Cored

Chapter 9: Twenty Three

Katherine calmed down eventually and picked her phone up from the ground. Weird, she thought when it still wouldn't turn on. She looked at the sky, thinking back to some old nature show she had watched. She held her hand up, measuring the distance between the sun and the horizon. Her best guess was it was about three o'clock.

She fiddled with the yarn beneath her, taking solace in the soft fabric. But it was bittersweet now—she had realized it was probably the blanket her mom had written about, that George had given her long ago. Its ability to stay in pristine condition all the time suddenly felt like a betrayal, like some piece of this ridiculous alternate universe that she had always carried with her. Even the color caused a sharp pinch in her chest. But she wasn't willing to let it be anything but comforting yet, so she ignored the nagging connection.

"Katherine!" she heard, the voice behind her breaking through the silence. She sat up, every muscle tensing. It was George, looking breathless.

"I went to the pub, but Kevin said he hadn't seen you. I didn't know if you were lost or dead or . . . or . . . or I don't know, just gone!" he said, staring at her with eyes on fire.

"I'm fine," she said, not wanting to admit she was lost. She looked at the creek rather than at him.

"Mind if I sit?" he asked, pointing at the ground next to her.

"If we were in America, I'd say this is a free country. But I don't know what the equivalent phrase is here."

He laughed, but just quietly. He knew enough to know she wasn't actually joking. He sat anyways.

"I can't believe you still have this blanket," he said, pointing beneath her. "It feels a hundred years ago I gave it to your mother."

"Twenty-three," she said evenly. "Twenty-three years."

"Sounds closer, I suppose," he said, looking at his hands. "Look, Ron just doesn't much care for change. For anything new. He never has. He's really mad at me, not you. Mad I didn't tell him."

Katherine nodded, but just looked down at her ring. She twisted it around and around slowly, counting how many times the small stone returned to its place in the middle of her finger.

"Ron will come around," he said as if he could make it true by force. "And the rest of them are so excited to get to know you. And they could help you get some of the answers I think you want. Don't give up on us just yet."

They sat quietly for a while, staring out over the berm. They still weren't used to one another—George didn't know that Katherine only chewed on her cheeks like this when she was overthinking every possible outcome. She didn't know that he was rarely this quiet. She heard her mother's voice creeping into her thoughts—You can't be so afraid of the new that you ignore the good.

"Who's going to tell her?"

"Tell who what?" George said, thinking he had misheard her.

"Who's going to tell your mom that I dye my hair?" Katherine turned to look him dead in the eye. She was entirely serious, but George couldn't bear it. He just started to laugh. And after a moment, for the first time since they had met, a faint light came into her eyes. A light he recognized, even if it was fleeting. She just chuckled softly at first, but eventually matched his volume. The sound of their laughs together was warm and comforting and seemed to clear the air of Katherine's nondescript roars.

"I think we best keep that to ourselves," George managed to say between bursts of laughter.

"Probably," Katherine said, her own shoulders finally starting to slow.