A Taste of Candor

Chapter 30

~Tahlia.

Thankfully, avoiding my mother enough to prevent another confrontation the next morning was no difficult feat, as she seemed to be avoiding me as well. I overheard from my brothers that she had called for breakfast to be brought up to her room, and aside from briefly crossing her exiting the restroom at one point, I never even caught a glimpse of her.

Not needing to worry about her served my purposes as well, given I already had a mission to accomplish that day. I needed to meet up with Keene and smooth things over with him. To be fair, I still would need to have some words with him for serving as a complicit pawn in Mother's game, but I now understood the fault wasn't his. He had misstepped, not aimed to deceive me all the time I had known him.

Conveniently enough for me, when I dialed the number for the Abrams' telephone, Keene was the one who picked up. The tension weighing on his voice when he first answered seemed to dissipate as we talked, and he gladly agreed to pick me up for lunch at a taco place downtown. My mood began to improve as I got dressed, realizing I finally had a chance to redeem my most prized friendship while still drawing closer to the Candorian who had left such an impression on me. Now, neither would exclude the other.

When Keene pulled up in his car, I had already been waiting for a minute or two on the porch. I swiftly got inside, and off we went. We engaged in light topics of conversation to begin with as we drove, as I didn't wish to prod Keene on the important matters while he still focused on driving. Soon enough, we had arrived at the taco shop, ordered our food, and sat down to wait for the waitress to bring our meals to us.

"So Keene," I began, edging into the heart of the matter between us, "I have a question for you."

He clasped his hands together and leaned forward. "Ask away."

"What do you think it would take to deceive me?"

A frown crossed Keene's face, and he let out a confused laugh. "I'm not sure what kind of question that is...? A whole lot of effort, I imagine; you're pretty smart."

"You aren't exactly wrong." I remarked with a disarming smile. "More specifically, what would my mother do if she were attempting to deceive me?"

"Get your father in on it, I suppose."

"Or alternatively, what about using my best friend as a pawn? Might that work?"

"Me?" Keene squinted. "Probably not ... you'd see right through that."

"Well, that I did."

"I'm not sure I know what you mean...?"

"Sure you do, silly. I've seen through my mother's ruse, Keene. You can drop the act. Your profession of love was too sudden to be genuine, and I've gotten to the bottom of that matter. Why would you play along with that, though?"

Keene scratched the back of his neck. "She ... your mother's pretty persuasive, I guess. I'm really sorry, Tahlia, I really am. She just—"

"I know what she did. Hard as it may be, I'm trying to forgive you. She must have backed you into quite the corner, and frankly, I don't want to know what all was discussed between you two. It may be difficult to move on from this chapter, but I need your promise you won't let anything come between you and me like that again."

"You have my word. Again, I'm really sorry I even participated in that."

"Good. I must know, though, was there any truth to that? Even a little?"

Keene's lips tightened. "Well, I'd be lying if I said that to keep our story consistent, I didn't come to ... appreciate you in a different way. But if you can work to forgive me, then I can definitely work to move past any of that."