Kelly nods. “I don’t get it. Just be real, right?”
“I never got it either,” I say. “I get lying about shit you’re embarrassed of or to protect a secret or some shit. But just lying about random nonsense that don’t fuckin’ matter. Makes no sense to me.”
Kelly looks at Annika, then. “It’s really, really good to see you, Ann.” She swallows hard. “It’s especially good to see you looking like yourself again. Last time I saw you, you were…” She shook her head. “I wasn’t sure how you were still alive. You looked half dead, strung out…god, Ann, it cut me to the fucking bone seeing you like that. I looked up to you, you know that? You were…you were a freaking goddess, to me. The shit you could do on the court? God, Annie. No one—butno one—could kill like you.”
Annika laughs bitterly. “Yeah, well, that’s long gone.” She lifts her cane and twirls it. “This is me, now.”
Kelly sighs sadly. “That’s notyou, Ann. That’spartof you, but it’s notyou. You pushed me out of the way and saved my life, you took the hit instead of me. And in the process, your whole life got fucked up.”
Annika frowns. “Don’t youdaretry and tell me you feel any kind of guilt about that, Kel.”
“How can I not? I didn’t cause it, I know that, but you were permanently handicapped saving my life.” Kelly plants her face in her hands, shaking her head, bobbed hair shaking. “I can’t help but feel…I don’t know, Ann, not guilty per se, just…shitty.”
Annika grabs Kelly’s hands in a death grip and pulls them away from her face, clutching and shaking, her voice quavering with raw intensity. “I’d do it again, Kel. In a fucking heartbeat. You absolutely cannot feel bad about it. It was my choice, my action. And honestly, it wasn’t even a choice. I just…it just happened. But even knowing what I know now, what I’ve been through, what I’ve done…to save your life?” She chokes, weeping, shaking her head. “I’d do it again.” A bitter, cynical laugh. “The only thing I’d do differently is say no to that fucking meth pipe.”
Kelly reverses their grip, holding Annika’s hands and kissing her knuckles. “I just feel like after the accident, I should have been there for you.”
Annika shakes her head, bumping her forehead against Kelly’s. “Stop, Kels. Just stop. You’re not responsible for my fucked-up choices. Don’t try to take any of this on.” She pauses, then continues in a much quieter voice. “For what it’s worth, you were right to cut me out. I don’t harbor any anger or resentment, at all. I harbor guilt, if anything. I would have kept using you, and that’s the fact. You did the right thing, you did what you had to do for you. Just so that’s clear.”
Kelly nods, sniffling. “I know. I’d been down that road with Mom. So I know it was the only thing I could do. It just…that doesn’t make it any easier. I loved you—Iloveyou. I never stopped. I just had to put it aside.” She inhales slowly, lets it out. “I don’t think I ever gave up hope thatthis—” she shakes Annika’s hands, still imprisoned in hers, “would happen. I always hoped, down deep inside. I was just…scared it wouldn’t.”
Annika fights back another sob. “I was so scared you’d—you wouldn’t…” She shakes her head, letting out a soft, shuddery breath. “I was so scared I’d come here and you’d reject me again. I know, I know—it was self-protection, it was what you had to do, but that’s still what it felt like, even though I did know and do know that’s not what it was. Emotions aren’t always logical.”
“Well…here we are, now.” Kelly pulls Annika into a hug. “It’s behind us, now.”
There’s coffee and conversation, then. I mostly sit and sip and listen, and let Annika and Kelly catch up. Kelly is funny, in a dry, sarcastic kind of way. She and Annika quickly fall into a routine, making each other laugh and trying to outdo each other, make the other person laugh even harder, until they’re both breathless and wiping tears of hilarity from their eyes. It’s amazing to see the way Annika lights up around her friend, how at ease she is in her own skin with her.
Before we know it, it’s dark outside and hours have passed, and the side door off the kitchen opens, Kelly’s husband Luis enters. He’s tall—six-four, maybe—and very fit, with hard, intelligent dark eyes. He’s in dress blues, carrying a leather briefcase, a cell phone pinched between shoulder and ear as he enters. He marks our presence, but beelines for Kelly, setting his briefcase on the floor and snagging his cell with one hand, cupping his wife behind the neck as he bends to kiss her.
He straightens after kissing her, hand resting on her shoulder as he focuses on the person on the line. He speaks in rapid Spanish, listens, answers again, and then ends the call. He tosses the phone onto the table, his attention turning to Annika. His guarded expression says he knows exactly who she is.
“Baby,” Kelly says, reading her husband’s hesitance, “it’s all good. Promise.”
Luis’s focus is laser-like, scanning Annika, scrutinizing. “She’s clean?” It’s addressed to Kelly, even as he continues to eye Annika.
“Yes, my love. She wouldn’t be in our home if she wasn’t.” Kelly moves in front of him, touches his face. “It’s all good. I promise you. We’ve made up. She apologized and I’ve forgiven her.”
Luis’s scrutiny is now on his wife; apparently what he sees on her face appeases his protectiveness, because he nods, kisses her again, and then moves toward me. “Luis Alvarez.”
I rise to my feet and we shake hands. “Chance Kapule.”
His eyes cut to my left bicep and my USMC globe, anchor, and eagle tattoo. “You’re in the Corps?”
“Yes, sir,” I say. “Force Recon, honorably discharged.”
He eyes me. “You must have just barely made the height and weight cutoff.”
“I joined at seventeen. I wasn’t done growing, apparently, and I weighed about a hundred pounds less back then.”
He nods. “Force Recon, huh? Saw combat?”
“I did two tours in Iraq as an infantry grunt before we made the Recons. Saw more than plenty combat with the Recons, as well.”
“Three tours in Afghanistan." He taps his left thigh. “IED shrapnel nearly severed my leg. Ended up switching tracks—out of the infantry and into JAG.”
“Oorah.”
“Oorah,” Luis returns. He kisses his wife again, then heads out of the kitchen. “Gonna change. You guys are welcome to stay—we have a guest room.”
