“No more fast food for dinner. No more sleeping on that awful mattress,” she added, assuming that her presence in the loft would be a welcomed change, which was technically the way I should’ve felt, but…
“Oh! And Reina and I worked on some of the wedding plans while she was here. I’ll show you the book I made when we get to the house. I have color swatches, a tentative guest list, and I’ve marked a few venues I need to check out before the move. I figured we’d come back here to get married since our families and most of our friends are all here,” she rambled, not realizing that I hadn’t heard a thing she said. I was still stuck on the fact that, in three short weeks, my life was about to get a hell of a lot more complicated.
“Are you listening?” she asked when I failed to answer. “Reina was really a big help.”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything, mostly because I didn’t want to talk about her sister…and maybe not the wedding either.
“She’s freaking huge now!” Kira added. “The doctors say the twins are doing well, though.”
“Cool,” was about the most enthusiastic response I could give. It sounded extremely sarcastic leaving my mouth, but Kira knew how I felt about Reina before she even brought her up.
“Are you mad just because she came out here to visit?” Kira asked.
I didn’t answer right away. “No, but I don’t necessarily wanna talk about her either. I know she’s your sister and all, but…I just don’t wanna talk about her,” I repeated.
Kira looked straight ahead and didn’t speak again. The tension in the car was terrible. Still bathed in silence, we pulled into the driveway and Kira undid her seatbelt while the garage door closed. I slung my bag over my shoulder and followed her inside. The familiar scent and atmosphere of the home we’d shared made me feel even more uncomfortable, which I hadn’t expected. It served as a reminder of the fact that the life I’d been living lately was far removed from this one.
“If you want to relax, I’ll heat dinner again,” were the first words Kira had spoken in a while and they were said with an air of uncertainty.
That wasn’t right; she hadn’t done anything. I decided then that I had to change my attitude. There was misplaced animosity that I wasn’t expecting to feel toward her, but it was definitely affecting the way I’d treated her since the second she met me at the airport. My tone and responses were clipped, and my body language was putting her on the defense too. Taking a deep breath, I set my bag down, deciding to put forth more of an effort.
“Need help?”
She looked up, surprised when I made the offer, smiling a little. “No…just relax. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
I nodded, forcing myself to smile back, and took my things upstairs. Everything was clean and neat just like always. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked around after turning on the lamp. Kira had packed up some of our things already, so there were boxes in the corners, but otherwise everything was in its place.
“What the hell are you doing?” I said to myself, letting it sink in that in a few weeks, she’d be moving in with me and leaving her life and her job behind, while I wasn’t even sure that this was what I still wanted. She’d already sunk time and money into the wedding, which was bad enough. I couldn’t let her completely uproot herself to follow me – not if I wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror later.
When Kira called out from the bottom of the stairs, letting me know that dinner was ready, I’d been sitting there pondering my dilemma for almost twenty minutes. I had zero appetite, but I had to try to act as normal as possible. She’d set up the table like we were having guests – all for me. She smiled from her seat as two candles flickered between us.
“There’s plenty more when you finish. I figured you’d be going back for seconds since you haven’t had a home-cooked meal in so long.”
Or so she thought.