Chapter Seventeen
On the ride home, Gracie gathered her thoughts about Kendra. She knew it was time to have a conversation with her. Before making the right turn onto the clear highway, Gracie reached in her purse for her phone. Gracie couldn’t come up with anything to break the ice before Kendra answered the call.
“Hello?” Kendra answered. She sounded as if she were deep in a hole somewhere.
“Wow. You really do sound bad. So you’re not going to be in tomorrow? Do you have an appointment with your doctor?”
“Nah. I’m okay. I have my medication. I think my body is just tired. I just need to rest.”
Gracie got off I-30 and took the ramp to Central Expressway. “Humph. You think? I think you’ve been doing a little too much of everything here lately. I’m surprised it took your body this long to catch up with your running around.”
“What are you talking about, Gracie? I have a cold ...”
“Yeah, but ... well. I’ve been meaning to ask how you’ve been doing.”
“Huh?”
“Come on now, Kendra, you know I’m not that far in denial. You call me a black blonde, but I’m far from it. I know you’ve been creeping out on Sean. You stay in the clubs, like, twenty-four-seven. I’m not even gonna say anything about your little men that you have meeting you at the gym. You can’t train them all, Kendra.”
Ignoring Sean lying in the bed next to her, Kendra got up, grabbed for her housecoat, and headed out of the room.
“Are you crazy? Sean is right here and could have easily heard you, Gracie,” Kendra whispered angrily, walking to the lower level of their apartment. “It’s not even like that. I ... I just don’t know if I’m still feeling the relationship. That’s all.”
“Hmm. Well, don’t you think you need to talk to him about all of that? I mean, Kendra, you see me and what I’m going through with Dillian disappearing, how he kept me out of the loop. Be real about it.”
“It’s deeper than that, Gracie ... and what do you really care? Don’t step to me about my business when you have no idea what I’m going through ... I,” she wanted to come clean, but Gracie interrupted her.
“Nothing is deeper than having your heart ripped out of your chest by someone you love. Someone that is in love with you, Kendra. It’s not fair. Do you know how I feel? Do you know what I’m going through? And you’re going to take Sean through the same thing.”
“It’s all about you, right? It’s all about Gracie, Dillian, the gym and whatever else that moves you.”
Anger rose in Kendra. It was all about Gracie and always had been; one of the reasons she didn’t share her problems with her friend to begin with.
“Look, I’m not about to talk to you about what’s going on in my house. You wanted to know if I was going to be in tomorrow, and the answer is no. I’ll call you and let you know if anything else changes. Good-night, Gracie.” Kendra hung up as she heard her best friend sobbing on the other line.
Right as she placed her car in her parking space on the side of her condo, Gracie’s face flooded with pain as she realized that all of her anger for her friend was still pain she held in from Dillian. She pulled herself out of her vehicle. She said a silent prayer, fighting tears as she walked to her home.