Steven Michael Kudelko

I’m sitting upstairs in my room, listening to my sister fight with her boyfriend on the phone. I heard them arguing as I walked in from the front porch, where I was sitting, sobbing, missing Kayla Mihalcin. Sometimes I wonder if there is ever a time when she is sitting alone, and the way the air hits her skin, and the pseudo-silence of nothing except crickets and traffic in the distance, and the memory of what happened years ago ever moves her to think of me. I wonder if she’s recently shed a tear that was attributed to what her and I shared together. Even if she hasn’t, I’m sure I’ve shed enough for the both of us.

Easter of 2008 was when we first came “together.” After a horrible winter of hooking up, backing off, hooking up, then being forced apart, hooking up, and then being denied her presence and love, she made a decision to stick with me. In 2008, American Easter and Orthodox Easter were on two separate Sundays. On American Easter in 2008, she invited me to her step-father’s parents’ home. I was uneasy, as I had not met any of her family, aside from her mom and step-dad, up until this point. I didn’t know how I’d react, and I didn’t know who she’d introduce me as. I wasn’t her boyfriend. I wasn’t her friend, either. I was a boy that she proclaimed to love with all her heart, yet couldn’t define what I meant to her. It didn’t matter as I sat in the passenger seat of her car, partaking in the habit I had just picked up in an effort to fit in with her life. I took the last hit of my cigarette, tossed it out the window, and stepped out of the car. I was the most nervous and the happiest I had ever been at the exact same time.

As we walked to the door of her step-grandparents’ home, I expected our hands to slowly slide apart so that we wouldn’t have to answer any questions that her relatives would ask when we walked through the door. My smile got tighter as we got closer to the house and our hands actually gripped each other tighter. At the door, she introduced me as Steven, and we sat at the table. To see Kayla around a family that listened to every word she said made me happy. Though I didn’t dare open my mouth, for fear that I’d say something boring, or stupid, or embarrassing, I was proud to be there next to her, representing what made her happy. I watched the girl of my dreams smile and feel welcome, something that I was led to believe that before that night, she hadn’t felt at a family function. I drifted off into a daydream about what it’d be like to have those people in our house celebrating some holiday, or birthday of one of our children, and as the minutes passed, I felt a little bit more comfortable. At one point, I gave up nodding my head and smiling, and spoke a full sentence. I took that jump, and participated, and made moderate conversation until we made plans to leave.

On our way to the movie theater, to meet Ryan Boosel, Kayla made fun of the fact that I didn’t know how to properly inhale a cigarette. I made up a silly excuse, because at that very moment, I was the lead character in the most stereotypical after school special about trying to fit in with the cool kids by smoking a cigarette. When we got to the movie theater, we grabbed each other’s hands even tighter than we had earlier, and made our way to see the movie “The Bank Job.”

I can say that “The Bank Job” is one of my favorite movies, though that night I wouldn’t have been able to describe a single scene of the movie. In between cuddling, kissing, and dropping not-so-subtle hints to let her know that no matter how many times my arm fell asleep, or how much pain the armrest smashing into my elbow caused, I wasn’t going to let go, we had the best time. If spring is a time of rebirth, and Easter is a time of resurrection, that night was proof that the feelings we first felt the moment we had first set eyes on each other exploded and grew bigger than ever that year. Though Kayla and I falling in love seemed like a cyclical, seasonal thing, that night, in that movie theater, a flower that wouldn’t die in the winter grew, a heat wave that would never cool down passed through, and whatever worries or reservations that were keeping us from dedicating our lives to one another just disappeared.

As we walked out of the movie theater, I couldn’t keep my eyes, hands, or lips off of her. I couldn’t get enough of love. I was the happiest I had ever been. No single substance that had ever entered my body was as intoxicating as her love was. She made plans to hang out with her friends that night, since she didn’t have school the next day. As we both puffed on cigarettes, and her black Dodge Intrepid made its way down Keel Ridge Road, she said to me, “Can you do me a favor? Can I borrow your phone.” I handed her my iPhone, and she dialed Ryan Moore’s number. She told him what she wanted to do, they set a meeting point, and she hung up and handed the phone back to me. The car passed a few more houses, and I gazed out the window, completely fine with the only few seconds of silence that had really existed that evening. “Can you do me another favor?” she asked. “Will you be my boyfriend?”

While it’s hard to listen to my sister fight, because no older brother wants to watch their younger sibling in pain, I’m glad she has a boyfriend. And even though those fights may be draining, and she might dismiss them as “Paul just being annoying” to her friends, there is truth in the statement that “You only fight with someone that you love.” And even though her and I barely speak, and the last person she’d ever come to for advice would be her failure of a role model that lives at home, takes antidepressants just to wake up every morning, and has nothing more than a twelfth grade diploma, I want to just stand in front of her while she’s on the couch, and with the tears from earlier streaming down my face as a prop to convince her how serious this is, tell her that if she loves her boyfriend, or if she even thinks that she loves her boyfriend, that she better never give up, and never stop fighting, if that’s what she’s doing. Fight until the death if you love someone, because it is worth it, and you’ll realize that the second that whatever you’re fighting for is gone.

Kayla looked beautiful when she showed up in Church with me on Orthodox Easter 2008. I stood next to her, unable to keep my eyes off of her, a little bit taller than the digits on my driver’s license because I was proud to be with her in the building that I was sure we’d be married in. I remember being with her, shopping for her dress at Maurice’s, as she paced back and forth, so worried about finding the perfect dress to meet my family in. She was so beautiful as she worried, and I wondered how awestruck my family would be when they saw the girlfriend I was able to kiss every day, and spend the rest of my life with. I looked forward to watching the jaws of my male cousins hit the floor as we finished our cigarettes on the back porch swing, got into my car, and drove down to my grandma’s house. As our hands slipped into each others in what became the most natural routine ever, we walked into the house and I introduced her as Kayla, my girlfriend.

If my sister and her boyfriend have a stupid fight, and they break up, even if it’s just for a few days, Sunday, when he’s not at our family’s Easter celebration, or she’s not at his, that is one less holiday she has to tell her children and grandchildren about. That is one less picture that they have of each other to put up on their 50th Anniversary collage that their kids will make, and that’s one less day they have to remember how their company felt, even if their was tension, or anger…. there was love, too. You don’t realize how important those memories are until all you have are memories. If they get back together again on Monday, they’ve wasted two days of their lives being apart. She needs to understand that. Two entire days of not being with the most important person in the world to you is an eternity. Understand that. Don’t ever willingly or intentionally waste two days of your life. This was the biggest issue when Kayla and I were beginning to plan our lives together, and an even bigger issue once we broke up. 

When she was still dating Bruno, we had a conversation in her car one night, with her and I drinking out of the same Red Lobster cup, full of root beer, that she had taken home with her from work, and during that conversation, to my surprise, she told me that she wanted to marry me. She told me that she saw us together with five children in the future. As excited as I was, she also told me that she also saw herself dating new people in college, and trying new things, and that scared me. That hurt me. If you know you want to marry someone, if you want to share the rest of your life with someone, why not start the rest of your life right fucking now? After she broke up with me, and started dating Brian…. after we had been together almost a year, she asked me if I remembered that conversation in the car. I did, and I cried. I did want to marry Kayla, and share my life with her. I still do. I want there to be a day where I come home, and she’s waiting for me, and I can kiss her on the lips. I want there to be a day where we invite everyone to our home for one of our kids’ birthdays, and we stand at the front door with smiles on our faces, proud as ever at the welcoming environment we’ve created. And while she’s with Brian right now, kissing him on the lips, and smiling, I’m going to be spending an Easter Sunday that will be without her. Should she ever love me again, we won’t have any memories of this coming weekend to tell our children. 

It sounds really stupid to say that my sister is lucky to have someone to fight with, but she is. I have someone that I love more than anyone else, and I cry every day because I miss her. I’m turning 22, 23, visiting places, going to events, without making memories with her. You only fight with someone you love, right? I never thought that anything would hurt more than Kayla fighting with me over the phone, through e-mail, or in person. But there is something that hurts much worse, and that’s the pseudo-silence of nothing but crickets and traffic in the distance, and the memories I have of Easter 2008, when I was a boyfriend. Peace doesn’t exist, and fighting is something to look forward, when you’re in love with someone who once loved you.