When Light Dies, Darkness Awakes

I tossed and turned repeatedly in my bed. For some reason I just couldn’t get comfortable enough to fall asleep. Or rather…I had far too many thoughts to even come close to falling asleep. I stood up and stared into the darkness, and then began to walk out of my room and down the hallway into the living room.
I glanced over at the couch to see…Nate laying there.

Why isn’t he in the guest room with his lover Vonia?

I felt my eyes begin to water. I still don’t know if I should call him by his name, or call him Dad. He’s the only father figure I’ve ever had in my life…

I went over to where he was on the couch and slowly but surely I crawled up on his chest, slowly, quietly, and gently just like a cat. It’s always been easy for me to lay on anyone really, I’m small, and I don’t really weigh much…

I gripped onto his shirt with my small hand as I felt the tears in my eyes begin to slowly slip out. I’ve never met my Mother, I don’t know what my Father looks like…and the one person I remember being like a Father to me went into a coma. Now that he’s awake, I don’t know what I am to him. To me, he was my Father.

I began to hiccup a little as the tears slipped out.

I felt a big, firm hand on my side pull me closer into a hug.

“Shhh little Kari, it’ll be okay.” He whispered before he wiped a tear from my cheek and pushed my head down gently to lie on his shoulder.

My eyes lit up when he said that.

I remember…I remember him calling me that when I was five. Little Kari… He’d always pick me up and tickle me. He’d toss me in the air and once he even held me with one arm and had me stick my arms out to pretend and be an airplane….

Can he be my Daddy too…despite the fact that he’s not my real Father?

When I woke up in the morning, Ren was sitting on the coffee table and looking right at me.

I looked right at him with my eyes partially opened.

His expression on his face read, “Why?”

I simply pulled myself up and onto my feet. Ren remained sitting on the coffee table, but now he was looking up at me.

He placed his long fingered, big hands on my small hips and his blue eyes stared up to meet my light blue ones that refused to look down at him for too long.

I slid my hand into my long black hair that was a complete mess.

“He may be your Dad, but…I thought of him as mine too when I was little…” I said in a low whisper, aiming to not wake Nate up.

“We aren’t siblings; we can’t even be pretend siblings. I don’t see you that way.” He said out bluntly, and in his normal voice. He didn’t even bother to whisper, he didn’t care if his Dad woke up because of him. It really started to make me wonder if he even cared about his own Dad.
I shook my head and said, “I don’t need to be your sister to have him be like a Father to me.”

I then pushed his hands from my waist and walked off to my room to get ready for school.

Today I decided to put some of my hair in a high bun and then I curled the rest of it that fell down my back. I put on a white dress that stopped just above my knees and the straps are a lot thinner than my white bra straps.
I then put on a thin black jacket that had cute white buttons going down it.

When I walked out of my room I saw Jayden standing there with the keys.

“Ready?” He asked.

“Where’s Ren?” I asked.

“In the car.” said Jayden frowning when I said his name.

I didn’t even say anything back; I just walked right out of the place and right into the car.

Once I got to school I began going through the motions of all of it. I just really want to be done with school now; I’m tired of getting up so early…

However, when it came to Math I always got a little excited, not because we were doing Math though. More like, it was because a certain boy in there was there. Our seats are right next to each other, and we always mess around in that class.

His name is Jin Fowley, and he’s probably the first guy I’ve ever liked for a long period of time. Typically, I never really crush on a guy for longer than a month. Why? I don’t really know or understand myself, but that’s how it is. Sometimes I’ll lie awake at night and think the reason why I don’t like guys for very long is because I always have Ren with me. Ren kind of fills all the duties of the boyfriend, the only things he doesn’t fill is the sex and the kissing. I mean, when I really think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever cried hard on any other guy but Ren. He’s always there for me, and he does favors for me no matter what it is. If I ask him to go get my book I left at school for me, he’ll do it. When he was dating Emi, she asked him to do the same and he told her, “I’m not your slave, do it yourself princess ,” with extra sarcasm on the princess part.

Ren’s protective, and I don’t mean like a brother would be to his sister, I mean like a boyfriend to his girlfriend. When I think about it, he’s never liked a single guy I’ve dated no matter how innocent or nice they were. Now that I’m thinking even more about it, he’s been the main reason for my breakups in the majority of the relationships I’ve had. How? Well, Ren get’s really clingy when I’m dating someone – and when I say clingy I mean more than the usual. For some reason every guy I date finds him threatening in some way too. To be quite honest it annoys me when guys I date get all threatened by Ren, or paranoid that he’ll come after them. I guess they have the right to fear him because he has beaten up a few of my ex’s, but if you ask me they deserved it. Those guys were the ones that screwed girls over and I was one of them, they surely needed a beating for the things they’ve done…

I felt warm hands cover my eyes and a voice say, “Guess whooooo?”
“Jin, I’ll always know it’s you if you speak!” I said.
He took his hands from my eyes and pulled me into a tight hug and laughed.
I actually dated Jin for two weeks last semester, and it only ended because he said he wasn’t ready. Ren doesn’t know anything about it, and well Jin and I have been flirting since the day we broke up.
“Did you study for the math test Ms. Kari?” He asked in a voice that he thought would best be suited as a teacher’s way of speaking.
“We don’t have a test today, Jin.” I said refusing to play along.
“Oh Kari! Shame on you! We have a thirty question test today, and the fact you don’t think we have a test today proves you didn’t do anything to prepare. “said Jin with a smile cracking through the serious look on his face.
I rolled my eyes deciding to play along.

“Oh no! It looks like you caught me!” I said playing along horribly.

“It looks like I’ll have to…punish you.” said Jin leaning in and pressing his lips against my neck and then he licked my ear and bit it once before pulling back.

My eyes went wide.

I guess the reason why I like Jin so much is because he has met Ren. He came over to my place and him and Ren just stood there for a good minute glaring at each other, and neither said a word after. I think what I like about Jin is the fact he isn’t quite like Ren, but he’s not quite like the rest of the guys I’ve dated. Perhaps I compare every guy I like to Ren to much, and my only guess as to why I do that is because he’s the one I spent most of my time with.

When class was just about over, Jin slid me a note that read, “Will you go on a date with me at the Besh?”
I felt my face redden little before putting my pen to the paper and writing, “Yes! What time should I meet you there?”
I slid the note back and a second later he writes, “Six.” This time he didn’t bother to slide it back, he was counting on me to lean over and see what he wrote. He’s always been the type to make me come to him, and that’s not something I’m used to at all to be honest…
The rest of my day consisted of me bouncing my right leg while staring at the clock to get out of school. It’s been a while since I’ve been this excited for a date with Jin. I wish we were going to end up meeting right after school. Besh is a really nice restaurant that’s right by a theater a lot of people around here go to.
When class ended I walked out to see Ren there waiting for me leaned against a wall. I walked over to him and smiled.

“Ready to go home?” he said and then put his arm around me.
I spent my entire time home staring at the clock while resting my head on Ren’s lap as he watched some movie. When the clock hit five-forty, I sprinted up and grabbed the keys. Ren grabbed my wrist and pulled me over and asked, “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“I’m going to Ari’s place of course.” I said as I got my wrist back by prying off his hand.

I’m such a liar, but it’s not like I can always be an honest person. I mean, sometimes when you need to get somewhere fast, you need to lie about it, right?

When I made it to the theater I parked the car and walked right up and stood there waiting. It was exactly six, and I didn’t see him anywhere. I figured he’d be a few minutes late, it’s not like I’m right on time when I’m meeting up with someone.
To be honest, I’m hoping Jin and I can have an actual relationship. I’m kind of tired of just flirting and feeling like we’re dating. I want us to be an actual couple; it would just be really nice. I looked at my phone and that’s when it really hit me that I’ve been standing here waiting for an hour now.

I looked up at the sky and felt a drop of rain fall on my face.

You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve been waiting for an hour now, and now it’s going to rain? I grabbed my phone and called Jin, he didn’t pick up. I then texted him and waited there again and began to just shake my head in denial. He couldn’t possibly stand me up like this. I sat down on the ground and began to shake my head over and over again. It doesn’t make sense as to why he would stand me up. I mean, if something happened or came up I’m sure he would have texted me or something…
I closed my eyes tightly, and I didn’t dare to open them. I was hoping, when I do open them, I’ll see Jin. Instead hours later I found myself opening my eyes and looking up to see a drenched Ren standing right in front of me with sad eyes. I felt my eyes water with tears and I shook my head at him and said, “No.”

“How did you know I was here?” I asked.

“Jin.” He said.

“Jin sent you?” I asked confused.

“No, I was just hanging out with my buddies and he happens to hang with us. I overheard him talking about how he was going to see a movie and get food with some girl in his math class but he figured it would be more fun to just go to a party and see Jessica. I kind of figured he was talking about you since you left in such a hurry, plus you’re in his math class.” said Ren as he held out his hand.

I shook my head and said, “Who’s Jessica?”

“His fuck buddy.” said Ren.

“That doesn’t sound like Jin at all. Jin isn’t that type of a guy…” I said shaking my head and ignoring Ren’s held out hand.

“Kari, look, you don’t know him as well as you think you do. You might have dated him for a little while, but that alone doesn’t give you much of an insight on who he really is.” said Ren.

“How did you know I dated him?” I asked in shock.

“He talked about you.” said Ren.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

“The same reason as to why you didn’t tell me you dated him, or that you were planning to meet him here for a date. What the point in me telling you about something you decided to go out of your way to lie to me about?” said Ren.

I sighed and pulled my knees up and buried my face into my legs.

Ren dropped onto his knees and pulled me into his arms and held me tight. After a minute of me trying to suck up how much I was hurt about this, I just broke down crying and held onto Ren tightly.
“I hate men.” I cried out.

“Me too Kari, me too.” said Ren.

After ten minutes of that he pulled off his jacket and put it on me. I looked up right into his blue eyes with my light blue ones and reached my hand out to caress his cheek.

He paused from fixing his jacket onto me to look right back into my eyes.
I looked away for a moment at the ground and then back into his eyes.

“Ren…?” I said.

“What?” he said.

“Kiss me?”

His eyes widened the second my body began to feel ever so numb. I pulled him closer to me without breaking eye contact.

“Ren…”