Who Invited You?

I stayed with Ginny that night. I felt awful, she cancelled dinner with some of her friends to stay in with me. We were not the closest of cousins, so it was strange how she was seeing me so vulnerable.

“Do you think this is for the best?” She asked as we were watching Gypsy Weddings.

“I don’t know. I guess I made my bed and I need to lie in it. I’ll figure something out...” Just then my phone rang. Yvonne. “Hello?” I answered shyly.

“Kathleen! Where are you? Mark just called Rich and told him everything. Are you okay?”

I started crying again. “I don’t know. I’m at my cousins... I think I just need some time to myself tonight. Do you mind picking me up tomorrow?”

“Sure thing. We can have brunch at Silvertron.”

After that, Ginny handed me another glass of wine. “Do you want to talk about any of it?” I shook my head. “Okay. Then I will tell you all about my friend group drama, because my god do I need some advice.” She then told me all about how they threw a surprise party for one of their friends only to have the guest of honor back out to go hang out with her coworkers and it’s thusly caused a rift. I was thankful for the reprieve from my own drama.

While Ginny was having her monologue about her crappy friends, I got a text.

Thanks for sitting with us today. We hope you’ll be at the house for the welcome home party tomorrow! Have fun on your date. Who am I kidding? I know you two are having a good time!

That set me off. Mrs. Hart’s text was totally unexpected and it broke my façade. “His mom just sent me this...” I shoved the phone in her hand unable to get much more out. Ginny read it, took my phone and turned it off.

“Okay, it’s bed time. Come on, we can watch Real Housewives in my bed.” And we did just that with no more talking needed.

When I woke up, I took a shower. I figured it was probably around 9 or 10. When I looked at Ginny’s clock, it said 8:15. I hated my inability to sleep in when I was upset. After I got ready, I found my phone and text Yvonne that I was ready to leave whenever, but I wasn’t in a hurry.

Ginny made us some coffee. “You can keep those yoga pants-they don’t fit me right anymore. They look better on you. And I was meaning to give you that Beta shirt a while ago.” Luckily Ginny and I were of a similar build. Well, all the women in our family were. So I had something else to wear besides my date-wear.

“Thanks.” I said meekly. “For everything.” I wiped away the lone falling tear.

“No. Stop it. It was nothing.” She smiled this pitiful smile. “You’re going to be okay. Just focus on Beta and school.”

I nodded. “I will.” I had strong resolve to do just that.

At brunch, Yvonne had brought Ree along. Everyone kind of just egg-shelled around me. No one wanted to say anything, but they also wanted to say everything.

After a few minutes of feeling weird, like a zoo animal on display, I spilled it. “So last night we were at dinner...” And I just told them everything, from him telling me how great I was, to me crying and running away, and then calling Ginny in tears after seeing him speed by.

Ree didn’t try to hide her shock as much as Yvonne did. “Wow,” was all she could say though.

“You’re telling me.” I bobbed my head in agreement.

The girls, much to their chagrin, left me to be by myself for a while. I cried, yelled into my pillow, sobbed, and called my mom. Mom didn’t say much. She never did in these situations. Kenny and I broke up a lot, and she knew better than to say unsavory things about the guy only to be eating her words later. But, what she didn’t know was that this felt final.

I got a knock on my door a bit later. I had really lost track of time. I figured it was one of the girls coming to check in on me, so I didn’t try to make myself look better. I’m sure I was a ruddy faced, puffy eyed, snotty mess. Only when I opened the door, it wasn’t anyone I was ever expecting.

I stammered, trying to wipe my face to look somewhat more presentable. “Uhh, Ken-uh, what are you doing here? How did you? Wow.” Smooth, Kathleen.

He smirked. “Aren’t you going to let me in? I did just drive all the way from Oxford to see you...”

“Oh! Sorry!” I snapped out of my haze. Somewhat. I offered him the bed to sit on. I sat on Candace’s (wait! Where is she? Ugh... whatever). “So, what brings you to Birmingham?” I offered after an awkward silence.

“I missed you.” He shrugged his shoulders pathetically.

I audibly laughed. And then slapped my face with both hands. “Sorry.” I shook my head. Trying to get a clear mind. It wasn’t going super well. Obviously. But I got out a coherent sentence. “Well this is a surprise.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Last week my mom sent me some picture frames with old pictures in them for my new apartment- I just moved at the beginning of the semester, and you were in a lot of them. And I kept thinking about you. And thinking about us. Kathleen, can we try to sort things out?”

I just fell into a ball of messy, ugly, hiccup-ridden sobs.