Best-Case Scenario

Chapter Twenty Eight

I don't hear anything from Kali that night but wake up to a text from her. Want to talk? I slip my phone back under my pillow.

Facing my parents at breakfast is not an event I'm looking forward to. Instead, I grab a book and fall into a different story unfamiliar to mine. I feel like I deserve that.

Unfortunately, a knock interrupts the story far too soon. "Hey Teagan, you joining us?" my mom calls from the other side of the door.

I grunt to let her know I'm still alive. When I don't follow up the grunt with anything else, the door creaks open.

She peers in and when seeing that I'm sitting up with a book open between my knees she comes in closing the door behind her. I close the book and sit up. She looms over me, sunlight filtering through my curtains, illuminating her face.

"I made brunch but you seem to be stuck to your room today. It's already one. Are you planning on living here?"

If I don't say anything, she'll know something is up. I make my raw throat and tongue that feels like it's stuck to the roof of my mouth work together. "Thought I would have a Sunday in bed," I say and pick up my book to show her how exactly I planned on spending it.

"Right." She walks over and plops in bed next to me all elbows and knees so I have no choice but to scoot over giving up all pretense that she's in for a casual check-in. She whips out her phone. "Then why did Kali message me? She wrote...." She scrolls through her texts until her name pops up on the screen. "Lacey could you check in on Teagan? We got in a fight and she's not replying. I want to make sure she's okay."

I look away from her stare. Kali was worried, but she didn't come over herself. When she worried, she came to do an in-person check. The implications of why she kept her distance made my chest hurt.

"Now, I don't know everything about you and Kali," my mom goes on needing no encouragement from me. "But you're usually checking in on her. So, what happened last night?"

Will my brain ever not feel like a warzone? I'm heartbroken one second and then full of anger the next. "And what's wrong with having her check in on me every once in a while? Isn't that how friendship works?"

"Yeah as if you don't know Kali cares about you."

I whip my head around to look at my mom. Her eyebrows are raised and she's giving me quite the particular pointed look. "What?" she goes on exasperated. "You know Kali cares about you Teagan. She trusts you more than anyone else. I'm sure last summer was hard for you but she knew she could trust you not to hurt her."

"Why do I always have to be the one tiptoeing around her?" I feel like a spoiled kid but I can't stop the words spewing from my mouth full of resentment.

My mom only raises a hand and smooths my curls sticking to the pillow. "I don't think you remember when Finn left in eighth grade."

I freeze when I hear Finn's name. He hasn't texted me and I never let him know I was home yesterday either. "When he left?" I ask. I don't want to think about Finn. "I remember pretty well."

"Yeah well do you remember when Kali was here almost every night making sure you were okay? She listened to you cry."

I flush at the memory and knowing my parents heard all of that. Yikes. There might have been some desperation and claims that we were supposed to get married. Thirteen was hard.

I also remember Kali there. Giving me hugs. Pulling out ice cream from the back of the freezer and watching romantic comedies with me. Letting me be dramatic and building me up by letting me cry or making me laugh.