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Finally, Forever(16)

By:Katie Kacvinsky


I look at Gray and he’s watching me. “Okay, Thor,” he says.

The baseball game is interrupted with an emergency weather report and Chris groans at the distraction. A radar map pops up on the screen and the entire state is covered in red, as if it’s smeared in blood.

“I’m surprised you’re the only ones here,” Sue Anne says, returning to the entryway and handing towels to each of us. We thank her, and I twist my pigtails in the towel to wring them dry. She pulls back a white curtain, bordered in lace, to look out the window. “During this kind of weather, we always get house guests. I told my husband we should open up a hotel.” She looks between me and Gray and offers us some homemade corn bread. Gray tells her no, thank you, and joins Chris to watch the forecast. But I take her up on the offer.

I follow Sue Anne down a creaking hardwood floor, bumpy and rippled from years of wear. When we walk in the kitchen I get the sensation that I’m walking downhill. The farmhouse must be ancient.

“How long have you lived out here?” I ask.

“The house has been in the family for four generations,” she tells me. “We retired the farm about ten years ago, but I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

“Do you have any kids?” I ask.

“Just one,” Sue Anne tells me. “A daughter. And two grand kids.”

She offers me a seat at the kitchen table, covered in a vinyl red and white checkered cover. It matches the checkered valances over the kitchen windows. I sit down and examine a salt and pepper shaker in the design of farm silos. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I’m here, stranded in the middle of Nebraska with Gray. I can still see his face in the parking lot when he recognized me. He didn’t look surprised or shocked to see me. It was worse than that. He looked scared, as if he was staring at a tidal wave looming over him and he wasn’t sure whether to hold his ground and pray, or run for his life.

I do what I do best when I’m emotionally overwhelmed. I spill my heart out.

I explain to Sue Anne how I’ve been on the road for two weeks looking for Serena, and how my car broke down in Omaha. When I mention running into Gray a few hours ago, she stops slicing bread and turns to look at me.

“You mean, you two aren’t together?” Sue Anne asks.

“Oh. No,” I say. Thunder rumbles outside.

“You were holding hands when you came in,” she catches me.

“That’s just because of the storm,” I say.

“Was it?” she asks and then she cuts herself off. “Sorry. It’s none of my business. My husband always says I’m a little bit psychic, but I just love observing people. They say so much without saying anything.”

I smile. I feel like she’s an old friend. “We used to date,” I tell her. “It’s a long story.”

“Looks like there’s still some feelings,” she says, and sets down a plate in front of me.

“Yes,” I say without hesitating. “I’m in love with him. Completely. Absolutely. Tragically.”

She laughs. “Tragic?” she asks. “Isn’t it a good thing to be in love?”

“No.” I look up at her and shake my head. “It’s actually the worst feeling in the world. It’s agonizical.”

“Is that a real word?” she asks.

“I just made it up,” I say. “I tend to do that. I make up words. Sometimes there are never the right ones, you know?”

“What does agonizical mean?” she asks.

I hold up my hands like it’s obvious. “To be consumed with shock and denial at unrequited love from the man who is supposed to be your soul mate,” I say. I prop my elbow on the table and rest my chin in my hand. I blow out a sigh.

“Unrequited?” she says and sits down across from me. I pick up a piece of thick, yellow bread lathered in butter and I take an enormous bite. Even the whipped butter tastes sweet and homemade.

“Are you saying that man out there isn’t in love with you?” she asks and points at the door. I look in the direction she’s pointing, down the hallway.

“He has a girlfriend,” I say through a mouthful of bread.

She laughs again. “Well, honey, I can guarantee you he’s only thinking about one girl right now. And it’s not his girlfriend.”

I raise my eyebrows and look around her kitchen for a sign advertising psychic readings.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“There’s a trick to understanding all men,” she claims.

I lean closer to her over the table, intrigued.

“If you want to know what a man is thinking about just watch his eyes,” she says. “Where a man’s eyes go, that is where his heart is. It’s like the two are linked. That’s how I met my husband. We were at a party and he was with another girl at the time. But his eyes never left me. They followed me around the room all night. We were dating a week later.” She points back towards the living room. “That boy’s eyes have been following you since you two walked in the door.”