Still Waters

Chapter 39

One sunny afternoon, somewhere around the middle of my third trimester, Kenney took off work early and surprised me with a seaside picnic. I sighed deeply, full of peace that day for the first time in what seemed like years. The longer I was with Kenney, the less I thought about Collin. And the less I thought about Collin, the more I hoped that I would never go back to him. Kenney made me feel...safe. Collin didn't.

Well, I can't say that I stopped thinking about Collin completely. I just stopped thinking about him in the way that I used to. It was now more like we were something crazy that I saw on the side of the road one day, and then spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what it was that I saw. I was contemplating what, exactly, had happened between us when I decided once and for all that I just...didn't care anymore. That was the night before the little seaside excursion Kenney took me on. It made me feel good to finally make a decision about Collin.

And it made me want to write about it.

So I did.

It was short and sweet.

"Hey, Kenney," He looked over at me, just as peacefully as I was looking at him. "So...I wrote about Collin last night." He rolled his eyes and kept eating. "Want to hear it?"

"Sure." I could tell he didn't, but I wanted to read it to him anyway. Kenney had become my...you know when you put a message in a bottle and then send it out into the ocean? Writing for me was like putting a message in a bottle and reading it to Kenney was like asking the ocean to take it far, far away.

"It's called 'Memories.'" Kenney rolled his eyes again. I ignored it. "You're a candle in the wind/ Ashes on the sea./ You don't know how much I miss you/ Because you can never come back to me./ You're an autumn leaf falling to the ground,/ Still I could never forget you.../ Even though you're not around./ You are every star in the sky,/ Every song in my baby's cry./ I used to actually care about you,/ But I can't for the life of me/ Remember why."

I closed the book and looked at him, waiting for him to react some kind of way. But he didn't. He just sat there, staring at me blankly, until he blinked a few times and changed the subject.

"Enough about that fool. I'ma need you to write something about me, Tashi. I am the shit." He punctuated every word with quiet deliberation, popped his collar cockily and almost spit his food out when he tried to go back to eating without laughing.

"That you are." I ran a hand softly along his cheek. "That you are."

He looked at me kind of surprised and confused, but didn't say anything. When a tear fell from my eye, he wiped it away silently. When another came he just shook his head and looked back out over the water.

"Kenney?"

"Yeah." He looked at me like he knew it was about to be some bull.

"Why doesn't he want me?"

His face softened. "I don't know." He took my hand and started playing with my fingers. "Natasha..." For a second he looked like he wasn't going to say anything beyond that. "I...I want you, Natasha. I want you. I always have..."

That was the last thing that I expected him to say. "Kenney..."

"I've always wanted you, Tashi. You know that. Before and after anyone else, I've always wanted you."

"Kenney..." I didn't know what to say.

He understood that and pushed the conversation past us. "Collin's a sucker." He smiled at me, broke an oversized cookie in half and offered me the big piece.