“From what Blake told me, it was a few months after Thalia graduated from Duke. She was offered some important thing in Africa, and your dad proposed to her, but she didn’t say yes. They fought, and he took off, so she went to Africa. A few months after, I met Sebastian at the dog park. I was getting ready for my final year of undergrad while applying to nursing programs when my friend forced me out of my house and to the park.” She gets a faraway look in her eyes and a smile forms—one I suspect she doesn’t even know is there.
“Sebastian’s dog, Zeus, had escaped from him, and ran right up to me. I realized his beautiful coat was ensnared with cockleburs, and poor Seb was a sweaty mess with dirt streaked all over him from chasing after Zeus. He gave me some line about asking for my number to thank me for catching his dog.” Kiera rolls her eyes, and I’m entirely engrossed in this story. I didn’t know any of this had happened.
“After a couple of weeks, he asked me on a date. Flash forward a few months, and we were dating. In less than a year, I moved in. We were talking about marriage and what our future together would look like when his grandmother started declining. He proposed just before Mirabelle passed, and I thought we were on the same page . . . until we weren’t.”
Panic spikes in me when I realize she’s wiping away tears. “I’m so sorry, Bailey. I don’t know what’s come over me,” Kiera apologizes, and I don’t know what to do. “I guess it’sjust been so long since I’ve told this story, I didn’t think it’d make me so emotional.”
“It’s okay,” I protest, wanting nothing more than for her to stop crying. I don’t want to make anyone upset or rock the boat. I want to fit in here. I want them to like me. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I want to tell you, and I hate to ask this after already agreeing, but can I tell you the rest another time? I want to make sure everything makes sense, but I hope you know I really loved your father,” she says, mustering a smile.
I return her smile, hoping she can’t see what a fraud I am. “Take all the time you need. I really appreciate your honesty.”
I didn’t know until later, if I’d bothered to ask my parents about any of this before assuming the worst, I could have saved myself from being ensnared in a trap I didn’t see until it was too late.
Carter surprised me with a phone and a new phone number when he got home that night, claiming it was so we could communicate when he’s at work and vice versa. I’m assuming it’s actually from his mom because despite how nice his apartment is and his job, I doubt he was able to buy me a phone. It doesn’t really make sense to me, but he won’t return it.
I’m using their generous gift to torture myself. I’m sure it wasn’t the intent, but it’s what I’m doing.
Right now, I’m staring at the picture on Hunter’s social media of him and Kait a couple weeks ago at prom. It’s painful to look at, but I can’t stop.
Carter plops down on the couch next to me. “What are you looking at that’s making you frown when you should be playing Flappy Bird, or some shit like that.”
It’s absurd enough I turn the phone off to look at him, speechless that his first choice for a game is Flappy Bird.
“Oh my god, don’t look at me like that. Tell me you’ve heard of Flappy Bird,” he says, and I snort.
“How old do you think I am? Of course I’ve heard of it.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because it’s a new phone, and you haven’t been able to download it for like a decade? If I was going to download a game about birds, I’d at least pick Angry Birds. Have some taste, bro,” I say, shaking my head at him. Instead, Carter smiles at me, his dark eyes crinkling despite the fact I was making fun of him. “Why are you looking at me like that? It’s weird.”
“You called me bro,” he says, his smile not fading, and it dawns on me that I did.
“Don’t make it weird,” I say, trying to brush it off because I don’t want to make a big deal out of this.
“I’m not making it weird, lil bro. You are by pretending you didn’t call me bro first,” he teases, wrapping his arm around my shoulders to basically pull me face first into his armpit. I groan, attempting to push him back. Unfortunately, Carter is stronger than I am.
“Gross.” I force myself to gag, but I’m fighting the smile trying to form.
“I’ll let you go if you tell me what you were looking at,” Carter bargains, tightening his grip to shove my face closer into his armpit.
“Fine!” I’m released immediately and he looks at me, waiting. I sigh, dragging my hand over my face. “I was looking at a picture of Kaitlyn and Hunter.” I look away from Carter because I don’t want to see his reaction to my admission.
I’m so used to disappointing everyone in my life that I don’t know if I’m currently in a place where I could handledisappointing Carter. It’s just a lot harder to let everything go than I thought it would be.
Especially her.
God, I can’t believe I ever thought Kaitlyn would pick me over Hunter. He’s everything I’m not, and lately everything I’m not has been making itself more obvious.
“Hey, B, it’s okay,” he says, pulling me from my thoughts. I’ve been disappearing into them consistently for months at this point, but now it’s a habit I don’t know how to stop. “If it makes you feel better, my ex-girlfriend and I broke up almost a year ago, and when I get drunk, I still get stuck looking at pictures from when we were together. It happens to the best of us.”
“I wish it wouldn’t,” I mumble under my breath, but I appreciate him trying to make me feel better.
“I’m sure everyone wishes that.”
I roll my shoulders, trying to push thoughts of Kaitlyn to the back of my mind. “So you were a Flappy Bird kid?” I ask, abruptly changing the topic, but he doesn’t call me on it.
