not just cousins

Kayla's blood pressure was next to normal. Finally. She didn't think she'd be on bed-rest much longer.

At least she and Oliver came to the conclusion that this was their baby, and they'd both do what it took to get into this world safely. He didn't press her about anything with Ian. But Oliver was with her, a lot. They played board games and he would read to her. She did like listening to him. How could she forget how she'd fallen in love with his sweet British accent.

Still, she felt as if she'd ruined things between them. The one slip up with Ian. But he never let it show that he was upset. Soon she relaxed. Slept. A lot. And ate a lot of salads and protein.

It was another story when Audrey dropped in to tell her all about Mildred's party. "She wants to come see you, but she wasn't sure you were up to it."

"Of course, I'm up to it." Kayla looked at her wide-eyed, still in bed, but not for long. She wanted to get back to work.

"Are you sure, you've calmed down?" Audrey's silly grin rubbed Kayla the wrong way. A part of her envied Audrey so much. Audrey was the life of the party. Evidently.

"Yes. Absolutely." Kayla didn't mean to fume.

Audrey brought her a peace offering. It was spaghetti from a box of Kraft. They'd both loved this simple comfort food that they'd made for each other from time to time when they were younger. When they were more than just cousins back in middle school. They'd been friends once. They shared TEEN magazines together. Before then it was the Baby Sitter's Club. They exchanged books all the time. Even wrote their own stories about Ann M. Martin's characters. Then there was Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Audrey thought it would be cool if they did something like that while Kayla was at summer camp, back in the day, before boys. But they'd settled on homemade journals instead. Honestly, Kayla could never send her an original. She'd usually make copies of it to send Audrey.

"I still have the journals, you know." Audrey smiled, getting out the shoe box that held all their treasures.

Kayla couldn't help but smile. Maybe Audrey was always her best friend. It was just they'd had a gap of some kind, and they had a lot of catching up to do. Kayla supposed she should tell Audrey everything. But really she wanted to forget or she might never forgive herself.

cousins