Confounded: Part II - 7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7 --==Kit’s POV==--

I joined the others just in time as Taylan was putting dinner on the table.

To at least have the advantage of having shown goodwill, I asked Tom during dinner if he wanted to join me on a run, later that evening.

“Actually, I wanted to take the evening to move him into the guestroom; there’s a load of his stuff still in the car,” Taylan said. “We could use a strong pair of hands…”

“Sure,” I answered, reluctantly.

He could move his own crap.

“It’s not that much,” Tom spoke up, also not seeming too happy about that suggestion. “I can do it myself.”

“No, no, let Kit help you.”

“I wouldn’t want to break his routine.”

“It’s okay,” I answered, “I’ll go afterward.”

“Why don’t you go with him,” Dad chimed in.

“No thanks.”

“Wuss,” I muttered; he didn’t even indicate if he heard it or not. But Tay did. The slight touch of his foot to my leg, and the subsequent frown, indicated as much.

“I’ll check out the fitness gear you have. Or I’ll take a swim, if that’s okay. ”

“That’s fine; Kit will show you where you can find towels and such,” Tay said, making a point looking at me. I would?

“He can also show you how the machines work.”

Sure! Or show him how the maximum weight a bar could hold, and see if that would agree with him. I pushed a potato around my plate, having lost my appetite.

Why didn’t they just…butt out? You can’t force two people together if they don’t like each other. I knew what they were doing. It wasn’t going to work. If there was one thing Tom and I might have in common, it was that thought.

**********

He proved that about an hour after dinner, when I went out to go help him with his stuff; he’d already cleared out most of it and was lifting the biggest bag remaining as I approached. I grabbed the last two, which were much smaller, and obviously lighter, making me eat the ‘wuss’ remark I’d made during dinner; the big one he carried inside obviously weighed a lot.

Feeling made out as a jerk, and because Taylan was watching right at that moment, (judging from the look on his face I had a speech coming), I took the smaller ones and, closing the trunk, followed Tom inside.

The guestroom was located at the opposite side of the house, right across from my room on the other side of the terrace. Most of the stuff we kept in there had been cleared out prior to Tom’s arrival. When I came in with the last bags, Tom was busy unpacking a lot of books from the large bag he’d brought in himself, now definitely making me feel like an ass; that bag had to have weighed a ton!

“Where do you want these?” I asked.

“Right there’s fine. Close the door when you leave, thanks.”

As if I was some kind of bellboy? I don’t think so. Instead of doing that, I walked further into the room and put them on his bed. Then I sat down, scooting further onto it, and watched as he was unpacking.

He’d brought an insane amount of books! Thick ones, paperbacks, hardcovers, thin ones; there had to be at least forty or fifty.

“What are you reading?” I found myself asking, curious.

He sent me an annoyed look; then he quickly read the pile he’d unloaded, selected a whopper and held it up. James Joyce’s Ulysses.

“Tough read.”

“Read it?”

“Yes.”

“Where does Bloom meet Stephen?”

“In the hospital,” I answered, without missing a beat.

He mulled that over for a while.

“You read much?”

“Not as much as I used to. Judging from that pile, you do it a lot?”

“I like…” he began, and then rethought what he wanted to say. “Okay, listen,” he said, “this? You and me, getting to be best buds? Not gonna happen.”

“Why not?” I asked, frowning.

And then the both of us were startled by Taylan’s voice suddenly speaking up from the doorway.

“Yes, Tom; by all means; why not?”

Tay leaned against the doorpost, looking from Tom to me.

“Hmm? I think it’s time you two got this…thing out of the way. Whatever it is.”

That he hadn’t expected, I guess; his uncle questioning him like that. Tom clenched his teeth and kept silent.

“Well? Come on. Every single time you get within sight of each other, it’s one trying to get ahead of the other. Always this bickering, sniping; if you’re going to stay here, it’s gotta stop, Tom. And that goes for you too, Kit.”
I kept my mouth shut as well. Because I know better than to go invite an argument with Taylan.

And because I didn’t really know. I’d just reacted to Tom when he had begun it. I don’t know why…

“I see. So neither of you even know? Real adult, guys. Wow.”

He gave us both a pointed look.

“You two better start finding common ground because I’m not going to spend my entire summer playing mediator between the two of you. Understood?”

I muttered an agreement, followed by Tom’s. Apparently satisfied, Taylan turned and left, leaving a heavy silence behind. Fine. I'd be the grownup then.

“Why do you hate me? What have I ever done to you?”

Okay, that came out a bit more frustrated than I meant. Tom frowned.

“I don’t hate you,” he answered.

“No? Then why do you…”

“I just don’t like you,” he continued, and then shrugged, “deal with it.”

I stared at him, stupidly. No one ever said that to me. Ever. There was no reason… how could he…

“What?!”

“I don’t like you. Simple answer, easy to understand. So why don’t you just leave, mmk?”

“What is your problem, man?” I asked, ignoring his suggestion. “Am I doing something wrong here? Did I say something to you? If I did, then tell me.”

He shook his head.

“Nope. Nothing you did. It’s just who you are. Don’t take it personally; it happens.”

“Don’t take it personally?” I echoed. “When you say you don’t like someone, it is personal; what planet are you on?”

He sighed deeply; and then I finally got my answer.

“You think you have it all, don’t you? And maybe you have it all, because that’s all that small mind of yours can comprehend. Daddy buys you everything you need. You and your safe, comfortable life; you’ll never have to do anything because it’s all planned out. No expectations, no pressure; a safe boring life, lapping along like water onto the shore. No ripples in your pond. Predictable. A safety guy, that’s what you are and a complete bore. I can’t stand such people.”

He said it with as much contempt as he could put into it and I inhaled deeply; if he was trying to hurt me, he was getting there, fast. I was not at all like that. I wasn’t!

Shunning those feelings was hard, but I managed to do it. And then I lashed back.

“As opposed to you, who has nothing? Let’s see; you have a brother and two sisters that love you, for some strange reason that’s beyond comprehension. You have two parents, wondering what it is that they’re doing wrong. Wondering why their son is such a brooding shit; who does nothing else but bitch and moan to everyone all day, who doesn’t lift a finger to help out. An ungrateful, empty…husk, alone in the world without friends, and without an inch of compassion, who can’t be trusted, and deals out judgment with his high-powered mind like he’s the second coming?”

I took a little breather and geared up for the final lash.

“Maybe I am a safety guy and like it that way, ever think of that? I don’t need the strife you apparently crave. You’re a leech, sucking the life out of everyone around you, who can’t stand that some people are just comfortable with who they are. I might be safe and predictable but you? You’re nothing but a waste of time.”

Now that had felt good. And then he took the shine right off of it again.

He grinned.

“Aww…poor Kit,” he replied softly, barely audible but his voice just dripped with fake sympathy, “so tell me; how long have you been practicing that speech? You know; I’d be impressed if you’d have thought it up, right here, right now. But you haven’t. You rehearsed it, didn’t you, trying to find the words that you think would hurt me the most, as you paced back and forth in that padded cell of yours. They don’t, by the way. Hurt me, I mean.”

He bent forward, giving me a mocking grin and I had to constrain myself or I’d knock it from his face.

“But you get an A for trying.”

Asshole! Absolute, fucking asshole!

I felt my eyes burn and fought very hard to restrain any show of emotion; not in a million years would I give him that satisfaction. But if I spoke another word to him now, there was going to be a fight and a big one; one that could very well become physical.

I guess he figured that out by himself, or he was just happy with what he’d said; he turned his back on me and began ordering his books in several piles on the desk, leaving me standing there, fuming in silence.