Okay, what did we just get ourselves into?

I walk straight to the fridge the instant I get home without even locking the front door and pull a box of donuts from the top shelf - tear open the cover.

I bite a big chunk out of the first one I can get my hands on, chomping it into the shape of a glazed horseshoe.

I am so dead.

What sort of birthday celebration can I even throw him? 

I know nothing about organizing parties… 

“Organizing things in general…” I admit, honestly, raising my eyebrows at my messy living room, with a mom-ish sigh as I bite another chunk out of the donut, shaking my head-

Maraca noises sound from my phone, and I stick the rest of the horseshoe in my mouth, snatching the cell off of the counter.

When and why did I set that as Andrew’s ringer?

I’ve just opened the messaging app to answer his text when two other texts come through in rapid succession from a number I’m fairly certain I don’t know. 

The first one reads: “Your meeting with the new agent can be scheduled for next Thursday if that works for you.”

All the second one says is: “So…shoes?”

“Mrs. Xochitl…?” I reply after a moment’s contemplation, a little doubtfully.

“Ack!” the text comes through quickly, “Don’t call me that. It sounds so 'grandma.' I am raging against that dark night with everything in me.”

I smirk a little to myself, as Andrew’s second text piles on top of Melissa’s reply.

“How about that organic restaurant next to the theater?”

“That could work. You guys eat organic now?”

“Oh my gosh, those red pumps you wore at the award show with the little bows on the toes were just delicious.”

“Don’t you think they were a little bit too 'Wizard of Oz?' A friend of mine bought those for me and I don’t even know where he found them. I was worried they’d be too loud, especially with the dress.”

…Not really consistently, but Jinho’s on a clean-eating kick, convinced we need to detox and stop eating so much fast food…

“Ooh, a dandy? Nice. And, 'too Wizard of Oz?' Never! Judy Garland is my spirit animal, though my husband says I’m too old for pastel. We must both have our own resident glamour boys. My hubsy’s a snappy dresser and he never lets me dress myself when we go anywhere for dinner. Worried I’ll embarrass him.”

“XD.”

You and Kat would die if you had to live off the diet Jinho has instituted for us. Green juice seven days a week and I haven’t had a burger in two months. I’m getting the shakes.

I want to laugh, but I can’t.

Bite my lip - my heart doing frantic somersaults as I try to figure out how to best break the news-

Andrew…

Shatter his pretty daydream, that we all ended up okay.

Andrew…about Kat…

I don’t hit send - backtrack and erase - rephrase.

Try to put it lightly - water it down - coat it in sprinkles.

There’s no way to make this pretty.

Andrew…before we meet up, I think you should know…

That sounds too awkward…

How am I supposed to just drop this on him out of the blue?

He’d be blindsided - devastated-

Why does it have to be like this?

I guess it’s what I get for trying to lie through sealed lips, but this is the whole reason I-

Never told him about the accident.

I’m still trying to figure out how I can make this reality hurt him less than it hurt us.

Mrs. Xochitl’s reply comes through and I switch chats again - replying with all the cheerfulness I can muster, but my fingers-

Are shaking.

“Yes…tragically, I have no adroitness in that arena. I studied interior design for a little while, but when it comes to fashion I’m a total wreck. Even my Drigo stops me at the door some mornings like ‘Mom, you’re not going out like that.’”

“Aish,” I laugh through the breathlessness. “I’m honestly the same way. My friend won’t get off my back about the amount of tee-shirt dresses and turtlenecks that I own, but it’s so hard to find anything cute in our size.”

“Don’t get me started. Everybody says, ‘There’s always the children’s aisle.’ Not when you’re a grown woman with a job there isn’t! Who makes blazers for 12-year-olds? That’s what I want to know. My boss isn’t about to let me show up in a pair of pants with flowers on the pockets.”

“Lol. Not in a million years. I am not going on a date in a dress covered in rainbows.”

“Girl, please. Exactly. I just can’t… where did you even find that gorgeous cocktail dress?”

“Don’t ask me. We hit ten thousand stores before we found one that carried ‘petits.’”

“Why don’t they make a whole ‘petit’ clothing store for us ladies who are ‘vertically challenged?’ They can call it ‘Five and Below.’”

“Lol. But you know good and well that’s taken.”

*

Trudging up the stairs in the wishy-washy dark I feel a dithering shade of gross. Tired - anxious and happy - all slurred together, like a nasty batch of trail mix that has a few chocolate chips stirred in.

I turn on the bathroom light but don’t even bother to close the door, letting the glow spill into the hallway in a golden puddle as I set the tub to run, and sift in the tea leaves - unzip my dress. 

Running my hands along the fabric, I think of the wrap dress. Of Kattar.

Why won’t he tell her?

I try to shake off the nosiness - curiosity - the anxious worry - because it’s none of my business - probably.

Or is it? 

A venomous little voice bleeds on my psyche, like maybe, there’s something wrong with me - something he thinks would make his mother disapprove of him dating me-?

Not that.

I hurry to remove the rest of my things and toss the dress through the doorway to sit and steep in that shimmering pool of brilliance, as I sink into the bubbly deep myself, face steaming hotter than the cinnamon-scented, frothy water-

Everything in me knows that couldn’t be true.

She loves me - she always has - for some reason I can’t explain or understand - but I know that, at the very least.

Maybe because she actually cared enough to tell me-

Don’t- don’t be that way.

He’s trying - we’re trying now.

Maybe he thinks it would breed tension - rekindle arguments I can only imagine from those faraway days - eons ago at this point - when he resisted her wanting to adopt me-

Or maybe there’s another reason I can’t even imagine. 

How is anybody supposed to tell when it comes to him?

We’re too complicated. I’m too complicated. Things have always been too much. Had too many sides for me to grasp these little facets-

And half of them were sharp-

I hold our love with two fingers - barely certain of anything at any given time-

I’ve spent more of my life with him than I’ve spent without him at this point - and he’s still a complete and total mystery to me. A milli-faceted secret. As beautiful as it is impossibly profound.

There’s a line in a book about that, but I don’t know it. 

I thought men were supposed to be simple.

Or is that just what Mrs. Moon told me?

Something riggles uncomfortably in my chest as I watch the bubbles popping in the shallow puddle I simmer in up to my neck - onesies twosies, and then big clusters, splattering soapy stickiness against the cream-colored walls.

I can barely understand myself - I can’t understand myself- even 70 percent of the time. How could I possibly pretend to understand anyone else? Even the love of my life? Even a life I’ve spent half of my own life woven into?

But maybe that’s just me. Maybe Mrs. Moon has always been able to make sense of her own existence - emotions - the world spinning around her - and see without this blurry haze of blue and gray and rose-tinted glasses making life more of a kaleidoscope of feelings than a sensible picture.

I run one finger along the edge of the tub, smearing a line of suds into a bubbly centipede.

If Kat means what he says - if he really wants me - then he knows what he’s doing. He never does anything without thinking it through - even his spontaneity, I think, is always fully planned.

He cares too much - and he knows what he wants.

He’ll do what it takes to gain and keep it.

I guess he’s like his mother in that way.

I’ve seen the look in his eyes before. That pensive, questioning, silent fire - debating - always - weighing the results of each decision before he makes it - or never makes it - deciding whether he thinks I’m- it’s worth his time - whether he should bother to try-

I crush the creepy-crawly thing flat, feeling the squelch of the bubbles evaporating under my hands as my face burns too hot - thinking of the cat-like way I’ve seen him watch me, before the ordeal with the bonbons - before the ‘pink sash-fiasco.’

I could see the wheels churning behind those black tinted windows to the soul but I’ve never - never-

Had the audacity to believe I understood him.