Little Baby Pines

The pressure on Kim’s skull was relentless. No matter how much water she drank, it didn’t ease up. The bottle of alcohol she drained on her own the previous night was unleashing its unhealthy consequences on her body now. Her older brother, Teddy, just looked down at her. “What the fuck happened to you, Kimmy?” He then walked back to the kitchen to grab two cups of coffee for him and her.

“Shut up, Teddy. Go make me an omelet or something. Stop judging me.” She burrowed deeper under the covers of her X-Men comforter. She was camped out on the couch of a sublet. The place was relatively cheap and available in her time of need. When the sorority kicked her out they stashed all of her belongings on the porch. Some of it couldn’t fit in her car so the sorority left it on the lawn and sold it to anyone who wanted it. Kim felt stripped and bare naked when she watched Heather hand over her vanity desk that her mom bought for her from an antique store to someone guy for 5 dollars.

Kim was going through a lot and had no way of communicating it with anyone. Mindy and Sullivan were no longer her friends. Everyone at the sorority were afraid to talk to Kim given her dishonorable boot out. She tried to talk to Jon but only managed to ruin their entire relationship. Talking to Kaner felt odd for her and then he ignored her messages, so that solved that. The last people she had on her side were her family. Her mom and dad wouldn’t have been able to fly out and see her. Her little brother was still in school. That left Teddy, her older brother who was in France. He was the older brother with hair as black as a raven’s feather and skin as smooth and opaque as a pearl. He was the sibling with angular bone structure that made him look pouty even though he wasn’t. His tall stature was unusual for Korean/Irish decent and set him apart from everyone in his family.

He flew out to take care of her for a few days before he had to fly back. He hadn’t imagined her to be such bad shape. It was Teddy’s first day of being at Kim’s. He had gotten there in the middle of the night and just went to her bedroom to pass out. She stayed in the kitchen to secretly drink her problems away. It took Teddy two weeks to come to her rescue. In that fortnight she had turned into something he couldn’t recognize. His normally well-put-together sister was a wreck. Not even exams could break her this hard.

Teddy squatted by the side of the couch, setting down the two cups of coffee. “Kim, you didn’t say why I needed to come here. This is obviously really fucking bad. What happened? Did some guy cause this?”

She buried her head into the cushion of the couch. “I did this to me, Teddy. I caused all of this. I always fucking do the worst to myself. It is always me.”

-----
The boys were on the road in Detroit, Michigan. Their last game was a 3-0 lost to the Bruins. Jon’s roommate for road trips was avoiding him at all costs. Since the break up, Jon had done nothing but explode at Kaner. His mishandled anger had caused water bottles to explode near Kaner’s head when Jon threw them. To get away from Jon, Kaner camped out in Seabrooks’ and Keith’s room. He was sitting on the table in their room eating a bowl of cereal.

“Is anyone going to talk to Tazer? The guy is a wreck. I mean, it is starting to get in the way of our playing.” Duncan Keith fell onto his bed in a poetic position. He shoved a pillow under his head and glanced from Kane to Seabrook.

Seabrook pulled a hoodie on over his white shirt. “I think that Coach Q is going up to his room now, actually.”

“Thank fucking God. That guy is a handful. He almost punched me in the face last week because he used my phone to check the time and she texted me. I had to delete everything of her off my phone to not send him in a fucking rage.”

“Has that guy ever been broken up with before?” Duncan rolled his eyes. “I am guessing no.”

There was knocking at the door. Seabrook walked over and opened it, revealing a somber Tazer. “Hey, is Kane in there?” Seabrook stepped to the side letting Jon in. He walked over to Kane. “Did you delete her off your phone?”

“Yeah. We were just talking about this. Weird.” He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, you told me to. So I did.”

“Well, is Mindy still in there?” Jon leaned against the wall. He didn’t look at any of the boys because he didn’t want to see their judging looks. He knew they thought he had lost it.

The empty bowl of cereal was placed by Patrick’s thigh. “I think so. I never have called her or anything, though.”

“Toss me your phone.”

The smooth plastic brick was slid out of Patrick’s pocket. He walked over to Jon, handing it to him. “What are you going to do, Tazer?”

“Q told me to deal with this, so I am dealing with it. She is under Broken Nose, right?”

“Yeah. That would be her.”

Jon slipped the phone into the pocket of his blue hooded jacket. “Thanks.” And with that, he walked out of the hotel room.

He walked down the hall, turned a corner, and entered the stairwell. To be frank, he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. Q told him to deal with his problem in a mature fashion. Jon told Q that he wanted to break Sullivan’s bones and he wanted hit Kim’s car. Apparently those aren’t solutions to a problem like this. Jon decided to try and talk it out with Kim. It might just piss him off even more, though.

After the break up Jon deleted everything related to Kim off of his phone and got rid of all her things in his apartment. It made sense to him. She broke his heart so she didn’t deserve to be in his life. Her things that were left at his apartment were thrown in a black trash bag and stashed at Kaner’s place. Since he erased Kim from his life, he had no ties to her and that included Mindy. Mindy was the only person he could think of in being able to reach her.

It took him three tries before she finally picked up the phone. Her voice was strained. “Why are you calling me? Sorry. I am a little pissed because I just blew the fuse of the building and it is going to take a while for them to repair it. So the electricity is out and I can’t work on my project! So what do you want, Patrick Kane.” Her snappiness was new. It reminded Jon of Kim.

“Actually, it is Jon.”

“Oh,” was all she could muster up.

The two let a break of silence enter their short conversation. “I know you hate Kim now and all, but I was wondering if I could talk to you about her.”

“Jon. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I didn’t know Sullivan was going to do that to her, honestly.” Her morose tone made Jon kick at the ground. “And I never hated her, Jon. I loved her. I loved Kim the most. I was the girl that was at her side when she fucked up. I couldn’t do that anymore because I felt like she loved others more than she loved me. I felt neglected, Jon.”

Jon sat down on the stair steps. “Are you kidding me? She loved you more than anyone. More than me. You were her best friend and it hurt her that she was losing you. After a while she gave up because she felt like you could make your own decisions and if you were better without her then she respected it.” He scratched the back of his head.

Mindy was happy she was in the dark lab by herself. That way no one could see her mascara running. “Really? I doubt that. Jon, what is my name?”

“It’s Mindy.”

“No. It is Amanda. My name is Amanda. My nickname was Mandy. When I met Kim at the Rush party for the sorority; she was drunk and misread my name tag. She called me Mindy and introduced me as Mindy to everyone. I didn’t stop her because I was so entranced by her stellar presence. The way she walked into a room and owned it. She just kept calling me Mindy after that and so did everyone else. My name is Amanda.”

Jon felt like an idiot. He didn’t know how Mindy could let that go on for that long, how she let Kim change her name. “I am sorry, Amanda.”

“No one calls me that, Jon. I am Mindy. So what is up with Kim? She was kicked out of the sorority and that is the last time I saw her. She and I don’t have classes in common. Heather hasn’t mentioned anything about her lately. I think she has the disciplinary hearing sometime this week.”

“She left me, Mindy.”

“Oh. Oh no.” The ‘no’ sounded muffled because she covered her mouth with her hand. Mindy was cowering in the dark. Another consequence from the wrath of Sullivan: Kimberly’s relationship exploded. She fidgeted on her lab stool. “Jonathan, I am sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“Yeah, neither do I. It’s kind of why I have been acting like a complete asshole for the last two weeks. It’s kind of why I wanted to talk to you. Plus, I have no way of getting a hold of her. I don’t have her number anymore and she doesn’t live at the sorority house anymore. Mindles, can you give me her number?”

Mindy’s heart fluttered at the name ‘Mindles’. Kim was the only one to call her that and cause her blood to rush to her cheeks. She loved that nickname. “Yeah, of course.” She gave him the number. “I don’t know where she is living now. The club kids won’t take her in because of Sully. She wouldn’t even try them, anyway. The sorority girls are told to avoid her like the black plague unless they want Heather on their bad side. No one wants that. So honestly, I don’t know where she is.”

“That girl has nothing.” Jon picked at his shoelaces. “Mindy, are you still with him?” She didn’t say anything. “Are you still with Sullivan.”

The girl panicked. “Oh, snaps. The electricians are coming down the hall. I have to go, Jon. I hope you reach her and tell her how sorry I am. I don’t deserve her forgiveness, though. I am sorry to you too, Jon. Bye.” She hurriedly hung up on him and dropped her head to her chest. Jon shook his head in disappointment. After all that Sullivan did, she was still with him. He saw Mindy as a pathetically hopeless girl.

He hurriedly punched in Kim’s number. His hands began to shake. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was afraid he would call and just apologize, begging her to forgive him and take him back.

The phone rang and shortly switched to a recording. “I am sorry, but the number you are calling is no longer in service.” Jonathan panicked. He called it twice only to get the same message again and again. He then called Kim’s affiliations: the library. Dead end. She stopped showing up two weeks ago. The girl had fallen off the scope of prevalence. Jon tossed the phone down the stairs. It bounced, skidded into the wall, and spun until it lost momentum. Then he realized it was Kaner’s phone. Whatever, it didn’t matter. She was lost to him.

---------
Kim buried her face into her brother’s neck. “Teddy. This sucks. This all fucking sucks. I have lost so much, but it seems like trivial shit yet it means so much to me.” She pulled away from him and scooped her cigarettes off the ground by her feet. “It’s just like, I don’t know what to do with myself.” She pulled out a cigarette and lit it. A column of smoked seeped out her parted lips.

“Kimmy, you did lose a lot. Your seat at your grad school, your scholarship, your boyfriend.” Teddy put his hand on her knee. “How is Jon?”

“Fuck.” Tears slowly slid down her cheek. “You had to say his name. God.” The hand not holding her cigarette reached up to her face to catch the tears. “I don’t know. Kaner wouldn’t tell me and then he stopped talking to me altogether. And I destroyed my phone when I got shitfaced last week so I have no idea if he has tried to get a hold of me. Why would he? He hates me, Teddy.”

He squeezed her knee. “In that moment, maybe. But you guys were together for awhile. Maybe he wants to apologize.”

“He won’t be able to. As soon as school ends, I am out of here. I just taking my degree and going home. Fuck this. I just want Mom to hold me so I can cry my little eyes out.”

“You are so goddamn dramatic, sweetie.” Teddy tapped her knee and then stood up. “Alright. I am going to make you a crepe. My girlfriend, Charlene, loves them. I think she is getting fat off of them.”

Kim slipped lower into the couch, reclining. She let the cigarette dangle from her fingers, ashes falling onto the ground. “She is getting fat because she is pregnant.”

“Dude, shut up! Don’t tell Mom and Dad that.” Pans clanged against pots. “Mom will be pissed that we aren’t married yet. I don’t know what to do. Charlie doesn’t believe in marriage. She—” He exhaled deeply. “She is adamant on not accepting my marriage proposal because I knocked her up.” The refrigerator cracked open and things made noises as Teddy rummaged through taking out the ingredients he needed.

Half the cigarette crumbled to the ground in ashes. She brought it back to her lips for one last drag. “I like her standards. Aren’t her parents from here? Good ol’ Chi-town?” Teddy made a grunting noise and remained quiet as he concentrated on cooking. Kim flicked the cigarette into the remnants of her coffee mug. “You know, this one was different. For some fucking reason, being with Jonny was different than any other guy I have been with. Even Sully.”

“Is it because you were in love with the Toews guy?”

“God.” She covered her face with her hands. “Come off it, Teddy. Don’t we all know that I am a selfish bitch that destroys people for the satisfaction of her own pain? I am like a female character in a Jane Austen book. Sad, dreary, and destined for loneliness. I will be the bitch with no livelihood and twenty million cats.”

“What I got from that was, ‘Yes, Teddy. I absolutely was.’ Thanks for the answer, Kimmy.”

“Get. Fucked.”