Page 18 of That Summer
It was cooler in the office, so she’d kept a light sweater on, but now, under the heat of the daytime sun, she tied it around her waist. She didn’t care if her scars were visible to the outside world, it was too damn hot for covered arms.
She wiped her forearm across her brow and fanned herself. “Could it be any hotter?”
“Well,” Kaitlyn said with a shrug, “it could be forty below and we’re walking home.”
“Hopefully, when it’s that cold, I’ll be able to handle car rides, or bus rides at the very least.”
That gives me what? A good four months? Shit.
Kaitlyn nudged her playfully. “Hopefully.”
They walked through a path that took them underneath the shade of giant willows and oaks.
“How are things going in the car department?” she asked.
“About the same as before. It takes way longer to prepare for the trip than the actual trip.”
“How so?”
“All the mental prep, the talking it out, where we’re going, how we’ll get there… That takes much longer than the actual driving.”
“Yeah? But it’s getting easier each time, right?”
Aurora shook her head and billowed her shirt.
“You’ve got what? Six weeks until the big day? There’s still lots of time.”
Her head dropped, and tendrils of dark hair fell against her sweaty cheeks. “Doesn’t feel like it. This big date is circled on my calendar, taunting me. We were up until one in the morning driving around. Trying desperately to get some distance.”
“How far did you get?”
“About five minutes away.”
“What’s going on?” Kaitlyn’s full gaze fixed on her.
A small cloud of shame covered her. “I black out. Totally. Without warning. No black edges on the fringe. Just bam!” She clapped her hands together. “Out like a light.”
“Shit. How scary, for both of you.”
“I know.” Her pace sped up a little. She itched to get to her apartment. It was ten blocks away still. At least it was air-conditioned because the heat was crushing her. “Sometimes I feel like it’s never going to happen.”
“It will. Somehow.”
“But…”
Kaitlyn stepped in front of her. The sudden stop forced Aurora to balance on her tiptoes so she didn’t crash into her friend. “Now you stop. You and Lucas have been working like maniacs on this. You’ve come so far.” Kaitlyn’s hands squeezed her shoulders. “You. Are. Riding. In. A. Car. You weren’t doing that before, were you?”
She shrugged out of her grip and walked around her. “Why do you have to be like that?”
“Like what?”
She didn’t need to glance at her to know there was a giant smirk on her face. She heard it loud and clear in her voice. “Always right.”
“It comes with practice.” Kaitlyn skipped to catch up.
She couldn’t help it, Kaitlyn’s comment made the laughter bubble out. The thing she loved about Kaitlyn the most was how she just knew how to react. Knew when a situation warranted breaking the tension with a witty comment, or when it warranted the cold, harsh, ugly truth. Digging through her purse, Aurora found a pen, and the dreaded list. A smile bloomed as she scratched Kaitlyn’s name onto one of the blank spaces.
Kaitlyn peered over her shoulder. “What’s that for?”