Author's Note: Spring break means a lightning fast update! Yay! This one's a doozy, get ready.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy characters. Or any name brands/restaurants/retail places used.
Chapter 15: Life Shattered
The initial shock of seeing his birth father was brief, and Sora jumped to the defensive. "What are you doing here?"
Sora's father—Nate, he'd called him, Kairi recalled—held a paper bag up. "Just getting some tacos."
"No shit," Sora snapped, unamused by the deflection of the real question. "Why are you in town?"
"Oh." Nate lowered the bag and fixed his gaze to the floor. "Just dropped in to see your grandparents." He paused. "I'm…uh, moving back here too, I guess."
"With your family?" The amount of venom Sora spat out with this question made the hair on Kairi's neck stand up and her skin crawl. Sora had never said much about his real father other than that he was a deadbeat drug abuser. Clearly, whatever Nate had done to Sora had created bad blood that had never healed.
Nate was starting to look nervous, now. Kairi could see he was regretting his decision to make his presence known. "Uh…yeah…I'm still with Brandy." He took a moment to carefully consider his next line. "You know, Sora, I always wanted to tell you—and I suppose now is as good a time as any—Brandy and I had a little girl. You have a little sister."
That was the wrong thing to say. Sora stood up, grabbed the tray with his and Kairi's unfinished food, and carried it over to a trash can, saying nothing in return.
"I told her about you," Nate continued. "She'd really love to meet you sometime."
Sora froze, his back still turned. He was angry, but he had a big heart and he knew the little girl couldn't be blamed for the childhood trauma he'd suffered.
Nate saw that his last words were tugging on the strings in Sora's heart, so he chose to continue. "Her name is Xion. She just turned seven."
Sora's face hardened and he strode out of the restaurant. Kairi followed and Nate wasn't far behind, clearly not ready to give up yet.
"I know you don't want anything to do with me Sora," Nate called out, "and I can't blame you, but it would really disappoint Xion if she never got to meet her big brother. I want you to consider it for her sake."
Sora stopped in his tracks, fists clenched at his sides. "Do you remember that day you were supposed to come pick me up for the weekend when I was seven?"
Nate's face fell. He definitely remembered, but Sora continued anyway. "I was so excited to go spend the weekend with my dad. You showed up three hours late, probably drunk or stoned or a mixture of both. And I ran up to you, trying to hug you, and you knelt down on the floor, looked me straight in the eye, and said "fuck you; I don't need you 'cause I got a new family now'." Sora turned around, casting a fierce glare at Nate. "You said fuck you to your seven-year-old son."
Nate shook his head sadly. "I always regretted that," he said mournfully. "Your mother…she made me so angry."
"That doesn't fucking matter!" Sora shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. "I was seven! You can't say shit like that to a child! It's traumatizing!" He turned back around and continued walking to the car. "Just go fuck back off to the hole you crawled out of, Nate," he called over his shoulder, "and take your wife and your daughter with you."
Kairi stood motionless for a moment, processing the conversation she had just heard. Nate stepped closer to her and she recoiled. She had originally felt some empathy for the guy when he was trying to persuade Sora to meet Xion, but after hearing what he had done to Sora as a child she no longer wanted anything to do with him, either.
"I'm sorry," Nate said to her. "I was a shitty father to him. I've been trying to make up for it with Xion and Brandy's older daughters. I ruined everything with him and his mother and I'm just trying to become a better person. I'm so glad to see that he's healthy and living his own life, and with a beautiful girlfriend, too." Kairi blushed at this, still feeling uncomfortable.
"Could you tell him one other thing for me?" Nate asked her. Kairi nodded slowly. "I was just diagnosed with cancer…I'll be starting treatment next week. That's why I moved back."
With that, he left. Kairi stood rooted to the spot. She felt like her capacity for drama had been overfilled. She knew now why the situation with Chris and Jamie was hurting Sora so badly—it was just like what his real father had done to him all over again.
Sora's car pulled up next to her and he reached over and opened the passenger door. "What did that prick say to you?"
Kairi eased herself into her seat slowly. She didn't make eye contact with Sora, but she could feel his eyes burning into her as he waited for her to answer. She couldn't handle it. She burst into tears.
"Kairi!" Sora grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her closer to him. "What did he say to you?"
"He moved back because he has cancer," she managed to squeak out.
Before Sora had a chance to respond, his phone rang, signaling his mother's usual daily call. He put her on speaker phone, and she was talking before he even greeted her.
"Your grandma called me," her voice blared out of the phone's speaker. "Your sperm donor is back in town. Just wanted to warn you."
"Funny you should call about that," Sora said grimly. "We just ran into him at Taco Bell. Did Grandma tell you that he has cancer?"
Heidi was silent on the other end of the call. "No," she finally said, "she didn't."
"Great," Sora muttered. "I wonder if it's true."
"He trying to rekindle a relationship with you?" Heidi scoffed.
"Nah, but he asked me to meet his daughter," Sora answered. "Apparently I have a half-sister now."
Heidi wasn't normally rendered speechless, but she was oddly quiet about this. Sora took approximately five seconds to figure out why.
"You already knew, didn't you?" He asked curtly.
"I did," Heidi admitted with a sigh. "Don't be mad at me for not telling you, I figured knowing would only hurt you and I didn't foresee at the time that you would ever see him again."
"I'm not mad at you." Sora said with defeat. "It's just…a lot. After the shit that just went down with Dad…this is a lot."
"I know, baby," Heidi said sympathetically. "I'm so sorry."
"You never told me about what he did to you," Kairi added in. "That's so awful. I can't believe any father would speak to a child like that."
"Funny enough, that day was the day that my dad—Chris—became my hero," Sora sighed. "He came home for his lunch break while that shit was going down, saw Nate screaming at me and my mother, strung out on something. He got his gun out and told him what was what, that he better never come back. That was the day that I started calling him 'dad'. And now he doesn't want me anymore, either."
XXXXXX
Sora followed through with Kairi's suggestion and applied for a position at Guitar Center. Three weeks later, he was training as an assistant manager there and had resigned from his job at the cell phone shop. Kairi, on the other hand, was suffering through a slow time at her own job and was barely making 20 hours per week. She was also between semesters at school, so she spent a lot of time at home, alone and bored.
After Sora's first week at Guitar Center, he came home with an interesting proposition. "What do you think about moving?"
Kairi stared at him blankly. "What?"
"I know Guitar Center isn't a terrible commute, but 35 minutes each way does kinda suck. And Roxas is looking to move to that area too. I just had this wild idea that we could get an apartment over there and invite Roxas as a roommate. We'd have some extra money then since you aren't working much, and you'd be further away from work, but you'd be much closer to school."
Kairi couldn't deny that. She was spending more time at school than she was at work during the semesters, so truthfully a move would, in fact, benefit her. She could always look for a new job closer to their new place, too. "I think that's a wonderful idea."
"Great!" Sora pumped a fist in the air. "I'll talk to Roxas and we can start hunting for places."
Kairi had no idea that this was the first domino to fall in a set of events that she would later describe as the worst time of her life.
XXXXXX
It began a few weeks after her conversation with Sora about moving. He discussed it with Roxas, who was just as into the idea as they were, and the hunt for an apartment that met all of their needs began. They found exactly what they were looking for not too long after that—a very nice apartment complex owned by a very friendly landlord. For the same price they were paying for their rental house, they could get a 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom apartment that covered all utilities and was pet friendly. All three agreed that it was the right apartment, and Sora made the appointment for the lease to be signed and gave their current landlord their 30-day notice.
Kairi had a day off of work, so she was at home wasting the day away as usual. Sitting around made her feel sluggish and sleepy, so she decided she wanted to watch some shows in bed. She made her way into the bedroom and grabbed Sora's iPad from his nightstand, intending to pull Netflix up on it. She was surprised to see there was a password lock on it. She groaned and pulled out her phone to text him.
He was a lot busier at Guitar Center than he was at the cellphone store, because not only was he managing the other employees, but he was also still expected to make sales with customers. It took an agonizing 30 minutes for him to reply to her. When she finally had the password, she unlocked the iPad and it loaded Sora's Facebook account.
Kairi was instantly distracted by an evil impulse. She had never imposed on Sora's privacy since that fateful incident where she had looked at his texts on his phone. She knew it would be wrong to do so now, and she didn't feel as though there would be anything worth looking at…but the urge was so strong. He would never know, right? She just wanted to satisfy her curiosity about who he messaged on Facebook. There wouldn't be anything weird there, so 30 seconds tops and she could pretend it never happened.
She clicked on the messenger icon and peered into his inbox. The last couple of message threads were all from…girls. Girls she'd never met before or heard anything about. She tapped on the first thread. The last message in the thread was from the girl, and it looked like he'd never replied.
Aw, man, I'm sorry. Sounds like you're having a rough time. Just text me if you ever need to talk!
The time stamp read 1:30 A.M. Frowning, she checked the timestamp of Sora's previous message, without reading what the message said: 1:15 A.M. What the what? Sora was casually messaging another chick on Facebook at one in the morning with Kairi sleeping right next to him? She tapped on the girl's profile picture to visit her page. She felt an enormous sense of relief when she saw the girl's "About Me" section included that she had been in a relationship for two years. That was promising, it meant that despite the shady time of the conversations, everything was likely platonic. Free of her concern for that girl, she went back to the messages and tapped on the next thread.
The next thread…was troublesome. There were only two text bubbles in it, both from the girl. The first one read: Oh yeah? The second one read: Heh heh got you curious now, huh? ;)
The troublesome part of this was Sora had obviously written something to her. But his portion of the conversation was missing. He had deleted it. She checked the time stamps of the girl's messages. These had also been sent in the dead middle of the night.
Suddenly not feeling like she wanted to watch Netflix anymore or snoop further into Sora's messages, Kairi locked the iPad and threw herself backward onto the bed. She stared at the ceiling. Her heart began to race, her hands felt clammy, and her throat felt like it would close up. She didn't know what to do. It was extremely suspect that Sora would write a random girl in the middle of the night and feel the need to delete his messages. But why would he have left hers? Kairi wished she hadn't succumbed to her impulse. On the other hand, maybe she was glad she did. At least now she knew Sora was up to something. How was she going to handle it? Did she confront him now, or did she wait for some sort of evidence she could use against him that would allow her to keep her snooping a secret? This was too much. She was exhausted. She rolled herself into the comforter like a burrito and let sleep take her away from her stress.
She awoke to Sora gently shaking her shoulder. "Hey, sleepyhead, wanna get up and have dinner?"
She peeked at the alarm clock groggily, and sat up with a start when she registered it was after 9 P.M. She had been napping for five hours. The memory of the reason why she had fallen into a midday coma soon came rushing back, and she found herself dodging the kiss Sora tried to put on her lips.
"Um…ouch?" Sora said.
Kairi shook her head. "Feel kinda sick," she mumbled. "Don't wanna make it worse."
Sora knew what she meant, but he pretended to look hurt. "My feelings," he joked, one hand over his heart. "You want me to eat without you then?"
"Yeah, you better." She couldn't bring herself to look at him.
XXXXXX
Another week passed, overflowing with tension, because Kairi was dealing with the burden of the possibility that Sora was or was thinking about being unfaithful, and apart from the fact that he'd never been the most observant, he was also too busy at work to really notice that anything was off.
One afternoon, the day before Sora and Roxas were scheduled to sign the lease for the new apartment, Kairi came home from a morning shift, having missed Sora leaving for work by half an hour. She was relieved. He would be working the closing shift at Guitar Center, so it would be nearly 10 P.M. before he'd be back, and she would easily be able to feign having gone to bed already. She was still contemplating what she should do with the information she had. The idea of further snooping to find out if Sora was sending any other sneaky messages and how long it had been going on for made her sick to her stomach, so she hadn't done it. Sora wasn't acting like he was off cheating—that is, he was being more affectionate with her than he had the week they ran into Nate, and she knew that he wasn't going anywhere he wasn't supposed to be going. His work schedule was posted to their fridge, so she knew he was only gone long enough to go to work and come back.
She sighed, and reached for the iPad, really intending to just lay down with Netflix this time. She entered the password, and the website that was loaded onto the screen made her drop the device with surprise.
It was adult-themed hookup site. The kind where it was obvious people were just looking to fuck and they had no shame in uploading nude pictures of themselves.
Sora's email address was entered into the login section.
"What the fuck?" Kairi blurted out loud. If she'd had any reason to doubt her suspicion before, it was surely gone now. She whipped out her phone.
We need to talk when you get home. You have some serious explaining to do.
She was struggling with a million things she wanted to type out to him, but she instead turned her phone off and cast it aside to resist the temptation. She hoped that the suspense of her text message was killing him. She hoped that he had tried to call her and was worrying over the fact that he could only reach her voicemail.
The hours passed slowly, and shortly before she was expecting Sora home, she finally turned her phone back on. She was pleased to see she had several texts and four missed calls from him. She also had a few missed calls from Heidi, meaning that he had panicked enough to talk to his mother about it.
Another few minutes, and she saw the flash of headlights through the blinds that signaled Sora had arrived home. Suddenly, she was nervous. She breathed in, deep and slow, attempting to prepare herself for whatever was to come.
Sora burst into the front door. "Kairi! What is going on with you? You text me something like that and then you ignore my texts and block my calls all day? What the hell?"
"I need to ask you the same thing, Sora." She spat his name out like it was poison. "I logged into your iPad today to watch my shows, imagine my surprise when you forgot to close out the last page you visited."
Sora's eyes widened and blush formed on his cheeks. "I-I can explain that," he stammered.
"What, I'm not good enough for you anymore? You're looking for someone more exciting to screw?" Kairi's emotions betrayed her and the intimidating persona she was trying to capture was overcome with tears.
"No!" Sora facepalmed. "I have an explanation…but it's kind of embarrassing."
"Embarrassing?" Kairi shrieked. "I catch you on a website for fuckbuddies and you call it embarrassing?"
"I wasn't on that website looking for someone to…" Sora started off strong but trailed off. His face was beet red. "I was feeling…a little frisky this morning. And you weren't home, so…" He bowed his head, looking ashamed. "I was just trying to scope out some, like, authentic pics for my, uh, alone time."
Kairi couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled up from her chest. She wasn't amused, though. Rather, she couldn't believe Sora expected her to buy that story. "Sora," she said, shaking her head, "I don't even look at porn and I could tell you a dozen places right now where you can find authentic pictures that do not require you to sign up for a hookup site."
Sora sighed. "You're right, and I understand how this looks. But you have to believe me, I am not trying to cheat! I would never do that."
He looked sincere, but there was too much evidence pointing away from his innocence. Feeling like her heart were about to shatter into pieces, Kairi removed Sora's ring from her finger and set it down on their coffee table.
"You weren't ready to give this to me," she said sadly. "I don't want it back until you are."
Sora's breath hitched. "I'm confused…are we breaking up? What's going on here?"
Kairi wiped fresh tears from her eyes. "I love you," she said hoarsely. "I don't want things to end between us but obviously we have to work on our relationship. I don't want to break up. But wearing that ring doesn't feel right, either."
"I'm sorry I made you feel that way." He tried to reach for Kairi's hand, but she rejected his touch.
"I can't right now," she said. "I'm going to bed."
Sora didn't try to follow her. Instead, he spent what felt like hours laying on the couch, staring at the dainty diamond ring Kairi had left behind and contemplating an important decisions about his future with Kairi.
XXXXXX
Exhausted from the previous night's events, Kairi slept in late the next morning. When she awoke, Sora had already left for his appointment with Roxas. She was disappointed that she had missed him. While she was still angry and hurt, the implications of their argument were beginning to set in. She was still madly in love with Sora, and she didn't want to be apart from him. She wanted to just accept the explanations he had offered her, be wrapped in his warm embrace again, and to be happy.
She walked out into the living room, having made the decision that she was going to forgive everything. After all, she knew he hadn't really cheated. They could work on their relationship together in their new place. She intended on putting her ring back on, but it wasn't on the coffee table where she had left it. Frowning, she checked the other surfaces in the room in case Sora had moved it someplace else, but it was nowhere to be found.
She was just getting ready to text Sora to ask him where he put it when she heard his voice outside the front door. Roxas was with him.
"Hey, Kairi," Roxas greeted her. He was looking at her sympathetically, so she figured Sora must have told him everything that happened.
"The lease is all signed, so I can start packing," Sora said. "He said we can move things in the day after tomorrow." He looked at Kairi. "You might want to start packing, too. The notice on this place is up in two weeks and I want to be able to help you clean up."
Kairi looked at him, confused. "You should…explain the way you phrased that," she said quietly, her stomach sinking as her brain connected the dots.
Roxas awkwardly shuffled toward the guest bathroom, clearly already having been informed of what was coming next.
Sora sat down on the couch, running a hand through his spiky mess of hair. "I didn't put your name on the lease, Kairi," he said. "After last night…after everything that's happened…we can't move into the new place together."
Kairi held her hands up as if to deflect his words. "Wait a minute. After everything, after what you did, after I decided to forgive you…you decided you get to be the one to break up with me?"
"No!" Sora protested. "I mean…yes, kind of. I'm not trying to tell you to hit the road though, I just did a lot of thinking about us working things out. We will never be able to successfully do it if we are still living together, constantly at each other's throats. So, I want you to move back in with your mom, or your dad, or find a new roommate, whatever you want! And I want us to keep talking…to keep working things out."
Kairi shook her head and laughed maniacally, a desperate attempt to keep the tears she felt coming at bay. She was too angry to let herself cry. He didn't deserve her tears. "I finally figured you out," she said in a dangerous whisper. "I know what's really going on here."
Sora crossed his arms, starting to become annoyed. "No, you don't, Kairi. Don't go there."
"This is your sneaky little way of trying to screw other girls," Kairi ignored him and continued. "Other girls who want to put up with your shit and smoke your stupid weed with you. You're separating us, kicking me out of your home, and then you're free to whatever you want, with whomever you want. And meanwhile, you want me to just sit on the sidelines waiting for you to come back to me. You wanna string me along like a hamster chasing a carrot."
"None of that is true, Kairi." Sora said through gritted teeth. "Stop it."
She didn't care. Her heart was breaking, and she wanted his to break, too. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to cause him as much pain as he had caused her. Doing the right thing was no longer an idea she knew—her mind was consumed with the need for revenge.
"Go fuck yourself, Sora," she spat. "I mean…go ahead and fuck all those little sluts you wish you were. Take that bong and go teach some other girl how to get high with you, since that's all you care about. I guess you're doing me a favor, in the end. After all, your highest ambition is to work at a retail store, playing in a shitty band that makes shitty music. Thank you, for giving me the freedom to go find someone else who isn't going to be a total fucking loser their entire life." There. The deed was done. She had taken the verbal knife and cut as deep as she could manage. She stormed off toward the bedroom and locked the door behind her.
Sora sat frozen to his spot on the couch, trying to process her words. As he replayed them over and over in his mind, anger started to bubble forth. With a bellowing cry of anguish, he stood up and threw the bong as hard as he could, feeling immense satisfaction when it shattered against the front door.
