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“Do you need something?”
“Oh…uh…no.” He tried to think quickly of a reason why he would be standing at her front door. “I was walking by and saw the light on, so I thought I’d stop to say thank you.”
Kylie closed the door behind her and led both the pug and Derek down the sidewalk. “For what?”
“Well, for all the work you’re doing for the fair.” He fell into step beside her. “It’s a lot of effort, and you don’t have to do it.”
“If anyone has the time on their hands, it’s me,” she said.
He couldn’t stop himself. “Why are you back? I just mean, you moved all the way back to live with your parents. Why didn’t you stay in Toronto?”
She stopped for a second and seemed to be thinking about her answer.
Moving again, she said, “I didn’t have any money saved because I’d wasted it on stupid things, so my roommate kicked me out, and all of my so-called friends dropped me like a bad habit.”
He had not been prepared for such a deluge of blunt honesty. He didn’t know how to respond, so he stayed quiet for a moment.
“Not how I thought things would go when I moved to the city,” she admitted.
“Are you sad to be back?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“At first I was embarrassed.”
They turned the corner at the Burger Hut.
“Embarrassed?”
“I planned to go live a big life in the big city and do big things, but here I am right where I started.”
“Is here so bad?”
She followed Captain quietly for a moment, and Derek was worried he’d poked the wound again.
“No,” she said. “It’s not. It was never about escaping Camden, as much as it was about proving myself or reinventing myself.”
“Why did you want to reinvent yourself? You were already pretty great.”
She kept her eyes on Captain, but grinned. “I don’t know. High school’s hard. I think everyone feels a bit awkward and out of place, right?”
“I guess.” He needed to reassure her more to make up for being such an ass. “And it’s not like you’re the only one who left town. You’re just the only one I really noticed being gone.”
He was watching her reaction, but she studiously kept her focus on Captain. She was still grinning though. It was a good sign.
She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I ignored you at the end of high school.”
“It’s okay. I can see now how that misunderstanding would’ve hurt. I wish we’d figured it out sooner.”
“Yeah, like ten years sooner.”
“You would’ve still gone off to Toronto though, right?”Please say yes, so I don’t feel like we missed out on something special.
“Yeah. I’d already gotten into Humber at that point and was excited to move to the city. You’re cute and all, but a girl’s still gotta go live her own life.” The moment she called him cute, a fire lit in his belly.
“I think Captain is officially done for the evening.” She gestured to the pug who sat down on the sidewalk, facing the direction of his home. “I’ll see you later.”
Her grin widened, and she went back toward her house. He watched her go until it moved into creepy-staring-man territory and headed home himself.
