Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 7 of 78

After her mother hung up, Kylie stayed on the piano bench until the sun cleared the window. Friday was three days away. She had built a room for Arianna and cleared her calendar, but her hands still shook when she thought about opening the front door. The last person she trusted with a key had walked her boyfriend out of her life. If she flinched on Friday, Arianna would see it and read it wrong. She had until Friday to quiet the fear, or the meeting would break before it started. She went to the kitchen and made coffee she did not drink. On the counter sat a small pink bottle a fan had sent months ago, shaped like a perfume vial with hearts pressed into the glass. The card called it a love potion. Kylie had laughed at it then. She picked it up now and set it back down. A bottle could not fix what Malia had done to her. She called her mother back. "I need to do something before Friday," Kylie said. "I'm going to the island for the day. Just me." "The one off the coast?" "Yes. I need a quiet room. I need to write the fear out before she gets here." Her mother did not argue. "Take the kitten. She sleeps on your chest." Kylie drove to the dock before noon with the orange kitten in a carrier and a notebook on the passenger seat. The boat took thirty minutes. The estate her family kept there sat alone on a shelf of rock, a pale house with a fountain in the pool and palms bending toward the sand. No staff. No phones ringing. She let the kitten out on the tile and the animal trotted straight to a sunbeam. Kylie opened the notebook on the pool deck. She wrote Malia's name at the top of the page. Then she wrote what Malia had done, plain, without music. She wrote what she had believed about her old best friend and what turned out to be false. She wrote the sentence she was most afraid of: Arianna will do the same thing. She read it back. It did not sound true. It sounded like a bruise talking. The kitten climbed into her lap and pushed its head under her hand. Kylie kept writing. She listed what was different this time. Arianna had waited a year with nothing. Arianna had a puppy she carried through a taxi ride to sit on a floor. Arianna had not asked for a song or a photograph. Her mother had read the letter and said Friday stands. Kylie tore the top page out and left it on the deck. She wrote a new one. On it she put the first thing she planned to say when Arianna walked in on Friday. Six words. She read them until they stopped scaring her. The kitten purred against her ribs. Kylie closed the notebook. The fear was not gone. It was smaller than the door.