Kenzie
My hands were shaking by the time I got back inside of the building. Jonas was the same despicable pervert he’d always been, and I was now having second thoughts about playing this game, after all. He deserved for someone to treat him the way he did so many others, and while I could take him down a few notches, was it actually wise to do so?
The door closed behind me, and I sagged wearily against it. While I was nervous about reopening past wounds, I was also curious as to how hard he’d fall from grace if I actually followed through with everything. I’d been at the bar and heard those other two women talk about him. It seemed as if his reputation preceded him. I had been in New York for almost a year, and in all that time, I hadn’t heard his name mentioned once. Leeann had said he was some sort of Titan, and I had no clue what that meant. Maybe, it was corporate lingo. It could be, but something told me it wasn’t.
I pushed off the door and decided to go back to my room to do a bit of research. I had no idea where Reece was, but I knew she would be able to find me if needed. I walked to the elevator and within seconds, I was descending down to my floor. While I hadn’t known he owned this place, much less was the one interviewing and auditioning prospective restaurant owners, I now wondered if he did. He seemed genuinely surprised to have seen me, but he was always a great actor.
“You’re so easy to talk to about anything, Kenzie. You’re so different than the other girls our age,” he’d once told me.
I could now remember that day like it had been yesterday. We’d been on a small boat his parents owned and sailing around Clear Lake. It was winter, although the temperatures there rarely reached the extremes like they did in New York City, or even Nebraska. I was in a pair of sweats with a matching hoodie, and he had on a pair of low-slung jeans, a rock T-shirt under his letterman’s jacket. We’d been on the boat for over a half hour, but it felt like it’d been a lot longer. He was the king of multitasking, easily navigating the vessel while also talking to me. I was wrapped in a thick blanket, and staring at him with such adoration.
“I like listening to you,”I’d told him.
He’d looked over his shoulder at me and flashed his boyish grin, before turning back to the water. “Being out here on the lake makes me forget about my problems.”
“Problems?”I’d asked, almost shocked that he had any.
Jonas was wealthy, so he didn’t have to worry about money. He was also the star quarterback and the most popular guy in school. I didn’t know what he had seen in me, but it was something if he was here with me and not somewhere else. I never talked much to anyone, about anything, but he made it easy to confide about what life was like for me, always having to move from one place to another. I wanted to say I understood how military children felt, but that’d be a lie. They had to worry about their parents at war, while the worst thing that had ever happened to mine was the heart attack my father had a few years earlier. Even then, it hadn’t been an occupational hazard, but a result of poor life decisions he made when it came to his diet and exercise.
Jonas had eventually stopped the boat, then he moved closer to me. I scooted over so that he could sit beside me, even sharing the blanket he’d graciously thought to bring with us. I stared up at him, and hoped he planned to elaborate on what he’d just told me. I wanted so badly to ignore the doubts and insecurity that followed us by humanizing him. Jonas Courtland was larger than life, and a legend at Spencer Academy.
“What do you see in me?”I’d asked before I could stop the question from slipping out.
“I like that I can tell you anything.”
I’d smiled at him, and concurred that I felt the same. He then cupped my face between his palms and my lips pursed together as I anticipated our first kiss. It had eventually come, but not at that moment. He just held me for a few minutes before pressing his forehead to mine.
“It’s hard having to live up to someone who’s seemingly better at everything than you,” he’d told me.
“That’s impossible. Who could be better than you?”
Even looking back at it now, I was such a damn fool. He was probably giddy as hell knowing I was so besotted with him.
“My brother, Logan. I feel as if I need to be smarter... more talented... more liked, but it’s so exhausting because I feel as if I am the sequel to an already highly rated movie.”
It hadn’t been the first time he’d talked about his older brother, and I wondered now if he had truly ever felt any of those fears and vulnerabilities that he’d bared to me. I’d reached up and cupped his face. When I’d pulled away, I looked back into his eyes.
“You don’t need to live in his shadow. You’re your own person, and a great one at that.”
He’d then leaned in and kissed me. It’d been the first time anyone had ever done so with me. I was terrible at it, I know, but as his lips moved over mine, I tried to mimic his actions. I’d been kissed by parishioners and family members, but those had been on my cheeks or forehead, and never where he was kissing me now. It’d felt nice. I didn’t feel any pressure, and even when he used his tongue to wedge apart my lips, I allowed it.
The boat gently lapped about in the waves, but it was all forgotten as we sat there and kissed. Time had stood still, and I’d realized in that moment I had fallen for him. That scared me, but since he was so chivalrous and kind, I didn’t run as I should have. Instead, I continued to foolishly fall, and until I actually saw the video, I kept hoping everything else had been a mistake. There was no denying visual evidence, and a part of me died that day in those dreadful halls. He’d stolen my trust... virtue... and innocence. From there, I was blackballed within my own family, and a few tears slipped down my cheeks as I realized how long it had been since I even talked to my parents. I think it had to have been my graduation from the University of Nebraska. My accomplishments hadn’t made them love me again, because they returned to Arizona where they now lived, and I was left to wallow in the guilt of my failures.
Now, Jonas was back in my life, and he wanted to pretend as if all I had lost hadn’t been much, after all. He was probably off with a cheerleader that weekend while I’d been the one strapped to a bed in some psych ward. I had alternated between anger over being punished for needing some air, and depressed when I realized maybe subconsciously I had wanted to die. I was put on different types of medication, some causing me to zone out on everything. I couldn’t live as a zombie, even though not feeling or dealing with life did sound nice. Eventually, they diagnosed me with not only anxiety, but bipolar disorder as well.
I spent weeks in that hellhole being poked, prodded, and pumped full of drugs. It was no wonder I was angry, but it was such a powerful emotion and one I found hard to hold on to. Reality would sink in, and I would be inconsolable. I withdrew completely until my mood leveled out. It was a push and pull, and even once free of the institution, the reminders of what I had gone through had truly done a number on me. The next several months were the hardest as I kept alternating between rage and sadness. I wanted to end my life, and one night, I almost did.
Would this little game of Reece’s make me crack again? As I stepped out of the elevator once the doors opened, I ambled back to my room. My steps faltered once or twice, and I couldn’t wait to get out of these heels. I almost wished I knew where Reece had run off to, because I didn’t want to have to wear these if I needed to go find her.
I decided to change shoes, then I would go back to the roof. If I was lucky, Jonas would be busy with some other woman, and I wouldn’t be so tempted to push him off the rooftop to his death. Sure, he played me for a fool when we were younger, but the price I had to pay for trusting the leech was one much greater than the one he had to pay. If it had been anyone else to have done something so despicable, they would’ve at least been suspended, but when I asked my mother what had happened to him, she had shaken her head. I later learned nothing had happened because the Courtlands had a fucking building, and their legacy spoke volumes. Mine did, too, and I was probably the example they brought up to other girls to this very day.
I pulled my key card out of my pocket and slid it into the door. As soon as I stepped into the room, I came to a stop. There, on the bed was Reece, and an up-and-coming chef that had once been on one of those network cooking shows.
“Kenzie!” Reece cried out, stricken as soon as she saw me. “I-I can explain,” she stammered.
The guy pulled the blanket tighter around them as I stood there with my mouth agape. I knew she had mentioned seeing someone she knew, but I had thought it was a lie to give Jonas and me privacy.
“Kenzie, I...” she started, then paused. By the way she moaned right after, I knew he was still inside of her.