Chapter 22: New Atmosphere

Kira looked around her new apartment with a mixture of excitement and fear. With it being her first night alone, the fact that she was now about to begin law school so far away from the only people who had ever believed in her felt quite frightening. Shaking her head, she reminded herself that she'd survived on her own long before she'd ever found a home in Atlanta. In fact, she was sure that with the absence of such distractions she was likely to be able to concentrate on her work even better than she had in the house that she'd shared with both Ben and his staff and she'll no longer have to feel torn when she had a visitor but also wanted to continue her classwork. At least that was what she told herself.

After making yet another lap through her small studio apartment and not finding anything that she needed to do Kira decided that she'd go for a ride on her motorcycle instead. After all, just because she was no longer in Georgia, it didn't mean that she shouldn't maintain her skills on the machine. In fact, she'd begun to push the stunts that she'd learned from the other riders on the circuit even further and was becoming quite proud of herself and her abilities. Fortunately, she'd rode up in her truck with her bike secured on the back instead of deciding to fly up. It had made for a long ride but it meant that she had more freedom once she'd gotten to town instead of trying to get a taxi anytime that she wanted to ride into Boston just a short distance away.

After about an hour of riding aimlessly just exploring the area Kira decided that she'd best head back to her apartment and get ready for her first day of class the next day. As she was pulling her bike back up in her parking space assigned to her motorcycle she was surprised to see another resident pulling up on two wheels. Carrying her helmet in with her, Kira eyed the stranger and was certain that she'd seen him before. A strange thought considering that she was more than nine hundred miles away from Atlanta and all whom she'd known there. Out of habit, she delayed her heading into the building until after the man was inside since she wasn't one to knowingly allow a strange man to follow her anywhere. As she headed up the stairs she saw that he stopped off at her floor. Not only that but he went into the apartment across from hers.

Only after the strangely familiar man was behind closed doors did Kira leave the stairwell behind and go to her own apartment. Once inside she locked, dead-bolted, and put the chain on the door to try to make herself feel as safe as she could in such new surroundings. While making her small dinner before heading off to bed, Kira decided that she was going to find out just who her neighbor was and why it felt as if she should know him.

Over the next week Kira caught various glimpses of her neighbor as she came and went on her way to class. Unsurprisingly, he, too, appeared to be a student at one of the many colleges in the area. In fact, from what she'd learned, nearly everyone renting an apartment in her building was a student. She had yet to speak to him but Kira had noticed that he'd put his name on his mail slot downstairs in the lobby; B. Baxter. For Kira's part, she'd left her name blank so her slot simply read 318; the number of her apartment. No one needed to know her name.

After a long day of classes and studying at the library, Kira stopped off at one of the small markets that was geared toward the college students to get a few things to make her dinner with. She could only eat but so much take-out or frozen meals. She promised herself that she'd actually make dinner at least twice each week. Of course making breakfast for dinner counted so long as she fixed it herself. Tonight she planned to make herself a Denver Omelet.

As she fumbled with her keys while trying to balance her groceries as well as her school books she was taken off guard when a hand reached forward to grab her keys. Dropping everything in her hands, Kira turned ready to fight only to find her neighbor with his hands up in surrender.

"Take it easy. I just thought that you could use a little help."

After eyeing the man carefully Kira simply said, "I'm fine."

"Let me help you get this up."

Kira bent to reach for her bag before the stranger could before brusquely saying, "No thanks, I've got it."

As she put her pepper and onion back in the brown paper sack Kira intentionally did her best to not look back up at her neighbor and hoped that he'd take the hint and just go across the hall to his own apartment. Instead, he gathered up her books since she was gathering her food. When she stood up and noticed him giving her an odd look she couldn't help herself. And, no, she didn't bother trying to be friendly.

"What? Now what do you want?"

"Don't take this the wrong way but you look familiar."

That statement took her off guard since she'd thought the same thing about him the moment that she'd first seen him.

"Right, I've heard that before. Save the line for someone else."

"Were you ever in Atlanta?"

At that question Kira lowered her eyes. "Why?"

At that point the dark-haired man roughly her own age glanced around the hall to make sure that no one else on their floor was around before he ran a hand through his hair nervously.

"You just remind me of someone that I kind of knew when I was there. We were both part of this... this group that met about once a week. At the hospital."

It was then that Kira knew why the man had felt familiar to her but why she couldn't place him. After all, the last time she'd seen him he hadn't had any hair; but then, neither did she.

"Brent. Right?"

He smiled since he knew he hadn't been mistaken after all. "Right. And you are Kara?"

"Kira," she corrected before turning to her door to unlock it.

"Right. Kira." Brent watched as Kira put her bag of groceries just inside and put her hands out for her books. A clear indication that she had no plans to invite him inside. "So what are you doing so far away from Atlanta?"

"Probably the same as you. Going to school. Speaking of which, I have some work to do. If I can have my stuff, that is."

Brent handed them to her and took a step back as he headed toward his own apartment. He remembered that she'd seemed to distrust everyone from what he could recall from their group therapy sessions so he figured he'd leave her to her books as he left her with the offer that he'd help her with anything that she needed. Not that he really thought that she'd ask him for help.

For the next month, Kira ran into Brent several times a week when passing in the hall for one reason or another. Of all of her neighbors he'd definitely become her least irritating since the rest on her floor as well as those both above and below her had the annoying habit of throwing parties that's sole purpose had to be to keep her awake while she was trying to sleep and distract her while working on her classwork.

Brent, however, only had one frequent visitor; a man about the same age who seemed to stay over on weekends. Kira assumed that he was a relative of some sort and was grateful that neither went out of their way to bug her. Instead, they had a cordial relationship.

One night while Kira was doing her best to ignore the loud music and shouts from the drunken party-goers from downstairs she was surprised to hear a knock at her door. Cautiously, Kira looked out the peephole before opening the door to find Brent in a state of panic.

"We've got to get down to the parking lot," Brent said as he turned toward the stairs since he knew that they'd be faster than waiting for the ancient elevator in the old building.

Kira grabbed her keys before letting the door close behind her as she followed her neighbor as he took the stairs two at a time. "Why? What's going on?"

"Some morons are messing around the bikes," Brent shouted back. His apartment faced the parking lot to the apartment building and he'd just so happened to be looking outside when he caught a sight of some of the drunks filtering outside and paying far too much attention to both his as well as Kira's bike. When the two got down to the parking area he bolted over to his motorcycle where one of the drunks was sitting on it while trying to figure out how to make it run; too drunk to realize that he needed a key.

There were others at Kira's bike as well which made her furious. She marched over to it and shoved the man who was sitting on it off. "That doesn't belong to you!"

"Hey, what's your problem? We're just having a bit of fun."

"Have fun somewhere else." Kira lowered her eyes just enough to stare the drunk down. Behind her she heard Brent and two drunks who had been over at his bike beginning to fight. When the man who had been sitting on her bike turned to leave Kira decided that one good deed deserved another. She headed over and pulled one of the men off of Brent to make the fight more even and punched him while Brent stood his ground against the second drunk. Really, it wasn't that fair of a fight since both owners of the motorcycles were stone-cold sober and furious while the two other men weren't really at their best fighting form. In only a short time, neither of the drunken men were standing any longer.

"Thanks." Brent said as he wiped the blood from his lip. Looking over at Kira he saw that her opponent had gotten in a good punch, too, but she seemed to be alright. "Well, now what?"

"I don't know about you but I'm not leaving my bike down here with these jerks running around." Kira then raised the kickstand up and began to walk her bike over toward the door to the apartment building. Shrugging, Brent followed in behind her with his own motorcycle. It wasn't a racer like Kira's; rather it was a regular street bike. In a way, he'd like to see the building manager's face when he realized that both of them were taking them inside. Just the thought had him ready to laugh out loud.

"Thanks for the head's up about what was going out there," Kira said as she waited for the elevator.

"No problem." Brent eyed the stairwell where the sound of the party one floor up was filtering down. "And thanks for jumping in out there. You fought pretty good. You must have fought in the street fights."

Kira knew she shouldn't have been surprised by his knowledge of the fights. After all, he'd lived on the streets for a time as well when he wasn't bouncing around from one foster family to another before finally being adopted. "It's been a while. How about you?"

"Nah, I was too young and scrawny. But I had friends who did."

Kira nodded since she didn't think that there was anything really for her to say in reply. The two then rode up to the third floor together in silence before parting ways at their respective doors. Once inside, Kira set her motorcycle up in the corner of her small apartment before going back to work on her assignment. She was grateful to Brent for letting her know about what was going on outside. With the bike being a gift from Ben, she wasn't sure what she'd do if something happened to it.

Jebb stumbled in from the fields where he'd been working to bring in the cotton now that the fall harvest was in full swing. He was hot, sweaty, tired, and hungry. Still, before heading in for supper he knew that the animals had to be taken care of so he headed out to the barn and mucked the stalls that needed to be tended to and made sure that the animals were all fed and watered.

After cleaning up to be presentable enough to sit at his mother's table he practically collapsed in his customary chair across from his younger twin sisters. Beside him sat an empty chair; a chair that his older sister once sat in before she was married last month. If only he'd known that the moment his sister was married off that his mother would try to do the same thing to him he just might would have spoken up when the preacher had asked if anyone had any objections. He'd thought about telling his mother that he'd been dating Kira but now with her all of the way up in Massachusetts it didn't really feel like he had a girlfriend at all. He spent every weekend alone or just with his racing friends. Seeing her only son spending so little of his time with friends of the female persuasion Jebb was sure that his mother would never believe him, anyway.

As Pauline put dinner out for her husband and children she remembered a letter that she'd picked up when she'd gone to town to get the mail when she'd gotten the rest of her errands out of the way for the week. Pulling it out, she set it next to her son.

"I forgot to tell you, your friend Kyle sent this to you. He's the one that moved away to go to college, right?"

Jebb looked at the letter's return address and saw that, as usual, instead of putting her full name on it Kira had only put her last in the space for it. This wasn't the first letter that he'd gotten from her. With that first letter his mother had assumed that the racing friend writing him was a man and Jebb had let her believe what she wanted. After all, there really wasn't a reason to correct her; was there?

"Yep. Kyle was accepted into one up North." Jebb wanted to tear the envelope open but he shoved it into his jeans pocket instead. He then changed the subject to the harvest and how his uncle had nearly passed out from the heat. If there was one thing that could make his mother drop the subject of his missing friend, it was hearing of how her brother had been affected so badly from the heat. The temperatures had been higher than normal and both he and his father had done their best to convince Carl that he needed to take it a bit easier; but just like his sister, he tended to think that he knew what was best. Once he had his mind made up on just how much cotton they should be able to get in out of the fields today he was a man who wouldn't be stopped by anything.

Jebb then listened with half an ear as his mother went on about how she'd have to call her brother after dinner. From there his little sisters told him about their play date with some friends from church. It was only after dinner was finished and he'd helped to clear the table that he was able to go up into his room away from prying eyes to read Kira's letter.

In this one Jebb read as she'd told him about her various classes. He had no doubt that she was doing great in law school since he knew just how much of herself she put into her work. In a way, Jebb thought that she loved the extra course load that she had at that fancy highfalutin college that she'd gone off to. It was further down in the letter that he realized that this was the third letter that Kira mentioned one of her neighbors; a guy. One who seemed to have become one of her few friends. Reading about the night that Kira and this Brent guy had to chase off some drunks from messing around with their motorcycles, Jebb felt that there was something about the guy that he just didn't like. Maybe it was because his room was only three feet from Kira's apartment. Maybe it was because he was there when Jebb wasn't. Whatever it was, he couldn't help but wonder if the guy would end up asking Kira out. Why not? When she let her guard down she was fun to be around. If the guy did work up the courage, would Kira say yes?

Crumpling the letter, Jebb tossed it into his trashcan across the room. He wouldn't be seeing Kira until December. That was a long way away. A lot of time for Kira to forget about him.