'How was it different?' I finished my coffee and picked up my purse to go, not because I was furious but because as
I'd said not so long before to the very man we were
discussing, that cake was baked.
'You left him! You didn't love him anymore.' Kira
grabbed up her own purse, too, glaring. 'Not that it
mattered.'
'He turned you down, huh?'
Her expression was enough of a reply.
'That's why you were pissed off, isn't it? Not because I
messed around with Jack, but because you tried to get
together with Austin and he turned you down.'
'He turned me down because he stil wanted you,' Kira
said.
I didn't have an answer to that.
'And then you went and screwed around with him again
anyway.'
'Kira. I didn't know you wanted Austin.'
'Kira. I didn't know you wanted Austin.'
But she couldn't have him, I thought, suddenly and
surprisingly. Because he was mine.
'Whatever. Does it matter?' She slung her purse over her
shoulder. 'We shouldn't let boys come between us
anyway, right?'
I didn't tel her the reason I'd apologized had nothing to do
with our bond of friendship, which had been strained in
times past. Sometimes you stay friends with someone
more out of habit than anything you have in common. If not
for the note, I might not have caled her again at al.
'Right,' I agreed.
'So, what's going on with you? You getting back together,
or what?'
'Oh, God, no.'
We walked to our cars, parked next to one another in the
lot. I looked past her to the sidewalks overrun with
shoppers attacking the outlets in search of bargains. When
I was younger my mom had taken me to the real outlet
stores, places that sold seconds and out-of-stock items.
stores, places that sold seconds and out-of-stock items.
These stores weren't anything like that.
'Anyway. I think Tony's gonna give me a ring.' She said
this with less coyness than I was used to from her. 'For my
birthday. I thought maybe he'd get me one for Christmas,
but…'
It seemed suddenly outrageous and unlikely to me that
Kira could get married. 'You want to marry him?' I hadn't
even met him.
She gave me a level look. 'Yeah. I think I do. I'm not
getting any younger, you know.'
It was such a cliche and yet fit her so wel.
