“Right, but does he know that?”
Shaking my head, I say, “Probably not, but he’s more than welcome to ask if he’s really worried about it.”
Wren sips her tea, staring blankly over my shoulder. “Think you’ll hear from him again?”
“Doubtful.” I trace the tip of my pinky finger along the rim of my cup. “We both said our piece. It’s not like we made plans to meet up sometime.”
“You look sad.”
Glancing up at Wren, I shake my head. “I’m not sad at all. Why would I be sad?”
“I’m not saying you are sad, I’m saying you look sad.”
Rising from the table, I take my cup to the sink and rinse it. “I guess I wanted closure.”
“Closure?” Wren coughs, laughing. “Closure from what?”
Looking down into the shiny, stainless sink, I tuck my chin against my chest. “I felt such a connection with those writings. I was so vested in the love story of those two strangers. I wanted to know what happened because the journal had no ending.”
“Then you should’ve brought up the journal more. Asked some questions. You had his full attention and you squandered the opportunity in favor of flirting,” Wren says.
“I wasn’t flirting,” I say. “I was trying to prove to him that I wasn’t some demented, obsessed stalker fan. And as soon as I accomplished that, it was too late to flip the conversation around and wind up exactly where we started . . . with him thinking I’m a lunatic.”
Wren lifts herself up from the table, shuffling across the kitchen in a pair of ratty bunny slippers she’s had since college.
“Well, then, sister,” she says, slipping her arm around my shoulder. “Guess you’re going to have to settle for never knowing.”
Exhaling, I nod. I know Wren’s right. I need to let this go. I need to accept the fact that I’m never going to have answers, and that ultimately, it’s none of my business.
If only it were that simple.
Saying goodnight to my sister, I take my phone from my purse and head into my room to wash up for bed. Clicking on the bedside lamp, I grab the notebook from the tabletop and roll to my back, skimming through as if some giant glaring clue is going to pop out at me.
Flipping to the back jacket, I catch a glimpse of a tiny white slip of paper tucked away behind the cover. I’m not sure how I’d never spotted it until now, maybe it was hidden too well, but a quick tug and it slips right out.
It appears to be a note folded six times, and upon closer inspection, the handwriting is distinctly feminine.
* * *
Dearest,
What happened last night was amazing and incredible. Never in my life has a man’s love brought me to my knees and made me question all the truths my heart claimed to know. I cried in the library after you left. I cried for us. I cried for him. I cried because ultimately, my heart knows that this is going to get complicated and that none of us can come out of this unscathed.
I love you. So much. But I also love him. So much.
Even on our worst days, my bond with him is endless and shatterproof. And on my worst days, my love for you is a permanent, tangled mess of a knot.
Dearest, the thing is that one of you has my heart and the other owns my soul. I love and need you both in ways no one could ever comprehend.
I’m a selfish woman. I know that. I won’t pretend to be worthy of your love. Or his. There are times I wish one of you would realize I’m not half the woman you think I am. And there are times I imagine you moving on. But the mere thought of either of you looking at another woman the way you look at me blinds me with envy.
You’re a fool for loving me, baby.
And I’m wicked for allowing it.
Where do we go from here?
Yours forever,
K.
Twelve
Ace
* * *
I haven’t looked at her photo in almost a year.
Standing before my hall closet, I flick the light on and glance up at the brown shoebox on the top shelf.
It’s like our past lives in that box. Or at least the memories of us do. Sometimes I struggle with the reality that what we had is over and done, never to return, despite the fact that it felt it would last forever.
I was so convinced she loved me with an infallible intensity, even on our worst days.
I was one hundred percent certain we were going to spend our lives together, that there was no one better suited for me.
I was sure a life without her would be akin to trying to breathe under water.
Turns out, I was nothing more than a damn fool.
I’m more upset with myself for believing her empty promises than anything else.
Pulling the box out, it feels a lot smaller than I remembered, and maybe that’s a metaphor for our relationship, but I’m too exhausted to think that hard about her tonight. I tuck it under my arm and take it to the fireplace.
It’s June, and the AC is running on high, but it feels like a good time to light a fire.
Dropping to my knees, I pop the lid off the box, glancing down at the photo that rests on top of piles of love letters and cards and the kinds of sappy mementos a lovestruck man might think meant something at the time.
“Kerenza.” I say her name out loud, though I’m not sure why.
It feels foreign in my mouth, though my chest tightens at its familiarity.
She’s grinning in the photo, perched on the edge of a sailboat just outside of Martha’s Vineyard. Kerenza’s wearing nothing but an emerald green string bikini, a summer tan, and a mischievous glint in her violet eyes. Her glossy black hair is tied loosely on the top of her head, piled into a knot of some kind, and she smiles wide for the camera.
For me.
We were happy then, blissfully unaware of our fate. Taking things one day at a time with a mutual understanding that we were on the same page: hopelessly, endlessly, unstoppably in love.
Or so I thought.
I reach forward, hitting the switch on the bottom of the mantel, reaching so far it causes my shoulder to ache. A fire roars to life and I push the screen aside. Taking Kerenza’s photo between my two fingers, I fling it into the flames, something I should’ve done a long time ago.
Thirteen
Aidy
* * *
“Ace asked about you this morning.”
I stop chewing the delicious medium-rare filet mignon before me and glance across the table at Topaz. She wears a mischievous glint in her eye and her lips are twisted.
Chewing my bite, which takes for-ev-er, and swallowing hard, I say, “I beg your pardon?”
“Yeah,” she says, glancing toward the sidewalk at passersby. It’s a beautiful Friday, perfect for a casual café lunch with one of my best friends, and she drops a bomb like that? Like it’s nothing? “He asked how you were doing.”
Reaching for my water, I ask, “And what did you tell him?”
Topaz grins wide. “I asked why he wanted to know.”
“You didn’t repeat anything I told you, right?” I ask, mentally rewinding to last night, when I caught her up to speed on everything and she accused me of having a crush on him and I admitted I thought he was ridiculously gorgeous but way too moody for me and changed the subject.