Kelsey couldn’t help but smile, shaking her head. Always on the bright side. In her mind, there was no “for now.” Their relationship was over for good. But she would be losing a dear friend, too, and hoped she hadn’t lost him forever.
Before she got to the street, Kelsey paused, and turned back to Davis.
“Are you going to be okay?” she called from across the lawn.
“Me?” he called, picking up the empty bottle. “I’ll be fine. I’m not the one wearing my pajamas.”
Kelsey looked down at herself, then back to her ex-boyfriend.
“It’s a long story,” she said, and before she could reconsider the solemn, handsome figure on the porch, she let a new beginning tug her away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next afternoon, the first day back from spring break, Kelsey sat in the far corner of the Lawrence High cafeteria, her tray of spaghetti ignored, unwrapping a 3 Musketeers bar. First she bit into the end, to snap off the chocolate casing. Then a bite from the top, and the bottom. She watched the nougat reveal itself, as Peter had put it. The chocolate nonsense.
“Sugar is bad for you,” she heard a voice say. She looked up.
Above her, Ingrid stood, jean jacket unbuttoned over her purple dress, her golden hair curling more than usual in the moist chill.
“But chocolate is good for your emotional well-being,” Kelsey said, and held the half-eaten candy bar out to her friend.
Kelsey hadn’t had more than a couple minutes alone with Ingrid since the iciness between Gillian and her began.
Ingrid took the candy bar and tore off a big chunk with her teeth. Kelsey smiled.
She handed it back. “Speaking of no sugar, how’s rehearsing for Rock Chalk Dancer auditions?”
“Oh, geez. I haven’t—I haven’t thought about that for a while,” Kelsey said, feeling her brow furrow at the reminder. “Want to sit together?”
Kelsey motioned for her to join, but Ingrid jerked her head toward the window, where the three of them used to sit.
Kelsey stood with her tray and followed, cautiously. She had avoided their usual table near the window since she and Gillian had begun to fight. And even before that, right after she had returned to school, she had made excuses to be alone during lunch.
“Just for the heck of it, huh? For old times’ sake?” Ingrid said as they plopped down across from each other. They used to have competitions to see who could speak the longest in British accents. Ingrid always lost. Gillian used to teach the two of them Korean swearwords, which they delighted in shouting over the din without getting in trouble.
The spring sun shone warmly on the courtyard, through the glass, and Kelsey couldn’t help but burst out laughing as Ingrid, after finishing another mouthful of candy bar, began to chug an entire carton of milk.
“Thatta girl,” Kelsey said. “You can have mine, too.”
Ingrid finished, swallowed, and let out a small burp. “So,” she said. “I heard that you and Davis broke up.”
“Yea.” Kelsey furrowed her brow. “It was a long time coming, actually.”
Ingrid dug into her lunch, still looking at Kelsey with her puppy-dog eyes as she slurped spaghetti. “Why?” she asked.
“Why? Um…” Kelsey stalled, poking at her food.
Ingrid always had a way of cutting to the chase. When they were freshmen, she asked the Sex Ed teacher what the difference was between a banana, on which she was putting a condom, and “the real thing.” Gillian, who had also been in the class, answered, “Bananas aren’t attached to morons.” They had been best friends ever since.
Ingrid swallowed a mouthful of noodles. “You seemed happy.”
Kelsey felt her throat tighten. She thought of lazy days on the front porch with Davis, bullshitting for hours. “Yeah, we were, weren’t we?”
“I liked his T-shirts.”
“Me, too,” Kelsey replied. But Davis didn’t strike her with anything other than friendly nostalgia now. Now her thoughts, her heart, her future: All of it was Peter. “I can’t believe we spent three years together,” she muttered, almost to herself.
“Do you wish you hadn’t?” Ingrid asked.
Kelsey folded her arms. She wasn’t ready to think about all this. She bit into her candy bar and said, “I don’t know.”
“You were both just kids,” Ingrid said, thoughtful. “I mean, I think we’ll always look back and wonder what the heck we were thinking. No use trying to justify it.”
Kelsey looked in surprise at Ingrid. She was rarely so reflective.
“That’s what my mom tells me, anyway,” she continued. “She tells me I better get all my stupid out now, because soon I won’t be so cute, and no one will forgive me.”
“I can’t decide if that’s really wise, or kind of mean,” Kelsey said, trying not to laugh.
Ingrid smiled. “Well, you know best. It’s love, you know? If you are, you are. If you aren’t, you aren’t.”
Kelsey uncrossed her arms, leaning forward. Finally, the word she had been looking for. The word that wove through everything and injected her with a good kind of poison, the kind that sent soda through her veins, that made everything else a blur. She was dying to tell someone about Paris, how the simplest things like traffic lights and water fountains reminded her of its beauty. Maybe Ingrid would understand.
“That’s the thing, Ingrid, I am in love, but not—”
Suddenly, a bang. Kelsey and Ingrid jumped. Gillian dropped her tray next to Ingrid’s, an apple held in her teeth, her eyes cold.
“Oh, um—” Ingrid looked at the two of them in turn, pasting on a smile, as if she was about to introduce them to each other.
Gillian removed the apple and matched Ingrid’s blank smile. “Hello, Kelsey! Where have you been?”
Kelsey’s face turned hot. “You mean, in general, or—”
“How was the open house weekend at the University of Kansas?”
Kelsey tried to keep her eyes locked on her best friend, but Gillian’s stare was too hard. She looked down. “I didn’t end up going.”
“What?” Gillian said, her voice lifting in mock surprise. “Did you get tired all of a sudden?”
Kelsey’s eyes snapped back to Gillian. She wasn’t even giving her a chance. She opened her mouth to speak, but Gillian interrupted her again.
“Don’t tell me that you lied? I never took you for a liar, Kelsey.”
Kelsey tightened her jaw. If Gillian wasn’t going to give her a chance to tell the truth, then she would just have to take it. “I told my parents I was going to KU because I had to tell them I was going somewhere. They would never have let me go.…” Kelsey gulped, her chest tightening. “They would never have let me go to Paris.”
“Paris, France?” Ingrid gasped.
“No. No way.” Gillian put a hand on Ingrid’s arm. “You went to Paris? Do not tell me this is about that soldier.”
“What soldier?” Ingrid asked, excited.
Gillian stared at her in disbelief. “I thought you said you were going to end it.”
Kelsey leaned toward her, trying to keep her voice low. “I messed up. I know. But I can’t end it because—”
“Yes, you can.”
“You’re not even giving me a chance to tell you why!”
“I gave you a chance!” Gillian almost shouted. “I went to your friggin’ house over spring break! I came to you!”
Kelsey felt as if she had been punched in the gut. “And I wasn’t there?”
“You weren’t…” She could see Gillian’s eyes beginning to water, but she resisted. “You’re never there anymore.”
Kelsey put her head in her hands. “I’ve had a rough year, Gil.”
“Not so rough that you couldn’t go to Paris, huh?” Gillian sat up straight and pushed back from the table, refusing to look at Kelsey.