Page 160 of A Dead Man's B-Side
Her voice was frantic, but Kay, ever so blasé, did a slow turn with his arms stretched open. “In good nick, as you can see.”
“And then some,” Rain noted with wide eyes. “What were they feeding you? It can’t be anything decent.”
Kay let out a low chuckle, but she didn’t miss the note of bitterness underneath it. “Wasn’t anything you couldn’t scarf down when the circumstances required it.”
The comedic tone didn’t hit as he’d expected because Rain shuddered. “Kay…”
He sighed, a breath coming from an exhausted part of him. “Let's… not–”
Rain reached up and placed her hands against his cheeks, in part for reassurance, to avoid pinching herself, and in part for him. “You need to tell me what happened, Kay. I-I came back and you were… gone.Again. What happened? Please.”
Her brother broke their eye contact first, finding the floor particularly interesting because he must know he couldn’t exactly ignore her beseeching stare.
They remained like this for some time, in somber silence. Rain, in anticipation, Kayan, in avoidance.
She let out a breath and tiptoed around his room, avoiding stepping on any of his precious shirts, ironically carelessly thrown around. She made her way to his bed and took a seat on the edge, waiting for him to join her.
For a long time, he remained standing, and she let herself reminisce about the last time they’d been here together.
Marlon Kayan Jett was always the black sheep of the Jett family. He broke far too many rules to be called a simple troublemaker.
He was always the bravest of the five children in indulging his desires. He didn’t think too long about what he wanted, and even less when he went after it. He was rebellious when he got his piercings, dyed his hair all sorts of absurd colours, wore ‘commoner’ clothes, listened to ‘preposterous’ music, and ate greasy food at the dinner table. Rain thinks the straw that broke the camel’s back was when he legally changed his middle name to Kayan.
She didn’t know how he’d done it as a minor, but she was more worried about how their parents would react. That was the first time they sent him away.
He was fourteen.
First, it was a boarding school in Germany.
After a series of pranks that, according to Kay’s biased narration, unjustly resulted in a pursuit of him by a very naked professor across school grounds, he received his first expulsion. From then on, it was a boarding school in America.
Their parents had been the ones to pull him out of that one when he returned home with a pack ofhashin his luggage and especially reeking of the pungent smell.
When it seemed all hope was lost, Rain began to hope and pray that Castle Hill, under the ‘watchful’ eye of his older sister, was Alistair and Emmeliana Beaumont Jett’s only solution. She even hinted at it, as subtly as she could.
Instead, Scarlet and Dorian, the twins from hell, had slipped a military academy pamphlet across the table one particular morning, and it was settled.
Kay returned each holiday with bags under his eyes but a fiercer glare and a stronger passion for rebellion.
Something must have happened between last winter and this one because the next time he was sent away, he didn’t return. Not for the spring holiday or the summer. Rain was entirely shut out of any information on what they’d done to him, but he was here now.
And she had to know what led up to it and the gaps since then.
The weight of his body made the bed dip next to her. “Kayan means important person, did you know?”
His words were quiet, as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear. Or perhaps the air was too fragile, filled with disquietude neither of them was willing to break, and he lowered his voice to match.
Rain felt the edge of her lips tip up. “I know. I researched it once. It was… an interesting choice, but I never doubted your judgment for a second.”
Kay let out a short, huffed laugh. “You never found it… arrogant?”
Rain met his eyes. “No. You’re important, I could say to people, but as long as you’re important to yourself, that is all that matters. That you put yourself first, your happiness, your health, your safety—I’m satisfied.”
Kay let a brow quirk up. “Well, I did it out of arrogance, but here you go, finding a deeper meaning to things.”
Rain smiled and gently nudged her shoulder against his. Again, they settled into silence. But it was the comfortable sort. The one that reminded them of what it felt like to sit here together, talking well into the hours of the night.
“You know…” Rain begins, and she doesn’t know why, but she thinks it’s something Kay would like to hear. “I have… peers that I am almost constantly surrounded with at Castle Hill.”
