Run Away Baby

“We’re not together anymore. For real. It’s over,” Abby said.

Abby’s mother shrugged. “Never mind then. I was just putting the possibility out there, in case you were thinking you wanted him along.”

“We brought out the worst in each other.”

“The best and worst,” said her mom. “Love will do that to you. A bad relationship just brings out the worst.”

“How in the world are you an expert on love? Seriously, Mom.”

“Abby, don’t be rude.”

“If he and I are meant to be, we’ll get back together.”

“It won’t happen if neither of you are willing to back down. I didn’t expect you two to take it this far. It’s been a month.”

“Not quite. It won’t be a month until Sunday.”

“You wouldn’t know that if you didn’t still care about him.”

“Not true.”

“One of you has to give in eventually, or the window of opportunity will close.”

Abby laughed. “Listen to you.”

“I mean it. I think he was the one for you. You got lucky your first time around, and it makes you think that what you two have is normal. But it’s special. And rare.”

“What we had. I don’t want to brag, Mom, but lots of guys like me.”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t try to help.”

“As if I would ever say that. Your help is… endless. Like the universe. Like the brown tile in the family room.”

Kaitlin came into the kitchen then. “Listen to this part, and tell me if you like it better the first way I do it or the second.” She’d been singing the same line of Hallelujah over and over for weeks.

Abby excused herself and went to her room. She began packing for the trip. She didn’t call Derek.

Hallelujah was stuck in her head now. The part about the kitchen chair. She sang it while she packed. At this time in her life, Abby was always singing. Like her sister, she got it from their mother.

That fall Abby’s mother called her at college to tell her Derek Johnson was in the local paper’s announcements section. He was engaged to someone named Shelly Riley.

“Do you know this girl?” asked her mother.

“No. Does it say how they met?”

“It doesn’t tell. Her family’s from up in Virginia Beach.”

“I heard he did some kind of environmental trip where he was studying fish or something like that. Maybe he met her through that,” said Abby.

“Yeah, I guess so. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine, Mom.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”