Page 104 of Running Home to You
Abby frowned. “Thought you would’ve had surgery by now.”
“Unfortunately, no. It wasn’t a full tear, so I’m stuck in the middle. Bad enough to hurt, but not enough to fix.”
The ensuing quiet became sludge between them, too daunting to wade through, and though the dry desert heat boiled the illness in Kate’s gut, she didn’t leave. Their last conversation left much to be desired. Now was their chance. Abby seemed to know it too as she removed her sunglasses.
“Are you okay after last night?” she asked.
Kate looked away. “It’s a little blurry.”
“Well, I knew you might despise me, but the drink in my face was a nice touch.”
Kate grimaced. “That might’ve been a step too far.”
Abby chuckled and shrugged. “I probably deserve it.”
“No, you don’t.” She sighed. “I swear, you’re just the only person who can make me mad like that.”
Abby frowned with half her face squinted against the sun, childlike in a way that threatened to diffuse Kate’s resentment to nothing. It wasn’t fair how easy it was to be with Abby despite their problems, nor fair how much she already wanted more of her. Maybe Abby had been onto something with their breakup. They couldn’t afford to be in each other’s lives if they wanted to move on.
“There was just so much, still so much, that hurts.” Kate had had years to think about what she might say to Abby. In her fantasies, the ones that kept her up at night, she grilled her like they were in acourtroom, complete with opening and closing statements and a cross-examination, articulate and scathing until she confessed her faults. But now, Kate fell into that gentle place, where they humbly told each other everything. “I’m still angry and I don’t know what to do with it.”
“I know. I’m sorry for everything I put you through.” Abby’s throat bobbed. “I know it’s too late and I know it doesn’t make it better, but I kept the door open for you too. Even if I built my house where you couldn’t find me.”
“Why though?” Kate gathered her remaining strength to deliver the one question she couldn’t shake. “You knew how much I loved you. You know how much it hurts to lose someone who’s part of you.” A cry built in her chest and her voice went shrill around it. “How could you do that to me? Did you not love me as much?”
“Of course I loved you as much.” Abby’s gaze bulged. “Kate. More.” Her forehead crumpled before she spoke. “I don’t expect you to understand or forgive me, but I couldn’t hold on. Not for the future you saw for us. There were things for me to figure out.”
“And have you figured them out?”
Abby just shrugged, sad and empty.
“I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s too late anyway,” Kate said.
“I guess so.” Abby put her sunglasses on and sniffled.
Kate’s back unclenched. Twelve hours and Abby had scaled her walls. Of course she had. She knew them better than anyone. Just as Kate knew Abby’s and always would. In five years, ten, twenty. It wouldn’t change. At a pool party in Las Vegas, screaming at each other on the Strip, in a club of strangers, they were tethered to one another, not out of want, but because it’s simply who they were.
“Thank you for the apology.” Kate examined Abby in the silence, noting the subtle differences. The new tattoos, her stronger body, a trace of melancholy permeating her features. All evidence of the years gone by without her. She pointed at the grisly scar on her right knee, the unmistakable tread of stitches from surgery. “What happened there?”
“Last summer in Tokyo.”
“What was the game telling you with that?”
Abby chuckled. “That I overstayed my welcome.”
She had a million more questions. She wanted to know about Abby’s career, her travels, every minute she missed. But another part of her didn’t know if she could take it or, worse, risk falling back under Abby’s spell. “We should meet everyone for brunch.” She stood to leave.
“I don’t want you to hate me,” Abby said, and Kate turned back. “I know I made my bed, but I don’t know if I can leave here without knowing.”
Kate tilted her head. The desperation, that hopelessness she recognized from when they met and that she had always longed to erase, reopened the hollow spot in her chest. “I don’t hate you,” she said with the compulsive lilt she once used for love. “I could never hate you, Abby.”
They hugged. She sighed into Abby’s tight hold, her nose against her chest. Her lungs opened bigger for a breath that soothed her heart’s tattered parts. She didn’t know if either of them would let go if it weren’t for the clapping behind them.
“Oh my God, someone take a picture!” Mick shouted.
“Are you guys going to kiss?” Jill asked.
They pulled away from each other. T.K. appeared to be taking a photo and Mick had her arms raised in victory.
