That is the word now lodged in my brain like a sliver of glass, slowly peeling away all the good that is me and leaving nothing but the kind of bad I do not want to know as me at all.
Because that’s what his question demands I answer with—more lies. Lies I do not want to tell. So I don’t. I just don’t. I continue to cling to all the truths I can find, holding on to them as if my fingers cling to the ledge of a window, and if I let go of those truths, I, too, am as dead as Kevin. “I told you about the guy who commented on me changing photos on the dating app, right?”
“Yeah, you did. He told you that you were afraid to be the girl in photo number one, right?”
“Yes. Exactly. I’m telling you, that got to me.”Oh boy how it got to me,I silently add. “I didn’t enjoy his comments, but from the eyes of a stranger, sometimes we see the truth. I need to be braver. I’m trying.”
“Yes, well, speaking of being brave.” He studies me a moment, that weird, awkward thing we’ve had some of lately back between us. “When I said we should—”
“Date?” I supply, not at all shy with Jack as I am with other men, but no matter how we might wish it to be so, we don’t snap, crackle, and pop, as I once heard my mother describe what she felt when she met my father.
Jack knows this.
We both know this.
Dating will right no wrong but rather create wrong where all is right.
“Yes,” he confirms. “That. I don’t want to lose our friendship, Mia. I was just—”
“Feeling pushed out by Jess?” I ask, but I’m really repeating what he told me himself.
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Never,” I say. “We’re friends for life, Jack.” I think of the way he felt it necessary to delete his dating profile, without telling me about it, and add, “I’d like to feel I can cheer you on when you date, rather than have you feel like it means I’m not part of your life anymore, and vice versa. I mean, it will change us some, I know, if either of us finds that someone special, but it doesn’t have to end us. And you do know that Jess dates, right? Believe you me, if she found the right man, we’d be planning a wedding.”
“I’m not sure Jess is capable of that kind of intimacy. There’s something cold about her, detached. Nobody will ever be good enough for her but you.”
“Okay, that sounds like some stalker roommate movie, and that is not me and Jess. That comment is coming from the weird combative thing you two live by.” I move on to something far more important right now.Him.I haven’t given him enough attention, and as a friend, a real, true-blue friend, he deserves that I do. I point to his tie. “No pin again. You’re in pain. Are you trying to hide it so I won’t push you into surgery?”
“Actually, no.” He smirks down at his offending tie, lifting it. “I can’t believe I did that again.”
“What’s going on with you?” I press. “Is it more than the knee?”
“Maybe it’s the wedding,” he says, dropping the tie. “My sister and the dating thing has really started to get under my skin.”
I think of Adam, and I do so with the icy certainty of disapproval of my attending that wedding as Jack’s date, but I still say, “You’ve got me. We’ll get through it together.”
My phone buzzes on my desk and I rotate to answer it. “Mia Anderson.”
“Mia, it’s Kara. I need you to come down to my office.” She hesitates. “Now.”
I blink at the tone in her voice, which is both urgent and rather ominous. “Okay. I’ll be right there.” I disconnect, twisting around to face Jack, a hand pressed to the knifing sensation in my belly.
“What was that?” he asks.
“Kara wants to see me, and there was something uncomfortable in her tone. I’m telling you, the fallout of my bad presentation is still coming at me.”
“Oh come on, Mia. She told you everything was fine.”
“She said ‘now’ in this voice filled with dread.”
“Now?”
I replay the conversation with him. “I need to see you. She paused, a heavy pause, and then,now.”
“You do know you’re working yourself into a frenzy over nothing, right? There’s an auditorium booking issue. There always is. That’s all this is. You’ll need to fix it with that magic you always work.”
I inhale and nod. “Right. You’re right. There is always a glitch, and I always fix it.”
