Thursday, June 2, 2011

at a distance

Kyle hadn't meant to leave Rox on her own with the kids like that. After all, he'd invited her. He knew how excited Rosie was about a wedding. She liked weddings. Of course, she'd asked him why hadn't he ever been married. It threw him in another orbit, sort of. And once she got there with all the church decorated in flowers and the music and the bride dressed up like Cinderella, she told him he better have a wedding because she wanted to be in it.

He told her she better start talking to her mother or to Asa about a wedding, not him. All these little talks. She just wouldn't be quiet. He'd held her through most of the ceremony. She kept putting her finger on his lips. It was easy to see who was really in charge here. Not him. Then they saw Amber. Rosie gave her a big hug.

"She looks sad, Daddy." Rosie informed him. Amber told her she was OK. Wedding did that to her. Then came a ton of Whys from Rosie. Finally Kyle told her she better go eat with Jai so she took off with him and Rox. He was left alone with Amber.

"Can we talk?" She asked. He hadn't really wanted to, but they wondered off toward the river and took a walk near the bridge. Their was a flood slowly coming, but no one seemed too worried about that at the moment. The river was slowly swelling from the flood gates up the river. But Kyle had a thought, it would not be a good idea to be here in a day or so.

"There's really nothing to talk about." He kept his hands in his suit pockets. He didn't want a thing to do with Amber, now. Things had changed. "Maybe the timing was perfect." He didn't want to talk about Roxie coming back. He wanted to not talk about himself. "Maybe there's still this chance, you could go to K-state, like you always wanted."

"I know." She looked so sad. Her face was red from tears and a wet nose.

"Why don't you go? Just do it. Do it for you. You can set your mind on anything. You said you wanted to be lawyer." He reminded her.

"But-" She looked at him.

"You can't let Roger or anyone, keep you from being who you want to be." He couldn't think of anything else to say.

"What about you? Are you ever going to college?" She wanted to know.

"I signed up for some online classes." He told her. It was only two classes over the summer. Not a big start, but he'd tested out a few basic classes. He had twelve credits, already behind him. They'd talked a lot longer than he expected. By the time he got back, it looked like Sam had taken his spot with Rox.

He wasn't too happy about that. It was just hard to be her date after Kyle saw them dancing. It was like a slap in the face.

Of course, Amber didn't say if she'd leave Roger for good. Kyle wanted her too, but he wanted a love life of his own too. It was just harder to pick up the pieces with Rox. Harder than he thought. Maybe it was because he was in a different part of his life too. But he wanted a chance. A real chance before his brother took it away from him. If only, they could really have some time to themselves. But he didn't see that happening, with Rox.

Yet he could remember the first time they touched. How he'd wanted to be with her. He always had. But she'd grown up and he was afraid he hadn't.

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