Page 42 of A Twist of Fate

“Fine. I’ve been avoiding you,” she agreed reluctantly.

“Why?”

“Why? Because we slept together, that’s why!” Her voice had taken on a bit of a shrill quality as she squeaked that out.

“We slept completely clothed in the same bed, that’s not quite what you’re making it out to be.”

“Still,” she started, but didn’t take the thought any further.

“You feel guilty?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know, Kane. Honest to God, if I could lock down what I was feeling, life wouldn’t be so damn complicated for me.”

“Talk to me about it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re part of the problem,” she finally managed to get out. That set me back a bit.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Did you know I used to have a crush on you?”

Well, it didn’t feel good that she was putting it in the past tense, but I was willing to still stick this out and see where it went. “Used to?”

“Yeah, before I got together with Toby,” she explained, though his name came out on a reverent whisper.

“I seem to recall Sully telling me I needed to pull my head out of my ass and take the blinders off,” I teased.

Her smile was just a shadow of what it used to be, but I’d take any little bit of encouragement I could get. “I don’t think having blinders on was your problem. You were just focused on another girl.”

“The wrong girl,” I corrected. She simply shrugged her shoulders in response. “And by the time I turned around, someone else had caught your attention.”

There it was again, that ghost of a smile. One day, I would see the genuine version of it again. I couldn’t wait for that day, but I would take what I could get for now. “I guess it’s weird how that works, isn’t it?”

“How what works?”

“You know. How you don’t see someone until someone else takes notice first.”

“You saw me,” I told her.

“Yes, I also saw all the women who fell all over themselves to get just a little piece of you. It made me see you as more than just my friend and a coworker. It made me pay closer attention until I realized I really liked what I saw.”

“You keep talking past tense, have I done something to change how you see me?”

“No,” she whispered. “It’s nothing like that. I just fell for Toby while you were too busy to see me.”

“And now?” I asked. “Have you stopped seeing me?”

“Kane,” she started, then stopped and picked at her sandwich for a few minutes. “I don’t know how to do this and feel okay about it. The other night, when you stayed with me, I slept peacefully for the first time since… Since it happened.” She glanced up from beneath her thick lashes. They were normally blond, but she had them darkened with mascara, making her eyes stand out like the jewels they were. “I can’t lie and say I didn’t feel anything. I did. The problem is that in the stark light of day, I felt like moving on to something else was to forget him. Forget them.”

“G. You don’t ever have to forget them. They will always be a part of you. Who you are, who you were, it’s all tied together, but don’t you think they’d want you to move on and be happy?”

“I don’t know. Would you want that?” She asked, and I didn’t honestly know how to answer her. “I keep asking myself that question. If it had been me instead of him, would I be somewhere out there now hoping that he found another love? Started another family? I can’t answer that. There’s a part of me that says no. I know it’s a selfish part though.”

“There’s another part that says yes, isn’t there?”

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