Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 36 of 78

The car pulled away from the dock. The long black limousine swallowed the noise of the cameras. Kylie set her phone face down on the seat. She had told the whole world she loved Arianna. She had said it with a house key, with her grandmother's necklace, with a song they wrote together for a year. But she had never once said the plain words out loud, just to Arianna. Not "I love you." She had always let the objects speak for her. Arianna held the gold heart necklace at her collar. She turned it in her fingers, quiet. "You keep touching it," Kylie said. "It's the nicest thing anyone ever gave me." Arianna smiled, but the smile did not reach all the way. "Sometimes I wonder if you like giving me things more than you like me." The words landed hard. Kylie looked at the necklace, the key on Arianna's ring, the song already playing on a hundred phones. Every gift had been a way to say the thing without saying it. Arianna had caught the pattern. If Kylie kept hiding behind objects, Arianna would start to doubt the objects meant anything at all. Kylie reached over and closed her hand around Arianna's, covering the necklace. "Take it off," Kylie said. Arianna froze. "What?" "Just for a second. Set it down." Arianna unclasped the chain slowly and laid it on the seat between them. The puppy sniffed it once, then rested his chin on Kylie's knee. Now there was nothing in Arianna's hands. No gift. No note. No song. Kylie's heart pounded harder than it had at the dock. Cameras were easy. This was not. "I gave you the necklace so I wouldn't have to say it," Kylie said. "I gave you the key. The song. All of it. Because saying it out loud scared me more than reporters." She held Arianna's empty hands in both of hers. "So I'm saying it now, with nothing in the way. I love you, Arianna. Not the gifts. Me." Arianna's eyes filled. "Say it again." "I love you." Arianna laughed, wet and shaking. "You never said it. A whole year of letters and I said it fifty times and you never once—" "I know." Kylie pressed her forehead to Arianna's. "I love you. I should have led with that." Arianna kissed her. When they broke apart, she picked the necklace back up. This time she handed it to Kylie. "Put it on me," Arianna said. "Now it just means the necklace." Kylie fastened the clasp behind Arianna's neck. The gift was only a gift now. The words carried the weight. On the seat, Kylie's phone buzzed again. Her mother. The label. A camera outside the tinted glass caught a blur of two shapes close together. Kylie ignored all of it. She had finally said the words. Now the world would hear them too, whether she planned for it or not.