Page 25 of Meant to be Mine

“You don’t understand.” She sat down on the couch, suddenly deflated. “I have spent my entire life being the person who almost fits. Almost the right school. Almost the right neighborhood. Almost the right clothes. I’m always one thing off.” She looked at me. “I put that dress on and I wasn’t almost anything. I just was.”

I wished I could have been there to see her face. I wanted to see how special she felt.

“Annika’s the best there is,” I said finally.

“I know that now.” She exhaled slowly. “Thank you. I mean it. That was so nice. You didn’t have to do that.”

“It was a dress, Kensey.”

“It wasn’t just a dress and you know it.”

I held her gaze for a second and then looked away, reaching for my phone. “Are you hungry?”

She blinked at the subject change. “Starving, actually.”

“Good.” I pulled up the app I used when I didn’t want to think about cooking, which was often these days. “What do you want? Thai? Sushi? There’s a place two blocks over that does the best spicy tuna roll I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Sushi,” she said immediately. “Absolutely sushi.”

I ordered enough for four people. I always ordered too much and then ate leftovers at midnight. Alone. For a brief moment, I imagined what it might be like to not eat alone.

We both sat on the couch, the food spread out in front of us on the table. Our knees bumped as I leaned forward to put more on my plate.

“Tell me about New Jersey,” I said, pulling apart a pair of chopsticks.

“It’s Jersey.”

“That bad?”

“It’s not bad. It’s just different. I miss the sun.”

“I’ve spent time in New York. I know the vibe.”

“And cold. Not just temperature cold. The vibe is cold. Everyone’s got somewhere to be and nobody’s making eye contact.” She took a bite. “My apartment is fine. My kids are genuinely great, most of them. Teaching is management, which I’m apparently built for.” She gestured around the office. “As evidenced.”

I laughed. “You’re built for it.”

“The garment thing notwithstanding. Why didn’t they look at what they were putting on?”

I laughed. “They’re not used to asking questions. They put on what they’re told.”

We ate more and I couldn’t help but remember the many other sushi dinners we had.

She looked at me. “Do you get lonely here?”

“Sometimes,” I said honestly. “I’ve got the family and the store now and it’s nonstop, but yeah. At the end of the day, I go home to a very nice house that’s very quiet.”

“The beautiful prison.”

“Something like that.”

She was quiet for a moment, pulling a piece of avocado off the edge of a roll. “I thought about you a lot this year,” she said. “When things were hard or weird or I needed someone to talk to. I’d think Drew would know what to say about this. And then I wouldn’t call because it was late or you were busy or I didn’t want to be a pest.”

“You could never be a pest.”

“Needy. I didn’t want to be needy.”

I set my chopsticks down and looked at her. “You can always call me. That has never had an expiration date. I don’t care if it’s two o’clock in the morning.”