Read Online Out of Grief by EA Kafkalas - Free Book Online Page B

frightened. Next time I won’t bother.”
     
    “Don’t be that way, Quinn. I am concerned. I’m trying to find out what caused it.”
     
    “You already know what caused it.”
     
    “You just said you don’t do that.”
     
    “By myself. I don’t do it by myself!” she screamed at me.
     
    “And who’s moving quickly now? What’s the deal? I thought you were in mourning.”
     
    “Stephen blew his brains out in our home, Nikki. I think I’m entitled to move on.”
     
    So it was possible to move on. Hmm. I tried to soften my tone, and take the conversation back to a normal level. “So you’re seeing someone. Okay. What’s he like?”
     
    “It’s not like that,” she sighed.
     
    “Color me confused. What’s it like?”
     
    “I had an itch. He scratched it. End of story.”
     
    Okay, you won’t masturbate, but you’ll have casual sex. So not like the Quinn I know. “Who are you and what did you do with my best friend?”
     
    “Says the woman that was going to sleep with someone she wasn’t head over heels for,” she shot back at me.
     
    “Oh, you’re allowed to have an itch, but I’m not?”
     
    She had no quick retort, and in the silence, a sense of déjà vu swept over me. It wasn’t the fight itself. Quinn and I had had fights before. Few and far between, but every once in a while. And I knew why her sleeping with someone else upset me. But why was she getting so freaked out by the thought of my almost sleeping with someone?
     
    And she was upset, I could hear her. She was crying, softly, but I could hear her sniffle every once in a while. So I broke the silence. “What are we doing here, Quinn?”
     
    “I hate when we fight.”
     
    “Me too,” I admitted.
     
    “Can we chalk it up to hormones?”
     
    The tentative nature in her voice, told me she was grasping at excuses to avoid talking further. But maybe it was hormones. Maybe she was having one of those crazy pregnancies I used to hear my cousins talk about. Maybe I was so desperate to hang on to any shred of hope that I was turning this in to something more than it was? I mean, we were about 300 miles from each other. I couldn’t see her face. Couldn’t acknowledge she was crying by wiping her tears away. All I could do was agree, and that might somehow make her feel better. “Hormones suck,” I managed to say.
     
    “They really do.”

Chapter Twenty-One
    The truly good creative writing teachers that I had encouraged me to find my voice, to tell my story in a way that was unique to me, and not to copy other writers. The lesson was learned when most agents wanted to know what published author you wrote like, and to be honest, some of us did have similar voices. I wanted to be one of those teachers. But I was afraid, as I was ploughing through the ten-page short story on sexting; perhaps I was encouraging too much freedom. Did transcribing an actual sexting session, which this had to be, count as publishable fiction? Nonfiction? Pornography? My head was starting to hurt.
     
    My phone rang. When I saw Marta’s name come up, I shot off my couch. I was late. I had to be. I grabbed the phone. “I’m on my way. So sorry.”
     
    Luckily, I could just go down to Marta’s in a matter of minutes. I grabbed the box of licorice I had picked up for her at Whole Foods and raced out.
     
    “I’m so sorry, I lost track of time grading stories,” I explained as Marta opened the door, and I was assaulted by the smell of marinara sauce.
     
    I leaned down so she could kiss my cheek, her usual greeting. “I didn’t put the pasta in yet, so nothing is ruined.”
     
    “Can I do anything?”
     
    “Not now. Oh, you found them.” Her eyes lit up at the site of the Panda Box. “You are an angel.”
     
    “It’s right by my editor’s office. No problem at all.”
     
    “So you are reading stories?”
     
    I took my usual seat furthest from the stove, so I could watch Marta bustle around her kitchen and not be in her way.