Sunday Fiction

Kelleigh shrugged, at a loss for words. Her mind was reeling at the sight of him, the nearness of him after such a long absence. She felt as if twenty years had never passed. She was seventeen again.

He tipped his head down to look at her again. She looked opposite of him and swallowed her heart back down into her chest. As if that were possible.

“Hmm, twenty years. What isn’t new is a better question, isn’t it?” She finally managed to get out.

“Okay. Let’s try it your way.” He looked down the cobble-stoned alley. “Your job is still the same.”

“Let’s just say it’s the same place. Not the same. And if I want it to be, it can be different.”

He raised his eyebrows at her and didn’t comment. “And you drive the same truck. It looks exactly the same.”

“Wrong again, same truck. New paint. Rolling it over will require that.”

His easy-going gait came to a halt. “What?” He held out a hand, touched her arm and stopped her. “What happened?”

Ignoring the tingle where his hand touched her arm and desperately ignoring the expression of concern on his face, she shrugged. “I didn’t have it in four-wheel drive. I hit a ridge of snow and it tossed me over.”

“Are you okay? Were you hurt? When was this?” He peppered her with questions so quickly she began to laugh. It was that or burst into tears. ‘Yes. Kind of. February.”

He stepped in front of her, predicting correctly that she was going to begin walking again.
He blocked her path. She looked past him again at the rear entrance to the library, thinking “if I could just get to the door…” He was relentless “Were you hurt?”

Kelleigh jutted out her chin, gritted her teeth and looked up. “Not permanently. A bump on the head, a dislocated shoulder and hip. No stitches, no broken bones. Just a broken truck.”

His expression changed to relief and then curiosity. “What did Steve have to say?”

“Nothing” she said without thinking then caught herself. Andrew saw her hesitation and jumped. “Nothing? That’s not possible. He always has something to say.”

Feeling a little mean but relishing a little in the meanness. She looked directly in the eye and said “Steve’s dead. He died in a car accident six months before that.”