Chapter 23

Monday morning I intentionally didn't show up early for Western Civ. Kendall was apparently of like mind. She arrived moments behind me as the bell rang for class to begin.

Wes stood and wordlessly removed his coat and backpack from the seats he'd saved for us. Her smile was cordial if a little tight as she sat beside me. After we exchanged tentative greetings, we focused on the lecture.

After we'd begun dating we had a habit of having our knees touching during class. The space between them now was only a few inches, but hinted at much more.

We had what I would call reserved and evasive conversation as we attended our other two classes together. She could tell I wanted to continue our talk about our relationship; I could tell she didn't. But by wordless agreement we stopped at our usual bench. As she sat she tucked her feet under her and folded her hands in her lap.

Her silence and demur posture seemed to defer to me to start the conversation. Before I could speak my eyes were drawn to her hands, where the silver ring remained in place. When she followed my glance, she calmly re-folded her hands and it went out of sight.

I managed to push away any visceral reaction and extended the olive branch I'd decided to start with about an hour earlier. I'd already apologized over the phone, but I sincerely wanted to clear the air.

"I'm sorry again for snooping in your stuff like that Saturday. I didn't mean to, it just seemed to happen ... but I'm still sorry."

She nodded without expression.

I was fairly certain she would say something she'd resolved to say earlier, too. And indeed, when she spoke there was minimal inflection as she read her lines, like a theater company's first rote run through of a new script.

"It just surprised me. I believe you that it wasn't intentional. And I'm sorry for my reaction when you said I think about Paul when we have sex. I don't think about him when I'm with you. And as for comparisons, I was just upset about you reading my letter." She shrugged. "I don't really think about it that way."

At least she'd finally spoken the name of the shadow that was always with us ... Paul. But as an apology, it was painfully clinical. To me it felt like, 'When I'm having sex with you, I don't think about how much better Paul is.'

"Kendall ... we need to talk about Paul."

The muscles on her jaw line clenched. "What about him?" I took a deep breath.

"Are you still open to winding up with me, instead of him?"

She quickly nodded mechanically, and responded automatically. "Yes."

"If that's true, then you need to tell him about me."

Her eyes darted away from me. "Why?"

"It's only right. I mean, if you're really serious about being with me, and he means that much to you, don't you think he deserves to know what's going on?"

She looked away from me, biting the inside of her bottom lip, while I watched and waited. As the moments ticked by I felt my shoulders sagging.

"Randy, please don't make me do that. You don't understand. If she finds out..."

"'She'? You mean..."

"Gina. She's always bringing other girls to share him with. If she found out I'm seeing someone else, she'd replace me like that." She gave an angry snap of her fingers.

I shook my head. "But ... you said she loves you. And would Paul just go along with that?"

"I don't know. He says he loves me and wants the best for me, but if he knew I was dating here," (dating here, I thought resentfully, not dating you) "he'd think it meant..."

She stopped and looked up quickly, realizing where her sentence was headed.

"He'd think you'd found someone special," I said heavily. "When obviously ... you haven't."

"Randy, I just don't know yet. I mean, we just had a big fight."