Page 38 of Solo Stan

Kai

The air was warm and fragrant as Kai stood beside one of the open windows.

Sweetgum trees lined the herringbone-patterned sidewalks, shading the street with a verdant canopy.

One stood tall before him, its prickly gumballs rustling in the breeze.

Pale light streamed through its star-shaped leaves as the clouds started to subside.

Left alone in the apartment, Kai regarded the few possessions scattered around the studio.

Some black T-shirts hung on the back of a chair by the window.

He had half a mind to poke around some of Elias’s bags to see if he really was who he said.

The bags were probably full of passports with different names on them.

He wouldn’t have been surprised if he were some kind of spy, given his good looks.

Kai peered through the window again at the sweetgum leaves.

Maybe its star-shaped leaves were a symbol of the celestial and the divine.

But then again, it could just be a leaf.

Elias could be his twin flame, or he could just be a boy that Kai liked right now, in this moment only, the way Bobby had been.

Back then, Kai’s crush on Bobby made a lot of sense.

He was cute—they got along so well that they barely even needed to talk to know what the other was thinking, and things with him were just easy.

It wasn’t until years later, when they got to high school, that Kai realized he was in the majority—almost everyone who met Bobby fell in love with him.

Then, after he and Bobby kissed, Kai realized they were nothing more than friends—platonic soulmates, really.

He thought about texting Bobby, but maybe they didn’t have to update each other every second of the day. It’d be nice to catch up over thumbprint cookies and matcha lattes when Bobby came back for Thanksgiving.

Maybe Elias had a point. He’d been so serious, and Elias wasn’t the type to let himself be vulnerable like that unless he meant it—going so far as to admit his jealousy.

It’d be unfair of Kai to not at least entertain the idea that he had been treating Bobby as a placeholder.

But it wasn’t as Elias thought. It wasn’t because of their kiss or their pet names.

It was something much simpler than that.

All the times Kai had fallen in love, he’d routinely scared off the other person.

They’d try to spare his feelings with a lie—needing to move abruptly, picking up a far-fetched hobby.

But maybe, just maybe, Kai kept trying because of what came after.

At first, his motivation was to experience a great love.

But perhaps over time, as he’d get his heart smashed again and again, it became more about how good it felt to cry on Bobby’s shoulder.

Bobby would tell him to stop believing in the stars, but he wouldn’t challenge him—not really, anyway.

If he’d gone with Bobby to Berkeley, that cycle would be all he’d ever know. Deep down, Kai understood that.

For all of Bobby’s explaining, he’d never managed to shake Kai’s beliefs—not in the way Elias had.

And Elias had done so by affirming them.

For the first time, Kai didn’t want to rush to the part where he’d end up on his living room floor playing video games with Bobby.

Even if he did, Bobby wouldn’t be there now.

If Kai hadn’t been so eager to fast-track his heartbreak five years ago, not even waiting for Elias to reject him at the park, they could’ve had each other in their lives all this time.

At the sound of Moodie and Elias nearing the door, Kai acrobatically leapt over the back of the couch, executing a mid-air spin before gracefully landing in a lounging position.

Folding his hands over his stomach, he closed his eyes, feigning nonchalance.

After a few moments, he sneakily peeked through the blurred slit of one eye, only to find the door still securely closed.

“Why the hell am I pretending to sleep? I’m not faking sick to stay home from school,” Kai muttered to himself.

Yet, when the voices in the stairway swelled again, he snapped his eyes shut and seamed his lips once more.