LITMIR.BIZ

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said? Do you think they expected all their dreams to turn into ashes?” Bailey’s voice gained momentum as she spoke and the fear nearly choked me. “I’d guess that every one of these couples had romantic wedding pictures, Kor. They had magic and passion and love. They walked down the aisle, or stood before the judge, with the best of intentions, with the belief that they’d stay together for life.”

      I wanted to argue with her. To find fault with her logic. Usually, when it came to emotion, I could find the answers. For both of us.

      But not this time.

      “I just can’t do it, Kor,” Bailey said, her voice sorrowful, but firm, too. “I’d rather lose Jake now, while we still care for and respect each other, then go through the months or years it takes for hate to set in. I don’t want to hate Jake, ever. And I can’t bear the thought of him hating me.”

      I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find out that I’d been right. She’d broken off with Jake because she’d finally admitted to herself that she was in love with him.

      The rest...I wasn’t prepared. Had no idea what to say to counteract her lack of faith. To reinstill lost hope.

      Worse, I was scared now, not just for her, but for me. Danny and I, we’d had two horrible fights. I worried there might be a third that evening. Oh, I knew couples fought. Danny and I fought. But those two times weren’t the same. He’d said things, I’d said things...the words lingered there, between us, like a screen that had never been there before.

      Was that what Bailey saw? What she was trying to avoid?

      “My mom and dad don’t hate each other.” The words came out of my mouth as they occurred to me.

      “I know.”

      Okay. Good. We were on our way out of the muck Bailey had pulled us into.

      “I think they’re the exception that proves the rule.” Her words sank us again.

      I was getting desperate. So I asked, “What about Danny and me?”

      Her silence left my ears ringing.

      “Bailey?”

      “What?”

      “You don’t think Danny and I are going to make it?”

      “Actually I do.” My friend’s smile was reminiscent of an eleven-year-old Bailey with an added decade of maturity. It was soft and vulnerable and completely sincere. “You’re blessed, Kor,” she said, her voice more than her words falling over me, around me, encompassing me in the bubble where only Bailey and I existed and everything would be all right. “Not all marriages fail,” she went on. “But let’s face it, my luck isn’t as good as yours and the percentages aren’t good enough for me to take the risk.”

      “Why not?” Leaning forward, I pleaded with her. “Even one chance in a million would be worth the risk. Just to have that chance—”

      She shook her head. “My chance would be more like one in a trillion,” she said. And before I could open my mouth to voice my vehement denial, she continued. “I’m not relationship material, Kor. I’m too cynical. And too analytical. I know too much. I expect too much.”

      “You don’t expect anything at all.”

      “That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “I just don’t trust people to meet my expectations.”

      “What are you saying?”

      “In a committed relationship of any kind—from business to...to the personal—I’d need those expectations to be met.”

      Personal? The room was cold. I was cold.

      “What about us?” I asked.

      Her entire face changed. Softened. From the look in her eye, the tautness of her skin, the set of her shoulders...Everything about her suddenly relaxed. “You, my friend are my one piece of good luck. I have faith in us.” I started to breathe easier again.

      “I’d give you a kidney, Bail.” My voice was thick with tears, but I didn’t have anything to hide from her. With Bailey I could be completely and wholly myself.

      “I’d give you two,” she said in return, her eyes tearing up.

      We were fine. With that bond strengthening me, I could do anything.

      And that included helping Bailey trust in her own ability to love and be loved. I had my work cut out for me. Jake might not wait to be “the one.” But someday, somehow, I would be standing next to this remarkable woman as she promised to love and to cherish until death did them part.

      Or some version thereof.

      Bailey was going to have the family she wanted and deserved. She was going to have joy.

      One way or another. That was my vow.

      Chapter Six

      “...aaanndd arm to the back, swing, keep your abdominals tucked in, pull up through your middle. Good and repeat....”

      Lori Hildebrand, fitness instructor extraordinaire, snapped her fingers to the beat of the music as she walked through the rows of mats dotting the sprung wood floor of her studio. Bailey swung back, around, forward and down, rolling up through her center right on cue. Snap and back. Snap and around. Snap and forward....

      Beside Bailey in their Thursday night class, Koralynn managed to make her movements look more like dance. Where Bailey was tight, Kora was loose.

      Fingers snapped. Back. They were both flexible. Snap and around. And could both still tear up a dance floor. But Bailey had lost a lot of the expression in her movements. The heart and soul that used to emanate through her limbs because she couldn’t express them any other way. Snap and roll up.

      “Good, three more times,” Lori called out to the twelve or so people spread across the room.

      Snap and back. Bailey wanted to be able to express herself again. Or Koralynn was going to leave her far behind on their trek through life. Snap and forward. Oh, not as in desert her, of course. Snap and roll up. The one thing Bailey didn’t worry about was Koralynn deserting her. That would never happen. She was as certain as clouds in the sky.

      Snap and back. And then around. In mental and emotional growth, Kora was light-years ahead of her. And if Bailey didn’t catch up soon, they weren’t going to be able to help each other. They weren’t going to be simpatico anymore.

      “Good, last rep!”

      Music swelled, as though in perfect timing with their exercises and Bailey let go of her thoughts for the moment. A rare experience these days. Losing herself in the music, she did what she was told.

      * * *

      “Okay, everyone, remember to listen to your parents, be safe, and have a great summer!” I spoke to the wriggling bodies that had taken over my classroom five minutes before the last bell rang on the last Friday afternoon of the 2009/2010 school year.

      I pasted on a smile as the final seconds ticked past, my insides scrambling with a combination of their excitement and my own nostalgia. After nine months with the third graders I’d developed a sense of connection with them. I knew them. Their good and their bad.

      And after today, they’d be all but gone from my life.

      The second hand was almost at the twelve. After seven years of teaching you’d think I’d be better at this part. But letting the kids go seemed harder each year. With tears clogging my throat I called out, “Happy summer, everyone!” just as the bell rang.

      “Bye, Mrs. Brown!” several voices chorused at once. And then several more in a confusion of words as the children lined up at my door pushed and shoved their way out of the room to the join the throng of kids walking as fast as they could out in the hall. Voices could be heard outside my window as the first batch of youngsters burst out into freedom—or at least into the waiting presence

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