A Dying Fire Still Has Sparks

I wake the next morning and wonder what I had taken the night before to give me such a crazy dream. Then I realize that I’m on the sofa, in the living room, and covered up with a blanket. I sit up, only to realize that I couldn’t have possibly dreamed what I thought I had last night. I let a loud cry of pain loose as I break into a set of tears.

            “Daddy,” I cry into the pillow. Soon I feel someone nearby myself.

            “Sh, there there now Kala, there there,” I hear a deep and soothing male voice say to me.

            I sit up and am face to face with Kevin Richardson.  “Oh, Kevin, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” I say.

            “No, it’s fine, really, everything’s fine, Kala,” he tells me as he holds me close to his thickly muscled chest. “How does this feel?” he asks.

            “Right,” I reply.

            “Huh?” he asks.

            “It feels right to be held like that,” I tell him.

            “Oh,” he says. “I know that you need someone to stay with you for a while until you can get your bearings again,” he says.

            “Look, you all are due for some vacation time, right?” I ask.

            “Yes, several months worth,” he says.

            “I’d love the company, and hate to stay here by myself,” I say.

            “Of course you would,” he says.

            “I was thinking that you and the guys, and their girls, if they liked, could stay here for a while. There’s a full recording studio that Dad put in for my own personal enjoyment, when I was playing instruments and recording songs for him. You all would be waited on hand and foot by my staff, but I’d just hate to have to come home from work in the evenings to a cold, dark and empty house with just the staff to be with me,” I say.

            “I’d love to stick around here,” Kevin says. “Though I can’t really speak for the others.”

            “Well, you go and run the idea by them, I have to meet with the lawyer today,” I say.

            “You sure don’t waste much time,” Kevin says.

            “Business waits for no one and nothing,” I say to him.

            “True, sadly that’s very, very true,” he says.

            “I’ll get the maids to start in on breakfast,” I say. I know that nothing can bring my father back to me, and that I can’t do anything about losing him. While I fully intend to keep my life moving forward as quickly as possible, that doesn’t mean in any sense of the word, that I won’t miss him horribly.

             Everyone sits down to a huge breakfast. Everyone eats the breakfast; my lawyer comes and has a bite to eat with us all. I just sort of push the food around on my plate. Kevin places his hand over mine to get my attention. “Hey, you sure you feel up to being so active today?”

            “I don’t have a choice here, Kevin, believe me I wish that I did, but I don’t, I have to go to the office and I have to straighten out my father’s affairs, and I will be expected to make all of his meetings today,” I say.

            “You’re taking too much on yourself all at once here, Kala, take it easy for a while, get over your loss, you’re going to exhaust yourself,” Howie says.

            “Thank you, Howie, but I cannot take a break, that’d be the worst possible thing for me. If I loaf around the house then I won’t have anything to occupy my mind with, and I’ll wind up in tears,” I tell him. I go into the home office and my lawyer explains everything to me. He is given charge of the financial affairs, at least for the time being. I call up a funeral parlor and arrange for a viewing, and then I arrange for a funeral for my father. Then I rush off to the office for the day, and announce that all of the businesses will be closed several days from then, to observe my father’s passing.

                                    *            *            *            *            *            *            *                                 

            As soon as Kala has gone to the office Kevin confronts his friends with a rather radical idea. “Look, this house is huge and the estate is gigantic, Kala asked me to ask you all, and this means you four girls too, if you’d all like to spend some time here, you know, while we get everything together and ready for our next album. She has a state of the art recording studio in the house. We’d be waited on hand and foot,” Kevin adds. “And, just know that whatever you all decide, I’ve already decided to stay with Kala and help her through this time,” he says.

            “Okay,” Howie says. He is thinking that he wants to stay behind too, just to make certain that nothing bad happens between Kevin and Kala. The other three guys and four girls are all thinking the exact same thing.

            “Well, what do you all say?” Brian asks.

            “I’m all for it,” Howie says.

            “I’m staying too,” AJ says.

            “Count me in, this place seems really cool,” Nick enthusiastically pipes up.

            The girls don’t even need to confer Sarah speaks for all of them, “We’re all staying with you guys, that poor young lady needs all the help and support that she can get right now.”

            “Great, so now, we have to send someone to Florida, to get the rest of our clothing, and our pets,” Kevin says.

            “Leighanne and I will go,” Brian says.

            “Nick and I will come to,” Celeste offers.

            “Great,” Brian says. A private plane is booked, and the four of them scoot off to the airport.

            The others just sit around the house with nothing better to do, they get to know the house and the estate and are astounded to learn that Lloyd had actually purchased part of a neighborhood, and turned into a huge estate, he needed the land as he bred horses, and now, his daughter is helping endangered species propagate as well.  They are all amazed at the sheer size of the house that Kala and her father resided it. None of them like the idea of Kala being left alone here. It is about five times larger than Kevin’s house, and has a fulltime staff of maids, butlers, and cooks. The animals have handlers and most of the staff lives right on the grounds in condominiums that Lloyd had built around the estate. There is a full time doctor and nurse as well as dentist and a hygienist, and several vets.

            The team of four returns about five hours later, with all of the clothing, pets, and other essentials that no one can go without anymore. Everyone is very happy to see their animals. Clothes are organized in eight of the twenty guest rooms; Kala had already shown Kevin the room that she wanted him to have. The rest of the pets are introduced to the puppy and kitten.

             Knowing that Kala won’t be home for quite some time everyone opts to go out for the afternoon.             Kevin leaves her his cellular phone number in case she needs anything, just before he leaves the house with everyone else. They go around and see the sights of town; they each take a separates car. Kala had given each pair permission to take one of the many cars that her father kept.

            Several months pass and Kala mourns her father, just as Kevin did. She wears all black, and eats very little food. Everyone tries to cheer her up, and while she thanks them for their valiant efforts, she cannot be cheered. She keeps her life moving forward, but somehow she just feels a part of her is missing. All in all she is extremely grateful for the presence of the five guys and their girls. The guys have begun recording their album in the production studio in Kala’s house. By the time it is ready to be sent off to be finalized, Kala is just beginning to come out of her mourning period.

                                    *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            Finally, one day, she stops wearing black clothing, and changes into a beautiful burgundy dress.

            “Kala, you look wonderful,” Brian comments as I come into the kitchen.

            “Thank you, Brian,” I say.

            “When Kevin sees you in that he’s going to have a hard time resisting you,” AJ says.

            “That’s a kind thing of you to say, AJ,” I say with a smile.

            “Did I hear my name mention…Kala, you look wonderful,” Kevin says as he sweeps me up into his arms and just hugs me tightly. Kevin and I have become extremely close over the past months.

            “Thank you, Kevin,” I say.

            “Can I ask you a personal question?” Kevin asks.

            “Fire away,” I say.

            “Have you ever had any boyfriends?” he asks.

            “Well, that’s a bad subject, but I’ll answer it,” I say to him. “But give me a second, I need to get something first.” I leave them all and fetch a photo album from the living room, and then come back. Everyone is seated around the kitchen table and I sit down at the head of the table. I open the book to the first page. I pass the book around. The book is filled to overflowing, it has pictures of me, bruised and beaten badly, and each one of the photos is dated with a description of where the injury was, how bad it was, and what it was caused by. “Technically speaking, yes, I have had a single boyfriend, but he was much older than I was, and I was only about fifteen at the time and he was about twenty. He was much more experienced than I was, and he wanted much more than I was willing to give him. So, he started beating me up to get what he wanted. He tried, on several occasions to rape me, but he was never successful. He was given a restraining order, which he broke regularly, he beat me continuously, he was jailed, but his father is a big shot, and always got him off the hook somehow. His latest attempt on me was when I was nineteen, he beat me so badly then that I was in the hospital for two weeks recovering,” I tell Kevin and the others. “The last time that he had to answer for the beatings, it was a brand new judge presiding over the case. In fact, my case against the guy was the first one that he heard, and he didn’t fall to whatever tricks the guy’s father pulled on the other judges. He got the book thrown at him that time.”

            “What is his name?” Kevin asks.

            “His name is Jason,” I say.

            “When does he get out of jail?” Howie asks.

            “Today, I think,” I say.

            “Wow,” Kevin says.

            “That’s why the guardhouse is now up and running, as is the rest of the security system,” I say.

            “Well, you’d better skedaddle if you want to make it into the office on time,” Elena says.

            “Right, when will you all be home today?” I ask.

            “We should be back around six in the evening, we’ll have supper together,” Kevin says.

            “Okay,” I say as I scoot out the door.

                                    *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            Kevin has not forgotten about Brooke, and everyone knows that. He’s merely taken Kala and made her Brooke’s replacement in his life, he only hopes that as she comes out of her time of pain, that she’ll continue to look to him for affection beyond that of a big brother or father figure of sorts.

            She has to go to the office for a while that day and everyone else goes out around town. It is now May, and the nine of them have been living with Kala for seven months. Late that afternoon everyone is still out and about around town. They are all getting into their cars, when Kevin receives a phone call.

            “Hey, you all go on ahead, I’ll catch up with you later, it’s Kala,” he calls to them as he looks down and sees Kala’s number flashing on his phone’s screen. When he answers it, he hears her crying on the other end. “Kala is that you? Are you ok?”                                              *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            “Kevin, he was released from jail a few hours ago, he’s out of jail, and he called me a moment ago,” is all that I am able to get out.

            “Kala, sit tight, I’m on my way over there, call the police though,” he says to me. “Then call me right back, okay?”

             “Okay,” I cry.

                                    *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            He gets to her house in record time; he wants to ensure that nothing had happened. However, the police kept Kala on the phone with them. He pulls up to the guardhouse and is let through the gates; he rushes up the hill and pulls up to into her actual driveway, right in front of her house. He quickly makes his way into her house. He decides to take the stairs up because he does not have the patience to wait for the elevator. When he enters the hallway he sees someone standing outside of Kala's door. Kevin is pretty sure this is they guy he has heard so much about from Kala. Kevin isn’t quite sure what he is going to do, but he approaches her suite of rooms and asks the guy if he can help him with something.

            “Who the hell are you?” the guy says.

            “I am a friend of Kala's. I came by to see if she is alright,” Kevin says

            “Well you can leave now. She is fine,” he says.

            “Well I came to see her, and that is what I am going to do,” Kevin says.

            “She doesn't want to see you, whoever you are. I have known Kala for several years and you were never one of her friends.” Jason says.

            Kevin decides to try something else; he lets Jason think that he is having his way. So he goes and gets on the elevator. As soon as the doors close he calls Kala, intending to tell her not to open the door because Jason is there. It panics him terribly when she doesn’t pick the phone up. He can’t imagine what is taking the police so long to get here. Now he only hopes that he hasn't done the wrong thing by leaving Jason alone by her door. He tries calling Kala back, but again Kala doesn’t pick the phone up. Kevin races outside to the back of the house and notices the balcony and the lattice up to it that Kala said was very old and rickety, so she didn’t like to climb down it.

            “Kala, I want you to walk out onto your balcony. I am right below it on the ground. I want you to come down the lattice. I can't stand the thought of you being in there while Jason is at the door,” Kevin quietly yells up to the open balcony doors.

                                    *            *            *            *            *            *            *

             “Neither could I, so I took some action,” I say as I come out of my hiding place. “The moment I heard Jason’s voice outside of my bedroom door, I raced out here after I phoned the police.” He turns around to find me standing a few feet behind him.

            “Thank God you’re okay,” Kevin says as I allow him to hold me. “So, what happened?”

            “When I heard him outside of my door, I freaked out, called the police, and then rushed out to the balcony, I heard him banging on the door, and I climbed down the lattice as quickly as I could,” I say.

            “Well, you’re all right now,” Kevin tells me.

            We go around to the front of the house just as the police show up. Four officers enter the house and they take the stairs up to the second floor. While another officer takes a statement from both Kevin and myself. A few minutes later, the officers emerge from the house with Jason in handcuffs. Kevin holds me tightly as Jason is led away. They put him in one of the police cars. Jason hadn’t said how he had gotten onto the estate, but I draw a connection, the guard at the gate looks like him, too much for it to be a coincidence. It is soon found out that the guard is his brother, who has lived with his father his whole life, but the two of us had never met each other. So he got himself employed and allowed his brother onto the property, without any questions. The other officers assure me that they have enough evidence to put both of them behind bars. With what he has done to me before there will be no question that the brother can easily be put away, and Jason will be charged for this new infraction. After a few more questions an officer gives me a copy of the report and they all leave.

            “So, how did he manage to get in here and find you?” Kevin asks in awe as he gazes at the house’s main entrance hall.

            “I didn’t, and still don’t have the best security system in the world, it keeps malfunctioning, so the night that he attacked me, when I was nineteen, the system was offline, waiting to be fixed. Besides, Daddy just added the guardhouse a few days before his death, so now no one gets in without me knowing it. There are cameras all along the outside of the wall which stretches about the estate, and I suppose that now I am going to have to start conducting interviews for guards and dogs as well,” I say. “But no one other than the guard at the guardhouse had been hired as of yet, and as he just lost his place here, I’m still rather at the mercy of the speed of the police.”

            “So, what would you like to do for dinner?” Kevin asks.

            “I don’t really care, I’m not that hungry,” I say.

            “Hm, well, I know one sure-fire cure for that,” Kevin says.

             “What’s that?” I ask.

            “Let’s order pizza,” Kevin says.

            “Sure, if that’s what you’d like, please go right ahead,” I say.

            “Then we can then watch a movie or two,” Kevin says as we come onto the second floor and I unlock my bedroom door.

            “Pizza and movies sound like a plan to me,” I say. “Most of the staff has the night off tonight anyway.”

            We settle back down in my place, after informing the butler, who is a fill-in guard that a pizza will be ordered. I snuggle into a soft and deep couch in the tastefully decorated living room. This is more of a family room, it is cozy and warm, the other living room is rather, formal, not snobby, or pretentious, it just has a different feel to it.

            “Plain cheese sounds fine with me. Just no olives, onions, or anchovies on the pizza for me,” I say as I look around, wondering what I should do now.

            “Okay, so now what?” he asks.

             “Whatever,” I say. “I don’t really feel like moving, I’m just too shaken to think,” I say.

            Kevin leaves me alone to my thoughts in that room, and starts to wander around the house, about twenty minutes later Kevin is still wandering around the house, when he finds the music room. It has an impressive grand piano. I only know where he is because he begins playing around on it; he is playing a song that I have never heard before, except for bits and pieces when he was composing it. He has just written a few weeks ago. The music calls me in a way, and I am afraid that I startle him when I walk into the room and put my hands on his shoulders.

            “Is that a new song? It sounds beautiful, Kevin,” I say as Kevin gets up from the bench and puts some distance between himself and me.

            “Yes I just wrote it a few weeks ago. Brian is working on some lyrics for it,” Kevin says. Just as Kevin says that, the doorbell rings. He looks around for the money for the pizza, but he can’t find any anywhere.

            “The butler will handle it,” I say as I lead him into the family room. Everyone else troops into the house and is told all about what’s gone on. An hour later, we decide to watch “All I Wanna Do”, because no one has seen the movie before. Part way through the movie, I begin shaking with fear, Kevin seems to forget about the movie and focuses his attention on me. “Are you cold, Kala?” Kevin asks as he stands up, and then sits down closer to me on the couch, wrapping a handy blanket around me.

            I look up at him, and I don’t care if he can see that I’ve been crying. He moves even closer and takes me in his arms. It feels so good to be held in his arms; so good in fact, that a few minutes later I fall asleep in his arms.

                                    *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            He looks down at her as she sleeps and notices how truly beautiful she is. He tries to push the thoughts out of his head and tries to concentrate on the movie again. But he is not successful. He finds himself staring at her face and wanting to feel her lips against his. He keeps trying to push the thoughts out of his head, but they are haunting him now.

            “Guys, keep it down, Kala’s asleep,” Kevin hisses to his friends and their girls.         

            Just as the movie is ending, he feels Kala stir. His eyes meet her own hazel green eyes as she looks up at him. Their lips are only about an inch from one another and Kevin lets himself give in to the urge to kiss her. He doesn’t think about the fact that it could scare her horribly.

                        *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            I find myself getting lost in Kevin's mesmerizing green eyes. I have always thought he was the most attractive member of the Backstreet Boys, but I find myself being attracted to more than just his chiseled looks. He is a very caring person, and I am so grateful that he has helped me through this time in my life. But, I know that someone like Kevin would never be interested in someone like me, he’s long forgotten about Brooke, and I’m certain that he sees me as a little sister. I can just picture him going out with someone that looks like a model; he deserves that.

            Kevin clicks the movie and television off, and then he gets up from the couch and picks me up in his arms. He looks at me and I am surprised to see that there are tears in his eyes. He is shaking his head slowly and shivering from head to toe.

             “Kevin? What’s the matter?” I ask as I take hold of his hands to calm him.

            He stands up and tries to run from the room, and so I follow right on his heels. Why would he take off to bed without saying goodnight, I wonder silently. The door to his bedroom is open so I enter the room. What I see confuses me even more. Kevin is curled up in a tiny ball in the darkest corner of his room, crying quietly.

            “I can’t do it, I just can’t believe that I’m so stupid, you’d think I’d learn,” I hear him say to himself. When Kevin looks up I am standing in the doorway with a confused look on my face.

                        *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            He remembers that he had these feelings and had been thinking this way when he started to date Brooke, but that she didn’t love him the way he loved her and she left him for that very reason. He can’t let himself fall that way. He doesn’t care if he never falls in love again, just so long as he is safe from harm.

                        *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            “What are you doing, Kevin?” I finally ask.

             “Please, Kala, I can’t deal with this right now, I’m asking you to leave this room for a while,” he says in a shaky voice.

            What have I done, I wonder; I take a few steps into the room and stop when I am a few feet away from Kevin. “What happened, Kevin? I don't understand,” I say softly.

            “I just can't… Please leave me here,” Kevin cries.

            “Ok, ok, calm down Kevin,” I say as I take another step closer to Kevin, but he tries to curl himself tighter into a smaller ball. “Please, Kevin, listen, I will not leave you alone; I don't feel comfortable doing that. I want to stay here where I know you are okay,” I say.

                        *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            Kevin continues to cry until he hits a wall in his mind. He can’t take all this fear and confusion right now. There is the fear of what Brooke did to him, and the fear of falling in love and him affections not being returned. He can’t take it; he buries his head and starts to cry.

                                    *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            I’m not too sure what to do. Did he want me to go to him, or did he want me to leave him alone. I can’t just walk out of the room and leave him like this. I have to try and get him to talk. So without touching him, I sit down beside him on the floor and say, “I don't understand what is going on here Kevin. Please talk to me.”

            This appears to make Kevin cry even harder. I can’t just sit there and do nothing, so I move a little closer and put my arms around him. I feel him tense up when I first touch him, but I very quietly say, “Tell me what is wrong Kevin. You know you can trust me.”

            Kevin throws his arms around me and continues to cry. Then he tries to get out of my arms, but I will not let him. He tries a little harder, and when I won’t let go, he starts panicking, “Kala, please, let me go!” The frightened tone in Kevin's voice scares me and I let him go right away. He stumbles to get up and runs across the room. I see what I saw the time that I met him, before the death, the fear, and the pain, but especially the love. What have I done, I think to myself.

            “I’m scared out of my mind right now, it is nothing that you did, you have been an absolute saint towards me,” Kevin cries.

            I stand up and compassion now takes over, “Just tell me what it is, I don’t care what it is, I only care that it gets out in the open right now so that you don’t have it eating away at you.”

            “I’m falling in love and I’m scared,” he sobs. “I’m scared that I’ll get hurt again, like Brooke hurt me, I’m scared that I’m falling in love and that my affections won’t be returned, I’m so scared to love, I just don’t know what to do. I want to be held in the worst way, but that’s what’s also frightening me.”

            “Oh!” I exclaim in compassion for his situation, he does feel for me the way I does for him. “Oh, Kevin, you poor thing. Don’t be afraid, not all love is scorned by the one you give your heart to.”  I try to take him into my arms and he refuses me. Thinking that a good night’s rest will benefit him, I say, “Kevin. I am going to bed. You know where I am if you need me.” I slip out of Kevin’s bedroom and softly close the door behind myself.

                                    *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            Kevin throws himself down on the bed and cries for hours. He realizes that what he has done is stupid, but he is just that scared to love again, and now Kala surely knows that she’s the one he’s falling for.

                                    *            *            *            *            *            *            *

            After leaving Kevin's room, I go and sit down at the piano and try to sort things out. Inside I am jumping for joy that he loves me the way I do him. “I have got to help him relax about loving me, but how can I do that when everything I try frightens him?” I say out loud as I stare into space.

            “Just be there for him and reinforce the idea that you love him totally,” a voice from behind me says.

            “Oh, hello, Howie,” I say.

            “He told me the other day that he was falling for you and didn’t know what to do, how to approach you with it, or anything like that,” Howie says.

            “Oh, so, I should just be forthcoming and tell him how I feel,” I say.

            “That would be my advice,” Howie says.