"Hello?"
"Kate," I breathed, hearing her voice for the first time in days. "It's me."
"Brooke," she recognized by my voice. "Thank God you called."
"I wasn't going to," I said truthfully.
"What made you change your mind?"
"It's kind of a long story."
"I'm just glad you decided to talk to me."
"I shouldn't talk," I said cryptically. "I think it's better that I listen."
"I don't even think there are words, Brooke."
"Well, I hope you find them," I said, finding the strength inside myself to actually take charge. "There's a lot of talking to do."
"Baby," she began, and I sighed. I so wished she wouldn't "Baby" me. "I am so, so sorry. You know I never meant to hurt you."
"I don't know that," I said tersely.
"Well, I didn't. I never did. Brooke, you mean everything to me. I love you."
"Then why did you do it?"
"What?"
"If I mean everything to you, why did you do it? I should have been enough. I was everything."
She sighed. "It was an accident."
"It didn't look like one."
"I made a mistake."
"You planned it!" I found myself yelling.
"No, I didn't. It started out as a meeting," she explained. "For work. She was a colleague. She wanted to meet in a casual setting, which should have been a warning sign, but I agreed, and I'd had a couple, and she started coming onto me, and one thing led to the next..."
"Just exactly what was the next?"
"What do you mean?"
"What did you do with her?"
"Brooke, you don't want to hear this..."
"Yes I do, Kate. Don't let me sit and imagine it, because I'll imagine something ten times worse."
"We kissed," she spit. "That's all."
I sighed. It wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated, but it still hurt to think about it. I asked the question that had been on my mind since that night. "How could you do that to me, Kate?"
"Brooke," she urged. "It was one time and it will never, ever, happen again."
"It definitely won't," I said. "We're broken up."
"You don't mean that."
"I don't? Kate, you cheated on me. You broke my heart. You can't expect that to just go away."
"I know, Brooke, and I don't. But we were together for two years. We love each other. You can't expect that to go away either."
"I never did," I agreed. "You completely blindsided me."
"Listen," she said. "I know. I'm sorry. I'll say it a thousand times, and I'll never forgive myself for what I did. But it was a one time thing, and I need you to give me another chance."
I shook my head, even though she couldn't see me. "No," I said, both to her and to myself. "I'm out of chances."
"That can't be true," she argued.
"It is."
"Then why did you call?"
I closed my eyes, and a tear escaped. "I don't know," I admitted.
"Honey, at least see me once," she pleaded. "We can't possibly work this out in a phone call."
"I don't think we can work this out at all," I protested.
"We can try. Baby, please?"
"I don't know," I said again.
"Just once. And if after that, you still want to hate me forever, I'll let you go."
"Okay," I finally agreed after some time.
"Okay?"
"Okay," I repeated, my walls of strength caving in. "Come over tonight."
"Really?" she asked. She sounded like a little kid on Christmas.
"Sure."
"Brooke?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
There she went again. Always trying to win me back. Why did I always let her?
Taking a lesson that Liliana had taught me long ago, I didn't let her. "Then show me."
Then I hung up, both feeling empowered, and wondering what I had just done.
___________
She came exactly when she always did, at seven, about an hour after I'd gotten home, using the key I hadn't had the heart to take back yet.
"Brooke," she sighed, coming to embrace me, but I didn't completely accept her.
"Kate," I said firmly. "I said we'd talk. I didn't say I'm just letting this go."
"Okay," she said. "Fine. That's all I ask."
The night passed awkwardly. She ended up staying for two hours, just talking. She tried to explain what had happened, depicting herself in the story with minimal fault. As one could have expected, she made it seem as though this woman had tied her down and forced her into a makeout session one night in the middle of a crowded bar. Even still, having all the details, it wasn't as bad as I thought. She hadn't lied to me; it really had started out as a business endeavor. And if she was telling the whole truth, they hadn't had sex, as I'd assumed. And it wasn't a repeated thing, it had been once, under the influence of alcohol. So overall, I had to admit, I was softening.
"I just don't know how it happened," Kate admitted after a while. "I screwed everything up with the one person I really care about."
I nodded, not playing into her sympathy games. "Yeah, you did."
"Can we try to work this out, baby?" she asked again. "Please?"
I wanted to give her another chance, somewhere deep down. But things were complicated now. Now there was Chelsea.
"I don't know," I admitted.
"Just say you'll at least call me again," she pleaded.
I nodded. I could give her that. "Okay." I said stoically.
"You still didn't tell me why you decided to call in the first place," Kate reminded me.
I smiled a sad smile, and reached into my bag, which was sitting on the floor in front of me. Remembering exactly where I'd put it, I extracted the photo that had caused my change in heart. Wordlessly, I handed it to her.
"I remember this," she said. "I can't believe you still have it."
"We look happy," I noted, thinking out loud. "And really, really different."
"Maybe it's because we're not arguing," she said, making a joke, but I knew it was true. She wasn't helping her cause.
"We definitely made a mess," I admitted. What I really wanted to say was, "You definitely made a mess."
"But you have to believe we can fix it," she pressed. "Okay?"
I rubbed the back of my neck, exhausted. "I have a lot of thinking to do."
"I'll go now," she said, coming across the couch to hug me. Just like me in the photo, she kissed my cheek, and despite myself, I smiled. It was the first smile she'd elicited from me in almost a week.
"I love you, Brooke," she told me again.
"Bye, Kate," was all I said.