She was trying not to throw up the night before her flight when Tara got home from her shift at Jimmy Beans. “You okay?” Tara asked.
Kaci mumbled ammphand nodded. Then tried to telepathically send Tara a message asking how her final went, since she was pretty sure if she opened her mouth, she’d puke.
Tara missed the message.
“Here. I picked up some ginger mints for you. They’ll help settle your stomach.” Tara climbed onto Kaci’s bed and peered in the pink suitcase. “Wow. Is that an Hermès scarf? What else are you hiding in your closet?”
“You pass your finals?” Kaci croaked out.
“Hope so.” Tara twirled a curl around her finger. “You’re going to do great, Kaci. You know that, right?”
That was what everyone kept telling her. “I still wish he was coming with me.” Admitting the truth was painful, but admitting the truth to Tara was also a relief.
“Aw, honey,” Tara whispered.
“I just want him to hug me again. I want to hear his voice again. When Ron and I broke up, I didn’t miss him. Because I never wanted to hug him. His voice wasn’t special. I didn’t want to have his babies. But Lance—I would’ve had Lance’s babies,Tara. I don’t even know if I want kids, and I would’ve had his babies.”
Tara squeezed her in a hug. “You’re going to be okay, Kaci. You have bigger things to do.”
“I justmisshim.”
“His roommate came into Jimmy Beans last night.”
Kaci’s nose wrinkled.
Tara plopped down on the bed. “Sounds like it’s been an easy deployment so far for the guys over there. Devon said you can stop by anytime. His girlfriend slugged him. Nikki’s a grad student in the English department, and she kinda offered to help me with my redneck fairy tales. She’s doing research into the ways storytelling is shifting because of the digital marketplace, so I’m sorta going to be the subject of her master’s thesis. But I’ll meet with her at her place. Or alone here. I told Devon he’s not allowed toknow where we live.”
Kaci rubbed the sore spot to the left of her breastbone. “Do what you need to do, sugar. Life goes on.”
So long as her plane was airworthy tomorrow. And the other one, too, that would bring her back from Germany.
Where she’d actually be closer to Lance than she was today.
“I can still drop everything and go with you tomorrow,” Tara said. She’d never once come out and said she knew Kaci was terrified to fly, but Kaci knew she knew.
She’d probably known since the night Kaci came home complaining that some hot guy in a bar had kissed her and run away. Because that was the kind of friend Tara was.
“I got this,” Kaci said.
Her fingers were numb, but she’d be fine. She’d get on that plane. She’d have the timeof her professional life in Germany. She’d come home.
And life would go on.
Really, it was good that she and Lance had called it quits. If they were still dating, she’d be doing that helpless female thing, begging him to save her, and she’d be making excuses not to get on the plane.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
If she’d never met Lance, she wouldn’t be getting on that plane tomorrow.
She was going because he’d believed in her.
She was going because he called her strong.
She was going because he’d gone out of his way to show her planes were safe and then delivered her safely to the ground evenwithengine problems.
She owed it to him to do this. To not toss her cookies. To not cry. To not cause a scene.
And toenjoyit.
