The Relationship Clause

Epilogue

The seriesof texts on my phone makes a muscle under my eye twitch.

Mom: Call me when you get a chance.

Mom: I’ve made an appointment for you to have some of your eggs frozen. It’s with a reputable service and I plan on covering the cost, so don’t worry about any of that.

Mom: And don’t bother arguing about this either. This is going to happen. You’re not getting any younger, and if you’re smart, unlike I was, you’ll focus on your career first and save your family for later. It’s better to freeze your eggs now while they’re at their most fertile so you can still have children when you’re ready.

I shake my head. Insane. My mother is insane.

And now, thanks to the fact that she and Dad are mad at Owen, I’m the only one who has to deal with their insanity.

Lucky me.

“Kiera, you’re too tall. I can barely see Summer. Move over there beside Shane.”

Junie’s words cause a physical reaction inside me. Two reactions, if I’m being totally and completely honest. One is a giddy little preteen-like thrill of delight. In fact, I’d bet dollars to donuts that this reaction is very closely related to the little whispering voice in the back of my mind that says, “He’d be a good match for your fertilized eggs.”

The other, bigger, way more grown up and mature and NOT CRAZY emotion is more like…great.

I glance over at Shane, who’s about as far away as a person can be when you’re in a small crowd and stuffed together to take a picture. I put that distance between us on purpose. The less I come in contact with that man, the better.

He meets my eyes and winks.

I almost argue with Junie, tell her I’ll crouch down, take off my flip flops if it would help and stand in the soggy grass barefoot, but in the end, I hold my tongue. This is Junie’s party, Junie’s day. I don’t want to make this about me. Besides, if I argued with her, it might tip her and everyone else off about my old feelings toward Shane. The feelings I’ve been burying deep, deep in the recesses of my past.

So, I lift my nose in the air and walk with all the dignity I can muster around the group and the puddles on the ground until I reach Shane’s side.

“Come on,” he says, throwing his arm around me and pulling me closer. “You want to be in the picture, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I only wish I didn’t have to be standing beside you for it.”

I can almost hear Shane roll his eyes. “Aw, Kiki, I don’t bite. I never have.”

“I told you, I hate it when you call me Kiki,” I growl. It’s a stupid nickname he gave me when we were kids. A nickname I used to cherish and hold close to my heart, thinking it meant something. Obviously, I was wrong.

“Come on, I haven’t missed the way you’ve been avoiding me since the moment I got here. What happened?”

“Nothing, Shane. Let’s just take this picture.”

But he’s right. I have been avoiding him. I’ve been avoiding him since waaaay before today. Ever since the incident last month, I’ve been steering clear of Shane for reasons I’m too embarrassed to talk about.

“Get ready, everyone. Here it goes!” Junie cries, running over to us. She jumps over a big puddle on her way. “Smile!”

And right when she says this, Shane’s hand slides over my back to my waist, hugging me tightly to him. I’m so surprised, I gasp and instantly inhale the scent of Shane. A smell I know so well, I could follow it home like a cartoon floating through the air as they follow the scent of a yummy pie sitting on a window ledge.

And that scent takes me back to a time when I was younger. Young and in love and pining after a guy I had no business pining after. Star of the high school football team, my older brother’s best friend, and waaaay out of my league.

My body stiffens. My face freezes.

Click, click, click, goes Junie’s camera.

Down in front, my brother wraps my best friend in his arms and lowers her into a dip, kissing the living daylights out of her.

And I’m happy for her. Happy for both of them. I kind of always thought they’d be amazing together if they could get over their biggest issues and love each other in spite of them. But now there they are, blissfully happy, while I’m over here…not.

Junie won’t have to freeze her eggs. Junie won’t have to worry about if she’ll be a lonely old spinster with ten cats and twice as many doilies adorning her one-bedroom apartment.

I will. Because nothing’s going the way I planned in my life.

Pete starts cheering, and soon, everyone else joins in. I give a half-hearted whoop, but that’s all I can muster.

“Everything alright, Kiki?” Shane asks, a little too close to my ear. It makes my legs go all wobbly, a knee-jerk reaction I’ve learned to fight against.

“It will be,” I say, prying off the hand still around my waist, “once you stop calling me Kiki and let go of me.”

Shane holds on a little tighter, his eyes meeting mine with a challenge, but then, the look vanishes along with his touch. I take a deep breath, telling myself it’s a good thing.

“You sure you’re okay? Seriously, Kiera, you look upset.”

“Yeah, well, you’d look upset too if you’d gotten a text from your mom informing you she’s scheduled a date for you to have your eggs frozen before your ovaries shrivel up from old age and you have no choice in the matter.”

Shane’s forget-me-not blue eyes go round, giving him a boyish look. A breeze ruffles his blond hair, and I resist the urge to reach up and smooth it down. “Are you serious? She actually did that?”

I grimace, pulling my eyes away from him and folding my arms. “Yes.”

“Wow. That’s…”

“Certifiable? Yeah, I know.”

“Sooo, are you going to do it?”

But I don’t get a chance to answer, because at that very moment, Junie’s dad pulls up to the curb and my best friend falls into a puddle.

THE END

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