by—because they were yet another of Kai’s features that were entirely, utterly his.

“I like hearing you talk, too—when you’re better I want to hear you talk about whatever comes into your head.” But then he grew somber. “Not sure you’re gonna like hearing what I’m about to tell you though.” He wiped his lips with the back of his hands and tipped his head back, another gesture that was his alone. “So these seniors—I didn’t know what to do about it. I’m not one for being able to talk things out. But when they started getting physical—that I know what to do about. My dad—he’s not like my mom’s side of the family—like I said, he was a brawler in his day. He and my Uncle Nacho—he’s not really my uncle—he’s my dad’s best friend—and his name isn’t really Nacho. It’s Ignacio, but Nacho is a nickname for Ignacio. He’s a tall Mexican guy, taller than me even, and he—”

“Kai, you were saying?”

“Sorry. Yeah, so one day, we were in the cafeteria at dinner, and Tim was holding a tray for one of those guys. Tim was walking behind him, and the senior stopped suddenly—on purpose so Tim would bump into him. Well, the drink spilled and he—the senior, just turned right around and backhanded Tim. He fell, and then the whole group of them started yelling about how he was crying, and—well, sometimes I just do things. It’s like there’s some instinct in me, and before I know it, I’m in the middle of punching someone or jumping in a lake or—” he looked away—“grabbing the hand of someone I just met. So, anyway, yeah. I jumped on those guys. I had the one who slapped Tim on the ground before he even knew what hit him. I kept punching him, like I was trying to punch through his face into the floor. I... I kinda did the same thing to your father. Sorry.”

Kai curled his hands into fists and Bard saw for the first time that his knuckles were scraped raw, one of them split. “Your hand.” He wanted to reach out and cover the scrapes with his palm. “You hurt it. On my father’s face, I assume.”

Kai sniffed a laugh. “Yeah. I kinda ambushed him, same as with those guys at school. I don’t exactly fight fair. Learned that from my dad, too.” He smiled, and Bard thought he was about to launch into another aside, but he just sighed. “Anyway, I was punching that guy and my hand was bloody—some of it was mine, but most of it was his. Finally, his buddies pulled me off of him, but I went after them, too, and had them all out on the floor—there were three of them—but then our P.E. teacher came in and he and a couple of other guys managed to hold me back. I got hauled to the principal—that’s the headmaster—and I tried to explain what happened, but I was the one with blood on my hands—literally—so as far as he was concerned, there was no explanation needed. And I asked ‘What about Tim?’ and he said, ‘Mr. Pinkerton needs to grow a backbone,’ and it was like something broke in me. It wasn’t that I was mad—angry. It was more like... despair. I just felt how there was this kid hurting and being mistreated, and no one was helping him, except me, and I was getting in trouble for it. I just... dived over the principal’s desk and knocked him off his chair. I don’t really remember what happened then. Uncle Jude says I will, someday, when I’m ready. But I just remember I came back kneeling on the principal’s chest, and he had his arms over his head, and my hands were bloody again and I... I was crying. I felt so helpless.”

Kai was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees now, his hands folded between them. He’d slid forward in the chair so his knees touched the edge of the mattress. It closed some of the distance between them, and Bard felt Kai’s desire—like that magnetic pull of the train cars—to close it even farther, to touch Bard—his hands, his face, as he did when he first came in the room.

Kai sighed and dropped his head into his hands again. “I wanted to destroy something. So before anyone could grab me, I picked up a chair and threw it through a window. Then I just... I kinda collapsed. I guess they didn’t know what to do with me, so the P.E. teacher took me back to the cafeteria. It was empty. He sat me down at a table and just left and locked the door.”

“He locked you in?” Bard stomach sunk, thinking of Kai abandoned and angry, seventeen years old. “They’re all the same at these boys’ schools. In America. In Milton. Bloody beastly ghouls. Bullies.”

“Yeah, well... I wasn’t making the greatest decisions in this situation, as my uncle likes to remind me. I sat there for two hours—there was a clock up on the wall, and I watched it. It was dark out, and I was sure they’d forgotten me. And I just got angrier and angrier. So I got the idea—it wasn’t even an idea, really, just a flash, an image, and it felt like something I had to do. To make a point. I went into the kitchen, lit all of the burners on the stove and threw a big bottle of cooking oil on it.”

Bard felt the blood drain from his lips. “Kai,” he whispered.

“Yeah, my hair got singed, but it’s a wonder I didn’t go up in flames. I don’t remember really, but there was something like... like what I did with your father, when I pulled him to me—I don’t know what Cass told you—but I was keeping the fire contained until I could get out. I broke another window and climbed out, and then... I don’t know, let go? That’s what it felt like, like I had been pushing something, keeping it down, and then I just let go. And the fire just exploded out of the kitchen. And I ran. I found the road and I ran until some police on the way to the school picked me up.”

Kai’s hair fell over his face, hiding it entirely.  “They told me I was lucky nobody got hurt or even killed. The cafeteria was separated from the main building by a hallway, so they think that’s why, but really—it was because of me. I made it burn up the whole cafeteria and not spread. I don’t know how, but I know it was me.” He peered up through his hair, his eyes beseeching belief. “Another crazy thing, I know.”

Bard sat with the story for a moment. The pain in his head was slowly spreading, like the smoke in Winthrop’s, like the heat of the fire, growing closer behind him on the stairs. He leaned back into his pillow and closed his eyes. There it was—the sweat on the palms, the hitch in his breathing, the thumping of his heart. Kai, so attuned to Bard’s every movement, raised his head fully.

“I—I know there was a fire,” Kai whispered. “A fire you escaped from.”

“Ten people died,” Bard said. “The emergency exits were locked. To prevent shoplifting.” He scoffed. “Ten lives—for what? A few quid. That’s the story of Milton.”

“I wish I could say that I didn’t hurt anyone on purpose. But in that moment, I didn’t know.” Kai’s shoulders shook. A tear fell onto his hand, then another. “Don’t hate me.”

He grabbed Bard’s hand, enveloping it in his wide palm, and then looked up his eyes wet and entreating. The heat of Kai’s palm felt as if the fire he had controlled still resided in his skin. But Bard didn’t pull away from him. In Winthrop’s the heat and spoke and pressed on him like a weight, stole his breath, pulled searing tears from his eyes. And later, in the street, and here in his house, it fled from him, left him shivering. It’s as if he had been cold ever since. 

The fire in the store and the fire in the school—they were the same only in their element; the cause, the effect—those were different. Bard closed his eyes for a moment, letting himself relive the moment he had stumbled out of the store’s doors and into the street, the cool air of early summer, the sky through the smoke white-blue. Later, the rain would clear the smoke, and the rush of being alive, of kissing Jack in the street out of happiness for it, would leave him. He would settle into his bed like a leaf falling, a fluttering, slow descent. Once down, the leaf would never return to the tree. 

Bard had thought he would never return to life, not in the same way. But here: Here was Kai. Now Kai’s skin was burning for him, burning to touch him and be touched by him. Bard, though, had only the strength in that moment to press Kai’s hand in his and then raise his fingers to Kai’s bottom lip.

“I could never hate you,” Bard said.

Kai drew in a shuddering breath and smiled, showing his teeth. But tears still fell from his eyes and he sniffled, like a child. “I don’t understand it,” Kai said. “I can’t tell you why—why I need you. But I do.”

It was too much. The throb of pain in his head brought Bard back into the real moment—the one where he was not just reclining on his bed with a beautiful boy staring at him, but also where he was bruised and exhausted and utterly lost. He and Kai simply looked at each other for a moment and then Kai lowered his eyes first.

“You need to rest,” he said.

Bard felt the truth of it, but he resisted. Just a few more moments, time to whisper words, to exchange another touch. “I—”

“I know,” Kai said. “But I want you to be OK. I’ll be here, yeah? I’ll stay here in the house as long as I can if your mom doesn’t throw me out. I’m not gonna go away from you.”

Kai began to stand to leave, but Bard tugged at his hand. He pulled him closer, not moving from his place against his propped-up pillows but smiling as he saw how he could draw Kai to him. Kai’s face was so close, his breath on Bard’s mouth, and then their lips were against each others’—warm and soft and chaste. It was only a moment, hardly more than a touch, but when they both pulled away, it was with a shared gasp. As they remained with their heads tipped together, breathing quickly in unison, Bard thought Kai was going to press back into the kiss. But instead Kai put his hand on Bard’s cheek and brushed the bruise at his temple with his fingers, caressing his throat with his thumb.

“I want to stay here with you,” Kai said. “I want to kiss every bit of your face and—I want —“ his breath shuddered. “But you need to rest.”

Kai squeezed Bard’s hand, then lowered it to the blanket. Bard closed his eyes, noticed for the first time that there were voices downstairs, and now the sound of a key in the lock. He exhaled slowly. He felt Kai’s hand release his. He heard his bedroom door open, then close. The darkness behind his eyelids was the dark of Kai Harper’s eyes, and spots of color pulsed in it, like fire.