at me like a disapproving mother would. It’s a look I’m very familiar with. “I never took you for a coward. What, are you afraid that you can’t get him to love you again?”
“No, I’m afraid that he will love me again.”
“I don’t get it.” She continues filtering through the row of tops in the closet to find the remaining pieces to my clubbing ensemble. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
“Cora. Don’t you think sometimes things happen for a reason?”
She rotates her head over her shoulder like an owl. “Of course I do.”
“I don’t think it was a coincidence that Ran and I met the way we did. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that things ended how they did, either.”
“I get that,” she agrees, nodding slowly, her back to me while she continues scanning the contents of my closet.
“It was an accident that caused us to cross paths,” I say with shaky breath. “And it was another accident that ended everything between us.” Slumping down into my seat, I slip all the way until I feel the ridge of the chair’s back against the base of my scull. “I think that was our time together, Cora. I think that was all was supposed to get. This neatly packaged amount of time with Ran in my life.” I close my eyes. “It feels selfish to want anything more.”
My lids are sealed shut, so the unanticipated bite from the impact of her palm across my cheek shocks my system and I jolt upright, my eyes flashing open quickly. “What the hell, Cora?” I cup my hand to my stinging cheek and narrow my eyes at her.
“Snap out of it, Maggie,” she sneers. “Like seriously, stop acting like this girl that doesn’t deserve any good in her life. The martyr act is getting really old.”
“I’m not trying to be a martyr,” I defend angrily. My skin burns with heat.
“I’m not saying your life is a cakewalk. You have a bitch for a mother, your brother’s got cancer, and you finally had the chance to find real love, only to have it taken from you. On many levels, your life completely sucks.” Cora’s face is inches from mine. I can smell her bubble gum just under my nose. “But on many more levels, your life could be the envy of so many people. You know why?” She tilts her head and widens her eyes. After several seconds, she tosses her head, as if asking for a response.
“No.” I totally thought that was supposed to be rhetorical.
“Because all of those people are still alive.” She snaps an enormous bubble between her lips. “You still have the gift of time. Some people aren’t that lucky.”
***
“I changed my mind, we’re not going to the club,” Trav says as soon as I open the door. He shamelessly scans me head to toe, his eyes lingering a little too long at my bare upper legs. “Forget Ran, I’m keeping you to myself tonight.”
“Very funny, Trav,” I say, hiking my purse up my shoulder. Cora blows me a kiss from her position under her covers. She’s lucky my blush did a good job making my other cheek equally as red as the one she’d slapped earlier. “For the record, I still don’t want to do this.”
“I know.” Trav hooks his arm my direction, and I slide my hand through the triangular space he’s created. “But tonight is a big night for Ran and it would just seem wrong to celebrate it without you there, you know?”
I don’t answer and we head toward his truck in the south parking lot. I have to delicately position myself into his vehicle in an attempt not to completely flash him, because I could probably be cited for indecent exposure in this skirt. I don’t even know why I still have it. Brian bought it for me back when we were dating, and I remember thinking how not me it was at the time. It’s even more not me now. How did I let Cora talk me into wearing this?
“We’re meeting at Ran’s house first for drinks.” Trav engages the key and starts the engine.
My pulse quickens. “I thought he didn’t drink.” Normally it wouldn’t bother me. Ran’s twenty-two and plenty old enough to drink if he chooses. But he’d told me he didn’t drink before, and the thought of him doing it now makes me wonder if he’s lost more than just these two months. Maybe he’s forgotten more about himself than