Chapter Three #2
“Please, Mack.” Kayla wasn’t exactly playing to the crowd, but she wasn’t above using the audience to help further her efforts.
Since she couldn’t seem to convince Kayla to stand up, Mack got down on her knees in front of her. She spoke low and seriously, clearly trying to ignore the increasing number of stares from the other joggers. “Why are you doing this to yourself, LaLa?”
As much as she wanted to crack another joke and make light of the situation, it was starting to feel like Pops’ funeral all over again. She was flailing, she knew that, but she knew how to fix it, and she just needed Mack to see. “She still loves me as much as I love her. I know it.”
Mack’s snarl turned her words into sharp, snapping syllables. “Oh yeah, nothing says I love you like marrying someone else.”
“It’s a cry for help. She’s doing it so she doesn’t have to be the one who comes crawling back. She just needs time to remember how good we are together.”
Mack sighed and looked down at their clasped hands. Kayla held her breath and shifted her weight off her aching knee.
Mack said, “Come on. Stand up.”
“Not until you answer—ouch.” Her words cut off abruptly as a stab of pain rocketed from her bent knee throughout her leg.
“Dammit, LaLa, stop being stubborn.”
“Okay. Fine. Just…can you help me up?” Kayla whispered the last words and couldn’t keep eye contact as she said them. Damn knee. Why did it always have to ruin everything?
Mack didn’t give her a hard time about it, though. She stood and shuffled behind Kayla, wrapping her right arm over her shoulder before positioning her wide, powerful hands on her hips. “Count of three, okay?”
Kayla nodded, gritting her teeth. They’d been through this together a hundred times at least during Kayla’s major injury and the half-dozen minor ones before it.
Whether it was helping her out of bed, off the toilet, or into the shower, Mack had gotten incredibly good at taking care of Kayla’s body.
Knowing how to move her to ease pain and recognizing the limitations Kayla didn’t always want to accept.
On three, Kayla squeezed her arm tight around Mack’s shoulder and pushed up with her good leg.
As Mack stood, she pulled up on Kayla’s hips with her hands, and the leverage of Kayla’s arm around her shoulders gave her the extra lift she needed.
They moved together in a well-choreographed dance.
Kayla held her bad knee bent until her left foot was on solid ground.
Mack kept hold of her hips to support her while she slowly straightened her bad knee.
It was slow going, and there was a moment at about forty-five degrees where the joint wanted to lock up.
Kayla took several long, slow breaths to steel herself for the pain and forced her knee to continue its journey.
The breaths didn’t help with the slicing agony, but it was brief.
When she finally had both feet on the ground and was sure they would hold her up, she groaned and relaxed back into Mack’s arms. Mack hugged her from behind for a heartbeat, then leaned down and whispered into her ear, “You’re an idiot, LaLa.”
“Yeah. I know.” Kayla’s voice was hollow with pain, but it was steady.
“Kayla? Is that you?”
The thin, high-pitched voice snapped Kayla out of her warm cocoon.
Mack’s arms released her, and she opened her eyes to see a generic white woman in her mid-forties staring at them.
Her face was so full of plastic and her hair so fried with platinum dye; it took Kayla a moment to recognize her.
The surgically enhanced look should have clued her in earlier.
“Alice Hardy. Hi. How are you?” Kayla said through clenched teeth.
Alice flipped the end of her high ponytail with manicured nails and smiled wide enough to show teeth so artificially white they would glow in the dark.
“Oh, you know. I’m surviving.” Her face fell into an exaggerated pout.
“But how are you? Last I heard…Well, Steven said he’d be surprised if the firm didn’t press charges. I guess they didn’t, though, huh?”
A knot of fiery shame settled into Kayla’s gut.
Normal people would never say anything so cruel to a passing acquaintance but then venture capitalists and their pampered spouses weren’t normal people.
Kayla had discovered that in the disastrous three years she worked in the field.
The irony was, she’d loved the job and had really seen a future there for herself.
Mack’s fingers clenched around her waist, and Kayla shot a glance over her shoulder.
From the look in Mack’s eyes, Kayla couldn’t tell if she wanted to wrap her into a hug or punch Alice right there on the track.
The fire in that ball of shame burned a little dimmer in the face of so much love directed her way.
“They didn’t. It was nice seeing you, Alice. If you’ll excuse me.”
Kayla didn’t wait for a response. She marched away from her former coworker’s wife as quickly as her aching knee allowed. She grabbed Mack by the wrist as she went, dragging her along with almost as unsteady a gait.
“LaLa, are you—”
“Not yet,” Kayla said quietly.
Once they’d walked over to the grass on the edge of the track, Kayla’s knee was less stiff, and her cheeks weren’t burning so hot.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t shake the sadness that had settled into her.
She stopped walking, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around and look at Mack.
If she did, she’d see Alice over her shoulder, and she couldn’t face that right now.
When she stopped, Mack’s footsteps behind her stopped, too. She didn’t ask if Kayla was okay. She knew she wasn’t. She just stood there with her, the warmth and solidity of her body close enough to remind Kayla that she wasn’t alone in the world. The silence eventually worked its magic.
Kayla stared at the diluted royal blue of the sky. She said, “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it Mack?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Clear and bright without being too hot, and a few unthreatening puffy clouds breaking up the sun. Ten years ago, I would’ve said it was a perfect day to play soccer.
Five years ago, I would have said it was a perfect day to have a corner office with a wall of windows in a skyscraper downtown.
Two years ago, I’d have said it was the perfect day for hiking with the woman I love. ”
She finally turned to look at Mack. Kayla held her gaze for a full minute before Mack looked away, a dusting of pink on her cheeks.
“I need her back. Please. I know I’m asking too much, but you’re my best friend, and I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”
Mack ran her hands through her hair again and stared at the sky.
Kayla knew she’d made the only pitch she could—the truth—and all she could do was wait.
She could practically see the wheels turning in Mack’s mind.
Her best friend was a cerebral person. She lived on logic, where Kayla lived on emotion.
She needed order where Kayla thrived in chaos.
But in the end, Kayla knew in her bones there was no one who had ever lived that would do more for Kayla when she really needed them.
“Dammit.” Kayla’s grin hurt her cheeks, but she was never one to celebrate before the ball was in the back of the net. Mack let out a breath and said, “Okay. I’ll do it.”
Kayla whooped and threw herself at Mack, who stumbled back at the impact. “Thank you. Thank God for you, Mack.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Mack said with a laugh. “I’m only doing this so I can be on the scene and keep you from doing something really stupid.”
“You always do.”
Mack grabbed her water bottle from the row on the bench nestled beside the track and took a massive gulp.
Once she swallowed, she pointed the bottle at Kayla in an almost accusatory way.
“But look, we need to talk about timing. Things are wild at work right now, so I may not be able to take a whole week.”
Kayla grabbed her own towel and water bottle, her heart as light as air. “Don’t worry about that. I already talked to your secretary and got your vacation time approved.”
“You did what?” Mack shouted.
Behind her, the teenage boy who’d fallen over the hurdle jumped and squirted purple Gatorade directly into his eye.