Page 146 of More To Us

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Austin

"You need to get over here," Amber says in a hushed tone. I was on my way to get something to eat when she called.

"Why? What's going on?"

"Kira's locked herself in her room. She's been in there for hours. I tried talking to her but she told me she wants to be left alone."

"What do you think's going on?"

"I caught her watching her gymnastics videos earlier so I think it has something to do with that. Can you come over here and try to talk to her? I know you guys aren't dating but—"

"Yeah, I'll come over. I'll be there soon."

"Thanks."

We hang up and I pull into a gas station and turn around, heading toward Kira's place. It's been a week since we started talking again and we've been talking every day. But we haven't today because I had to work. It's Saturday, but my dad needed help at one of his job sites so I met him over there and put in a few hours. Then I went back to my place and cleaned up. Now it's noon and I'm starving, which is why I was going to get some lunch, but it sounds like I need to talk to Kira first.

She's been opening up to me a lot this past week. She finally told me about the accident, and when I asked her questions about it she actually answered them instead of saying she didn't want to talk about it. I feel like she's finally being honest with me, but we still haven't gone back to being a couple. For now, I'm just being her friend, and we're going to remain just friends until I know for sure that she's given up trying to compete again. Once her leg heals, I worry she'll go behind my back and start working out obsessively, like she did before, and if she does that, I can't be with her. I can't watch her hurt herself again. And I've told her that several times this past week.

"Hi, Austin," Amber says as she opens the door. She has her coat on, her backpack slung over her shoulder. "I have to go to campus to meet with my study group. I'll be back later this afternoon."

"Okay. See ya."

She leaves and I walk down to Kira's room. I try the door and find that it's unlocked. I thought Amber said Kira locked herself in her room, or did she just say that to get me to come over here?

Amber's been trying to get Kira and me back together, arranging these little set-ups without telling us. Like last Thursday night, she lured Kira and me to the same coffee shop. It turned out to be a good thing. We'd only been talking on the phone, so it was good to meet face-to-face and spend some real time together. We were there for three hours. It's just like when we were dating. Whenever we were together, we had a hard time saying goodbye.

Kira told me Amber likes to play matchmaker, but if that's true, then she needs to play matchmaker for herself. She still hasn't contacted Dylan, and he hasn't tried contacting her.

Dylan is still dating the cheerleader but it's nothing serious. They have sex, but that's all they do, so it's not really a relationship. He hasn't said much about Amber and I haven't pushed him to. I'm trying to stay out of it. I've got my own relationship issues to deal with.

"Kira, it's me." I open her door and see her sitting on her bed with her laptop. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah." She sets her laptop down. "What are you doing here?"

"Amber said you might want to talk." I go over and sit next to her on the bed.

She smiles a little. "Sorry about that. She's taking this matchmaking thing a little too far. I'll talk to her."

"It's fine. I wanted to see you."

"You did?" She gives me a full smile this time.

"Why wouldn't I? We're friends, right?"

"Yeah." Her smile falls because she wants to be more than that. I want that too, but I'm not sure if we're ready for that yet. I need to be able to trust her.

"Move over." I nudge her leg and she scoots over to give me more room. I put my legs up next to hers, and lean against the headboard. "So what's going on?"

She clicks on her laptop, waking it up, then points to the screen. It's a video of her doing gymnastics.

"That was nationals," she says.

I don't know what to say. I don't know why she's showing me this. Is she going to tell me she's going to start training again?

When I don't respond, she closes the laptop and sets it on her nightstand. "You don't want to see it."

---