Leave it to my girl Flannery to get involved in this. I knew she thought she was doing something good but in reality, she was just going to make things harder than they needed to be. Her frickin’ doe eyes that only wanted to see good in the world or see good things happen weren’t helpful.
“Ok, look, Kendra.” Adam took a giant step toward me and dropped his voice back down to talking level, ignoring the fact that we now had an audience. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known you weren’t ready to hear that. It was my mistake, ok?”
“Adam, we just want different things, obviously. If you think I’d ever want to hear that shit … I don’t know.” I shook my head. “It’s not like we can’t stay friends.”
“Fuck friends, Kendra.” He stormed past me, jammed his feet into his shoes, then slammed the door so hard it rocked on its hinges.
I knew what I was supposed to feel. Relief. Overwhelming relief. That was a really close call with him, one that I’d hoped to avoid in my determination to keep romantic entanglements to a bare minimum, meaning zero. That’s not what I was feeling, though. This grip of sadness sat in my stomach like a three day old meatloaf. But I was sure that was there because I’d never for a second considered we wouldn’t remain friends. That Adam wouldn’t be out of my life just because we weren’t sleeping together anymore. The look on his face told a completely different story. I was losing one of my best friends. I should’ve ended this junior year when that hot football player asked me out like ten times. Everything would be normal if I had. But I would have also missed out on a year of some very good times. Ugh, I hated this.
“What did you do?” Flannery asked, breaking me away from self-analysis of my feelings. My therapist in New York would be proud. Yes, therapist. My parents thought it would make all their damage easier for me to deal with if I had someone to talk to. It didn’t help. All he ever did was nod his head, ask some vaguely inappropriate questions under the guise of “seeing how my parents’ issues were affecting my own attachments,” and try to get a good look down my shirt.
“What do you mean? Nothing. We had fun together but he’s moving, so it was time to end it.” That sounded like bullshit even to me.
“He’s moving?” she asked in a rhetorical tone. “You’re moving, Kendra.”
“Yeah, but he’ll be in Grand Rapids and I’ll be in Lansing.”
“And they haven’t invented the car yet? It’s like an hour apart.”
She made me smile at a time I didn’t really feel like it. I also noticed that Cain was no longer with us in the room. I probably pissed him off again by bringing drama into his house or something.
“Where’s Cain?” Flannery looked at me like I’d shown up to school naked. Sheer confusion and outrage poured from her crunched up face.
“He went to talk to our friend, Adam, whose girlfriend just broke his heart.”
“He does have the experience for that, doesn’t he?” I barked. I hated barking at her.
Flannery’s head snapped back, nostrils seething in anger. Hey, her big concern was Adam. What she didn’t understand and I’d try to explain to her once she calmed down was that it was better this way. It had already gone on too long.
Adam wanted a wife. He wanted kids. Those things didn’t usually work out. If my best friend wanted to try it, fine. I’d be there for her, plan every stinking detail with her and stand there smiling like it was the best thing in the world. But that wouldn’t be me. It couldn’t be me. I’d protected my heart my whole life and I wasn’t about to change that because some boy insists he loves me. Not happening.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed out, trying to send all the guilt with it before she had the chance to really lay into me. “I didn’t mean that. I’m in bitch mode.”
“Yeah, you are.” She watched me then sighed. “Can you at least tell me what happened?”
I didn’t get the chance right then. Cain came back in with a grave look on his face but shook his head in answer to Flannery’s silent question about how Adam was. I wanted to ask that question out loud myself but thought better of it. I didn’t want to hear Cain’s version of events and hoped Adam would calm down once some time passed and things would go back to normal.
“Right,” she sighed again. “We’re not done, Kendra. Remember, he’s my friend too.”
“I know.” I’d never make her choose. Honestly, if I could still have Adam as my friend I’d want that more than anything. I just didn’t think that would be possible anymore.
But just like the friend I knew, Flannery wasn’t about to let it all go. I’d curled up on the couch to try to convince myself that everything was fine. This thing with Adam was a kink in the chain and I was just upset because he was mad at me. It wasn’t the first time and I hoped it wouldn’t be the last. That’s how we were. I got pissed at him, he at me, we argued, yelled, then had fantastic sex. That was our circle of life. We wouldn’t be going back to the fantastic sex, that much I knew would be wrong, but the rest of it could still hold true.
Then Flannery dropped onto the other end of the couch and kicked my butt with her foot, pretty hard I must say. It shook my whole body.
“Listen, shrimp, don’t kick me.” I smiled over at her.
“What are you gonna do about it?”
Popping up, I stretched my much longer legs out toward her, swiping one foot over her cheek. “Kick your ass.”
“Gross.” She groaned. “Don’t touch me with those stinky things.”
Cain breezed through, twisting the top off a bottle of beer, and stopped just long enough to kiss Flan on the top of the head before he went off toward their room. Oh but he did ruffle my hair like a fucking dog on his way through as well.
“Jerk,” I called after him only to be met with his light laughter.
“So do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Not really.” I smiled sweetly at her.
“You will eventually.”
She was right. Eventually she’d get me talking. I didn’t want to right then because I had no idea what I’d say. Flannery was the best friend a girl could have but I don’t think she’d understand. She had fucked up family, sure, she had it with the best of us, but the not wanting to be tied down part I’m pretty sure would leave her stumped.
Chapter Six
The next morning, Cain and Flannery were gone before I woke up. It took me forever to fall asleep but once I did, apparently I was dead to the world. Flan left me a note that they’d be gone all day helping Adam move and that she assumed I wouldn’t want to help. Screw that. I put on an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt, some trusty sneakers, and pulled my hair back into a loose bun then high-tailed it out of there. Didn’t even take a second to eat or grab a coffee. That could come back to bite me in the ass but I didn’t care.
I maintained that Adam and I would remain friends and wasn’t about to give up on that. I knew he was hurting because he thought we were something we weren’t. But I’d made things perfectly clear to him over the years. It wasn’t my fault he got attached. And I was pretty sure that at some point I’d be able to convince him of that.
The look of surprise on Flannery’s face when I pulled up in front of the moderately maintained house the size of Cain’s apartment was priceless. She stopped with a box in her arms so quickly that Cain rammed right into her on his way to the truck. She propelled forward, dropped the box, and landed flat on her stomach on the sidewalk. I hopped out of my car quickly.
“Oh, shit, Flannery, are you all right?” Cain lifted her to her feet then checked her for injuries head to toe. “Ah … hey,” he said once he saw me walk up, continuing to look from her to me to the front door.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Adam’s brash voice caught me by surprise. Both because I hadn’t heard him come out of the house and the edge of anger, hatred, I don’t know what scared the crap out of me. “Are you ok, Flan?” She nodded.
“I’m here to help you move like I said I would be. They just didn’t wake me up bef
ore they left.”
“You’re not wanted here, Kendra. Run along.” He brushed passed me to toss a duffle into the tuck bed.
“Adam, don’t be like this.”
“Be like this? You’re fucking kidding me, right? Just get out of here.” His feet thudded against the sidewalk. He didn’t even glance back at me before climbing the stairs to his apartment. I’d screwed up big time, apparently. I never should’ve hooked up with him in the first place. I really wanted a time machine to go back two and half years to kick my own ass before the Halloween party.
“Why don’t you go with her,” I heard Cain even though my back was turned to them both.
“Are you sure?” Flannery asked.
“Yeah. I’ll get Adam moved, then be home later.” She asked about his car after that but he said he’d take care of it.
We both made our way to my car. She slid in the passenger side, me into my leather-as-smooth-as-butter driver’s side. The silence in the car was deafening. I could feel Flannery’s thoughts rather than hear them. She had anger rolling off her in thunderous waves. I waited those out until a calming tide came in. That’s what it felt like. I was on a wild boat ride in a very tumultuous ocean.
“So, he’s still pissed,” she said finally after I eased out of the parking spot in front of Adam’s tiny house.
“Really? Couldn’t tell.”
“Why are you being so cavalier about this?” Her demanding tone put me on edge. It was so rare that she got truly angry but when she did, watch out. Up went every defense mechanism I had in my toolbox.
“He’ll get over it.”
“He’s in love with you, Kendra.”
“I’m so fucking sick of hearing that,” I yelled so loudly she jumped in her seat. “Seriously. You’re my friend too, and you haven’t bothered to ask about how I’m feeling.”
“Ok, I’m sorry,” she tried, using that calming, don’t freak out, we’ve got this situation under control type voice. “I didn’t know the ice queen had feelings to ask about.”
“You’re such a bitch.” I tried keeping the smile flirting with my lips under control. It all went back to a joke freshman year when girls were fawning all over every guy that showed them the least amount of attention. Except me and Flannery. At first, I thought maybe she was a lesbian, which I’d totally have been fine with. Instead, she had the sexual horror story of her mother to live with, which I didn’t learn the entirety of until junior year after everything else about her sex life became public knowledge. But me, I said I was the “untouchable ice queen.” So ever since then it was our running joke. “Let’s just hang out and not talk about guys, ok?”
She nodded.
Back at the apartment, we ordered Chinese food, put on comfortable pajamas (who cared if it was only lunchtime) and watched one movie after another. Somehow some stupid chick flick got put in, the same old tale of boy meets girl, they fall in love, something breaks them up, then he swoops her off her feet in the end. Such bullshit. But bullshit that got me thinking. The thinking led me to this weird moisture burning in my eyes before my cheeks got wet. Some may call this crying but since I didn’t cry ever, I was probably dying.
“Kendra? Are you crying?” Flannery stared at me like I was an alien.
“No. I think a pterodactyl flew into my eyes or something.” Although I tried to fight the urge, I had to swipe a hand under each eye to keep those pesky tears from running down my cheeks. Because that would have been horrifying.
“Talk to me,” she said gently, making the moisture flow a little faster. Still I wiped them away frantically.
“He’s not going to talk to me ever again is he?” I freaking full on sobbed with the amount of control God gave a klepto. But only once. Her short, skinny arms wrapped around me with the force of a linebacker. My skin started to crawl and I wanted to pull away, yet the comfort of my best friend felt good.
I didn’t like being in this position. Being someone who even needed to be comforted in the first place was not anything I’d ever allowed anyone to see. When all hell broke loose in my family, I kept that shit under wraps. Nobody was supposed to know.
“I think he will,” she whispered. “He just needs time. I think … I think he really planned on you guys being together forever. I know I did.”
“But I told you both, hell, I told everyone that I’m not the forever type of girl. Why isn’t that good enough?”
“It is for me. But I’m not the one that’s in love with you.” She squeezed a little harder. “He’ll have to talk to you at some point. You’re both in my wedding.”
I groaned loudly at the thought of standing in some romantic setting watching our best friends getting married while Adam fantasizes about how he wants all that. And I don’t. I like romantic gestures, the feeling of someone wanting to spend time with me; I just didn’t want the rest of the crap. Not after watching my parents ruin their lives while trying to take Kevin and me down with them.
“Ok.” I swiped my hands under each eye to get rid of any crud that had accumulated. “So tell me. What did he say?”
“Nothing.” She took one look at me and waved her hands out in front of her. “No, I swear. We didn’t talk about you at all.” I believed her because really, why would they? But I think that hurt more than anything he could’ve said about me. “Kendra, do you love him?”
“That’s a stupid question. I love him like I love you. You are my people.”
“You do not love us the same,” she snorted while pushing me away so I slid back to my comfortable perch on the far side of the couch. “Because you don’t want to have hot, sweaty sex with me.”
The front door closed.
“I do,” Cain said with a laugh. “But I’m thinking I missed something.”
We couldn’t control the giggles that took us over. Like at all. He’d come in at the worst possible moment, hopped over the back of the couch to wedge himself between us, then looked from me to her then back again as if he was expecting one of us to tell him what we were talking about. As if he couldn’t just guess.
Cain and I had our differences in the past. That was behind us. He and Sam had become such a giant part of my life. I should’ve thought things through when I hooked up with Adam. I should’ve been able to see that things wouldn’t end well. That I’d be putting friends, even the ones I hadn’t met yet, right in the middle.
“So, what time do we want to go shopping tomorrow?”
Flannery groaned, rolling her eyes at the two of us. “You were serious about that?”
“As a heart attack,” he said.
“Come on, Flannery. You need a way to get around. And you need to get over this ‘I was poor so I have to do everything for myself’ bullshit. He has money. You’re marrying him. Right, Cain?”
“Uh … ” He was a man trapped in an almost no win situation. Admit it and Flan could drop kick him. Don’t admit it and she wouldn’t let him buy her a car. “I would’ve put it differently, but yeah … ” Such a PC way to answer.
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes again. “Did you get Adam all settled?”
“Yeah, there wasn’t too much to do.”
With the mention of Adam the conversation died. Now I’d created an awkward situation but didn’t know how to make it better.
***
It was just about the worst weekend of my life that didn’t involve my parents. The car shopping didn’t even help and let’s just say retail therapy usually worked wonders for me, even when I wasn’t the one buying.
“Seriously?” I looked at Flannery like she’d grown another head because she may as well have. “That man said you could get whatever you want and this is what you pick?”
“It’s cute,” Flannery chirped.
“Sure, it’s cute, but … it’s a Ford Focus.”
“Come on, Kendra.” Cain tried to hold back the laughter in his voice. He thought this whole situation was funny too but was too much of a pussy to admit it. “If this is what she wants, this is what sh
e gets.”
“But it’s a Ford Focus.”
“It gets excellent gas mileage.” A frown started to form on Flannery’s face. I didn’t mean to make her feel bad.
“Yes, ok, Grandma, it’s very sensible. Wrap it up, put a bow on it.”
That got her to see the humor in the situation. Her defense was that she’d never owned a car before and didn’t want the responsibility of some monster machine, as she put it. Cain dropped a kiss to the top of her head then went inside with the sales guy that had been putting too much effort into his flirting with me. About twenty minutes later, they came back out and Cain tossed Flannery the keys to her brand new car.
“Ok, but the payment isn’t a lot right?” she asked as I shook my head. Since she wasn’t stupid, I knew she was living in denial.
“Payment.” Cain smirked while shaking his head. “You’re adorable.”
I rode with her as she figured out all the ins and outs of the new car. It wasn’t what I would’ve picked but Flannery grew up in an entirely different world than I did. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that a blue Ford Focus was incredibly her and I couldn’t imagine her driving anything else.
But Sunday, I spent alone. The dynamic duo had plans with his family and while they offered for me to tag along, that wasn’t something I wanted to be. The third wheel. The poor girl who had no one else. I had other friends … sort of, in New York. In Michigan I made acquaintances, but only Flan and Adam were my friends, then by extension Cain and Sam.
So I spent the day alone. Cleaning a room that didn’t need to be cleaned. I told myself that we’d be spending most of our time over the next few months planning a wedding so this was my only chance. Even I didn’t believe it. Finally, I broke down and called Adam. Just to wish him good luck on his first day of work but he didn’t answer. After leaving a message that said just that, I wasn’t so sure he’d even hear it.
Chapter Seven
Up for Forever Page 4