A Mate's Denial(3)

Kerrigan unlocked the door to her apartment, nudged her way past the pile of mail on the floor, and went straight for the fridge. The fridge had wine. Wine was important on days like this one. Days where bad memories were dredged up in a slam-it-in-your-face fashion. Where beams fall from the sky to almost crush random motorcyclists. What happened outside the café had been too similar to the events that took place a year ago. Her fingers shook, just thinking about it.

Who was she kidding? Wine was important every day.

She poured the pale drink into a plastic toss-away cup. She didn’t need to feel classy; she needed to feel nothing. Or, at least better. She never got drunk enough to feel nothing. Hadn’t wanted to go that low. She might be torn up over the death of her boyfriend, but she wouldn’t self-destruct over someone whose feelings for her had been little more than friends. Barely even that. No, not even that.

Ethan hadn’t loved her. Not as a friend, not as a lover, not as a human being living on planet earth. Kerrigan had been convenient. Her infatuation with the man had allowed him to take advantage of her. Specifically, of her finances.

Her cell phone buzzed from the counter, flashing a picture of her sister’s blond capped face.

“Hey,” she answered, holding the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could kick off her shoes.

“Hey, Kerri!” Braeh’s voice was always so jubilant. As if she was announcing a visit from the queen or something. “So, how’d it go? How was your interview?”

Kerrigan sighed. “I won’t know anything until Monday at the earliest. But to be honest, it doesn’t look promising. They just don’t have any openings for a kindergarten teacher right now.”

She loved kids, but there were flaws with her body besides its appearance. Flaws, inside, that kept her from ever being able to have children. Next best thing? Being a teacher. The trust fund she’d received upon graduating college hadn’t been the stuff of legends, but it was sizeable enough to allow her to follow her dreams. Emphasis on ‘was’.

Braeh’s voice came back slightly less chipper. “I’m sorry, sis. But you know, I was talking to dad earlier. He’d love for you to come home. There are plenty of openings at his office. I’m sure he could find you a place.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready. I moved thousands of miles away for a reason, you know.” Kerrigan didn’t need to mention the falling out of ’09, when she’d broken the news to their father that she was moving to Joplin to be a teacher. She might as well have told him she was becoming a stripper. He’d taken it with the same finesse.

“Aw, come on, Kerri. Alaska misses you, don’t ‘cha know?” Then, in a quieter tone, “I miss you.”

Kerrigan’s eyes misted. “I miss you too, sis.” If it wasn’t for Facebook, she wouldn’t have made it this long without Braeh. “Let’s just see what they say first, okay? Who knows, maybe I’ll end up back in Kodiak sooner than we think.”

“I hope so. I mean, I hope things work out with the job, but if they don’t, I wouldn’t be too upset. Not if it meant seeing you again.”

“You know, you could always fly out here. You can afford a ticket.”

Silence.

“What? What is it?”

“Nothing,” Braeh said too quickly.

“What aren’t you telling me? Is it dad? Did he ask you not to see me?”

“Of course not, silly. He loves you.”

“Right. He loves the idea of loving me. Not me.”

“Oh, stop it, Kerri. Look, I get you’ve had a bad day, but don’t do this. Don’t pretend you’re all alone in the world and that nobody cares.”

Braeh was right. She’d made a few bad choices, trusted the wrong people, fallen in love with a bastard douchebag, but that didn’t mean nobody cared. Dad cared even if he had an asshole way of showing it. And Braeh cared, even if she was eight thousand miles away, with bad internet service.

“Yeah, okay. Pity party over. When did my little sister get so smart anyway?”

She heard Braeh’s smile through the phone. “When you left town and I had no one to compete with.”

“Ah, that explains it.”

When she hung up with her sister, she felt a ton better. The incident on the street was a random occurrence. Being alive meant she was going to see accidents. It didn’t mean she had to fall apart at every memory of Ethan’s death. And the chances of her ever seeing that biker again were slim.

That gorgeous, irresponsible biker.

Kerrigan gulped her wine so she wouldn’t think any good thoughts about him.