12. Kiera #2
She almost mourned the loss of that yearning, which had kept her company for so long.
But it didn’t feel like an emptiness, or like something was missing.
That was the way that she felt immediately after Lauren rejected her, but now Kiera’s heart was filled with desire for someone new.
Hunter had come into her life and eclipsed Lauren entirely.
Now, all Kiera wanted to do was get back to Nana’s house and spend as much time as possible with Hunter before she had to go home to her own family.
Maybe if Nana was still sleeping, they could sneak outside and Kiera could give Hunter a moonlight tour of the pond – her favorite place on Nana’s property.
She turned her attention back to the meeting just in time for her own part in it. Kiera had been neglecting her duties as the philanthropy chair for the past month and she’d have to answer for it now.
She came prepared, though, and when Lauren turned the meeting over to her, Kiera stood and said, “The car wash we organized at the beginning of the semester to benefit the teen center was a success. We raised over seven hundred dollars, a quarter of which will go to the sorority to help us organize future charitable events. The rest will go toward restocking the kitchen with about a month’s worth of after-school snacks for the kids.
On to our next event, the annual 5k charity run is coming up in about six weeks.
I’ve been working with the university to get everything lined up and I’ll have more to report on that next week. ”
She sat down, then nodded at Lauren to indicate that she was finished.
Becca stood to give her report next and Kiera looked around at the other girls.
Most of them had shifted their attention to Becca but a few were still looking at her, probably still craving that spectacle they’d been promised by her prolonged absence.
Sorry to disappoint you…
Kiera knew most of the girls, but there were a few new faces – the pledges – that she didn’t recognize.
She’d met them during rush week, of course, but she hadn’t been nearly as involved in Kappa events this semester as she used to be, for obvious reasons.
It made her feel suddenly disconnected from her sorority in a way that she’d never experienced before.
It just didn’t seem as important this year as it used to.
Kiera had lost her best friend but she’d also taken on the responsibility of caring for Nana, and that had put life in perspective for her.
Even though it hadn’t started out as a selfless act, she was glad that she’d done it.
Keeping Nana company in that big old house after Kiera’s grandfather passed was far more important than the drama-hungry faces staring back at her.
If that was all Kiera was to her sisters – a piece of gossip for them to consume – then maybe she’d outgrown them.
The meeting ran on for a little over an hour, then Lauren concluded it with a reminder about the snacks waiting for everyone in the kitchen.
The post-meeting socialization was almost more important than the meeting itself, and it was something Kiera used to love.
Today, though, she didn’t linger. She’d fulfilled her obligations as the philanthropy chair and now it was time to go.
Kiera wasn’t keen on spending another hour chatting with girls who were probably bursting at the seams with curiosity about the rift between her and Lauren.
While everyone else was going down the hall to the kitchen, Kiera slipped out the front door. She’d have to walk around the outside of the house to avoid going through the kitchen, but it wasn’t too cold tonight and a little fresh air never hurt.
She didn’t make it far, though. She’d only gotten to the corner of the house when she heard the door open again and she looked back. Lauren was stepping outside, pulling her thin cardigan tightly around her waist as she called, “Kiera. Wait.”
“I have to get home,” Kiera said, her voice wavering with more emotion than she expected. Even though what she’d felt for Lauren was just puppy love, there was still a lot of history between them.
“Please,” Lauren said, crossing the lawn toward her. “You haven’t returned any of my calls for weeks. I really need to talk.”
“It seems like you already did plenty of that,” Kiera said, crossing her arms defensively over her chest while Lauren caught up to her. “Why don’t you go confide in Shannon some more if you have something to say?”
“Okay,” Lauren said. “I deserve that. It’s not like I sought her out, though. I was drunk and you took me totally off-guard. I was just reacting, not thinking.”
“Off-guard?” Kiera asked, incredulous. “How could you possibly not know how I felt after three years? Lauren, you were my best friend.”
“Were?” Lauren asked, pain written across her face at Kiera’s choice of tenses.
Good, she thought . Now she knows how I felt.
“What do you call someone who takes your biggest moment of vulnerability and tells it to the biggest gossip they know?” Kiera asked. She was being petty, she knew, but in the moment she couldn’t help herself. She spat, “Definitely not ‘best friend’.”
“You’re right,” Lauren said. “I shouldn’t have told her, but you didn’t have to freeze me out. I wanted to apologize so many times over the last couple of weeks and you just disappeared.”
“I was humiliated,” Kiera said, emotion choking her. She glanced toward the house, wondering how many eyes were peeking out the windows at them. “What did you tell them when I left?”
“Nothing,” Lauren said. “I just said that if you wanted anyone to know, you’d tell them yourself.”
“Not even Shannon?” Kiera asked, narrowing her eyes.
“No,” Lauren said. “All I told her was that you kissed me. Then you ran out of the room and I was too drunk to chase after you, and that’s the end of the story. Kiera, I did a dumb thing because I was drunk and I’m sorry. I miss you.”
Kiera looked away. She’d done a dumb thing when she was drunk, too, and she grudgingly said, “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have ghosted you.”
“Thank you,” Lauren said. She reached for Kiera’s hand but Kiera pulled away, then Lauren asked, “Will you come back inside?”
“No,” Kiera said. “I have to get back to Nana.”
And Hunter.
“Okay,” Lauren said, optimism creeping into her voice. “Maybe we can get coffee between classes one day next week?”
Kiera nodded. The only thing still wounded at this point was her pride, but she wasn’t ready for a big show of emotion and a make-up hug or anything. She said, “Text me and we’ll figure out a time.”
Then she turned and walked along the side of the Kappa house toward the parking lot. She could hear voices inside, the group of girls she no longer felt a strong connection to all going about their lives without her. And Lauren standing behind her, watching her leave.
When Kiera got back to Nana’s house, she tip-toed to the den and peeked in.
Nana’s chair was empty and Hunter was asleep on the sofa, the soft glow of the muted television illuminating her face.
Kiera smiled and crept over to her, sitting carefully down beside her and slipping Hunter’s arm around her shoulders.
Hunter stirred and said, her voice groggy, “Hey, you’re back.”
“Please tell me you didn’t lose my grandmother,” Kiera said with a smile, nodding at the empty recliner.
“I helped her to bed about half an hour ago,” Hunter said. “How did the meeting go?”
Kiera sighed and said, “The meeting itself was fine. My escape attempt afterward didn’t go too well.”
“Oh yeah?” Hunter asked, sitting up so she could listen better. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Kiera sat up too, and then tried not to smile too broadly when Hunter surprised her by swinging Kiera’s legs across her lap. With color in her cheeks, Kiera said, “I feel kind of weird talking to you about it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it’s about the other girl,” she said, looking down at her lap, and then at Hunter’s hands on her shins.
“Do you love her?” Hunter asked.
“No,” Kiera answered, and it wasn’t hard to say so. She looked Hunter in the eyes again and amended her statement. “I don’t love her romantically, and I don’t think I ever really did. But she’s my best friend so I do love her in that way. That’s why it hurt so much.”
“Tell me about her,” Hunter said. Her hands were moving up and down over Kiera’s legs, and around to her calves.
She looked up at the ceiling and wondered whether Nana was asleep for the night.
She got up to use the bathroom sometimes, and occasionally she got thirsty and came downstairs for a glass of water.
Hunter’s hands were massaging Kiera’s legs and with every stroke, Kiera felt desire building in her core.
She wasn’t sure how much longer she could resist the urge to grab Hunter by the lapels of her flannel shirt and pull her on top of her.
They couldn’t do that where Nana might walk in on them, though, and the den offered no privacy at all. Kiera put her feet down on the floor and asked, “Do you want to go for a walk with me?”
The look in Hunter’s eyes told her that she wanted the same thing Kiera did, which was most certainly not to go walking. But she seemed to understand and the two of them put on their jackets, then went outside.
The moon was large and high in the sky, providing more than enough light for them to walk by, especially down by the pond where it was reflected across the surface of the water.
Kiera slipped her hand into Hunter’s at first, and when she started shivering, Hunter put her arm protectively around her.
It wasn’t full-on autumn yet but there was a chill to the air and it felt good to snuggle against Hunter’s side.
They went down a small dirt path that Kiera and her cousins had worn in the grass over the years.
It went in a circle all the way around the pond and she did her best to play tour guide as they walked.
She pointed to the best spot for skipping stones and to the little fishing dock that her cousin pushed her into the pond one crisp September morning.
The water was icy and she felt catfish nipping at her toes until her grandfather ran over and hauled her onto the shore.
"This place is incredible," Hunter said. "I bet you were happy to come back here when your grandmother needed you."
"I didn't mind," Kiera said, stealing a sidelong glance at Hunter. "But it had a lot more to do with Lauren.”
It was time. Kiera took a deep breath, then finally told Hunter the whole story.
She told her about how their friendship started off when they were assigned as roommates, and how Kiera soon grew to desire Lauren even though it was a bad idea for a number of reasons.
She was Kiera’s roommate, her best friend, her Kappa sister, and straight.
“It was pretty much doomed from the start,” Kiera said with a laugh. “Never fall in love with a straight girl.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been in love,” Hunter admitted.
“You haven’t?” Kiera asked.
Hunter squeezed Kiera’s shoulder tighter and said, “No, but I think I know what the falling part feels like now.”
Kiera’s cheeks grew warm and she put her arm around Hunter’s waist. Then, lest Hunter think that she was just using her as a sounding board to work through her girl troubles, Kiera quickly added, “I don’t think I ever really loved her.
I was starting to suspect it before, but it was pretty much confirmed tonight.
I think I just got confused because we were so close. ”
“So what happened tonight?” Hunter asked.
They were on the other side of the pond by now, the lights in Nana’s house casting shimmers across the water toward them. Kiera glanced at Hunter and her face was bathed in the soft light. She was pretty sure she knew what the falling part felt like, too.
“Not as much as I feared,” she said. “Lauren tried to talk to me and we both kind of apologized for letting it get so out of hand, but I didn’t want to stick around so I found an excuse to leave.”
“You should make up with her if she’s your best friend,” Hunter said. “Family’s important, whether they’re blood or not.”
Then Kiera stopped in her tracks. Her heart was swelling with emotion and her stomach tingled with desire. She took Hunter’s hand and pulled her into a kiss. Hunter’s hands found Kiera’s hips and pulled her closer, their lips and then their tongues finding each other.
After a long time, when the wind coming across the water made Kiera start shivering again, they separated.
Hunter cupped Kiera’s face in her hands and turned her into the moonlight, then smiled and said, “You’re so beautiful.
Such full lips, and what big eyes you have.
They’re like galaxies I wish I could float in. ”
“I think you’re beautiful,” Kiera said, her voice going breathy as Hunter bent slightly to kiss her again.
Eventually, they resumed their walk. Kiera tangled her fingers into Hunter’s and kept finding excuses to bump their hips together as they walked, and after a while she laughed and pointed to the edge of the water, saying, “That’s where my dad found a family of toads one summer.
He picked one up to show me and I ran, thinking I’d get warts if I touched it.
Of course, that only made him chase me around the yard with it, telling me if I kissed it, it might turn into a Prince. ”
“Did you?” Hunter asked.
“Hell no,” Kiera said with a laugh.