Page 124 of Fraud
“Are you going to sit down?” he asked, watching me as I stood there, staring down at my plate.
“Yes. In a minute. I promise.”
“Take your time.”
He slid into one of the stained oak chairs. They’d been my mom’s favorite. Probably more formal than I’d ever pick out, but it didn’t matter.
Just running my hands over the solid grain, I felt closer to her.
A tear ran down my cheek as I finally took a deep breath, lowering myself into the seat that was always reserved for my mother.
And, now, me.
“Whenever my mom made pot roast, she’d almost always forget the bread until it was too late. I loved those crescent rolls in the containers that popped open. Anyway, she’d be dishing out dinner when she’d suddenly remember those stupid crescent rolls lying in the back of the refrigerator. So, one night, I suggested, being the bread-loving kid I was, that we have toast.”
“And, let me guess…it became a household staple?”
I nodded, grabbing my piece of toast before reaching for the butter. “Yeah. I wasn’t big on cooking. Shocker, I know. But I could toast up a mean piece of bread on pot-roast night.”
“Well, I think it’s a perfect addition,” he said, holding up his own piece in a mock salute.
We settled into our meal. The moment that tender meat hit my mouth, I nearly groaned with delight. I really had been missing out while eating takeout for all these years.
I’d been missing out on a lot actually.
“I love you,” I blurted out over pot roast and buttered toast.
He looked up at me, slightly stunned.
I knew it wasn’t the first time, but there had yet to be a second. And I doubted he’d expected it now at the inaugural dinner at my dead parents’ dining room table.
He opened his mouth to respond, but instead, he set his fork down and rose from the table. “I’m sorry,” he said, avoiding my gaze. “I have to go.”
I joined him, rising from my seat in an instant. “What is it? What did I do?”
He shook his head. “Why do you always think it’s something you did, Kate?”
His napkin fell to the floor, and I felt the air shift as he brushed past me.
And then he was gone.
The door slammed shut, and all I was left with was a pot roast and a million questions.
It took me exactly five minutes to make the decision to go after him.
The first minute or so, I had spent staring down at my half-eaten plate of pot roast, trying to figure out what in the world had just happened. The next two and a half minutes, I’d blamed myself, concluding it had to be something I had done or said that sent Killian running for the hills.
And then reality had hit.
I remembered the moment before he’d left.
“Why do you always think it’s something you did, Kate?”
He was right.
Not only did I blame myself for everything that had happened around me—from my coffee order being made wrong in the morning to my own parents’ deaths—but I also always found a way to turn every situation and make it about me.
But life didn’t work that way.
