Don't Say You Love Me

Chapter TWENTY TWO

Teegan

"Holy crap, Teeg. You're not joking!?"

    Finally, Kiara calls me back that evening. We haven't talked in four days and it feels like forever.

    I've already fed the kids and gave them baths, and read them two stories. They are playing some games on their iPads while we wait for my mom to get home, when my phone rings.

   I'm sitting across the room from the kids, whispering into my phone, telling my best friend what's happened over the last few days.

   "Not joking," I repeat. "It's crazy, I know."

   "You didn't even mention this guy the last time we talked," she accuses me. Why does she sound so surprised by all of this?

   "Yeah. I know."

   "But you knew him already?" Kiara sounds confused.

   "Not really. Um, last weekend I guess we met, and this past Friday we found out we both work at my mom's rental place," I explain, even though I already said that.

   "And now you're friends?" She sounds so skeptical and it annoys me, suddenly.

   "Yeah. Why is that so surprising?" I snap. I was so excited to tell her this and she doesn't seem happy about it, at all.

   "Teeg, it's not. I'm just... it feels fast." She sighs and then keeps talking. "You don't really know him and you're acting like you're going to start dating him."

   "I never said that," I snap, then look up at the kids. They are too busy on their iPads to care what I'm saying. "Just because you are pining after some guy you can't have, it doesn't mean-"

   I close my mouth but of course it's too late. She's been talking about Casey since the day she met him, on her second day there. I know she's really into him but I have had a feeling that it wasn't really going to turn into anything. But that was not cool of me to say. I don't know what I expected Kiara to say when I told her about Cohen, but it wasn't this.

   "Seriously?" Kiara asks, her voice quiet. "Why would you say that?"

   "I'm sorry," I say quickly. "I guess I'm just... I'm happy that I have a friend here and you totally just acted like it was nothing," I admit.

   She sighs and is quiet for a minute too long. Kiara and I can usually say anything to each other. I've been telling her my secrets for years. But now that we are pretty damn far away from each other, it feels so much harder. I want her to be happy but I would assume she wants the same for me. But it's hard to convey it, suddenly.

   "I didn't mean to sound like I'm not happy for you," she finally says. "I just don't want you to get hurt, or anything. I guess I didn't expect you'd meet a good guy this summer, and I wouldn't be there. I miss you."

   "I miss you, too, Ki. I didn't expect this either. And we are just friends," I tell her, emphasizing the fact.

   "Sure you are." She laughs and I am glad that weirdness is gone between us, just like that. "He literally got into a fight over you."

    "He was just being nice," I say quickly, as I hear the front door of the house open and close.

   "Hello?" my mom calls out a moment later, and the sound of her shoes clicking down the hallway towards the living room we are sitting in fills my ears.

   "I'll call you back in a bit?" I say to Kiara, who agrees just before I put my phone down.

   "Hey! My babies!" my mom says as she steps into the room.