Chapter 3

My head was exploding. I could feel the headache just waiting to attack me as soon as the elevators began to take me down to the parking garage. Where did I put that extra strength Tylenol anyways? I could have sworn they were buried somewhere in the bottom of my purse, along with an assortment of other items that were useful at some time or another. Lori was standing next to me calmly reading the report Milly had wrote up minutes before. She was just as much of a wreck as I was. The bottom lip bite gave it away every time.
“Are you game for dinner?” I asked.
Lori just sighed as the doors slid open and we walked to our cars. It was one of her “I would rather shoot myself in the foot than go home and sulk alone” sighs. I smiled. It sometimes scares me how well we can communicate without words after all these years. I was just glad she would be cooking. A decent meal to me included using the can opener and the microwave. She thought my eating habits were atrocious. I thought they had improved. Any step up from cereal was progress to me.
We stopped at the grocery store and managed to hit rush hour traffic at the check out. The timing couldn’t be better, really. I felt like helping the woman in front of us unload her cart just to keep things in motion. I grabbed the nearest GQ off the shelf and settled in for a few articles. Lori was already engrossed in People and caught my eye as she quoted the latest gossip information she had found on Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman. I just admired the “Men of The Year 2005” feature and wondered where they bred these males. Nowhere near me, that’s for sure.
“Kate.”
And how did Brad Pitt even have the right to look so adorable and hot at the same time? It was just unfair that all this goodness was stored up in Hollywood.
“Kate!” I was pulled out of my thoughts as I was yanked forward in line.
“Oh! Sorry, got a bit lost, you know, admiring the writing abilities of these journalists.” I returned the magazine and realized we were ready to get out of this place and away from that dreadful rack of beautiful eye candy. “You know, you should have to be 18 to purchase those things.”
Lori rolled her eyes at me as she grabbed the bags and headed for the parking lot. Within fifteen minutes I would be in sweatpants and a tshirt sitting on my couch, and I intended to make that a permanent resting spot for the night.

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“Lori, I think you’ll have to roll me to my room after I consume that many calories.” I sat down at the table and watched as she made pancakes, grabbing ingredients and utensils with a fluid motion proving she had done this too often. Breakfast food for dinner was a favorite, and the extra syrup and powdered sugar never hurt either.
“So we’ll both end up falling asleep on the couch again because neither one of can move,” she says. “Remember the time your plate still had syrup on it and we woke up in the middle of the night to Moulin Rouge credits rolling and your shirt covered in sticky mess? I started to laugh as I recalled the incident and then threw one back.
“Nothing beats the morning we woke up and found Fred with his fur in clumps and his paws leaving sticky prints all over the floor. Cutting that out was a disaster!” She laughs out loud as she turns with a plate of pancakes to put on the table. I get up and grab the butter while she grabs the forks. “I don’t think Fred will ever recover from the torture of having short hair for months. It took so long to grow out again. He would walk by my mirror every day for weeks and hiss at himself in passing.”
She bites into her thick and fluffy stack and swallows before talking. “So are we gonna talk about today or just avoid it for another day?” Just like her to change the conversation mid stride. Her mind switches gears faster than I can register it. I sit down with two glasses of milk and start in on my own plate.
“We can, I guess I was going to just enjoy food before losing my appetite over whether or not we’ve got the deal. I just wish the whole process wasn’t so complicated. I just want to get it published and be done. This has been such a long time coming.”
“Then let’s wait and discuss it later.” We both clear our plates and begin discussing what movie to watch. We finally settle on a classic, from our generation, Ever After.
“Kate, I just want to think about what pj’s of yours I can steal that will be comfortable.”
“Help yourself; you are no stranger to the disaster of my room.” I was all about organized clutter; she was definitely ordered and neat. “Oh, those red flannel Old Navy ones you love are clean in the dryer. I’ll make the tea and do the dishes if you put the movie in and find a few blankets.”
“Deal… living room in ten,” she says as she heads for the laundry room. “And Kate, you still have to tell me about that email from the other day,” she yells as I hear her shutting the dryer door and coming back around the corner.
I turn towards the sink and pour soap in as I turn on the water, staring at the slowly rising level inside. I had hoped she’d forgotten about my slip in mentioning that email. It was a pure moment of weakness on my part, I had blurted it at lunch after church Sunday while we did High/Low. A question we ask to know the good and bad things about our days. Some days are just low, while others are strictly high… but those are few and far between. We had watched The Story of Us one weekend and stolen the idea from it. It had become routine now and one of the few ways we had to be completely honest about what was going on. I hear her pad back down the hallway towards me and then the cupboard drawer opens and she appears beside me to spread a towel on the counter for the dishes. I know she’s waiting for me to say something. I don’t even know where to begin about my thoughts on the whole situation. I met Dylan three years ago when I lived in North Carolina. I spent a year there just getting my bearings, and his grandparents went to my church. One Sunday, instead of just the sweet older couple, I glanced over to see a guy I had never seen before smiling and shaking hands with my pastor. I think that was when my problems began. From the moment he looked up and caught me watching him. I was a goner. He held that gaze for a second longer than he had to and then turned to finish greeting others and I had to sit down to keep my legs from failing to work. I had stared straight ahead that entire morning, avoiding an introduction and sneaking out right after the closing song as he was bombarded with apparently familiar faces. Why had I never heard about him? And why did I feel like I had my airways blocked? It was not a good morning, needless to say. Since then, things had never been the same. I have never been the same. And looking up into Lori’s eyes as she leaned against the counter, I saw that she already knew. “Now right now.” I said, answering the question she had asked minutes before. She nodded and I followed her into the living room to try and block the thoughts that were already pouring into my mind.