There were nine different colleges and universities in the city of Baltimore, and several more in the surrounding county. Kathy had gone to the Baltimore Public Library that afternoon and gotten brochures for all of them, bringing them back to the island to browse through. She didn't know if she was actually going to go to one of these colleges.
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This was so important that he walked into the Perk without even realizing Kathy was there, marching up to the counter with a - "I want a Strawberry White Hot Chocolate."
"What si--"
"Largest you've got." Beat. "Make it two."
He could afford it now, after all.
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Wait, no. That was stupid, too. She wasn't the tiny high school sophomore who tried to hide at every given opportunity. Sitting up straighter, she squared her shoulders and called, "Make it three, actually. Though I'll pay for my own, of course."
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"Better do what she asks," he said.
To the barista, who was making a 'WTF dude' face of her own. Traitor. (With an awesome pixie cut.)
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Still, Kathy made no move to go join Dante at the counter or initiate more conversation. Ball was in his court now, he could figure out what came next. She had some very important...circling to do. Yes. Of Loyola's sewage management courses apparently.
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With a sigh, he picked up the third and walked to Kathy's table, where he set it down. Silently.
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...and resumed walking. That way.
Several days and he still didn't know what to say to her.
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She blinked at him as he walked away, a dull flush spreading down her neck. This one, though, was angry, not embarrassed. She waited until he sat, then stood up, her walk more of an angry stalk between the tables. With a glance at the board to see how much the drink was, she slapped a bill onto the table next to him. It was a twenty, but that was all she had. "No thank you," she said with a quiet intensity. "If there's no reason to talk to me, there's no reason to buy me drinks."
And then she spun on her heel to stride back over to her table.
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Finally he sighed, grabbing the bill so roughly it crumpled in his hand. He got up, crossing the distance to Kathy's table and put it back down.
"I don't know what to say to you."
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"I've had that problem practically since I came back," she said, unaware of the way the front page of the brochure was crinkling beneath her curling fingers. "But I didn't let that stop me."
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"You don't really want me to say anything," he said. "'Cause everything I could say comes down to 'I can't be what you want me to be'." A pause. "And that woulda been the same if you'd assumed different about what I was last year."
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This was why she'd kept walking on Saturday, to try to avoid the 'I'm just not that into you' speech she really hadn't needed.
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She snatched at her hot chocolate and gulped it down, searing her mouth and not even caring.
"Will it help?" she asked when she set it down. "Will saying that to me get if off your chest or whatever? Cause, fine. If it'll stop us from being this fucking stupid, then fine. Say what you need to."
She hadn't come this far just to lose out to that.
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She glared down at the table and made herself draw in several long, deep breaths. And when she let the last one out, she was able to talk more evenly again.
"I realized early on that I was happy with what we had, a lot more than I'd ever be if I tried to push for something more. The value of your friendship was enough for me that as great as it might have been to get more, it wasn't ever something I looked for. And I haven't changed my mind yet."
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