Page 129 of Faking Forever
Going to MJ’s with Charity and Miles. Live band tonight. Should be good. 7 pm.
Unread
Kenny stared at the last two messages she’d sent Smith and sighed. She wasn’t sure where he was hiding inthis tiny town, but thanks to herupdates, he knew exactly how to avoid running into her.
Smith had been a ghost these last couple of days. Not even Tina and Harris had seen him.
Confused and hurt, Kenny had attempted to maintain contact by keeping up her end of the bargain, but where before the schedule updates had served as an excuse for him to see her, he was now using it in the way it had been intended.
Kenny was leaving tomorrow. Her father’s birthday was on Monday and she needed to be at home to finalize all the prep. She hadn’t yet informed Smith that she was leaving, hoping she’d be able to tell him in person. But he was being so elusive, it looked like she would have to give him that news via text.
While getting ready for her night out, she kept checking her messages, but her last three messages to Smith remained unread.
Where was he?
She checked his status and he hadn’t been online since yesterday at ten a.m.
She gnawed on her thumbnail as she stared at that bit of information, debating if she should talk to Tina about it, but she didn’t want to worry the other woman unnecessarily.
She wondered if he’d perhaps tried to contact her through a different app or method and began to check all her accounts methodically.
It was when she got to her emails that everything in her froze into a solid lump of dread.
The email, entitledDivorce Agreementhad been sent at three fifty-two that afternoon. About an hour ago.
She clicked on it and the brief email from her attorney apologized for the delayin proceedings, citing illness as an excuse. He then explained that he’d tried to call at three-thirtywithout success.
Kenny had been on a call with a catering service about the birthday dinner at that time.
Her attorney, Mr. Bloom, went on to state that he thought that the terms were fair and that all they needed to proceed was for her to initial and sign the attached document.
She stared at the attachment for long while.
Wasthiswhat Smith had been busy with this last day and a half? Had he decided that communication was futile and they were a lost cause after all?
She rubbed at her temples, eyes dry, and her heart a heavy stone in her chest.
She opened the attachment and skimmed through the ten-page document. It was all very cut-and-dried. The prenup had ensured that they were both protected in the event of a divorce. All that remained was the even split of any assets they may have acquired together during the course of their marriage.
Their house, furniture, and cars were to be sold with the profits evenly split between them.
Smith had signed and initialed everything already. All that remained was for Kenny to do the same.
“Oh, Smith,” she whispered, voice as broken as her heart.
She couldn’t fight this any longer.
She gave him what he wanted.
After that, she texted Charity and Miles to cancel the night out, called Caleb, and packed her bags.
The silence at Smith’s cottage had become toonoisy.The echoes of Kenna’s voice and her laughter made it too hard to think there. Too difficult to figure out what he wanted for Kenna and himself. So the morning after falling asleep on his couch, he’d fled to the mountain on Thursday, up to his favorite campsite.
After parking the car, he sent Harris the precise coordinatesof where he’d be camping. It was something he always did, on the very rare occasions that he went camping by himself. And then he strode toward the peaceful solitude he only ever found in nature.
He walked a few paces farther before swearing mildly and digging out his phone again. Despite his attempts to convince himself last night that what he and Kenna had wasn’t a relationship that required them to check in with each other, he couldn’t simply go off the grid without giving her some kind of heads-up.
Heading back up the mountain for a few days. Need to think. Talk soon.
