She tipped her head back to the ceiling in frustration and whispered some variation of a curse in Korean. I only knew that because she used to say the same thing to me whenever I annoyed her as a teenager.
Gone were the fire and rage in her eyes, but their replacement wasn’t anything better. Hollow despair. I hated seeing it, well aware those feelings shouldn’t belong to Kira.
There was a brief window here, a small opening into her heart, or soul, or mind—or bone, wherever pain went. Hell if I knew; I felt pain everywhere. Ever since I left Chicago seven years ago, I felt a constant, low-grade ache, only cured by being near Kira again. If my pain was dull, I wondered how acute Kira’s was.
“Kira.” I waited until she turned her cheek in my direction and met my eye. “I’m sorry.”
She sighed and pushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “It’s not your fault.”
“I’m not talking about the CCC.”
At that, she tensed and turned away from me. “Landon, we don’t need to?—”
“We do.” I took a few strides forward until I stood in front of her. Looked down into the eyes of the woman who always mattered the most to me. “I am sorry for what I did to you. Breaking up with you and moving across the country after we had planned the rest of our lives together. You deserved better than that.”
She didn’t respond right away. Instead, she walked around me, her jaw set like stone. She turned on the faucet and ran a sponge under the stream, the water splashing lightly against the basin. Then she started scrubbing a stubborn streak of red paint on the counter, her movements sharp and deliberate.
“Ironically, you said something pretty similar the night you left.” Her voice was quiet but pointed. “Hopefully, by now you realize I never cared about what I deserve.”
The sponge moved in tight, aggressive circles, like she was trying to scrub the memory of me out along with the paint. Her shoulders were tight, and her eyes didn’t meet mine.
“You’re right. I went the wrong way about it.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets, watching the way her back stiffened. “I just needed you to know I regret losing you.”
A beat passed.
“I know you were going through things, too,” she said finally, her voice softer now. “You should’ve talked to me instead of shutting me out. But I’ve had a lot of time to think. And I think I get it now.”
I took a step closer, hesitant but hopeful. “Really?”
“Really.” She rinsed the sponge and dropped it into the sink with a dull slap, then turned to face me. “Your dad’s health, the pressure with your family’s business. I probably would’ve made some terrible choices, too. We were so young, Landon. So stupid.”
She let out a breath, shaking her head with a faint, tired smile. Then she bent down to gather a scattered pile of papers on the floor. I followed instinctively, kneeling beside her.
Our hands reached for the same page at the same time. Her fingers brushed mine, warm, familiar, electric. She paused. So did I.
The world stilled for a second, like it was holding its breath.
When she looked up at me, her eyes weren’t guarded anymore. Just sad and maybe a little open.
“I think it’s time for us to move forward,” she whispered, her fingers still touching mine.
“I’d like that.” My hand instinctively moved to hold hers, and she jerked back.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she murmured in a tone lighter than I’ve heard from her in a long time. “You still owe me, like, twenty apologies and probably a few hours of manual labor.”
I let out a laugh. “Fair enough. So I guess we’re stuck here together for a while.”
Kira took in the mess and sighed. “At this rate, we’re going to be here until next Tuesday. We might need some entertainment.”
“What, like music? Or should I start doing interpretive dances?”
She gave me a long, deadpan look. “Please don’t. The last time you danced, you pulled your groin trying to do a split.”
Ah, prom.
“I could have mastered the splits by now.” I smirked. “But point taken. Playlist it is.”
Kira grabbed her phone from the counter and flipped through her music. “You still hate my taste in music?”
