We are silent for a few moments before she says, out of the blue. "Mitch and I dated once. Well I say we dated, it was one date. It was fairly obvious it wasn't going to work out." We exchange a smile at that. "We mostly did it because people said we should. That we'd make a good couple. Mitch wasn't sure he was gay back then and we figured, why not try it out?"
"So how was the date?" I ask. She smiles and shakes her head. "It was like when we normally hung out except kind of awkward because we kept trying to flirt with each other." The idea of a younger Mitch and Kirstie attempting to flirt, to make their date real makes me smile and Kirstie sees it out of the corner of her eye. "Yeah it was dumb. People used to tell me I should date Scott as well but I just couldn't see it."
She looks at me intently and then says "I guess what I'm trying to say is that people have a lot of ideas about who you should and shouldn't date and why you should or shouldn't date them and those ideas are wrong a lot of the time. If you like someone then you should just go for it and if not then there's no point trying to force it." I nod "Yeah, you're right." She looks up at me and I swear she looks almost hopeful and it suddenly starts to make sense. She knows or she thinks she knows how I feel about her and maybe she feels the same way. It's a thought I haven't even entertained before and it sends happiness and fear coursing through me. She's trying to tell me that my reasons for not telling her how I feel are pointless and irrelevant and right now when it's just us and she's looking up at me like that it's hard to disagree with her.
"Avi, listen I..." I interrupt her "Kirstie, the timing's all wrong. You're too young and we have to do this competition and we don't want this to get in the way." She shakes her head as she replies "I think I at least deserve some say in this." I'm about to speak when she closes the space in between us, moving to rest her hand on my shoulder and putting her face close to mine. "Kirstie" I whisper "Yes" she smiles. At the sight of her smiling at me I can't help myself from leaning closer to her. My mouth is almost touching hers when Scott's voice reaches us "Kirstie, Avi where are you?"
I instantly move away from Kirstie and stand up. "We're here Scott." She yells in a surprisingly casual way. "Avi, help me up." I reach out to grab her hand as Scott walks over. "What have you guys been up to?"
"Oh we were just hanging out. Catch you later Avi." She walks across the yard to the door and walks into the house. "Just hanging out?" Scott asks me, one eyebrow raised. I nod "Just hanging out." I wish I could tell him but honestly I don't even know what's going on right now. I guess I'm just going to have to try and avoid her for the rest of the trip.
Avoiding her is harder than I could have imagined. Even though it seems like she's trying her best to avoid me there are only five of us and we're spending almost all of our time together. We've been practicing a bunch of different songs for the sing-off and I think we're starting to find our sound. Mitch, Scott and Kirstie have been singing together for years so their voices fit together seamlessly and Kevin and I are getting better every day. It's great to spend time with people who love music as much as I do but there's a part of me that's glad when we go to the airport to say our goodbyes. I'll miss them but not seeing her can't be worse than deliberately avoiding her.
