Note: this chapter takes place at the same time as chapter 2, but from Lindy's POV.
The sun woke Lindy up. It streamed through the window, warming her face. She cast her bleary eyes on the clock on her nightstand and realized it was nearly eleven. She was surprised at how late she'd slept, but at the same time, wasn't. She'd gotten used to staying up with Hunter some nights, watching TV or talking in the greenhouse, then falling into bed just as the sun was rising. As she lay there, she wondered if Kyle was still in bed too, still living on his nocturnal schedule in which the night's darkness embraced him. Or was he now living in the light, settling easily back into the life he'd known?
She picked up her cell phone without a thought, searching her address book to find him. She stared at the name "Hunter" for a few seconds, realizing that she'd have to correct the entry. Before she did that, she hit "send" and listened to the rings.
He didn't pick up. She heard the voicemail greeting come on, and his voice say flatly. "Leave me a message and I'll call you back."
Lindy had never noticed that Kyle didn't refer to himself by name on his greeting. It made sense, though: she knew him as Hunter while the rest of the world knew him as Kyle. He avoided any confusion this way. Just one of the ways to keep her in the dark for as long as he could.
She didn't leave a message. She next tried Will, who answered right away. She told him that she was trying to get things settled with her old apartment – she had the time now that she wasn't going on the trip – and that she'd probably be busy for the next couple of days. Will wished her luck and said he looked forward to seeing her soon. She took it for granted when he said that, thinking it was just a figure of speech he was using. But there was a sense of joy in his voice…something she hadn't heard before. It made her curious.
After getting dressed, grabbing a quick breakfast at the deli, and mailing her father's hospital bills to her uncle, Lindy braced herself for her next big task of the day.
She felt like everyone was staring at her when she got to Buckston. She knew why, of course: not only had she jumped up and ran out of the line for the bus to the airport yesterday, but she and a heavily scarred, heavily tattooed boy had made quite the scene in front of several dozen people.
She'd nearly made it to the Dean's office to speak with him when a voice called out, "Hey, Taylor!"
Lindy stopped, shutting her eyes in irritation for a moment. She put on her "control" face and turned in the direction of the voice. It was Sloan Alberts, Kyle's ex.
Lindy smiled pleasantly. "Yes?"
Sloan gave a condescending smile in return. "We were all wondering…who was that gorgeous guy you were kissing in the hallway yesterday?" Her snarky comment was, quite predictably, punctuated with a background chorus of snickering from Sloan's "bimbot" friends.
Lindy crossed her arms. "Why do you want to know?"
Sloan looked around at her group of followers for confirmation. "Well, when we saw him, we figured he's got to be the son of some famous star. We were thinking, maybe Freddy Kruger or Jason Vorhees?" Again, her words were followed by a backup of bitchy laughter.
Lindy wondered what Sloan would think if she knew who the boy really was that she was kissing. Would she be jealous? Would she even care – or feel guilty – about the way she'd abandoned Kyle? She probably wouldn't have believed Lindy; after all, Lindy was still having a hard time believing it.
Lindy didn't know, and when she thought about it, this wasn't what she'd come back to Buckston for anyway. She leaned in confidentially. "Can you keep a secret?" she asked Sloan.
"Of course," Sloan replied, in a tone that suggested she clearly couldn't.
Lindy straightened with a smile. "Good. So can I." Without waiting for a reply, she promptly turned on her heel and headed for the Dean's office.
She didn't have an appointment to see Dean Pibner, which she knew was frowned upon. Fortunately his secretary liked Lindy because of all the extra help she'd given her with planning the various school events over the previous year, and allowed her to go in to his office.
"Dean Pibner?" Lindy asked tentatively.
The middle-aged man raised his white head for a moment to take in the young woman asking for him and then promptly turned his attention back to the papers on his desk. "Yes?" he asked sternly.
"I'm Lindy Taylor. I wanted to talk to you…about my account?"
"Scholarship?" he asked bluntly.
Lindy wondered if she reeked of poverty or something. "Yes, sir. I was awarded the Huntley 4-year scholarship-"
"So what do you need?" Dean Pibner still hadn't asked her to sit down.
"Well, I've missed the last six months of school due to…family issues-"
"Did you complete the required leave of absence forms?"
"No, sir. I didn't have a chance-"
"Then you've lost your scholarship. We're not paying for you to not be at school, Miss…" he trailed off, having already forgotten her name.
"Taylor. Lindy Taylor," she told him once again. "I know I've lost my scholarship, Dean Pibner. I've only come to close out my account and get my transcripts."
Upon hearing that Lindy was trying to get out of his hair as fast as he could push her out, his behavior changed – slightly. He pushed the button on his intercom and asked the secretary to look up Lindy's records and email them to him.
Lindy sat in silence while the Dean looked at her records. She knew what he thought of her kind – that she didn't belong in a prestigious school like Buckston. It didn't matter that she dressed primly, that she always looked immaculate, that she worked hard and performed all of the extracurricular activities thrown at her. To people like Dean Pibner, Lindy was a charity.
Finally he looked up at her, his expression grave. "It appears your account is delinquent, Miss Taylor."
Lindy's eyes widened. "Delinquent?"
There was a look of disgust on his face, as if Lindy had stolen money from his pocket. "Your last recorded day of school attendance was November 5th, and you had signed up for a weekend trip to Washington D.C. the following week. The school made reservations for a room, meals, transportation, and tickets to several attractions for you. Because you forfeited the trip without giving us advance notice, the school was forced to absorb that cost."
Lindy looked away. She'd completely forgotten about that trip to D.C. She'd been overwhelmed by so many things—recovering from her fall from the fire escape, the fear of Victor coming for her, and finally her father telling her that she had to give up her life to live with a total stranger—that the trip was the furthest thing from their mind. Not that she could explain any of this to the dean. It was only the issue of getting his money that mattered to him.
"How much?" she asked softly.
Dean Pibner gave his computer screen a casual glance and answered, "$850."
It took Lindy's breath away momentarily. She couldn't come close to being able to pay back that amount. All the money she had had gone to the Machu Pichu trip, which was non-refundable. Any of the remaining funds her father had were now going towards paying for his rehab.
For a moment, she considered asking Kyle. $850 would be nothing to him, and she knew he'd help her if she needed it. But pride held her back from embracing that idea. She wouldn't ask him – she didn't want to take advantage of their relationship in that way.
It was possible that if she could quickly sell off everything in the apartment she and her father shared, she might be able to pay off her account. But the look on Dean Pibner's face told her that he wanted his money, sooner than later.
"Is there any way I could pay this back in…installments?" Lindy asked, her voice becoming small and desperate.
The dean shook his head. "I'm sorry. The money is due now."
"But, Dean Pibner, what happened to me—"
"That is not the issue, Miss Taylor. The issue is your shirking of your responsibility to this school—"
And suddenly he stopped short. His face went slack and his eyes glazed over, as if he were about to have a seizure.
Lindy frowned in confusion. She leaned forward, looking at him closely, then waved her hand in front of his face. "Dean Pibner? Dean Pibner, are you all right?"
A second later, the man blinked, looked at Lindy, and smiled. "Then again, I do understand that unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances can occur. I will dismiss this outstanding balance and close out your account. If you'll see Angela on your way out, she'll make the arrangements for you to receive your transcripts."
Lindy narrowed her eyes in confusion. "What—" She looked around, behind her, into the hallway, and caught just a glimpse of Kendra's greenish-blonde tresses and long, black coat, floating around the corner as she stalked away.
After grabbing the transcripts from the secretary, Lindy raced to catch up to her former classmate. "You didn't have to do that," she called out to Kendra's retreating back.
Kendra stopped and slowly turned around. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Kyle told me what you did to him, so you can drop the act. I know what you're capable of."
The witch smiled like a painted porcelain doll. "Do you now? Well, if you know so much, then you should know that you don't want to get on my bad side." She began to turn away.
"Thank you."
Kendra turned around again when she heard this. Lindy added, "I had no idea what I was going to do about that debt, so I appreciate you doing that….whatever you did."
"What's wrong, Lindy?" Kendra asked, scrutinizing her classmate's sad face. "You purged the assholiness out of the handsome prince, and won his heart too. You should be happy."
"I'm glad that Kyle has his life back, and I want to be happy with him," Lindy replied, surprised to find herself confiding in the girl who had cursed her love in the first place. "But…I fell in love with the scarred, tattooed boy who took me into his home." She looked at Kendra sadly. "I miss him. That's sick, isn't it?"
Kendra shook her head. "No, it's not. You just have to realize that he's still with you. But that's not the only thing, is it?"
Lindy looked away. "No. I mean, I knew Hunter had money, lots of it. And it didn't faze me because…I felt like he was just as alone as isolated as me. But Kyle has his looks and his life back. It's terrible for me to say this, but…I felt like while he was scarred…I at least had some sort of advantage. But now…" She trailed off.
"But now you feel like less of an equal," Kendra finished for her. "Can't you see you're worthy of that love? Lindy, you're a beautiful person – inside and out. Why do you think I sent Kyle to you?"
She was confused at first, and then it dawned on her…the day of the Green Committee speeches. Kendra had defaced Kyle's election posters, and then called attention to Lindy. If she hadn't, Kyle would never have noticed her. It was Kendra who had cursed Kyle, but she'd also paved the way for him to break the spell.
Kendra laid a comforting hand on Lindy's shoulder. "You'll find your way. Just don't take anything for granted…lest I have to teach you a lesson too." She winked at Lindy and walked away.
Lindy knew that Kendra meant the warning, but nonetheless she smiled as she looked at the transcripts and the receipt of account closure in her hands. Sparing the quickest of looks around the common area of her former high school, she left Buckston behind her for good.
"Lindy! God, where have you been?"
Lindy smiled uneasily at Mike, the coordinator at the clinic that she used to work for. The only warning she'd given him that she wasn't going to be back was a hasty voicemail left on his cell phone right before she and her father left for Kyle's house. She'd always felt guilty about that, but she couldn't risk contacting him. He was one of the few people in her life who knew the extent of her father's problems. She feared that Victor would come after the people she cared about; Mike was better off being in the dark.
Now, she could tell him the truth. "I've been in hiding," she said candidly. "My father pissed off the wrong man, and he promised to come after me. A…friend…has been looking after me."
Mike shook his head. "I'm so sorry, Lindy. I had no idea."
"I know. That was the point. I didn't want to risk you getting hurt."
Mike blushed beneath his red beard. "So…are you coming back to work?"
"I'd like to, but I have some things to take care of. I was actually hoping that you could help me clear out my dad's apartment."
"Clear it out," Mike repeated. "So that means…your dad isn't coming back?"
"Rehab," Lindy said simply. "I can't keep paying for our apartment. And I wouldn't. It's not my home anymore."
"So, home is with your…friend now?"
Lindy looked past Mike with a smile. "I think it will be."
Going through the things in her dad's apartment with Mike made her realize how little there really was, and how long she'd tried to ignore his addiction for the sake of her own sanity. There were things missing, china and flatware and vases and paintings and books that she'd remembered seeing over the years that were now gone. Lindy had never realized how much her father had sold off to pay for his addiction until now.
At least he'd left her stuff alone – he was decent enough to do that. Lindy packed up as much as she could into several large duffle bags she had, and then too realized how little she herself owned. Just her clothes, books, posters, a little bit of jewelry. She tried to remind herself that it wasn't things that made up a person's worth; it was the relationships that were made in one's life.
Mike had a friend who was a furniture dealer, and made arrangements for him to come over and take away the good pieces at a fair price. Lindy's friend was going through the drawers of a bureau in the living room when Lindy finished packing her own things. He turned to her sadly. "Are you sure there isn't anything you want to keep?"
She shook her head. "I won't need any of this stuff where I'm going."
Mike opened the last drawer and found a white satin box. Dutifully he handed it to Lindy. She felt her heart leap for a moment when she opened it and saw what it was. Inside were keepsakes from her parents' wedding. She found the engraved silver cake server and knife, tucked neatly on one side of the box, along with a copy of the wedding invitation, and dried rose petals from what was either her mother's bouquet, or her father's boutonniere.
She dug further, and found a small framed photo of the two of them, posed under an archway of flowers at the church they got married in. She ran her thumb gently over her mother's shy, smiling face. Her father had always told Lindy she looked like her mother, but she didn't see it until now. The two of them had the same shaped nose, the same thin, wide mouth. Same eyes.
Lindy turned her eyes just to the right, to her father. There he was, younger, happier, healthier – and looking just as shy and scared as her mother. He had his arm around her, holding her close, as if he were afraid that someone was going to come and take her away from him.
There was so much promise in his face. Lindy was sure that the man she was looking at in this photo never would have dreamed that he'd end up making the choices he did, just a few years later. Then again, his breakdown would seem to be a testament to how much he loved his wife.
It was a secret fear of Lindy's – she had to admit it to herself now. As much as she loved the idea of romance, of roses and handwritten love letters, the actual devastation the loss of love could bring terrified her. She looked at that photo and could easily see herself and Kyle in the place of her mother and father. Could what happened to her father and mother happen to them?
"Do you need some time?"
Being lost in her own thoughts, Mike's voice startled her and the box tilted in her hands. A tiny clink was heard as something dropped from the corner, and Mike quickly ran to the corner to rescue the source of the sound.
He held the small, glittering circle in between his thumb and forefinger. "It's a ring," he told her.
Lindy took it from him, examining it in her palm. "It's my mother's wedding ring." She felt the beginning of a tear begin to make her eye itch. "I…remember asking my dad if I could see it a few years ago, and he told me he'd had to sell it in order to pay the rent. I was so angry at him I didn't speak to him for three weeks." She gave a half-sob, half-laugh. "Why did he lie to me?"
Mike shrugged sadly. "Maybe it was easier for you to be angry at him than to have to dig up this box and remember her."
Mike's friend arrived shortly after that. He took most of the non-essential furniture, leaving behind Lindy's bed, nightstand, and a table and chair, and gave her what she considered a generous sum of money for it. He told her to call him when she was ready to sell the rest of the stuff in the apartment.
Mike turned to leave. "Are you going to be okay here by yourself?" he asked.
Lindy laughed. "Yeah. It won't be too much longer." She hugged him. "Thanks for everything, Mike."
He looked down at her with a worried look. "Look, Lin – I know it's none of my business, but…this friend of yours, the one you're going to live with…is he a good guy? Do you trust him? I'm only asking because I know you've been through a lot, and…you know, you deserve to be happy…"
She smiled at her friend. "I trust him. It's going to work out, I'm sure."
Not more than five minutes after Mike left, Lindy's phone rang again. She pounced on it, thinking it was Kyle.
Instead, her Uncle John's sharp, slightly nasal voice met her ears. "Linda? Uncle John."
"Hi Uncle John." Lindy hoped the disappointment wasn't too palpable in her voice. Dutifully she asked for an update on her father.
"The rehab facility has been giving me updates on him, but I haven't been able to talk to him personally yet. It's part of the whole process, I suppose. Detox."
Lindy nodded. "But he's doing okay?"
"As well as can be expected. He's…going to be there a while, hon." He'd never called her "hon" before. "I was calling to see what your plans are. Your aunt and I would like you to move in with us. You can finish up school with your cousins – and visit your dad on a regular basis. When he's out of rehab…we'll all help him get back on his feet."
Lindy took a deep breath before she answered. "Thanks, Uncle John, but I've made other plans."
Her uncle soon fell into a half-hearted attempt to change her mind, which Lindy only partly listened to. She'd already made up her mind to live with Kyle, but she'd only just realized what that meant. It meant she was letting go of her duty to her father: to take care of him, to look after him. To put up with his lies and his excuses, to cover for him when he missed work or keep the drug pushers away. He'd always be her father, of course. But her life was taking another course, away from him.
And she was finally beginning to accept that it was okay.
Finally, she cut her uncle off. "I'm really grateful, but I've made up my mind."
"All right," he said reluctantly. "But…you will come to see him when he's allowed to have visitors, won't you?"
"I will." She owed her father that much. She hoped by the time he was allowed to have visitors, he'd also be able to see that she needed her own life. She wanted to see a new man when she looked in his eyes. Someone who could be happy without the drugs, who was no longer selfish and thoughtless. She hoped to see a little bit of the young guy in the wedding photo, who still believed in himself.
By the time she hung up the phone, she realized the windows of her apartment had gone from gold to black. It had been a long day, and it wasn't until then that she realized she was exhausted.
But she couldn't go to sleep. Not yet. She needed to talk to him. She needed to know that it hadn't been all a dream – that there had, in fact, been a curse, that Kyle was Hunter, that he still loved her. The further apart she'd been from him, the more unreal things that begun to seem.
She dialed him, listening to the phone go from one ring, to two, to three. She was about to hang up, knowing that he wasn't going to answer. But at the fourth ring, there he was, sounding like he'd been awakened from his sleep.
"Huhlo," he muttered.
"Hi," Lindy replied, feeling guilty, but also happy. Even though his appearance changed, she'd know that voice anywhere.
"Hi," he replied, now sounding much more awake. "Are you ok?"
"I am. I woke you, didn't I?"
"No," he told her, but she knew he was lying. "No, I hadn't quite gotten there yet."
"How was your day?"
"Busy, I guess. Went to see dear ol' dad."
Lindy felt her heart speed up for a second when she heard this. What would his father say when he saw him? Would he accept him with open arms? Apologize? She knew how badly Kyle had been hurt by his father's neglect. She couldn't help but be curious about how it went between them.
"And?" she asked.
Kyle's report came to her mechanically, matter-of-factly. "He was too busy to argue with me. We have the apartment for another year."
It was then that Lindy realized who Kyle's father was: Rob Kingson, the famous news anchor. That's how Kyle had described him during his green committee speech. She conjured up his face now, having seen it hundreds of times on the evening news. Dark and handsome, a meticulously practiced expression of gravity when reporting on the most dire of news stories. The sparkling smile that had won the network three awards over the last five years.
She could see now where Kyle's vanity and arrogance had come from. Naturally, being in the glaring lights of the television cameras, Rob Kingson would have valued appearance over everything else. Naturally too, he shut his son off from the world when he could no longer live up to those expectations.
When she thought about it, though, that had been one of the things that had united the two of them: their screwed-up dads. But, at least Kyle's father had enough money to throw around to let them do what they planned and not be bothered.
"That's good," she replied with a sigh. "I can't wait to come home." For truly, the apartment in Brooklyn was the closest thing she could call to a home at that point in her life.
"When do you think that'll be?" Kyle asked. Lindy could hear the desperation in his voice. He missed her, and it felt good.
She laughed, thinking of the bittersweet day she'd had. "Pibner was more than happy to see me go, so all that's left now is getting rid of the stuff in my dad's apartment. Fortunately, he'd sold most of the good stuff to pay for his, ahem, hobby."
Kyle didn't say much to this. In fact, he got a little quiet. Perhaps Lindy had said too much. Perhaps he'd been in denial about all of the problems in her life because she had been the only one who had seen the real him – both as handsome, arrogant Kyle and hideous, wounded Hunter. Maybe he didn't want to think about where she'd come from.
Lindy added quickly, "My uncle John has decided to help him get back on his feet after he's done in rehab." She wanted him to know that there was hope to her father's recovery, that he wouldn't be a noose around their necks for the rest of their lives, begging, borrowing, and stealing from them in order to pay for his habit.
She decided to tell him something else, something that hadn't been of great consequence for her, but would perhaps show Kyle that she wasn't desperate. "He asked me…if I wanted to move up to Great Neck and live with him and my aunt."
"But you said no…right?" Lindy could hear the plea in his tone. He didn't want to lose her.
She assured him, "Of course I did," then quickly changed the subject. "Did you find out anything new about the GED?"
Kyle relayed to her what Will had told him about the next test. Lindy realized that they only had a few months to prepare, that it was going to be grueling, trying to cram a year's worth of knowledge into just a few weeks. Still, this was something that they both needed to do for themselves, and she knew they would be able to get through it together.
"I'm gonna come home as soon as I can," Lindy whispered. "I promise."
"I'll wait as long as I have to," he told her.
It warmed her heart to hear him say that. She looked around the now-bare apartment and desperately wanted to leave. She felt the scar on her hip burn again, as if it were warning her, curbing her enthusiasm about her new life. It was out of her hands, she knew that logically – but nonetheless she resolved that it would not burn once she was home, with Kyle.
