Kayla sat on her side of the bed with her phone in her hand as her fingers played nervously at her lips. But for her leg bouncing up and down she was idle in every other way. The rain clouds had rolled in and were now blanketing Lake Louise in a moderate rainfall. Kayla stared out at it while she waited for her phone to buzz.
Steve had left to get some groceries for their final four days in Lake Louise. While they didn’t tire of the gorgeous meals – whether heavy, light, gourmet, or fast, they’d partaken in all of them – there were times they really just wanted to sit on one or the other of the stone terraces and not have to get too presentable just to catch lunch. Joanna’s gift package was long gone, and their first grocery run of quick snacks was gone, too. So, Steve caught the shuttle to make a second and final run for just a few odds and ends to tide them over for the remainder of their stay.
While he was gone Kayla took the delivery of clothing that had been returned from the laundry and started putting them away. She opened the closet to hang up her sundress and froze at the sight of the jacquard dress for her wedding that never was. It was, though, she corrected her thoughts. The wedding started, it just never finished. Because he was brave enough to let you go.
Kayla shook her head of these thoughts. “No,” she said out loud. “Don’t do this.”
But it was too late. Guilt was spreading through her like a punishment. And suddenly Kayla felt the worst kind of ache in the pit of her stomach. Heat rose to her face, and she felt nauseous. She’d hurt Justin so badly when all he’d done was love her. That was hard for her to swallow, but there was more to this sudden feeling of darkness. She just wasn’t willing to let herself consciously acknowledge it yet.
Kayla ran her fingers lightly down the sleeve of the dress, the exquisite, raised needlework of gold thread smooth to her touch. She wasn’t the type to reserve white for first weddings; she loved all shades of white for any wedding. But she did feel like this dress was the perfect embodiment of what a wedding to Justin should be. It was sophisticated. It was finely crafted. And it was ornamented without being showy. It was also very different from the dresses she or Adrienne wore for their previous weddings. That was important to Kayla – to ensure there were no reminders of weddings to their first and greatest loves. Neither of them were separated from those loves by choice, so anything too similar wouldn’t be just poor taste in her mind, it would also be cruel. So she liked this dress the moment she saw it.
Kayla didn’t know how she got to the edge of the bed. And she didn’t know how the phone got from her pocket to her hands when she found herself tapping her keyboard.
Hi.
Immediately the three blips popped up in the text thread.
Hi there.
It’s Kayla.
Yeah, I know. It’s not like I took you out of my phone.
Now Kayla felt stupid and blushed in embarrassment. She replied with an eyeroll emoji. When he didn’t reply back she looked up out the window toward the mountains and let out the breath she’d been holding. Then she started typing again.
Of course. I just. Didn’t know if you’d … She backspaced and then typed it again, and then just gave up and replied, I’m glad.
Are you ok? he finally replied.
The fact was that she just didn’t know what to say. Yes. I’m good. We’re good. I just wanted to tell you that I’m ok and make sure you were ok, too.
The 3-dot blip popped up and went away several times in the next few minutes. Kayla finally looked away from the phone and let her leg bounce while she worried that maybe he actually wasn’t ok. Finally, her phone buzzed.
All good. I moved all my stuff out. Back at Uncle Vic’s.
Ok, she replied immediately.
Your place is all locked up. I’ll be sure to get you the key.
It didn’t escape Kayla that Justin hadn’t asked where they went or when they’d be getting back. It just made her feel guiltier. She typed and deleted several replies before Justin sensed her mindset and put her out of her misery.
I’m ok. I really am. I meant it when I said we’re good. He’s the love of your life. If it was Adrienne I would have done the same.
Of that she had no doubt. Kayla did doubt, however, that he would have done it on their wedding day at the altar at her insistence because he wasn’t brave enough to not let it get this far. Kayla teared up as the guilt consumed her like a shroud. This conversation that was supposed to make her feel better was actually making her feel worse.
I’m just so sorry Justin. You are such a good man. I’m so grateful to you.
You’re still my friend. I still love you. Now go be happy.
Kayla’s heart was racing. She felt awful and all she could do was reply with a heart emoji.
“Who are you talking to?”
Kayla jumped and was so startled she dropped her phone.
“Nothing!” she said too quickly.
“What?”
“What?”
Steve narrowed his eye at Kayla. He’d been standing there at the top of the stairs watching her for only a few moments. In those moments, however, he saw her wipe a tear away from her face and instinctively knew it was Justin on the other end of the phone.
“Why are you all nervous?”
Steve’s tone told Kayla that he already knew the answer to that question.
“Why are you sneaking up on me?” she retorted.
“Who’s sneaking? I came up here to get on a dry shirt.” Sure enough, Steve had been impressively rained upon. “It’s pouring out there in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Well you could have said you were back.”
“I did. Where were you?” he accused.
“Right here,” she defended herself.
“You sure about that?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know what it means, Sweetness.”
She hated that he used her pet name in that tone and stuck out her chin in indignance. “I think you’d better spell it out for me.”
“You were a little too caught up in your text to hear me say hi honey I’m home.”
“I wasn’t caught up, I just didn’t hear you.”
“Stop, Kayla. You were texting with Justin.”
“Yes, I was. So? Are you saying I can’t?!”
“No! I didn’t say that. Did I say that, Kayla?”
“Maybe not in so many words, but yep, I think that’s exactly what you said.”
“If that’s what you heard then I think we gotta get your ears examined again.”
Kayla was incensed. “God, you can be so mean.”
Steve hated himself a little for saying that. “That’s right, I’m a mean asshole.” He peeled off the wet tee shirt, chucked it on the floor, then chuckled when she didn’t argue with him. “Well, at least we agree.” Then he turned to head for the drawers opposite the closet for a fresh one.
“So aren’t you going to ask me what we were saying? She went to follow on his heel but stepped back when he stopped and turned around to face her again.
“Why, you think I don’t trust you or something? It’s not like you acted like you were just caught with your hand in the cookie jar or anything. I’m sure there’s nothing I need to know.” Kayla tutted her tongue, but he had a point. She did act like she’d just been caught doing something wrong. “And if there is, I don’t want the play by play.”
“There’s nothing to tell!”
“If there wasn’t anything going on inside you because of that text, you wouldn’t have looked at me like you’d been caught doing something!”
“Ok, listen, stop,” she said trying to maintain a calmer tone. “He was just telling me that he’d moved out.”
“I guess he figures three’s a crowd.”
“I asked him if he was ok,” she ignored the jibe, “and he was just telling me he was. That we were still friends.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell me that?”
“You startled me!”
Steve looked at her with a mix of bewilderment and disappointment. “I called out to you from down there, you just didn’t hear me. Then when I come up to get dry you turn six shades of red. You think I don’t know you by now, you’re feeling guilty. How’s that supposed to make me feel, Kayla?”
You’re feeling guilty … It resonated in her head, because she did. But not for texting Justin. The real reason why was so much worse, and she didn’t want to face it. She couldn’t, and it was making her sick to her stomach. She stared out the window as it grew like a cancer within her.
Steve left her at the foot of the bed and finally went to retrieve a dry shirt. He closed the drawer, and as he slipped the new heather grey Henley over his head he caught sight of the closet. The door had been closed their whole trip; there had been no reason for him to go in there. Now the door was open, where he saw Kayla’s wedding dress for the first time since they left the first hotel. Suddenly, without any warning, a fury burned up Steve’s spine. And the elephant in the room could no longer be ignored.
Kayla literally sensed a change in the air. She looked from the Lake back to Steve. He was staring into the closet. Staring at her dress. His words vibrated inside of her:
So don’t you wanna get outta that dress …
So many hours in that getup …
Yep, dress, too …
Kayla recalled all the things Steve said, all the signs that this dress was maybe a problem. And she could see from the way he stared so intently at it and from the look on his face, that a trigger had been pulled.
“Steve?” she said quietly. He didn’t reply. Instead he took the same sleeve in his hand that Kayla had gingerly swept her fingers over moments ago. “Steve,” she tried again carefully, “are you ok?”
“No.” It was the first honest thing he’d said in all the many times that this elephant had been between them. And that included just about every single conversation they’d had since he woke up himself again in the hospital; not just here on this trip.
Kayla wasn’t expecting that. Then again, she wasn’t sure what she was really expecting. “No?” was all she could muster.
“No,” he repeated, his voice very controlled. Too controlled.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“NO!” he shouted. Kayla shrank back. Normally Steve would have been immediately horrified that he’d caused that reaction in her, but he was too upset to feel anything else right now.
Steve tore the wedding dress off the hanger, crumpled it up into a ball, and threw it to the floor at her feet. “YOU WERE GOING TO MARRY JUSTIN!”
Kayla didn’t back off. Instead she picked up the bundle and let her own fury light her up. “YOU SIGNED DIVORCE PAPERS!” she defended herself and hurled the balled up dress back at him.
“You’re the one who sent them to me!” He threw the dress back into the closet and kicked at it.”
“Stop it!”
“Why, you plannin’ on wearin’ it again?”
“Are you actually looking for an answer to that?”
“Why, you got one?! Ok, go ahead. You wanted to talk, right?!”
“Not like this!”
“Oh, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it? You get to tell me all the ways I’ve fucked up, but God forbid I call you out on not being so goddamned perfect, yourself?!”
The cancer that Kayla was trying not to think about was threatening to strangle her. It was so close now, and she was so scared that all she could do was continue to guard against it.
“You’re the one who signed the papers, Steve, I didn’t force you to!”
“No I didn’t! That wasn’t me!”
“But you did leave me! That was you!”
“I told you to stop saying that, Kayla!”
“You want to split hairs, but that’s what it was, you up and left.”
“I got arrested for espionage!”
“But when you got out, you went right on this mission!”
“To clear my name! Do you know what they do to people convicted of treason?! Everything I’d looked at since the surgery was compromised! And ya know what, that’s on you, because you went behind my back with Stefan Dimera!”
“There it is!” Kayla spat angrily at him. “You finally admit you’re mad at me about getting the bionic eye from Stefan!”
“Yeah! I’m mad, Kayla! Happy?!
“You wouldn’t take it from him! If I didn’t do it you’d have gone blind!”
“I didn’t ask for it. I told you no, but you did it anyway!”
“HOW DOES IT FEEL?!”
She was right, and he knew it, but Steve was enraged, because he was right, too. Kayla set off this whole thing the minute she took that eye from Stefan. If it hadn’t been for that they’d still be together and none of this chain of events would have happened. But you’d be blind, too. He was also angry at himself for making her feel just like this when he was the one playing God so many more times than this. Her need to be an equal partner in the decision making really hit home now. But so did the fact that she had quite the hand in this mess. Steve couldn’t harness his emotions; it was all a storm within him.
“You really know how to turn the knife, baby,” he laughed without a hint of mirth.
“Yeah, well, I know what that feels like, too.”
“Waking up divorced after you had no idea your wife didn’t know she was divorcing the wrong man? Yeah tell me how well you know about that.”
Kayla started to shake. The cancer was too close and she could feel herself starting to succumb to it. “I’m done.” She ran past him and down the spiral staircase.
“Done?!” Steve called after her. “You’re done?! What the fuck does that mean, Kayla?” He ran back down after her to find her pacing in front of the couch.
“Leave me alone!”
“No! Answer me!”
Kayla ran to the terrace and tried to block him out. The rain poured down on her and she let it as he followed her out there.
“What about ‘leave me alone’ do you not understand?!” she screamed.
“What does ‘I’m done’ mean? You done with me? Is that it, you gonna go back to Dimples now?”
“Is that what you think?! That I’d go through all of this for nothing?! Jesus Christ, how can you say that?!” Kayla shoved past him again and went back inside.
Steve was positively terrified. And, truth be told, he’d never felt so enraged in his entire life. The two emotions together were like drowning hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the ocean. But that elephant was raging now. Not just the one, either, but an entire herd was barreling through their relationship, and now there was no stopping the stampede.