“Snap out of it! They will love you! Everyone loves you. You need to give yourself more credit sometimes.”
I sighed and looked down at my feet. “I just feel like I need to build myself up so high, Jess, that way when the darkest side of me becomes known, maybe it won’t matter so much to people because I will have already established myself with them and they will be able to absorb that awful side and not hold it against me.”
Jessi firmly grasped my chin and made me look into her pale blue eyes. “No, you listen to me Kelsey Makinzee Rien.” Oh no, she pulled the full name card. I was in trouble now.
“What happened six years ago was. Not. Your. Fault! The person whose fault it is, is rotting in a jail cell somewhere—probably getting raped daily by his celly.” I raised my eyebrow at her and she shrugged. “We can hope right? After what that person—I will not call him a man, and I will not call him your dad … he lost that right—but after what he did to your mom, and after what you had to grow up witnessing every day, he deserves all the hell that he can go through on this earth before he rots for the rest of eternity in a different kind of hell.” She loosened her grip on my chin and took my hands in her tiny hands.
“I hate that you do this to yourself, Kelsey. You are the only person who can’t see how special you are. Lord knows you have had it rough, and I can’t imagine what it is like for you. But as your best friend, it hurts me to see you tear yourself down the way you do. You of all people deserve happiness now. So, please, I’m begging you. Let it in. Let Kane in. Let me in.”
I grabbed my best friend in a tight hug. I felt the warmth of a tear slowing slipping down my cheeks. I knew what Jessi was talking about, but it was easier said than done. She didn’t know how my mother looked at me for help and I just stood there and watched all the life drain from her. It was something I didn’t think I would ever forgive myself for. He may have been rotting in a prison somewhere, but it didn’t help with the fact that some small part of me believed that maybe I should probably be sharing the cell right beside him.
“I’m sorry, Jessi. I know how difficult it is to have me as a friend. You have no idea how much your friendship means to me. I will try to work on it, okay? You deserve that much from me.”
Jessi shook her head, her wild red curls flying everywhere. “No, Kelsey, I don’t want you to do this for me, I want you to do this for you. I will be here for you no matter what. You will never get rid of me but you need to forgive yourself. Your mom wouldn’t want you to go through life hating yourself for something you had no control over. You were stuck in a horrible situation and there was nothing you could have done.”
I don’t care how many times the world would tell me that, I couldn’t make myself believe it. I had taken the cowardly way out and I would have to carry that with me for the rest of my life, but I would do as I promised Jessi. I would work on me.
“Shit. Now I’m going to have to redo your make up on top of finding you something to wear,” Jessi said as she ran her thumbs under my eyes to try to clear my cheeks of the little black streaks that I know had to be running down due to my crying.
“I’m sorry to have brought that up like that on a day that I know you are already stressing over. Not a good move on my part,” Jessi sighed.
“No Jessi, it’s okay. I need you to give me a kick in the ass every now and then to make me remember I do have to go on living. That no matter how much it hurts, I am still here and I have people who gathered around me and loved me when they didn’t have to and I need to be thankful for that.”
Which was true. With all my shame and guilt over my mom, I rarely took the time to be thankful for Jessi and her family extending their home and their love to me when they didn’t have to. They could have let me go off into the system, but they took me in and cared for me as if I was one of their own and the way I repaid them was to mope and feel sorry for myself for the six years I had lived with them. I ached every day for my mom, but I needed to find that happy medium of being thankful for what I still had and learning to live with what I had done. I wanted to be happy again, I really did. I just hadn’t figured out how to be that way yet.
After many different wardrobe changes, Jessi helped me decide on a nice summer dress and a light sweater. Her reasoning for the choice being, “His grandparents are old, old people grew up in a time where girls wore a lot of dresses.” Though her reasoning may have been a little crazy, I went with it and then let her reapply my makeup. She was just finishing up when there was a knock at the door.
“That’s probably Landon. I’ll get it,” Jessi said as she hopped over the pile of clothes that still lay in the middle of the floor. I was going to have to clean up this mess when I got back. As I made my way to the door to leave, Jessi, stepped back in the room closing the door behind her. In her arms was a large arrangement of flowers.
“Was that Landon? Are those from him?” I questioned.
She shook her head. “No there was no one at the door. Just these sitting on the floor. I looked down the halls but didn’t see anyone. The card has your name on it. Maybe they are from Kane?”
She handed me the flowers and I plucked the card from the plastic stem. The top of the card did read my name but the message was very vague. There was no name stating who they were from, only a message saying, “Be seeing you.”
“Be seeing you?” Jessi read aloud over my shoulder. “Who do you think they are from?”
The handwriting on the card was obviously female, so I assumed the lady at the flower shop had filled it out, but I honestly had no clue who they were from. It wasn’t as if I knew a bunch of people but I couldn’t understand if they were from someone I knew, why they wouldn’t sign their name.
“I don’t know. Maybe it was meant for a different Kelsey in the dorms or something and they got the rooms mixed up,” I said as I placed the flowers on my desk. I hated the thought that someone might have spent their money, and that the other Kelsey would never know she had these beautiful flowers.
“Or maybe you have a secret admirer,” Jessi teased as she poked me in my ribs, and I rolled my eyes at her.
“What?! You’re hot, girl. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the guys on campus want them a little piece, but they have enough sense in their heads to not approach you because Kane would more than likely flip his shit.”