“So you decided to show me,” I said quietly.
“I decided to be Kristen,” she said. “I decided if somebody had to get hurt, it wasn’t going to be me this time.” She looked down at the album on the table between us. “I said the exact words he said to me. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Until I read your card.”
We sat there in silence.
“Irvin never even looked at me,” she said after a while. “Do you know that? All those weeks. All those outfits. All those cookies. He never once looked at me the way Mark used to look at Kristen. He just kept fixing my cabinet and being polite and backing away.” She almost smiled. “He’s a terrible flirt. He kept explaining chemistry to me.”
“He does that,” I said.
“He told me about the wine stain,” she said. “On your dress. At the wedding where you met. He said it was the best mistake he ever made.” She shook her head. “I was standing in my kitchen in a tank top trying to get him to look at me, and he was telling me about his wife.”
