Please don't tell her that I've been meaning to miss her, because I don't

“Hi.” I said, plastering a smile on my face and walking in to greet the two. Matt looked a little sheepish.

“Kellie?” I asked, sticking out my hand.

“No… Amber.” She said, looking quizzically at Matt. “Who’s Kellie?”

I dropped my hand.


“Old friend from back home who’s coming up for Thanksgiving.” Matt answered quickly.

Old friend? How about ex girlfriend? Was what I wanted to say. But, I bit my tongue, hoping that Matt would get the WTF signals I was trying to send him.

“Amber and I met at the gym. Ed introduced us, she’s a fitness instructor.”

“Oh.” I replied, trying to smile. That still didn’t explain what she was doing here. What Matt was doing with her.

“We were just going to watch a movie. If that’s OK.”

“Don’t have to ask me, it’s your house too.” I said. I knew I couldn’t ask the questions that I wanted too, nor get the answers that I wanted while she was still here. I started walking back towards the kitchen.

“Stop by the gym sometime.” Amber said. “I’ll give you a free workout session.”

I stopped in my tracks, and turned to look at her. It was an incredibly catty thing to say. But, the look on her face really was a nice one, as if she just wanted to be nice, and she wasn’t trying to imply that I was fat or needed a workout. I smiled back, confused. Either she was really nice, or really good at being a bitch.

I packed up the things I had cooked in containers, stacked into “for work” piles and “for Thanksgiving” piles. I rinsed and stacked most of the dishes into the dish washer, leaving the pots to soak overnight, knowing I would feel like doing them once Drew got here, but that I didn’t feel like doing them now, either.

I shut off the lights in the kitchen, a plate of freshly made rice crispy treats in my hand. I didn’t know if fitness instructors ate rice crispy treats, but I knew Matt did. And I knew it would be a perfect opportunity to drop in and check out Amber one more time before I went to bed. I couldn’t help it, I was nosy, and I hated the fact that I would have to wait until tomorrow to question him on what was going on with them.

I stood at the door a second, watching them. Matt was sitting on the end of the couch, his feet up on the coffee table. Amber was sitting close to him, her head laying on his shoulder, his arm around her. There went my ‘just friends’ theory. I was kind of angry, again. Part of it was the jealousy coming back, but the other part is that Matt didn’t strike me as the type of guy who went from one girl to another. He had JUST broken up with Kellie, and it had been a long relationship. What was he doing, jumping back into the dating scene so quickly?

I was about to back out of the room, not wanting to share my rice crispy treats anymore, when Cumulus came padding in and gave me away. The dog followed me everywhere, and had fallen asleep in the kitchen while I was baking. When he woke to find me gone, he came to find me. A dog Cumulus’ size is not a quiet dog.

“Hey.” I said sheepishly. I had been caught. “Rice Crispy treats?” I said, raising the plate.

Matt looked at me, confused, but answered “sure.”

I handed the plate to Matt, who took two and offered the plate to Amber. She did take one, which made me like her a little better. Matt set the plate on the table.

“Well, I’m going to bed. Night.” I said, with an awkward wave.

I was irritated, but I tried to shake it off. I let Cumulus out, and came back inside, freezing. He and I snuggled under my blanket, and I reached for the phone to call Drew.

Talking to Drew always made the stress ease in my life. We made plans for tomorrow. He was leaving work as early as possible, and hoped he could be here by the time I got off work. We were going to go out to dinner, and then he wanted to stop by the grocery. I told him I had already made stuff for Thanksgiving, but he said he wanted to make something together.

He finally kicked me off the phone, saying that in order to get off early, he was going to go in early, and needed to get off the phone. I fell asleep forgetting about Matt, instead focusing on my excitement to see Drew the next day.

The next day was really rushed. Even though Matt and I were excused from the dinner, we weren’t excused from preparing for it. To top it all off, the kids had an early dismissal that day, so we had them for a lot longer than usual. The only upside is that a few parents had picked up their kids early, the ones that were leaving to go out of town or who had relatives coming in. We stuck most of the kids in the back theatre, picking a few of the older ones, the more responsible ones to come help us do things, like slice veggies, or set up tables and chairs. Despite all the chaos, it worked well, and time flew by. Before I knew it, I was packing up my bag to go home, the envelope with the agency’s credit card safely in my purse, ready to use for shopping on Friday morning.

I pulled into my driveway, excited to see Drew’s beat up old truck. Parked next to it though, was a tiny little VW bug. I wrinkled my nose, wondering if that was Amber’s car, if she was back. I had forgotten to ask him about her at work, and now wondered if I could question him in front of Drew or not.

I walked in, and was greeted by a happy Cumulus, followed by an even happier Drew, who scooped me up in his arms. Matt, who had left earlier than I did, followed, eyeing Drew and I with a guarded look that I couldn’t read. Behind him, was a short woman. I was surprised to see that she was clearly not Amber.

Amber had been tall, blonde, thin and fit, and, well… Stereotypically beautiful. This woman was short, a little chubby. Her brown hair was cut in a neat little bob that she tucked behind her ears. Her eyes were warm and brown. Her face was cute… But I wouldn’t call her beautiful. Her nose and face reminded me of a rabbit, but not in a buck tooth, ugly kind of way. It was just her small button nose twitched a little when she smiled at me.

“Ella?” She asked, sticking out her hand. “I’m Kellie.”

Her voice was so big coming from such a small person.

“Hi.” I said, smiling back. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Thanks so much for inviting me to your parents. I know it was last minute.”
“Aw, it was no problem.” I said, squeezing Drew’s hand and leaning over to scratch Cumulus on the head.

We moved to the living room, where Matt sat in the same spot he had sat in with Amber last night. It was odd though, to see Michelle sit down next to him. I could see that the way she was holding her body, was tense. It was almost like she was so used to just plopping down beside him, leaning up against him as she did so, that it was unnatural for her to sit so far away from him. I felt bad for her. I liked Kellie so far, got a good vibe from her. I knew what she was going through, and I felt a pang, thinking about how I had to act around Jason after we broke up. How hard it was TO act, to pretend like you were OK when you weren’t. How badly your body could miss another person’s so badly. I shook my head, trying to focus on what the group was talking about.

“No, we couldn’t… You just got here, you probably want to spend some alone time with Ella. It’s fine.” Matt was saying.

I looked to Drew, trying to figure out what they were talking about.

“It’s just dinner.” Drew said, laughing. “It’s not like we’d be alone there anyway, we’d be in a restaurant full of people. Kellie said she was starving, so just go ahead and join us. It’ll be fun. Like a double date.”

Now, Drew didn’t know what he had said, and nothing registered on Matt’s face either. But as soon as the words “double date” fell out of Drew’s mouth, I saw a flash of hurt fall across Kellie. I don’t know if anyone else noticed it, but the room got a little quiet for a moment.

“Dave and Busters.” I blurted out.

“What?” Matt said, looking at me.

“We can go to Dave and Busters. I mean, c’mon, that place is way more fun with more people. I’ll call some work people. It’ll be a group thing. Kellie you can meet some of the people Matt and I work with.”

Kellie smiled at me, grateful that it wouldn’t just be the four of us.

“Ella, I don’t know. If we do that, how late are we going to be out?” Drew asked.

“Does it matter?” I asked.

“Yeah, I wanted to come back and cook something.”

I waved him off. “I told you Drew, my Mom made tons of stuff, and I made some last night. We’ll be fine.”

“But I wanted to help.” Drew protested.

“Yeah, me too. I kind of crashed your Thanksgiving. I’d feel better if I brought something.” Kellie chimed in.

I sighed. “Well, I mean. Fine. Wal-marts open twenty four hours. We’ll just go there after Dave and Busters. It doesn’t matter how late we stay up, we don’t have to be at Mom’s till two, so we can sleep in.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Kellie said, smiling. I think she was happy that her every moment so far with Matt was going to be occupied. I got the feeling she wanted to be around Matt, but didn’t trust herself alone with him.

“That works.” Drew agreed. I started texting people to invite them.

“Great.” Matt grumbled.

I looked up to shoot him a “what’s your problem” look, but he just rolled his eyes and looked away.

I was so sick of Matt and his freaking mood swings.